The Girl Who Ate Everything

'The Girl Who Is Not Eating Everything' Because My Lungs Suck

2012-01-27T05:01:44Z

Note: Sooo, this post is sort of the opposite of my previous post. There's no food porn in this post, no recommendations for where to eat. It's a pretty long explanation of why I'm changing my diet. Euh.

wheeeze

WHEEEEEEEZZZZE

wheeeeze

WHEEEEEEEEEEZZZZE

wheeeeeeeze

"...This is how I'm going to die, isn't it?"

Two Saturdays ago I had just finished eating half of a pomelo in my mom's kitchen in New Jersey when I felt the beginnings of a severe allergic reaction.

]]> It was day six of a two-week restricted food allergy diet as recommended by my allergist about...nine months ago. Yup. I waited a while on that one. I kept putting it off since it was hard to find a two-week period where I could easily abstain from eating herbs, spices, seafood, onions, chocolate, nuts, and garlic, among a few other things that I had no problem cutting out because I rarely ingested them in the first place (caffeine and alcohol). The other reason I didn't try it earlier was because after months of recording my allergic reactions to food, I couldn't tell exactly what I was allergic to. I had scratch tests for just about everything; positive results were all environmental-related (dust mites, cats, seemingly every tree pollen), with nothing conclusive related to food.(I've been getting regular allergy shots since last spring for pollen.) There were some food-related patterns—spicy food, fried food, pizza (PIZZA?!)—but these foods didn't trigger reactions every time I ate them.

I finally got down to it because about two weeks ago I had an allergic reaction from eating spicy instant noodles (yeah, dumb choice)—not a severe reaction, but an asthma-triggering one that made me want to curl into a ball on my bed for a few minutes—and I realized there would never be a two-week period where I could easily follow my doctor's diet.

And so about three weeks ago, I followed it. I messed up a few times when I ate out with my mom, but by cooking most of my own food it was easy to avoid everything on the "do not eat" list. If I didn't have any allergic reactions during those two weeks, then...great! Sort of. And if I did, it would be much easier to pin down the cause than if I weren't on the diet.

When I reacted to the pomelo, the cause was obvious. I had eaten nothing else that day. It was definitely you, Pomelo. After finishing half the pomelo, my throat started feeling itchy. The area under my tongue got a bit swollen. My breathing became a bit more labored. I went to my room to get my inhaler even though I learned from previous experience it wouldn't help.

I sat at the edge of my bed. My breaths became more wheeze-laden, rapid, and labored. My body temperature rose—I took off my pants and sweater and continued sweating. I coughed up mucus. I wheezed harder. Every cough made each breath harder to take. Repeat [x] a blagillion.

I decided this would be the time to try those pricey Epi-pens that had been sitting in my bag for months. I'd been carrying two Epi-pens with me since I used one in Norway last February, when I had a severe allergic reaction to a hot dog. That hot dog was the third time I had had a severe allergic reaction. The pomelo was the ninth time. I hadn't used the Epi-pens at all during the reactions in between because I always felt, perhaps foolishly, that I had things under control. I got used to the reactions and could tell when it was just shy of "really bad" or beyond.

The pomelo reaction felt like it was approaching beyond. I wasn't surprised; my asthma was at an all time worst and I had never before had a severe allergic reaction when my lungs were that unwell. I wasn't in great shape at my mom's place—I was coughing more than I should've, my body trying its best to get mucus out of my lungs despite the consequence of asthma. My asthma starting getting worse during my vacation in Norway. Shortly before my trip, I unsuccessfully tried to refill my prescription of Symbicort (asthma management medication), which was when I found out that my insurance company limits how many refills of Symbicort they'll cover in order to make you switch to a cheaper brand, but also limits how much of the medication you can buy at a pharmacy so that you'll buy it from a mail-order pharmaceuticals company instead.

...Yeah, I shouldn't be complaining about health insurance. I'm really glad I have it, trust me. I just wish it hadn't taken me a few weeks to sort out the medication order.

I brought an Epi-pen to the bathroom. Before sitting down I looked in the mirror for the first time since the onset of lungfail—the color seemed to be draining from my lips a bit. I gingerly removed the Epi-pen from its plastic tube and mulled over the instructions much longer than necessary. They're incredibly easy: Remove blue tab. Position over side of thigh. STABBOS! Even though the needle-in-your-thigh thing is nothing compared to the barely-breathing thing, I still had to psych myself up for it.

And then...dammit, nothing happened. I rolled the Epi-pen around in my hands and noticed a key bit of information; it had expired last November. FFFFFUUUUUU.

My lung construction didn't let up. If anything, it seemed to get worse. It was around this time I had that, "This is how I'm going to die, isn't it?" thought. I mean, I didn't really think I was going to die, but it was the worst reaction I had ever had and the most scared I had ever been by a reaction—scared like, "What if I don't live long enough to have my own family? Will I see Kåre again? What if I die before my mom dies? AHHHHH." For some reason the other eight reactions didn't properly whip up my fear of death.*

* What should've been scarier was Reaction #8. This only happened a month ago during my flight from New York to Amsterdam, on the way to Norway. I almost used my Epi-pen—the reaction was pretty bad, gurgly, labored breathing and all—but instead I went my non-stabbed gurgly way as the concerned woman sitting next to me probably wondered if I was dying. After the reaction passed I ended up with a major headache that gradually forced me to sleep. If not for the headache, I would've fallen asleep anyway due to my fun in-flight movie selection of "Melancholia."

I broke out Epi-pen number two—this one didn't expire until March. Thank the lord. Time to stabbos again. (Not on purpose, I picked a spot less than an inch from the first stab; soon after I found out if you jab yourself really hard with a blunt—I mean, blunt with a small needle at the end—plastic rod two times in nearly the same spot, you will end up an especially aching, stinging bruise.)

And then...dammit, nothing happened again. WHY, POMELO, WHY? When I had my reaction in Norway I thought I may have used the pen wrong, but this time I was sure I used it correctly.

After that, all I could do was wait. Wait while each inhalation felt like a steamroller squeezing the dregs of life from every meager air molecule my feeble lungs could carry. As usual, the reaction ran its course after about 40 minutes. (I look at my watch constantly during these reactions—it makes me feel better.) I didn't return to normal right away after the 40 minutes ran out, but I could at least talk in between wheezy breaths.

If you're wondering what my mom was doing this whole time, I suspect she was silently freaking out. This was the second time she had ever seen me have a severe reaction (she's also seen a few mild ones), and in these situations you have two options: Let it runs its course, or go to the hospital. If I felt like I had to go to the hospital, I would've told her. Later she told me she felt helpless. :C

After the reaction, my brother came over and we all went out for dinner. I felt fine by this point and, dammit, I wanted to have a nice dinner with my family.

The pomelo reaction made me type up a document of all my allergic reactions up until that point. I had written my reactions down in two notebooks, but never compiled them. Yesss, I should've done it earlier—point that wagging finger right at me. I brought my three-page list of reactions to the allergist's office last Friday, showed them to a new doctor (just because my original one wasn't there that day), and after taking a quick look at them she asked me if anyone told me I may have acid reflux.

Well...no, no one did. I suppose because I had never brought in a descriptive list of reactions, but I did tell my original doctor about some of my reactions, and they did test me for allergies with no conclusive results. So, honestly, I think someone could've brought up acid reflux earlier, even though the acid reflux I might have isn't the kind that feels like acid reflux.

The doctor gave me a list of foods to avoid:

: I haz discontent.

Apparently, the list was ripped out of My First Coloring Book of Dietary Restrictions.

The doctor told me Epi-pens don't work with acid reflux-triggered actions. Welllll, ain't that exactly what I didn't want to hear. I had seen that as my only safety net. She prescribed me acid reflux medication along with a prescription for Epi-pens, just in case I have a food-related allergic reaction.

But I've gotten to the point where I'm fed up with being this unhealthy, with being so at risk of having a fatal allergic reaction, with having to rely on drugs that I'm not confident I can rely on (nor do I want to rely on them). I'm thankful (and surprised) I'm not in worse shape, but I want to be better than this, and I know I can get better. It just requires a shift in habits.

...Okay, a big shift.

...Okay, a big dietary shift.

I'm not sure how many times I've mentioned this on my blog, but the reason I got into food was because for a short time during my teenage years I followed a raw food diet and was obsessed with nutrition. ...Yeah, quite the opposite of where I ended up. I started the raw food diet in the beginning of 2003 (second semester of 12th grade) and did it for one and a half years (until the end of freshman year of college). I wasn't a better person then, nor a happier person, but I have no doubt I was a healthier person.

If you think a raw food diet is crazy, I don't blame you. I'm not a nutritionist, obviously, so I can't sway you with facts and figures, and I wouldn't suggest that a raw food diet is for everyone—it's not. But it did help me during those one and a half years, if my results are any sort of proof: I didn't have asthma for the first time since I was a kid, I didn't have perpetually clogged sinuses, and I actually had a modicum of physical endurance. (This isn't to say I didn't still have some health issues, but whatever they were, they weren't nearly as bad as the problems I had lost.) I could run a mile on a treadmill without much problem; these days I get winded just walking up a flight of stairs. I'm not trying to make it sound like a miracle diet—it shouldn't be a miracle to have a fairly healthy body that does what it's supposed to— but some of the stuff I could do then would be unimaginable to me now.

Anyhoo, despite what I just said, I don't plan on doing a raw food diet again. There was always a cloud of stress hanging over me as I obsessed over whether or not I was doing the diet "right" (and I probably wasn't; I found I wasn't much of a fan of raw vegetables so I mostly ate fruits and nuts), and, as I said, that diet didn't make me the happiest person. I rarely ate with other people, and during my first semester of college I preferred spending my weekends in New Jersey with my mom instead of staying on campus and attempting to become friends with my classmates—you know, what normal freshmen are supposed to do. Easy to say, I didn't have a typical freshman experience. (I was much less hermit-like during my second semester when I got a job in campus.)

But I'm glad I did it or else I wouldn't have transferred to NYU for food studies and eventually end up working at Serious Eats. Even if the Serious Eats view (well, not just Serious Eats) that you should be able to eat whatever you want in moderation doesn't seem to be working for me. Or maybe I'm not doing the "moderation" thing correctly. Probably not.

So if I'm not going the extreme raw food route, what am I doing? I'm starting by cutting out spicy food, fried food, pizza, and wheat products, cutting down on anything too greasy or fatty, non-wheat grains, and refined sugar, and eating more fruits and vegetables. These changes are based on previous foods that have triggered allergic reactions, my doctor's suggestions, and nutritional advice for people with asthma. I'm okay cutting out most cookie and cake-like desserts, but I don't plan on totally cutting out ice cream and chocolate just because I already eat them sparingly and they pack a whoooole lotta joy into every calorie. ...I need to hold on to something.

So for the time being, I'm definitely not the girl who eats everything. :( (But I ate everything already, right? Eh? Uh?) I'll make exceptions for special occasions and vacations, but I'd like to keep on track for the next few months and see how it goes. That means eating out less often (I'd feel better preparing my own food) and not eating the tons of random foodstuffs at work. (I mean, aside from the 20 flavors of Jeni's ice cream we tasted the other day. Um. Yeah I ate those.)

On the bright side, I'm cooking way more than I ever have before! So far my favorite cooking method is "chop up a bunch of vegetables and shove 'em in the oven." ...Yes, I plan on learning more than that. Methinks I'll get better acquainted with 101 Cookbooks.

And...that's...the end. I'll definitely keep blogging—I have a big backlog of posts from last year I still have to write. (AW YEAH I KNEW THAT WOULD COME IN HANDY not really like this but whatever.) I'm sorry if I'm letting down people with this change in diet from, "Yay, I eat everything!" to, "Now my eating habits are super boring," but I really like breathing and not having to rely on drugs to do it, and I'd really like to not worry that my lungs are going to poop out before I turn 30. Hope y'all understand.

To lighten the mood, here's a doodle I drew today for the always-worthy-of-a-doodle Bravetart:

: That bunny is propelled by the power of rad.

Best New Things I Ate in NYC in 2011

2012-01-22T06:38:09Z

Happy New Year! ...A few weeks late. :(

As is the tradition with year-end/year-beginning posts, here's a roundup of the best new things I ate in New York City in 2011 ("new" being new to my stomach, not necessarily the city), focusing on dishes I didn't get around to blogging about last year because 2011 was my crowning year of being super lazy. (Just wait until you read about my vacation in Norway. I spent about 50 percent of the time sleeping. It was the best.)

Apologies if this list is rather boring. Despite my profession, I don't make the effort to be at the forefront of the NYC food scene—at least, not to the degree I used to. I rely on my friends and coworkers for the good stuff.

Ok, let's get on to the fun stuff.

Best Stuff I Never Blogged About on TGWAE

: Brussels sprouts sandwich

Bingo sandwich at Shopsins: "Fried brussels sprouts, guacamole, jack, ciabatta." The "fried brussels sprouts" part is what jumped out at me from Shopsins' 21,000+ word menu, and as usual, those little cruciferous, fart-inducing balls equated to a winner. Crisp and tender sprouts taste great on their own, but they taste reaaaally good topped with cool globs of creamy guacamole and a layer of gooey cheese in between crusty ciabatta.

The sandwich was $13 when I first tried it last March, but it's $16 on the current menu and comes on asparagus bread instead of ciabatta. I'd hope it still tastes just as good as the sandwich I tried.

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Caesar salad

Caesar salad with smoked herring dressing at M. Wells: M. Wells is best remembered (it closed last August) for its over-the-top meatified dishes like foie gras grilled cheese sandwiches and bibimbap topped with razor clams, scallops, and oysters, but out of everything I tried there (and I tried many things), the Caesar salad ended up being my favorite. Maybe because the combination of crisp romaine, delicate Parmesan shavings, and strong-but-not-overpowering smoked herring dressing was the only refreshing part of my meal after eating a fried head cheese sandwich and before eating a massive 1.5-pound burger.

: Crispy Chinese watercress salad

Crispy Chinese watercress salad at SriPraPhai: It's watercress that's battered and fried, resulting in a salad that tastes more like fried than watercress. Shrimp, squid, chicken, and cashews protein it up so you're not just eating a plate of delicate fried something-something. I sort of wish I could eat this every day.

: Large classic pie

Classic pie at Rubirosa: I wouldn't have eaten at Rubirosa four times last year if it weren't so close to my office, but the other reason is because they serve great Italian food at reasonable prices in a comfortable setting in a neighborhood I don't know much about food-wise. I've tried their pizza, pasta, sandwiches, salads, and bruschetta, and would recommend all of them, but their specialty is thin crust Staten Island-style pizza. Read more about it in Adam Kuban's review on Slice.

: Shengjianbao

Shengjianbao at 456 Shanghai Cuisine: Shengjianbao—commonly described on menus as something like "tiny fried juicy buns"—are one of my favorite Chinese dishes, but I didn't eat them often until I tried 456's version. It was the juiciest/soupiest version I had ever eaten, and the nicely crisp-bottomed bun was great. Since I've never had the real deal in Shanghai I can't tell you how authentic this version is, but they did send me on a hunt around Chinatown to see how others stack up. So far, not so well. Aside from 456 my favorite shengjianbao are from Shanghai Cafe Deluxe. The worst I had were from Shanghai Asian Manor, such soulless (or perhaps soul-sucking) bun sacks they were. I can still taste the fail just by looking at this photo. Nick has more to say about 'em.

: Delicious scoop of brown.

Crack caramel ice cream at Ample Hills: Salted butter caramel ice cream on its own is the stuff of dreams. Sugary, buttery, dairy-laden dreams. Take that ice cream and mix in bits of "crack" cookies made of Saltines, butter, sugar, and chocolate, and now you've got the stuff of dreams' dreams. Which are like, really damn good dreams, not weird ones where your teeth become filled with pus or you ride a physics-defying roller coaster at the edge of the universe or you walk into a floating theater whose walls are made of knitted yarn. Yeaaah.

Ample Hills gets extra points for being where my friend Eric works. If you're familiar with Eric's line of emotive art, then you know he's probably cooler than most of us. He would never settle for ice cream that wasn't as awesome as his face.

: Mountain of mochi cakes, come to meeee.

Mochi Cakes at Fatty Crab: Out of everything I ate at my first and only meal at Fatty Crab, the complementary mochi cakes (FREEEEE CAAAAKE!!!) we received at the end of our meal was my favorite part. I guess that doesn't speak well about the rest of the meal, which, while not bad, was nothing that would entice me to return. Maybe my expectations were too high after hearing so many good things about the restaurant over the last few years. ...But damn, those mochi cakes. Unsurprisingly, they taste somewhere between mochi and cake. Okay, more like mochi than cake. Bouncy-chewy, but not as dense as straight-up mochi.

: Egg custard tart innards

Egg custard tarts at Bread Talk: I've wondered where to get the best egg custard tart in Manhattan's Chinatown for a long time—because a fresh, warm, flaky egg custard tart is one of the greatest things...ever—but it wasn't until Serious Eats intern Shell Tu said she wanted to do a taste test to find the best egg custard tarts in Chinatown that I felt compelled to walk all around Chinatown and try an egg custard tart from every bakery we could find. And that's how we did the taste test: We walked along nearly every street in Chinatown and tried an egg custard tart from every bakery we passed (only a handful of bakeries didn't make them). We got most of the tasting done in two long Saturday afternoons, with a few other small tastings done in the office.

In the end we visited 43 bakeries. I'm sure we missed a few, but I think we put in a good effort. It was easy to pick the winning bakery, Bread Talk, since most of the tarts we tried were subpar. Not only was Bread Talk the best with its flaky, light, tender crust filled with smooth, creamy custard, but it was also the cheapest: two tarts for $1 (unless they recently raised the price). Read the full results here.

: Lengua cemita

Lengua cemita at El Tenampa: El Tenampa is my favorite place to eat in my neighborhood, hence why I've stopped going to...all these other places in my neighborhood. I already blogged about it on Serious Eats and Real Cheap Eats, but I shall repeat myself because this sandwich is delicious. It's mostly because of those big ol' chunks of tongue—my favorite kind of protein for any Mexican dish—with their crisp, charred edges and tender everything-else. All the condiments—avocado, onion, crema, cheese, and bean spread—come together so well, and in just the right amounts. The bread's no slouch either; the soft, well toasted cemita bun is perfectly suited for its fillings. (Thanks to Seth for the recommendation!)

: Yuba soba

Soba at Cocoron: Even though I haven't tried every soba shop in the city, I'm going to call Cocoron my favorite soba shop in the city because they have their own set of cute, cartoony mascots. (I'll take this opportunity to drop a semi-related link: a list of Japan's police mascots representing every prefecture in the country. I approve of this muchly. Especially this dude.) But even if they didn't have mascots, they'd win me over for the friendly service and fantastic soba. Read Kenji's great review at Serious Eats for more info and, um, actual descriptions of the dishes.

6 Memorable Dishes I've Already Blogged About

Because I've already written about these dishes, here's a quick list, in no particular order:

: Food x 6 = this (I can do math!)

Merry (Belated) Christmas from Norway, Plus a Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

2011-12-26T05:54:00Z

Merry (belated) Christmas, everyone! (And to those of you who don't celebrate Christmas, happy winter! And to those of you in the southern hemisphere, happy December! And to those of who aren't currently in December for whatever reason, happy whatever!) I hope everyone's having a great holiday.

I thought I would manage to sneak in this post just before December 26, but I totally failed. And I didn't just fail by an hour, like the timestamp says, but by seven hours because I'm currently in Norway, visiting Kåre in Bergen. Hell, I didn't even start writing this on December 25. :( But, if you do the math, you'll see that I stayed up until 7 a.m. to finish this post. Because I care! Yeah! YEAAAAHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhuuuh.

I know I've been sort of dead this whole month. Not that dead; the other dead where I'm not actually dead. I don't have any good reasons—just the same old dangerous combination of working inefficiently/wasting time/unintentionally killing brain cells/under and oversleeping I never escape. (I highly suggest not staying up until 7 a.m.)

: Norwegian Christmas Eve dinner.

I haven't edited all my photos yet, but here's the spread from Christmas Eve dinner at the Sandvik home. Kåre's mom made the traditional Norwegian Christmas dinner of pinnekjøtt (cured lamb ribs), mashed swedes (aka rutabagas), boiled potatoes, and sauerkraut. If this sounds familiar, it's because she made the same meal for us when I visited back in February, just this time she made a lot more of it since her daughter Anne-Kristen's family—husband David, daughter Haley, son Kristian, and mother-in-law Margaret—is also visiting from England for the holidays. (Last night for Christmas dinner, Anne-Kristin and David prepared an awesome British meal. I will blog about it...eventually.)

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Kåre's parents, Aslaug and Arne, ready to toast.

I can't remember the last time I attended a big family meal for Christmas. The food was hearty and delicious—worth burping potent, gamey pinnekjøtt fumes all night—and the company radiated friendliness and fun. Aside from the lack of snow (but Bergen's got gobs, just gobs of rain), there were joyful Christmas feelings all around.

: Weegie tree!

One of the best things about this Christmas is that it was probably the first one I've ever celebrated as an adult with small kids—or just one kid, Kristian, who's eight years old. Christmas is immeasurably more fun (or, if I had to measure, at least 500 times more fun) when the dinner table features an impatient kid teetering at the edge of his seat while using the concentrated power of pure Christmas excitement generated by his eyeballs to burn a hole into the pile of presents under the Christmas tree. Since it's Norwegian tradition to open gifts after Christmas Eve dinner, you can bet Kristian bolted from the table once given the ok. But he didn't tear into his gifts right away; he helped pass the others out and then opened his gifts with the rest of us. (I don't think I was that polite when I was his age.) We couldn't compare to his expression of Christmas-derived joy, of course. Kids are the best at that.

Another fun part about having Kristian around is that despite being tied to his Nintendo DS like it was a vital appendage, he eagerly showed me how to play Pokémon and he let me play a few rounds of Mario Kart. Oh, Mario Kart, it has been too long. (I grew up playing video games with my brother, but since the end of high school when we stopped living under the same roof I've played video games almost never.)

: Christmas trash bag, not a stylish dress.

And for a random photo, here's Kåre's dad holding up the special wrapping paper trash bag Norwegian waste management company BIR sends out before Christmas. (As for why you can't just throw out wrapping paper with regular trash, Kåre explained the "how to throw out trash" rules to me...that I forgot. But it made sense when he first told me.) We filled that baby up easily.

: Gift wrap carnage.

I gave out Serious Eats books and homemade chocolate chip cookies for gifts—both quite well received [insert sigh of relief]. I was worried about the cookies, made from Ad Hoc's recipe (my favorite for chocolate chip cookies), because I made them in Kåre's apartment and had to convert the US measurements to European-friendly weights (he doesn't have measuring cups or spoons). I found a few different weights for different ingredients, but in the end they came out just right.

Sooo, if anyone else is ever in my situation where you're only equipped with a scale and need to bake these cookies in an oven that only knows Celsius, here's the recipe. (I've mildly altered the steps to the recipe based on having made them a bunch of times, and I left the original ounce measurements as is.)

: Posted on Instagram from my iPhone, hence the crap quality. The cookies were about as dark in real life as they look here though, due to the molasses sugar.

Ad Hoc's Chocolate Chip Cookies, Now with More Grams

- makes 30 to 38 cookies -

Ingredients

300 grams AP flour
4 grams baking soda
6 grams kosher salt
5 ounces 55% chocolate, cut into chip-sized pieces
5 ounces 70 to 72% chocolate, cut into chip-sized pieces
8 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into small pieces
238 grams dark brown sugar, preferably molasses sugar
150 grams granulated sugar
2 large eggs

Procedure

Position the oven racks in the lower and upper thirds of the oven and preheat the oven to 175°C. Line two baking sheets with Silpats or parchment paper.
Whisk ﬂour, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl.
In a large bowl, beat half the butter on medium speed until fairly smooth. Add both sugars and the remaining butter, and beat until well combined, then beat for a few minutes, until the mixture is light and creamy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until the first one is incorporated before adding the next, and scraping the bowl as necessary. Add the dry ingredients (I do this in two parts to prevent flour flying everywhere) and mix on low speed to combine.
Mix in chocolate with a large spoon or spatula until evenly incorporated. The dough or shaped cookies can be refrigerated, well wrapped, for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 2 weeks (I've totally kept them frozen longer and they tasted fine). Freeze shaped cookies on the baking sheets until firm, then transfer to freezer containers. (The directions say to defrost frozen cookies overnight in the refrigerator before baking, but I've baked em straight from the freezer and they came out fine. Might have to bake them a bit longer, though.)
Using about 2 level tablespoons per cookie, shape the dough into balls. Arrange 8 cookies on each pan, leaving about 2 inches between them, because the dough will spread. Bake for 12 minutes, or until the tops are no longer shiny, switching the position and rotating the pans halfway through baking.
Cool the cookies on the pans on cooling racks for about 2 minutes to firm up a bit, then transfer to the racks to cool completely. Repeat to bake the remaining cookies. (The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.)

[Not Food Related] Busted Memory Card: Oh Crap, Now What?

2011-12-10T00:10:30Z

Update: A friend has offered to take my card to a specialist who may be able to recover the photos. Thanks for your help!

: Bluhblahbleebloo.

Today I found an effective way to lose my appetite without inducing nausea: find out that my two-ish-year-old 16 GB CF card isn't readable on my camera or my computer. The illustration above shows how I felt on the inside. On the outside, I went ;_;.

It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have photos on it that I wanted, but since I procrastinated I probably have two weeks of photos on it. Somewhere. Deep down in its...guts. Made of...FAIL.

Since y'all are smart with the brainmeats, I figure some of you may have advice on what to do before I resort to one of these data recovery places. If so, I would love to harness your smarts. Here's some more info about the problem that may or may not be helpful.

The card is a SanDisk Extreme CF 16 GB 60 MB/S UDMA card. My camera is a Canon 7D. One moment it was all fine, then the next, the camera would no longer read the card. Not like I dropped the card in a puddle, ran over it with a car, smothered it in peanut butter, took it out of the camera while it was being read, etc. I put a different CF card in my camera and it works fine.

The first time i tried to read the 16 GB card on my computer (iMac, OS X) it appeared in Finder, but when I tried to access it, Finder crashed. The card no longer appears in Finder after I connect it to my computer. So. Hm. Yeah. I know there are programs that can try to recover data, but as my computer doesn't even detect the card, I'm guessing that's not going to work.

Doobeedoo. [twiddles fingers]

Well. Yup. If anyone has advice, please let me know (roboppy@gmail.com). Thank you!

Georgian Bread, Home of Awesome Cheese-filled Khachapuri

2011-12-05T01:02:05Z

: A straightforward name.

I'm not the kind of person who'd be labeled as "the life of the party"; I'm more like the person who stands in the corner and looks lost or confused. So to shoot myself up the ranks without gaining any social acuity, I bring out the big guns: Georgian cheesy bread, aka khachapuri.

: One loaf is the size of...a whole buttload of quarters.
: This one had congealed a bit before we dug in. Still tasty, though.

Georgian Bread in Brighton Beach is a small bakery well known for their imeruli khachapuri ($6), a large, flat round of soft, slightly chewy and crusty bread filled with a mixture of cheese, egg, and butter. Buy at least two of them: one to tear into right away (preferably shared with at least three other friends, who will subsequently loooove youuuu) when it's fresh out of the oven, and one to eat later at home.

...Or to bring to a oven-equipped party where people will fawn over your contribution of warm, soft, curd-y (not so much gooey), salty cheese wrapped in carbs. Those people may not remember your name, but they will remember the khachapuri.

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Get a behind-the-scenes look at Georgian Bread in this video from Chow.

I only bought two loaves (if that is the correct khachapuri unit) during my last visit to bring to two parties; on retrospect I should've bought more, considering how rarely I go to Brighton Beach. They reheat well and, I'm guessing, would freeze fine. Don't just buy two of 'em; buy...four. Or five. Yup, that should do it. Just make sure to hold the loaves horizontally when it's still hot or all the cheese may gloop to one side.

: Khachapuri from Pirosmani.

You may remember khachapuri from my post about Pirosmani, a Georgian restaurant that makes three kinds of khachapuri (among lots of other Georgian dishes). Their breadstuffs are all very good, but their imeruli khachapuri almost looks anemic compared to Georgian Bread's.

Another option for satisfying a khachapuri craving: make it yourself. (I keep forgetting this option exists. Is that what my kitchen is for? Oh yeah.) Here's a recipe that looks promising and fairly simple.

(Many thanks to Noah for introducing me to Georgian Bread!)

Georgian Bread
265 Neptune Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11235 (map)
718-332-8082

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-26T01:48:30Z

: I didn't have any good Thanksgiving photos to go with this post, so here's a random manatee from Sea World to get your attention. Did it work?

...I mean, Happy One-Day-After-Thanksgiving!

[insert blubbering sigh of failure]

This isn't too belated considering my usual track record of blogging about things that happened half a year ago, but it's nothing to be proud of.

I am extremely thankful you guys still read this blog—even if just once ever few months to make sure I'm not dead—despite the giant lag between posts and decline of helpful information. All tens of you—you mean a lot to me! Without your support this blog wouldn't have turned seven years old in mid-November. So: Thank you [x] the cuteness power of a thousand Marus.

I'm hoping this blog will make it to the big one-oh (which in Internet years is about middle-aged), even if by that point I'm only posting once every two months. But I will continue to drag my blog along, even when the path scrapes its legs down to bloody stumps and its wails of pain terrorize my dreams. Because I AM (sort of) DEDICATED. And for some reason, I'm imagining that my blog's path is made of loose, jagged gravel.

Other things I am thankful for, in no particular order: that I've managed to stay relatively healthy (and by that I mean I don't have cancer yet, because otherwise I'm pretty unhealthy), that I've still got a sweet job where I work with awesome people, that my family members are all healthy and doing well, that I have an excess of awesome friends, that I have an awesome boyfriend, that I have an awesome roommate, that I know Mandarin (this is totally false, but if I put it on the Internet, MAYBE IT WILL HAPPEN SOMEDAY), and blah de blah blup I'm going to stop now before I fully realize I have nothing to complain about, ever...oops, too late.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. My mom roasted a duck and we made two vegetable sides to go with it, along with cranberry sauce. (Making cranberry sauce is only a quarter-smidge more complicated than boiling water. I wonder if people who buy the canned stuff know this.) I also made a pumpkin mousse pie that may or may not have been tasty. Also, I got a mild allergic reaction of the "haha, you've got asthma now!" sort to one of the dishes, and my nose was (and continues to be) 97 percent stuffed.

...So I couldn't taste much and I didn't eat much, but I still had a great time with my mom and brother because they're fun people. And that's what matters.

Lastly, here's a random video about how to make a sandwich out of Thanksgiving leftovers, in case you see sliced bread and leftover turkey and cranberry sauce as a riddle that cannot be solved. The recipe is nothing special, but the editing is pretty sweet:

After watching this video, if you wished that every full-palm application of a sandwich's top slice of bread could be accompanied by a thunderous "BOOM," then we're on the same wavelength. [fist bump]

Bergen, Day 7: Prawn Sandwich Party

2011-11-07T06:41:19Z

This is the final post about the trip I took to Norway about NINE MONTHS AGO. Yeah, it's about time. Thanks for sticking with me.

Kåre and I started off the day with gas.

: Gasin'.

...For the car! At this nifty gas pump, aka a normal Norwegian gas pump. But it's far sleeker than those I've seen in the US—this specimen, for example. Or maybe this design is used in the US, just nowhere I've been. WHAT IS THE LIFE OF A GAS PUMP DESIGNER?

And so I wonder. And have no answers.

: "Påsmurt" means '"sandwiches." ...Heehee. Påsmurt.

For lunch, we stopped by Godt Brød, a local bakery chain. They specialize in bread and thus offer sandwiches, but they don't have a menu of sandwiches optimized for deliciousness—it's all DIY.

: Oh no, the choices...shiiiiiii—

In my case, DIY = sandwich failure. Sure, I could make a decent grilled cheese sandwich or tuna salad sandwich, but when faced with a selection of fillings that I'm supposed to combine in a cohesive manner, the "cohesive" part kind of shrivels up and collapses into a poof of dust.

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Sandwiches of stuff.

So we ended up with these sandwiches. What's in 'em? Sliced meats, lettuce, cucumbers, red peppers, sprouts, cheese, and spreads. The individually ingredients were tasty, but altogether they didn't mesh that well. They probably would've been better as salads sans bread.

: Giant bowl-o-prawns.

: Prawns on bread. Good times.

Thankfully, dinner made up for everything. Kåre and I visited his cousin Joar (pronounced yoo-are) and Joar's wife Jahara at their home in Os for a night of open face prawn sandwiches (or a prawn buffet; Norway's got a whole lotta prawns). To recreate it at home, get a huge bowl of prawns—they had cooked 'em from a bag of frozen ones—and lay it out with a loaf of sliced bread, butter, and mayonnaise. Slather a slice of bread with butter, peel prawns and layer them on the bread, add some mayo, squeeze on some lemon juice, and eat! Then repeat one to ten times. It's a fun, easy, and damn tasty way to feed a group of people, unless you're allergic to shellfish (sorry, Nick).

: Coffee and dessert.

We finished off with coffee and dessert. Or everyone else finished off with coffee and dessert, while I just ate dessert (there was ice cream on my plate before I...ate it).

Joar and Jahara are two of the sweetest, coolest people you could ever meet. I'd say, "You should meet 'em!" except you probably won't with the geographical obstacle and all. ...But you should meet 'em.

: Norwegian grocery store yaaay!

On the way home we took one last look around a grocery store in case I wanted to buy anything, "anything" really only meaning "giant chocolate bars." The other purpose was to take photos of products I could use in a post about Norwegian grocery stores on Serious Eats, a post that up until three minutes before writing this paragraph I thought I had written. But then I realized, haha!, nope, it never went up because I forgot to finish it. And I was so very pumped to give you the link to this post that doesn't exist. (I did write this guide to Norwegian (and some Swedish) candy; do I get some points for that? I hope so because that post took ages. Also, I had to eat all the candy multiple times, which you'd think is fun, but after a while it really isn't. Yeah cry me a river whatever I'llstopnow.)

: Full moon.

My last night in Norway ended with a full moon. And then...back home.

But "back home" was on February 19. What's happened since then? Kåre visited New York twice, in May and August, and we met up in Sweden in June. I'll be visiting Bergen from December 22 to January 3. So. Things are going quite swell. :)

Buy the Serious Eats Book! Preferably Now!

2011-10-31T07:32:00Z

: You too could have five books!

This is one of those posts I probably should've written ages ago, but like everything else I should've written ages ago, didn't get written ages ago.

To remind y'all, I work full time at Serious Eats and did a bit of traveling last year to do research for our book.

And that book is NOW! ... HERE! Almost. It officially comes out on November 1, aka tomorrow. That gives you about one more day to pre-order it for $17.98, if you haven't already. Why should you pre-order it? So you can get some complimentary SWAG, specifically a Serious Eats bag and a bookplate autographed by the SE peeps and HAMBONE. THE DOG. HE IS AUTOGRAPHING TOOOOOOO. (We're just giving people what they want. They want us to exploit Hambone's paw.)

Oh, I should probably also mention why you should ... order it in general. Because it's full of info about our favorite breakfasts, sandwiches, desserts, fried foods, pizza, burgers, street food, and other stuff you probably like, along with recipes from Kenji, and a crapton of full-color photos that I spent a bunch of hours editing. (Also, you support my livelihood! I like living!)

So. Please considering buying a book (or five). Thank you!

My Current Favorite Dessert: Cookies-n-Cream Sundae from Dessert Club Chikalicious

2011-10-15T01:17:28Z

OH BOY, AM I BEHIND OR WHAT. (Yes.) That's what going to Taiwan for a week will do to ya. As much as I've forced my body into its regular sleeping schedule, I think it's still jetlagged. Because I when I wake up my muscles don't really work, in a way that's more alarming than my everyday lack of muscular fortitude. The muscles I have to move myself, that is. The ones that move on their own, like my heart, are okay. [pats self on back] I've also had dreams two nights in a row that involved Disneyland. I don't know if that's a sign of having a case of the crazies, but I'm not ruling it out.

Anyhoo, if you want a super short version of this post, head to Real Cheap Eats where I wrote about the almighty Cookies-N-Cream Sundae for the site's latest update earlier this week. If not, just look below for the words. I put 'em there for ya so you won't leave me.

: Cookie chunks a-plenty.

"I think these cookie chunks may be too large. It's a bit hard to e—"

"NO, THAT IS INCORRECT, IT IS PERFECT, aren't you perfect? YEAH THESE CHUNKS ARE PERFECT."

I'm the crazy second person in this conversation, by the way. And the towering cup above is the thing of perfection: three kinds of cookies, chunkified, and mixed with vanilla bean soft serve. Dessert Club Chikalicious calls this sundae Cookies-n-Cream, but it's nothing like your typical cookies and cream-flavored frozen concoction. The cookie chunks aren't embedded in the soft serve so much as coated in soft serve. This dessert is an excuse to eat a cup of cookie chunks glued together by soft serve, basically.

AND IT IS SO GLORIOUS.

Let's go back to those cookies: The Situation, Situation Dark, and Chocolate Chip. The Situation is a kitchen sink-sort of cookie mixed with chocolate chips, corn chips, peanut butter chips, marshmallow, and pretzel. The Situation Dark has a chocolate cookie base mixed with chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, toffee popcorn, and pretzel. Chocolate chip is ... chocolate chip. The cookies are light and crunchy in some parts, denser and chewier in others. Couple that with the creamy soft serve, it does all kinds of things in your mouth! All the things! ... A few things! Good things. And all this for $6.95.

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Number 1.

I like this sundae so much that I've eaten it three times in a one-month period. The first time, Kathy introduced it to me, and we split it four ways with Kåre and Shann after we had eaten dinner. We just wanted a little sweet thing to end the night with. It's a gigantic portion; four ways is a reasonable way to go.

: Number 2.

But the second time, I ate most of it by myself because the friends I had eaten dinner with weren't that hungry (someday I too will make sensible choices). It's a gigantic portion; mostly-one-way is not a reasonable way to go. My stomach felt a bit like this. But when the feeling of bloat went away, the craving returned.

: Number 3.

Time the third, I split it with Nick. It's perhaps a smidge too much for two people who have just eaten dinner, but Nick's stomach is disturbingly malleable, so it worked out just fine [flashes a thumbs up]. Unlike the first two times, this time the powers that be put a paper plate under the cup. I don't recall it being so messy the other times, but maybe I did unknowingly leave behind plops of soft serve splat and the employees got sick of wiping that junk up. This time—perhaps because I knew the plate would catch the drippings or because the sundae got fatter—there was significant drippage. Paper plate = good idea (although makes for a slightly less appealing photo).

So grab a friend or three and let me know what you think of it. It's possible that I've oversold it, but hell, it's a cup full of cookies and soft serve, and that's pretty awesome no matter what.

Address

Dessert Club Chikalicious
203 E. 10th St. New York, NY 10003 (at 2nd Ave; map)
212-475-0929; dessertclubnyc.com

October Travels: Taipei and Valencia

2011-10-02T18:01:55Z

I'm in Taipei! Right now! And tomorrow! And the day after that! Until Sunday! With Lee Anne!

So my infrequent updates will be even infrequent-er. Sorry. But I will certainly have many things to blog about after this trip, things that, if all goes well, you may be able to read about in the next six months. ... Maybe.

As for why I'm here, my dad and grandparents live here and I haven't visited Taipei in about 12 years; that streak had to be broken. Lee Anne came with me to visit her grandparents and bring me to her favorite eating spots. Together, we will digest SO VERY MUCH. If only Nick were here too; we'll have to tackle his list of recs without him. :(

Ideally I would've mentioned this earlier, but if I have any readers here who'd want to join Lee Anne and me on a food outing this week, email me (roboppy@gmail.com)!

As for the other part of this post's title, I'm visiting Valencia, Spain, from October 25 to 29 for a press trip. Yup, I'm crazy lucky. I doubt I have any readers there, but if you're out there, let me know!

Some of My Fave Spots in NYC to Bring Out-of-towners

2011-09-21T06:24:37Z

April recently left a comment on one of my posts with a question that I figure a bunch of people might have:

If you had to recommend 5-10 "must try" restaurants, regardless of budget, in NYC, what would they be and why?

When people ask me something like this, I usually respond, "What's the price range? What neighborhood? What cuisine?" to help narrow it down. But there are a handful of places I tend to bring people who are visiting from out of town, no matter the price/neighborhood/cuisine.

I wouldn't label the places below as "must try"—they're more like "a bunch places I like enough to want to go multiple times," mostly moderately priced since that's what I can afford. This isn't a definitive guide to my favorite spots in New York City (that post will take me roughly forever), but I hope it helps!

: Shack Burger, you are mine.

Shake Shack: They make my favorite burger in the city. If you're craving a fat, juicy burger topped with bacon and caramelized onion on a brioche bun, this isn't the place, but if you're looking for a fast food-style burger—a thin, single-serving burger with simple toppings (some combination of lettuce, tomato, special sauce, onion, or cheese) on a basic bun—it's the best I've had. A single Shackburger is just the right size to make me feel satiated, which is a relief considering I have a tendency to eat meals that leave me feeling like a whale in a wetsuit. On that note, I also love their Shack Stack, which is gigantic and dripping in cheesy fried 'shroom-n-meat juice goodness.

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Yay, pizza!

Motorino: I unfortunately don't have a recommendation for the best old school New York pizzeria (I should research that ... with my mouth), but my favorite pizzeria is Motorino for their Neapolitan-style pizza. The clam pie is one of my faves, but their simple Margherita is great too.

: Trio of falafel sandwiches.

Taim: I don't see the point of eating falafels from any place that isn't Taim. Their falafels and pita are the best I've had in the city.

: Pizza bianca from Grandaisy. This photo is nearly 4 years old, but it looks something like that.

Sullivan Street Bakery / Grandaisy Bakery: Er, not a restaurant, but their pizza bianca—chewy flatbread seasoned with rosemary, salt, and olive oil—is one of my most favorite foods ever. (Sullivan Street Bakery and Grandaisy have nearly identical menus due to Grandaisy being run by a former partner of Sullivan Street Bakery.)

: If you can eat this whole thing in one go, you might have a tapeworm inside you.

Shopsins: It's an experience. A rather pleasant, stomach-sploding one, unless you catch Kenny cursing out a random person. Read up on Shopsins lore, check out the menu that never ends, and go on a weekday morning (Wednesday to Friday) instead of the weekend if you don't want to wait forever (you probably won't wait at all on a weekday). I wouldn't say every dish is a home run, but their sliders and burgers are especially good, along with the sandwiches, and the doughnuts, and the milkshakes, and the duck confit I got on my last visit (a dish that was big enough for two meals).

: Glorious gelato cup.

Otto: The main reason I go to Otto is for gelato, but I like their pasta too (not the pizza so much), along with the vegetable and seafood sides. I wouldn't say the non-dessert options are a "must eat," but most of the dishes are so reasonably priced for how good they are that I have no problem making my way through a plate of pasta to get to dessert. Don't miss out on their famous olive oil gelato. I always get olive oil, along with a sorbet (damn good sorbets made with seasonable fruit) and something else.

: It is beautiful.

While I'm talking about gelato, my favorite gelato-only shop is L'Arte del Gelato. I always get a small cup of their pistachio (when they have it, which is most of the time) plus something else.

: I WANT A BUCKET OF THIS FUSILLI.

And while I'm talking about pasta, if you want a reeeaaally good pasta, Marea is rightfully famous for theirs, most specifically the red wine braised octopus and bone marrow fusilli. You just have to be up for spending $91 on their prix fixe, or $31 for a small serving of pasta, which I'm generally not. Kåre and I went for the prix fixe dinner to celebrate my birthday, and while all the dishes were good, the pasta is what would pull me back; it was some of the best pasta I've ever eaten. I still think about it ... [stares longingly at photo ... weeps].

: Liang pi cold noodles.

Xi'an Famous Foods: Their liang pi noodles is one of the best noodle dishes I've ever eaten—and it happens to be vegan-friendly, if that appeals to ya. Just don't eat too many of Xi'an's dishes at the same time; many of them use the same sauce, which makes them all taste the same after a while.

: Ohh yes, the buns.

Although I haven't been to Momofuku Ssam Bar in ages, I do really like it. I'd probably only go with friends who are visiting from out of town because it's a bit pricy for a regular night out. If you can wrangle a group of people together, the reservation-only pork shoulder (bo ssam) dinner is awesome, as are the pork buns. For another reservation-only group meal, the fried chicken at Noodle Bar is also worth trying.

: Pastraaaamiiiii.

Katz's Deli: I've only eaten here three times, but I'm mentioning it because it's a touristy spot that is genuinely delicious. Expensive, but worth it for glorious meat stacks. Their pastrami is famous for good reason.

Fu Run: Head to Flushing where magical lamb ribs await!

April later emailed me to say she'll probably be staying in Williamsburg. Some of my faves there:

: Fried chicken + biscuit + mac and cheese = JOY.

Pies-N-Thighs: Not ever having been to the south for proper southern fried chicken, I can't tell you how this compares to "the real thing," but I do love it. When get a hankering for fried chicken and biscuits, Pies-N-Thighs is my top choice. I skip the pies though; the savory stuff seems better.

: Steak, battered and deep fried. Good idea.

The Brooklyn Star: This is one of those places I kept meaning on writing about but haven't yet. Stick it in the pile with the rest of the neglected blog posts. :C I ate there three times in a two week period, if that's any indication of how much I like it. Southern-style stuff that's better than homey, but still homey. Does that make sense? They've got more on the biscuit front, along with chicken-fried steak, fried sweetbreads, jalapeño cornbread, macaroni and cheese with bacon—you get the picture.

[Oh noes my photos are still on my camera. Boo.]

Smorgasburg: This is what New York City needs more of: spacious lots full of small food stalls. Except ideally it'd be a permanent thing, not a Saturday-only food food fair at the western edge of Williamsburg. Still, it's better than nothing, and a hell of an improvement since when I lived in Williamsburg in 2008.

: Meatball sub. Come to me.

Best Pizza: You can get great slices here (white pie FTW), but the last two times I went (out of the ... three times I've been), I got sandwiches. The chicken parm and meatball sub are awesome, made with great crisp-crusted, chewy bread and balanced fillings.

: Burger = boss.

Diner: Despite that my last visit resulted in stomach bloat and bitter salad hell, I'd still recommend Diner. Their burger is awesome, and their other dishes tend to be very good, carefully made stuff that's not boring nor too fussy.

Although April already told me that she'll be staying in Brooklyn for part of her trip, she had asked me earlier if I thought it was worth it to stay in Brooklyn instead of Manhattan. So, if anyone else is wondering, the original question:

I've been told to just suck it up and spend the money to stay in Manhattan but the hotel prices are around $300 per night, minimum. I've seen some decent places in Brooklyn for much less. Do you think the money saved would be worth it after we factor in hassle and transportation costs? Is it a serious difficulty to find good transportation (at all hours) from Brooklyn to Manhattan and vice versa?

Considering I've lived in Brooklyn for a few years, I'd say it's worth staying in Brooklyn if you can save a good deal of money. Shouldn't be much of a hassle if it's near a convenient enough subway stop (it may get iffier on the weekends though, when the MTA messes around with a ton of subway lines, to put it mildly), and transportation shouldn't cost more unless you plan on taking cabs a lot (I rarely take cabs; when you have an unlimited Metrocard and the subways run 24 hours a day, it seems like a waste). I don't have much advice to give about cabs since I rarely take them, but from my experience, it shouldn't be hard to find a cab in Manhattan to take you back to Brooklyn; if you want to take a cab in Brooklyn, you may have to call a car service.

Turning 26, or Surprise Birthday Party, The Third

2011-09-15T04:28:46Z

: Momma cake and baby cake, soon to be destroyed.

"Uuuuugggnnnnhhh aaaaahhhhhh arrrrrhhhggu uunnngggh!"

That is the sound of:

Being slowly gummed by a toothless lion
Being gently prodded in the legs by a bowling pin
Being completely taken off guard by a surprise birthday party for the third year in a row

I cannot attest to the first two, so it's the third. You probably figured that out.

Inexpertly made with Dan Awesome's Rage Maker.

Why would I make such uncouth sounds after being showered with love by my friends? Love that still sort of befuddles me a bit because it's, like, a lot? (I still don't think I've done enough to earn it, pretty much. Still workin' on it.) Because...three years in a row! (Recap last year and the year before.) HAVE I LEARNED NOTHING?

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After crossing the threshold of Lee Anne's apartment, thinking I was there for a small dinner party that I had planned (ah, that's the trick!—make me think I'm in control), and them seeing a a room stuffed with friends who had come out to surprise me nearly a week after my 26th birthday (ah, the other trick!—throw the party after my birthday), I let out a few too many prolonged grunts of, "UUUGGGNGN HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN AGAIN, UUGHGGGHH AARAHRHA I AM LIKE THE DUMBEST PERSON EVAAAH, UUGUNGGN OMGG UHHGHAA," accompanied by all sorts of rubber-faced expressions of agony-delight-surprise that could be elicited by nothing else. I should've seen it coming. I was walking straight into the lair of the Surprise Party Planner Master herself. (Last year Lee Anne helped organize my surprise party even though she was hundreds of miles away and couldn't come.)

: Thanks to Gordon for taking photos!

And in her lair lay banh mi (from Co Ba), cakes (a carrot cake from Amy's Bread and a homemade mini chocolate cake from Melissa), chips, cherry brown butter bars (made by Emily—holy craponateapot those were good), bacon macaroni and cheese (made by Noah), streamers, balloons, Adventure Time, gifts, and more. 'Tis the most joyous lair.

: This was the shot where I told everyone to make funny faces. It sort of worked? Top row, left to right: Chris, Lee Anne, Veronica, Tom, Diana; second row: me, Kåre, Jeff, Claire, Emily; third row: Noah, Melissa, Gordon.

Thank you to all the people who came out—Diana, John, Melissa, Noah, Tom, Emily, Claire, Jeff, Gordon, Veronica—and to Lee Anne and Chris for hosting, and to Kåre for being a most excellent boyfriend and visiting during my birthday (he was here for two weeks; alas, he's back in Norway now). Extra points for Gordon for understanding the problem of being a photographer at her own party and helping me document the party with my camera. Also, thanks to Tropical Storm Irene for canceling my previously planned joint birthday party with Melissa (it was supposed to be on the 27th, my birthday, and a day after Melissa's); if not for that, the surprise party wouldn't have happened.

Can I be fooled a fourth year in a row? Probably. I'd say I don't want my friends to see it as some sort of challenge, but as time has shown, it's not much of a challenge when the inside of my head looks like this:

Yup. Yeah. It's not so bad. People sort of treat you like a little lost puppy.

Life is super good. And I have my friends to thank for reminding me of that every time we celebrate my loss of youthfulness. I hope you have awesome friends like that too. :)

Bergen, Day 6: Norwegian Food Explosion at Bryggen Tracteursted

2011-09-11T04:35:20Z

Let's go back....seven months. I was in Norway. I'm still writing about it. Refresh your memory with day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, and day 5.

: (O_O)

The food just kept coming. And coming. And...coming. Until Morten, Kåre, and I were faced with a sort of mini buffet of Norwegian tapas more appropriate for a party twice our size. Whoooops.

WELL THE ONLY SOLUTION IS TO EAT IT ALL, I SUPPOSE.

Why did we end up with craptons of food? Because we weren't in charge of ordering it. Morten invited us to eat at Bryggen Tracteursted—located in Bryggen, more specifically in a schøtstue that was built in 1708—since it was part of the restaurant group he was working for. And since he knew the chef, we received a special meal, "special" meaning "nearly half of the menu." (Amusingly, the menu calls the dishes "savoury smallbits." It also calls them "Norwegian tapas," but "smallbits" is obviously the superior name.)

Now, a bunch of photos.

: Bread and spread.

First, an assortment of bread accompanied by oil, Ramsløk butter (a sort of garlicky butter), and bacon fat topped with bacon bits.

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COD TONGUES, where have you been all my life?

The star dish of the night was the breaded fried cod tongues with remoulade. My criteria for "star dish" is when I continue to eat the dish even though my brain says, "Robyn, if you eat any more, you might pop a vital organ. Is it worth it? Popping an organ is serious stuff. Think about it." I didn't really think about it, but thankfully, nothing popped. To my knowledge.

This Icelandic food blog says, "Cod tongues aren't really tongues, but rather the fleshy, triangular muscle behind and under the tongue." (Wait, the tongue is behind and under the...tongue?) I haven't poked around a cod's mouth lately/ever, so I'll accept that description. The restaurant's menu just had this to say: "Cutting out cod tongues are children's work. They got paid per piece, and was a great way for them to acknowledge hard working life." Child labor rarely tasted so good.

What's so dandy about this muscle? When breaded and fried, cod tongues are lightly crisp on the outside and sort of creamy soft on the inside, with a faint sweet flavor, not bearing any resemblance to the body muscle. I've read comparisons to scallop, but they reminded me of sweetbreads more than anything else. If you like fried nuggets of stuff (and, gosh, why wouldn't you?), you'll probably like fried cod tongues.

Now I need to find out why cod tongues aren't a more well known dish. They're delicious, seemingly simple to prepare, and, to my taste buds, quite inoffensive. (Googling pointed me to this restaurant in Newfoundland that serves them topped with crispy pork bits. THAT SOUNDS AWESOME.) Admittedly, I've never scoped out a seafood counter for cod tongues, but in my 26 years of life, I hope I would've noticed 'em by now. Somewhere out there is a bag of cod tongues with my name on it. I must find it.

Next to the cod tongues are "Ulrik" sausages and potato salad with spring onions. I don't remember much about the sausages, but the potato salad was one of those dishes I kept wanting to eat despite my stomach reaching 200 percent capacity. I don't know for sure that Norwegian potatoes taste better than American potatoes (most of my potato-eating in America is in the form of french fries), but...hell, they probably do.

: More!

Although I liked just about every other dish, none of them stuck in my mind as well as the cod tongues and the potato salad. These menu descriptions will have to do. From left to right: liver paté with bacon and pickled onion, trout tartar with quail eggs, and cured ham with herb cream.

: And some more!

Smoked herring with apple and beet salad, a repeat of the cured ham, and aquavit marinated salmon with asparagus and sour cream dressing.

: Aaaaand moooore.

Cured sausage with herb cream and flatbread, maybe the same salmon as before or another fish I can't identify, and that good ol' potato salad with spring onions.

: CANS.

King Oscar sardines with toasted buttered bread. Not exactly a "must order" considering most major supermarkets in the US carry King Oscar sardines, but they are good.

: Last of the tapas.

These two plates featured two kinds of pickled herring, the specifics of which I can't recall. ;_; As for the other dishes, there's smoked herring again, smoked elk and cranberry wrapped in potato bread, and marinated deer with rowan berry jelly.

And after all that...

: Coffee!

Coffee, sweetened by everyone else's sugar cubes. Because I don't like coffee that much. But being surrounded by coffee lovers = PEER PRESSURE, I MUST CONFORM.

: Cheese!

Cheese plate with apple marmalade. There's the creamy cheese, the veiny cheese, and the plain cheese.*

* Not the real names at all.

: Dessert

Lastly, for dessert, wafer cone with cloudberries and cream, and aquavit-marinated berries with another sort of wafer cookie.

The bill came out to 2047 kr, about $370. Yeah, that's...that's a lot more than I ever spend on a meal in NYC. But eating out in Bergen (and I'd guess most of Norway) is considerably more expensive than eating out in NYC. And our dinner could've technically fed four people. So. Yup.

: Morten! And the...no other people. 'Twas a slow night.

I'd recommend Bryggen Tracteursted if you like sharing lots of little Norwegian dishes and sitting in a super old, historical building. ...I'm not selling it very well, but hey, that's why I take photos. Morten would know better than me about the uniqueness of the menu, but I think he told me it's a good place for traditional Norwegian/Bergen cuisine.

: Gotta walk through some wobbly buildings.

: Morten and Kåre.

And then it was time to say bye to Morten (if all goes well, I'll see him again at Christmas). :( He's a weird one. Thank god, or else we couldn't be friends.

Address

Bryggen Tracteursted
Bryggestredet 2, 5003 Bergen, Norway (map)
55 33 69 99; bellevue.no‎

Bergen, Day 5: Roast Pork Ribs at the Sandvik Summer House

2011-08-28T08:16:00Z

Let's go back....six months. I was in Norway. I'm still writing about it. Refresh your memory with day 1, day 2, day 3, and day 4.

: Driving to the ferry. And arriving at the ferry!

"I'm in a car! On a boat!"

"Yeah..."

"On a boat!"

"Mmhm..."

Kåre probably didn't respond with such disinterest, but since I can't remember conversations that happened over six months ago, I shall turn to the time-honored practice of "making stuff up."

However, I'm pretty sure my part of the conversation is accurate—the part where I'm really excited about being in a car on a boat. Why? Because I'd never experienced it before—riding in a vehicle, in another vehicle, on water. That's like a cat hitching a ride on a porpoise to get across a river. Exactly like that. Or nothing like that. Something like that?

: Mail truck, get on the boat.

...Well. The experience tickled me for some reason. Probably because I'm 500 percent landlubber. Kåre grew up with the ferry experience thanks to a childhood of frequent visits to his family's summer house in Tysnes, an island most easily accessible from Bergen by driving to the southern tip of Os and riding a ferry for half an hour. Which is what Kåre and I did because we were going to spent the night at the house.

]]>

This house, it is cute.

This living room, it is cute.

I sure love that wood. You can see the sauna through the open door.

And thus was another experience unknown to me: staying in a summer house (and considering Scandinavians have their own subsection in Wikipedia's entry for "summer house," I'm assuming they're particularly fond of summer houses). A very cute, homey, cabin-like house with a sauna, fireplace, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen, and living room. Car-in-a-boat can't compete with that.

The Sandvik Family Summer House didn't start off with all those amenities though; Kåre's dad and grandfather had built it in the '70s at a time when plumbing wasn't available in the area (toilets and saunas would have to wait). When they needed water, they'd fill jerrycans at a nearby stream. Plumbing was installed once it became available, transforming the cabin into more of a proper house—still humble, even if less rugged.

About five years ago Kåre's parents thought about selling the house since, with their kids all grown up, its use became sparse. Thankfully, Kåre's sister, Anne-Kristin, bought the house to keep it in the family (and, well, so her husband and kids could use it). A good choice, I'd say. When Kåre was a kid growing up in Os, his family would use the house most weekends. These days the Sandviks goes during major holidays and Anne-Kristin's family uses it as their summer vacation home.

And another reason to use the house: when I'm visiting. In which case it's just me 'n Kåre.

: FIRE.

First step when arriving at the house: Set stuff on fire. In the furnace and fireplace, that is. Because it's freakin' cold. (But don't turn on the fan above the stove while the fireplace is roaring without opening a window in the kitchen. Otherwise the room will fill with smoke. We learned from experience.)

: The kitchen is ready for PORK UNLEASHING.

Second step: Prepare the pork rib! I mean, if you're cooking pork rib. And you should—specifically, ribbe, a traditional Christmas dish of roast pork rib with deeply scored skin resulting in meat studded with crispy pork fat cracking nubbins. It is so, so very good. Like, "What did I do to deserve this pork's absence in my life [slams palms on table] WHAT DID I DO [anger turns to sobs] WHYYYY [cheeks glisten with steams of tears, nasal passages clog with gloom-mucus]?" good.

I might be overselling it a bit. But it's very tasty, and easy to make, to boot. We used this recipe from Mat Prat. The Google translated version is....serviceable. Thanks to Kåre's bilingual brain, here's a translation:

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 kg thin rib or rib family [Not knowing my pork cuts, I don't know what this cut is called in English. Doesn't seem to be "ribs" as we know 'em. If you know, leave me a comment; thanks!]
3 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper
About 2 cups water

Procedure

Portion 500 grams per person. You won't eat all of it; you can eat the leftovers for breakfast. AWESOME BREAKFAST. Check that the bones are totally cut through to make it easier to cut later. (If it's not cut, it won't affect the cooking; it'll just be harder to cut after.)
Cut through the skin down into the fat with a sharp knife. If you make the squares parallel to the ribs it'll be easier to cut neatly after cooking.
Rub rib with salt and pepper 1 to 3 days before cooking. [We didn't have to do this because we bought pre-seasoned ribs.] Make sure the spice gets between the skin and bone. With the skin side down, cover with aluminum foil and put in a cold place; that way the spice will soak into the rib and give better flavor.
Put rib in the pan with the skin up. Put an upside-down plate under it so the rib is a bit higher in the middle; that way the melted fat will run off. It's important that the rib is equally high on both ends to get equal results. (You can also use a ball of foil to prop up the rib.)
Pour about 2 deciliters of water into the pan and cover entire thing in aluminum foil. it's important the foil is airtight for steaming to be successful. If it doesn't look completely tight, add water later according to how much you need.
Preheat oven to 230°C. Put pan in middle of oven and steam for about 45 minutes. The rib will puff up a bit and the skin will fan out/separate.
Remove the foil and leave the plate and reduce temp to 200°C. Put pan back in oven and let rib roast for 1 to 1 1/2 hours for thin ribs, and 1 1/2 to 2 hours for thick ribs. The cooking time is equally long no matter what it weighs.
Often the rib will get crisp skinned by itself; if it doesn't you can do the following towards the end of the roasting: put the pan higher in the oven and increase temp to 250°C, or use grill function in oven. Pay close attention so you don't burn it. Don't leave the oven; this will go fast. If only parts of the rib got crackly skin, you can cover these parts with foil so they don't get burned.
Let the rib rest for about 20 minutes so the juices settle. You'll get a juicy and good rib. Things you can cook in last 20 minutes: Medisterkaker [meatball things], Christmas sausages, apples and prunes. Rib is commonly served with cooking juice/sauce, sauerkraut or red cabbage, prunes, apples, or lingonberries.

And again, with photos.

: Those squares will become GLORIOUS CRUNCHY NUBS-O-FAT.

First, score the skin down to the muscle. Get the blade deep in there. The pig's already dead and all. (Actually, first you'd season the meat, but ours came pre-seasoned.)

: Foiled!

Second, prepare for cooking phrase number one: steaming. Stick the whole pork slab on a rack in a pan with a little bit of water, seal the pan tightly with foil, and pop in the oven.

: Appropriately steamed.

Third, prepare for cooking phase number two: roasting. Remove the foil—and take a big whiff of the pork fumes—then stick the uncovered pork back in the oven.

: STARCH! I LOVE YOU.

In the meantime, prepare some starchy sides. We boiled amandine potatoes—small, thin-skinned, creamy tubers—and baked some frozen rösti. Two potato-based sides? Yeah, we overestimated our starch needs. We ended up with enough food to feed at least four people.

And then...

: Beauty shot.

UNLEASH...

: And another.

THE PORK!...

: There she is.

Ok, it had some problems around the edges—excess carbon and whatnot. But it was still delicious. And extra crispy.

: Slicing.

The result: pork meat saturated in pork juice and pork fat, topped with a thick layer of crunchy pork skin and rich pork fat. Altogether, it is everything you want pork to be.

...Except for the part where you (and by "you" I mean "we") pass out from too much pork. But that's just how pork works.

: Good morning.

The next day we started off with homemade cinnamon buns and coffee before taking a little walk in the nearby forest.

: Nature and stuff.

Little streams, untroddened snow, naked trees—all this good stuff can be yours just up the road from the summer house.

: Dock.

Down the hill and across the main road you'll get to the dock that Kåre's dad built for the family's boat.

: Yeah, that is pretty.

And if you drive around the island as we did (it takes about an hour), you'll pass loads of forests and eventually loads of snow-capped mountains. There's eye candy pretty much everywhere.

: Going back to Os.

...Including when you take the ferry back to Os.

After we got back to Bergen we had to head out for dinner with Morten. You will read about it someday, assuming I don't die today in Hurricane Irene. Pretty sure I won't. [nods]

January in a Gigantic Nutshell: Roberta's, Big Wong King, Best Pizza, Papaye, Bo Ky, The Commodore, and J.G. Melon

2011-08-09T07:04:42Z

Ohhhh, hi there. I know it's been a while. :( I didn't mean to ignore you! But I've had a string of jam-packed weekends over the last few weeks. There was the Serious Eats Sandwich Festival one weekend, followed by moving to a new apartment the subsequent weekend (I'm in Greenwood Heights in Brooklyn now...or where Park Slope ends and Sunset Park begins...anyone else in this neighborhood?), followed by a three-day weekend trip to Virginia. And now I'm here. Phlegmier than usual, but here.

Why write about meals I've eaten recently when I could write about meals I ate eight months ago? The latter is surely much easier and relevant and sensible and no it's not I'm lying.

But I'll do it anyway because, aside from what I ate during my trip to Virginia last weekend, I haven't been eating much recently. I mean, nothing worth noting. Proof: Today I ate beef chow fun for lunch. House later, I ate the leftovers for dinner.

...Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's revisit some meals from January.

Tasting Menu at Roberta's

: About half of the dishes. Click on each photo for more info.

On a scale of one to ten, my palate's level of sophistication is around a four, while Chuck's of ChuckEats is somewhere in the 20s. So when he generously invited me to eat an unadvertised tasting menu by chef Carlo Mirarchi at Roberta's—a restaurant that debuted primarily as a pizzeria in 2008, but has since grown far beyond pizza to include gardens, a bakery, and fine dining-level fare featuring locally grown, high-quality ingredients in a most non-fine dining setting (hey, it's Bushwick)—I thought 1) Damn, the food must really really really damn good if Chuck wants to go there, and 2) My level four palate is probably not worthy and Chuck will wonder why he invited me and then we'll spend the whole night in awkward silence, aside from the sounds of our self-conscious chewing.

]]> 16 dishes (plus a pizza that wasn't part of the menu, but we asked for it) and over four hours later, nothing bad happened. Only awesomeness. Because the dinner was accompanied by awesome people (besides Chuck, Lesley and Winston). Also, I'm about five gajlllion times more comfortable in a casual setting like Roberta's than a fancypants place like Per Se (not that I have anything against Per Se). Chuck has already written a great review of our meal, so head over there for real descriptions of the dishes, as opposed to what I'm writing. (Pocketfork and Docsconz also have great posts about the tasting menu.) I'll just say what my favorites were: the glass shrimp with celery, finger lime, and poppy seed; the trofie with squab heart and liver; the Cote de Beouf with fingerlings, spigarello, and sweetbreads; and the feather-light chocolate mousse dessert.

The price was about $150 per person, pre-tax/tip/drinks. Yup, it's a special night out, but considering all the dishes you get and the quality of the ingredients, I'd say it's worth it. Since Chuck had arranged the meal (THANKS A BAGILLION, CHUCK), I can't say much on how to get it yourself, but I suppose you just contact the restaurant and tell them you're interested in Mirarchi's tasting menu.

Roberta's
261 Moore Street, Brooklyn NY 11206 (map)
718-417-1118; robertaspizza.com

Roast Pork at Big Wong King

: Pork n rice. Aw yeah.

Sometimes I just want a plate of meat, rice, and vegetables, quickly and cheaply. The night after eating at Roberta's, Big Wong King provided all of the above with a plate of sliced roast pork supplemented with gai lan over a massive mound of white rice. I don't remember the price, but I'd guess it was around $6.

Big Wong King
67 Mott St, New York NY 10013 (map)
212-964-0540

White Pie at Best Pizza

: Half regular, half white. Nope, they don't serve crazy-skinny slices; I had split 'em with Greg.

Best Pizza is a pretty great name for a pizzeria...for raising potential customers' hopes and possibly crushing them with mediocre pizza. Thankfully, the pizza is good—not my favorite (not that it's called "Favorite Pizza"), but among the best (a-ha!) slices I've had. Mostly because they sprinkle the crust of their white pie—which features mozzarella, ricotta, and a smidge of caramelized onion—with sesame seeds, making that last bit of crust not some throwaway bread stick, but a bread stick infused with toasted nutty glory. GLORY.

Having said that, the last two times I went to Best Pizza I got a sandwich, partially because it was more portable than pizza and I was getting my food to go, but also because their sandwiches are awesome. Chicken parm or meatball sub—you can't go wrong with either.

: Manatees probably don't like pizza because it totally goes against their natural diet, but whatever.

The walls of Best Pizza are covered in customers' paper plate art. (I drew a manatee eating a pizza. Naturally.) Any place that encourages doodling wins extra points in my book.

Best Pizza
33 Havemeyer Street, Brooklyn NY 11211 (map)
718-599-2210; best.piz.za.com

Ghanaian Dinner at Papaye

: Clockwise from top left: Spinach stew with chicken, rice, and banku (fermented corn dough); grilled tilapia; fufu (plaintain/yam/cocoyam flour mashed into balls) with goat in soup; and rice and beans with goat stew and spicy black sauce.

I've had friends struggle to eat Chinese food because they suck at holding chopsticks. I think I mildly felt their pain when I tried Ghanaian food at Papaye because I suck with the Ghanaian utensil-of-choice: your hand. Your right hand, to be more specific. How can you suck at eating with your hand? When the food your eating isn't the obviously hand-friendly stuff you're used to—like spinach "stew" (it's not that liquidy, not that it's quite solid either), whole grilled tilapia, rice and beans with goat stew, or mochi-like mashed yam covered in soup with tender chunks of goat.

My equally un-Ghanaian friends—Noah, Tom, and John—and I probably could've asked for utensils, but then we would've been the only ones in the restaurants unable to use the utensils nature gave us. Failure would engulf us and haunt our every bite. So no—no! We refused to be noobs. We would use our hands! And look dumb because we were probably using them wrong! BUT AT LEAST WE TRIED, OK.

Having said all that, I enjoyed the food, although by this point I can't remember enough to describe it in much detail (you can read more about Ghanaian cuisine on Wikipedia...yeah I'm taking the easy way out). The grilled fish and the goat in the soup-with-mashed-yam were my favorites. I probably would've enjoyed the meal more if I had used a fork (ignoring the part where I'd feel like a failure), but on the upside, eating with my hand greatly slowed down my regular rate of eating (which is basically "inhaling").

Papaye
2300 Grand Concourse, Bronx NY 10458 (map)
718-676-0772; papayediner.com

Fried Shrimp Rolls and Noodles at Bo Ky

: Fried nubs and noodles. Aw yes.

I've eaten at Bo Ky on Grand Street a few times (the original location is on Bayard Street), but my favorite dishes so far have been Kathy's recommendations for the shrimp roll ($6.75)—nubs of shrimp paste wrapped in bean curd sheets then deep fried, resulting in golden nuggets with a light, crisp shell—and the Teochew sate flat noodles ($6.50), noodles topped with a thick peanut sauce, slices of pork, slivers of raw onion, and mung bean sprouts, with soup on the side. Each one could be a meal by itself. Diana and I each got our own noodle dish and shared the shrimp rolls.

Bo Ky
82 Bayard Street, New York NY 10013 (map)
212-406-2292

Burgers and Fried Chicken at The Commodore

: Cheeeseburgerrrr.

The Commodore's burger ($7) and fried chicken ($11) were so awesome that I'd consider going back even though that means eating in a barely lit bar thick with hipsters*. (To be fair, there are two rooms of which only one fits the barely-lit-bar description, but the other one with booth seating and overhead lighting was full of people who didn't look like they were going to leave, ever. If I had snagged one of those few booths, I guess I wouldn't have wanted to leave either.) I've already reviewed the burger on A Hamburger Today, but to summarize: It reminded me of a Shack Burger with more toppings—like a really good, perfectly balanced fast food-style burger. And that's my favorite style.

: FRIED CHICKEN.

They're more famous for their fried chicken: tender and juicy on the inside with a thick, but not tough, crunchy, craggly crust on the outside oozing with the sort of brain numbingly fragrant chicken fat essence best achieved by dunkage in a vat of hot oil. Raphael also gave the chicken the thumbs up, and seeing as he's much more discerning than I am, I'm somewhat confident in my opinion, as opposed to most times when I'm sub-somewhat confident.

* Not that I have anything against hipsters—I'm pretty sure I'd be annoyed by a thick crowd of any people in a bar. I'm all about distributing my feelings of annoyance equally.

The Commodore
366 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11211 (map)
718-218-7632

Burgers at J.G. Melon

: JG Melon's burger.

J.G. Melon was one of those places on my list of "Famous New York City Restaurants I Should've Eaten At By Now But Haven't Because I'm In That Mindset of, 'I Live Here, I Can Eat There Whenever! But Probably Later,' Which Means I Haven't Done It Yet." You know that list? Yeah.

But with the help of new-to-NYC food writer Yasmin, we ate there! And even though it's on the Upper East Side, aka "where I go almost never," I'd totally go back. And if I didn't have friends who lived in the Upper East Side, it'd be the only reason I'd go back. So I can eat another juicy, medium rare cheeseburger ($9.25) of lightly packed beef topped simply with pickles and thin slices of raw onions, with little chubby fried potato coins on the side ($4.75), in an old school bar covered in watermelon-themed art.

For more info, read Nick Solares' review on A Hamburger Today. It's spot-on, although the service we received was quite friendly, not gruff.

J.G. Melon
1291 Third Avenue, New York NY 10021 (map)
212-744-0585