Take Me Back to Constantinople

Once upon a time, there was a French naval officer who fell in love with a country that wasn't his own.  The natives weren't sure what to make of him.  But in the end, he won their hearts, inspiring other giants along the way:  Proust, Delibes, British Airways... 

This interesting man has a Turkish wine bar named after him.  Maybe it's that inanely amusing song about Istanbul no longer being Constantinople.  Or that the ghosts of Hemingway and Mata Hari lurk there.  Whatever it is, this part of the world plays to the imagination.

On an idyll walk, I rolled into a Turkish wine bar with a curiously French name and tried a zucchini pancake for the first time.  Like a parent to her own child, I try to sneak in my vegetables every which way.  It was incredibly good.  If you prefer savory pancakes, this dish will inspire you to buy a small cast iron skillet to make it for an occasional brunch.

And for something that tasted this yummy, it is surprisingly full of healthy ingredients:  walnuts, herbs, and a ton of zucchini.  I know - how could it taste that good with all that squash and walnuts!  But if you haven't tried a Turkish zucchini pancake, you just haven't lived. 

Oh, and it comes with a dollop of sour cream butter as if it couldn't taste any better

I noticed the menu had a French flair.  Manager Oktay Atakan explained that the wine bar was named after a French novelist and naval officer, Pierre Loti, who wrote about his time in Istanbul.

So I was compelled to find out more about this obscure writer.  His musings on Turkish life was published in 1879 - Aziyadé (Constantinople).   Women adored him and Marcel Proust admired him.  He beat Emile Zola for a seat in the ever exclusive Académie Française.   He wrote a book based on his experience with Tahitians, which later became the inspiration behind Delibes' opera, Lakmé.  And thanks to some brilliant advertisers, the famous Flower Duet in Lakmé is forever linked with British Airways.  So how Loti fell into obscurity beats me.

As eclipsed as the writer, the namesake wine bar is off the beaten track.  Tucked away in a quieter part of Chelsea,  it has a non-assuming exterior on 15th St.  There are other locations, Park Slope being the new addition.  But I really do like the one in Chelsea.   The vibe is intimate and the service is great. 

With this exceptionally brutal winter, I am certain there are more cold days ahead.  Warm up at Pierre Loti with some hot tapas (the zucchini pancake's a must) and a glass of Efes. ~e

Waitress Marina Cernavka and Bartender Natalia Andronic

Pierre Loti West

258 West 15th St

New York, NY 10011

Ph: 212.645.5684

Barboncino's Dome

There is a pizzeria/bar/restaurant in Brooklyn worth checking out.  It's called Barboncino and I think it means "poodle".  I suppose the place is named after a fancy dog because it's sophisticated and a cut above the rest - just like the breed.

And rightly so.   I walked in and the first thing I saw was this beautiful brick oven.  It made me think of Brunelleschi's dome.  Max, the amiable host, explained how each brick was laid in by hand and brought to the States from Italy by boat. 

This sort of attention, detail, and raise-the-bar attitude is just the thing I love.  And it was reflected in the staff.  In my opinion, they were hand-picked.   I chatted with the sous-chefs and they were wonderful.  They were all so nice, unaffected, and efficient, I was certain my food was in good hands.

Sous-chefs Matt and Mike

Confidence was not misplaced.  The Bibb lettuce salad was amazing.  This is a must.  It had just the right amount of sharpness from the Gorgonzola crumbles, just the right amount of woodsiness from the walnut bits, and just the right amount of sweetness from something I couldn't quite figure out.  It wasn't agave, it wasn't corn syrup, so I had to ask.  It was an infusion of dried cherries!  Simply exquisite.

The pizza came and I credit the exceptionally light, airy blistered crust to the domed hearth.  It had to be something about the oven's roof.  (I can only imagine as my study of architecture is limited to Ayn Rand).   

And Max raised high its roof beam when he rimmed a very cold glass of Allagash with lemon.  I had never had Allagash with a twist of lemon and it made the pizza taste all the better.  Again, the attention to detail made all the difference.

The only other thing that took the pie to the moon was the olive oil.  Instead of dispensing the usual shaker of dried pepper flakes,  Barboncino soaks them in olive oil (another infusion) with which you drizzle over the pizza.  Or in my case, douse.  The olive oil was that good.  Frantoia - from Sicily.  In fact, many of the core ingredients come from Italy.

There's a time and place for local, but there's something to be said for bringing the tomato sauce, the olive oil, the flour, the meat, and a gorgeous brick oven from the Old World.  And that is what Barboncino does. 

So go pay homage to its fiery pagoda.  Not quite the Duomo, but it's still impressive and the pizza's divine. ~e

Barboncino, 781 Franklin Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11238.

Ph: 718.483.8834

Truffle to the People

The 70's came back with such vengeance, I had all my polyester clothes dry-cleaned.  Kidding, of course.  That decade was not my coming-of-age.  I am a bit too young.  What I know about that time is second-hand:  my cooler, older cousin from Hawaii who showed me how to disco (mahala!), TV shows, movies, and a San Diego friend who has a flair for 70's interior design to this day.

Speaking of Cali - I did some time in La la land.  And when I was homesick, I flew out to northern California.  What I discovered!  If I could choose a place to have grown up - it would be Napa Valley or Sonoma.  That would be home. And as for my friends, I'd see them in San Francisco.  And when I needed to write in solitude, I would have a place in Santa Cruz.  A girl can always dream.

I devoured Luke Barr's Provence, 1970 because I had the privilege of knowing what casual dinner parties could be like in northern Cali.  It is one of the most wonderful things that could be enjoyed in this world. 

Those casual get-togethers opened up a can of wonderful duck confit.  Ideas would be thrown left and right.  And they centered mostly around food.  What is going on with the restaurant scene, who opened up a specialty food store, and which chef was doing something revolutionary.

I never thought about how magical it all was until I finished reading Barr's account of a time and place that would impact the culinary world to this day and beyond.

21 Club ~ The Secret Sauce

We had a power seat in the corner.  The ceiling was crowded by toy mobiles.  Corporate memorabilia, I am told.  Well then I pretend to admire them.

To our left was a Dutch family.  We welcomed them to New York City and they happily spoke of their travels and the good fortune of seeing an old friend,  André Rieu, perform up north.

They said he was internationally acclaimed as the world's greatest musician, and they simply loved the fact that he was their André, a friend and neighbor raised in the same village.  I didn't know who he was.  But I welcomed their enthusiasm.  My dining companion was a mind-numbing bore.

He had a Roman numeral III to his name and I was yawning Roman numeral ZZZ's.  Blah, blah, blah was what he said most of the time.

The food came with a waiter who looked like the butler from Sunset Boulevard.  The fare was alright, usual suspects for a legend.  But the sauce!  It came with the hamburger and took my breath away.  I dipped everything into it - the fries, the bread, even the decorative vegetables.  I was dada for it.

It was a strange pink.  Not a pretty shade - unless you called it cardamom rose or something like that.  And it had such a delicious sharpness to it.  The waiter asked how everything was.  Perfunctorily so.

I had to ask.  What was in the sauce?  No, no.  Don't tell me.  It's ketchup and something wasabi.  It's ketchup and horseradish!  Yes,  it's ketchup and horseradish!  I was completely bonkers.  Very undignified.  But it worked.

The snobby waiter glared at me and sneered with a low Austrian accent, "No. It. Is. Not.  That is ketchup and Colman's mustard."  And then he walked away.

Candy from a baby.  So easily given, it would have to be shared:

Heinz  +  Colman's  =  The 21 Hamburger Sauce.

There you have it, my condiment fanatico.  Grace Kelly and Jimmy Stewart have nothing on you now. Whether you're a desperate socialite who prey on invalids or just a sick pup watching the lives of others, you too, can bring home '21'.  Make the sauce and order in.  That, and a bottle of Montrachet for two might be a very good way to slip into the new year.

 Happy 2014!   ~e

Heirloom Holiday

It's the season to grace one's home and hearth with an heirloom dessert.    Having secured a place in old Americana, the heirloom dessert returns as a very novel, stylish thing to do for the holidays. With their new cookbook (Beekman 1802 Heirloom Dessert), the fabulous Beekman Boys have made it de rigeur for self-proclaimed epicureans.  

Three words come to mind:  Tradition.  Patina.  Family-lore. 

Does it mean the same thing to others, I'd wondered.  I ask a random stranger seated next to me on the Metro-North.  His name is Dale.  His interests include firearms, carburetors, and watching explosions on the internet.  He could have had an heirloom per se, if his mother hadn't sold her Chevy Nova in the 70's.

"Dale, what comes to mind when you hear the term, heirloom dessert?"

"A fruitcake my mother-in-law made that's been sitting in the attic for 4 years now."  He seems to say this with more disgust at the thought of his late mother-in-law than the fruitcake taking permanent residence in his attic.

Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell signing cookbooks at Williams-Sonoma, E.59th

I'm thinking of Katie's Hickory Nut Cake from Vincent Minnelli's Meet Me in St. Louis.  Setting is 1904 World's Fair.  Papa Lonnie (Alonzo) tells the clan they will leave the center of the universe to move to New York City.  The  Smith family protests.  And then wise old Katie brings out her legendary Hickory Nut Cake.

Lonnie says it's as light as a feather as only Katie could make it.  And Katie credits the stove that could not be had in New York tenements.   So the family's heirloom cake made in a heritage stove kept the family from leaving St. Louis, as a geriatric Tootie would tell her grandchildren someday.

It's amazing.  For years I'd watch Judy Garland trolley, twirl, and pout in this MGM wonder and only one thing would leave a lasting impression.  This elusive, feathery cake made in antique coal stoves.  I could have easily made it an obsession.

Margaret O'Brien as Tootie and Judy Garland as Esther doing the Cake Walk in Meet Me in St. Louis

Because it seemed complex.  As I saw it, one needed to grow up in that home, inherit the coal stove, and live by hickory nut trees.  And this didn't cover the part of making that cake through the years to acquire an heirloom sheen.  Yes, yes, I will meet you at the goddamn fair if you would just bring me a sliver of Katie's cake. 

Why all this fuss over a silly cake from a movie?

I had an heirloom complex.  I felt I was raised by wolves.   My grandmother was a nomad.  The only worldly thing she passed onto her daughter was a couple of hundred-dollar bills.  As she stood by her deathbed, my grandmother rasped, "Look into my left coat pocket.  There's some money."  And then she was gone.

My mother, who never had a moment of nostalgia in her life (which I suspect made for an extraordinary happy-go-lucky nature), spent it all in a matter of days.  My father tends to be very nostalgic - almost maudlin at times.  He was the one who had to plant every fruit and vegetable he had grown up with as a boy.

Myself - I fear romanticizing the past beyond reasonable perspective.  So I treat sentimentality as if it were a criterion in the DSM manual.  What's more, our family did not do desserts, except for the occasional fruit from one of the trees tended by my sentimental father.

In the winter, it was cut-up persimmons from our yard.  I used to tease my parents that persimmons were old people's fruit. 

 these were picked earlier in the month and are ripening in a warm, sunny room

Persimmons didn't seem to have an edge to their personality -- they were just soft and sweet.  As a child, I loved tart, sour, juicy, and crisp:  berries, apples, kiwis, and oranges.

Then one cold day, the Fuyu Fairy must have whispered into my ear.  I cut one of our persimmons at its cross-section into ½ - inch slices.  How pretty.  Then I added a little cinnamon on top.  Well, I took a bite and never tasted a more luxurious fruit.  My palate had changed. Our family had an heirloom dessert all this time, and I didn't know it.  Who knows, I might just be inspired to create a persimmon dessert recipe of my own.

Today, I present one of our persimmons as if it were a rare diamond.  "Listen, this fruit tastes like velvet and bears heirloom seeds.  If you don't want to plant a persimmon tree, then save these seeds to pass onto your children."

This is the gift of heirloom desserts, even if it's just fruit.  They tell stories, define families, and provide some sense of continuity in a place that is vicarious and fleeting as this touch-and-go world.

    I think my autographed copy will become an heirloom in itself.  

                           Happy Thanksgiving! ~ e                                                                                                

                                                                                                                                                                                                

The Story of Cheesecake

Miss Cheesecake had turned zaftig since her reign in 1929.  She looked up Health Coach Maria Marlowe for a consultation.

"Look, I've been everyone's favorite on the dessert carts, the late-night diners, the old-fashioned delis.  Being the pin-up girl of desserts has cost me my looks, my figure, and my whole outlook on life.  I wish I could be --"

"You're a bombshell, Cheesecake.  I'm going to give you your bombshell blueprint.  Meet me tomorrow at 2pm on East 59th and Lex, at Williams - Sonoma."

"I'd rather meet you at Hamburger Heaven."  But of course Cheesecake knew she had to keep her appointment.

Health Coach Maria Marlowe

At exactly 2pm, Health Coach and Natural Food Chef, Maria Marlowe gently re-modeled Cheesecake.  She took away her graham crackers, the sour cream, the sugar, butter, and flour.  When she threw out her cream cheese, her client had a fit.

"What are you doing to me?!  I am not Cheesecake, Miss New York 1929, without cream cheese.  Are you nuts?"

"Funny you say that, because I'm going to bathe you in cashew milk."

Maria poured soaked cashews in Vitamix Pro 750, along with lemon juice, coconut nectar, cold-pressed coconut oil, vanilla, and water.

Cheesecake screamed and felt as if the Centrifuge of Terror would never end. 

"Cheesecake, you need a foundation in life.  Do you know what makes for a good foundation?", Maria yelled above the motor's noise.

Mercy.  Just have some mercy.  "I have no foundation.  You know as well as I do that we desserts are just tarts and temptations.  What foundation?!"

"Brains, Cheesecake.  You need a good brain.  Walnuts are great for brains and I'm going to make the best crust out of walnuts."

She threw in some walnuts and dried dates back into the Centrifuge of Terror.

Walnuts look like brains Maria pointed out.  Right, Cheesecake thought.  There's the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere.  She was beginning to become more lucid. 

organic cold-pressed coconut oil

She was also shedding off all of her excess weight.  Cheesecake learned that cold-pressed coconut oil was a good fat.  It helped to de-tox.  Another reason why she felt so clean and healthy.

Cheesecake became very quiet.  She turned to Maria.  "Did you always eat like this?"

Maria confessed that before she found her blueprint, she ate Pizza Hut and Entenmann's.

Cheesecake smirked - she hadn't seen Pizza Hut or an Entenmann's since she ran away from suburbia at 16.

"Don't be such a city snob, Cheesecake.  I am not done with you yet."

Maria pulled out a springform pan.  She smoothed out the paste of walnuts and dates onto the bottom.

Walnut&Dates Crust

Then Maria poured the creamy cashew emulsion into the springform pan.  And instead of putting her in the oven, she put Miss Cheesecake in the freezer for a little Arctic Ice Spa treatment. 

    

Batter

The result: a trimmer, nutritionally dense, guilt-free, gluten-free, dairy-free dish with brains.  She wasn't just a pin-up girl anymore.  In the wake of her transformation, Miss Cheesecake became a Paragon of True Beauty.

The End

        

                                             Cheesecake

                     Recipe courtesy of Maria Marlowe, www.bombshellblueprint.com

Paragon of True Beauty

      

Crust Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups walnuts
1/2 cup dates
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup of dried, unsweetened shredded coconut

Filling Ingredients:
2  1/2 cups raw cashews, soaked in water overnight
3/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup liquid coconut nectar
3/4 cup coconut oil
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
Water - as needed to blend



Instructions:
1.  For the crust, whiz walnuts in high-speed blender to powder.  Then add dates salt and process until combined.  Mixture should stay together when squeezed in your hand.

2.  Line the bottom of a 6-inch cheesecake pan with shredded coconut and then press in walnut mixture.

3.  For filling - drain cashews.  Then throw in blender on high for roughly 2 minutes or until completely smooth.  Add water, if the nuts had not been soaked well or blender is lacking in power.  Take care as not to add more water than necessary (just enough to create the creamy texture).

4.  Pour mixture on top of crust.

5.  Place in freezer for at least an hour.

6.  Store in refrigerator for up to 3 days.

It's All Alimentary, Part 1: Gluten-Free Socca

For those amber waves of grain, there is a winnowing of sorts.  America, the Beautiful is sifting through its cereals.  Amaranth is good.  Barley, not so much.  Quinoa is in, rye is out.  Wheat fields are being looked upon in a pernicious hue as people take more note of Celiac's and gluten sensitivities. 

Is gluten intolerance actually climbing or are we just getting better at diagnosing and disseminating information? Is hybridized wheat to blame?  One can mull and stew on this phenom endlessly.   Epidemiology is better left to the WHO*  to figure out the WHY's.

But the HOW of cooking gluten-free was a personal quest for a a food editor of Bon Appétit.  Kristine Kidd discovered she had celiac disease and decided to change her lifestyle.

She shook a fistful of bread sticks and swore, "As God is my witness, I'll never eat gluten again!"

No, that part never happened, but as food editors have standards, she did vow to always eat well.  Hence, her new cookbook:  Weeknight Gluten Free.

And who could breathe life to a cookbook better than the chefs at Williams-Sonoma on E. 59th.  Ms. Ivana Giuntoli took the helm in the lesson while Ms. Wendy James took note of additional dietary restrictions the guests had.  This could be a chef's nightmare.  Gluten-free, dairy-free,  sodium-free, sugar-free - all reasons for a chef to walk over to a guest and suggest he/she dine at the Mayo Clinic.  Attitudes have changed.

Of course I was skeptical.  How fabulous will this meal be?  Manager Garrett Williams laid out yet again, an impressive tablescape - unusual red coxcomb flowers and a gray-linen runner so the event was visually inviting.   But how was one to break bread with another sans the bread?  How would conversation begin?  Given the subject matter, wouldn't a question lead to disclosures on personal health issues? 

It turned out that everyone was open on matters of digestion.  There was a remarkable man who shared his journey from diagnosis and beyond.  The gentleman was working full-time in a business environment and committed to never putting a gluten product in his mouth.  When there was nothing to eat, he drank water to stave off hunger.  He has become a more resourceful person through this ordeal.  And 3 years into changing his diet, his clinical outcomes improved dramatically.  Compliance is key.

Well, compliance didn't appear to be a problem when the chefs brought out the gluten-free chili, cookies, and socca.  The soft socca dish with its particular toppings sent me straight to socca heaven.  If I could compare it to anything, it was like a pizza.  It's really an inadequate comparison as it is light years ahead of pizza.  Even a person with no gluten issues would be delighted by this dish.

The texture of soft socca is similar to that of an uttapam (an Indian flatbread) and a pita - without the tough chewiness of a pita.  Uttapam is made of lentil flour; socca is made of garbanzo bean flour.  And a soft socca is elementary in building delicious socca "pizzas".

So as much as I'd like to jump to the dish that made my heart skip, one must learn to make a basic socca.  I know, boring.  But it is no different from having to learn Bach fugues before one can compose like Pachelbel.  


                           Soft Socca
Recipe from Weeknight Gluten Free, by Kristine Kidd



 You will Need:

1 3/4  cups of garbanzo bean flour (use Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free Garbanzo and Fava Flour)
Olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons of minced fresh rosemary
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 cups of water

                                                           Instructions:

 1.  In a bowl, combine the water and flour with 1 1/2  tablespoons of oil, the rosemary, 3/4 teaspoon of salt, with a generous amount of pepper.

2.  Whisk until smooth.

3.  Pre-heat the oven to 325〫  F.

4.  Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper and brush with oil.

5.  Lightly brush a medium-sized frying pan with oil and warm over a stove until very hot.

6.  Add a fourth of the batter and swirl to coat the pan.

7.  Cook until air bubbles appear on top and the bottom is brown (2 minutes).

8.  Using a silicone spatula, turn the socca over and cook until spotted brown on the other bottome (1 minute or so).

9.  Slide onto the parchment.  Repeat 3 more times until there are 4 rounds in total.

10.  Bake in the oven for 5 minutes.  Now you have socca to add your toppings.

Summer's harvest has begun.  Stroll to the farmer's market for ideas on building your socca masterpiece. ~e

*  WHO:  World Health Organization