I Hear It, You?

Created by Train Horn

All I Do Is Eat (Home Cookin' Edition)

Lest my stories of dining out give the wrong impression, I wanted to make sure that it was clear that most of my eating these days occurs at home. The occasional dining out splurge is balanced by weeks of meals at home. Here are a couple of successful recent home cooked meals.

I have tried in the past to successfully replicate Jamaican styled ox tails and I finally "nailed" it. I combined a couple of recipes I found online to give it "that" taste - in this case the key ingredients were thyme, ginger, soy sauce, a jalapeno (couldn't find scotch bonnet), and all spice (in addition to things like garlic, onion, pepper, scallion, tomato, carrots, and beef stock). After browning the ox tails, I added the stock and vegetables and started the slow process of reducing it all.


Four hours and a can of broad beans later and we're home. I served this with coco rice and peas and was a happy camper.


Inspired by the deep dish pizza stories of a friend, we decided to make some of our own this past weekend. Ours were thin crust (we let our dough rise for two hours) and cooked in cast iron cookware. The first was a vegetable pie featuring mushroom, jalapeno, tomato, garlic, onion, fresh mozzarella, and fresh grated Parmesan. The cast iron skillet I used for this pie is about 15" across so the crust was a little thinner than originally planned.


We cooked the second pie in a cast iron enamel dutch oven that has a diameter of about 12" so the crust came out slightly thicker than the first pie. This was our meat pie but aside from substituting pepperoni for mushroom and omitting the jalapenos, the toppings were otherwise the same. The cast iron cookware we used contributed to great crisp crusts on both pies. Though my sauce came out sweeter than I had planned, there were no complaints and nary a slice remaining when all was said and done.

All I Do Is Eat (But You Already Knew That)

I also saw a play!

Friday night at the Bam Harvey Theater we saw the Sam Mendes (American Beauty) directed production of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. Great cast, great direction, and utterly enjoyable. Also a great value at $35 a seat.

A brisk walk after the show led us to the always reliable and stylish Clinton Hill Latin restaurant, Luz. We shared the empanadas - I've been told that my baked turkey empanadas are just as good :-) - and ceviche appetizers, and the roasted pork and rotisserie chicken entrees. The pork was tasty but a touch dry, however, everything else was spot on and delicious. The only let down in my meal was the beer I ordered, a Kasteel Cru. A French beer brewed using champagne yeast for a fine, crisp lager with a sparkling finish. Not much flavor or sparkle if you ask me, however, considering this bottle often sells for $10-$12 in Manhattan restaurants, the $7 I paid was a bargain. Dinner as described above with two drinks (including the Cru) came to $62 before tip. Luz is located at 177 Vanderbilt between Myrtle and Willoughby.

Saturday we headed to Petite Crevette for dinner. This French inspired seafood restaurant is highly regarded and BYOB - a real bonus during these dark economic times. We brought an inexpensive unoaked New Zealand Chardonnay - kind of got what we paid for on that one. Petite Crevette doesn't normally take reservations so we were surprised when asked if we had one. Reservations, we learned, are accepted/required on holidays and special occasions. Fortunately, and I mean damn fortunately, there was an empty table when we arrived and we were immediately seated. Within minutes a swell of would be diners, all like us, unaware of the special occasion reservation rule, crowded the door of this tiny bistro. Though the full menu appeared to be available, we were directed to the price fix menu ($49), an acceptable trade off for having snagged the last free table we'd see for the next hour and a half or so. For the appetizer course we chose the crab cake, and the tomato and fresh mozzarella salad. For our entrees we choose the Bouillabaisse, and the roasted Cod. For desert we chose the apple tart, and the poached pear. The owner and chef is quite the character and because his tiny kitchen is in the tiny front dining room where we sat, you could say his "colorful" personality was the final ingredient in our meal. Not a bad bite all night. Dinner for two came to $98 before tip. Petite Crevette is located at 144 Hicks Street on the corner of Union Street in Carrol Gardens, Brooklyn. Cash only.

Motivated by last week's successful Jamaican style ox tail stew, we decided to try our hands at jerk chicken. We marinated our chicken overnight and were actually concerned that it might be too hot as a result. Wrong! Though flavorful in its own right, our chicken was as jerked as George Bush is scholarly. The jalapeños we used in lieu of scotch bonnets had no fire. None. I knew jalapeños weren't as hot as scotch bonnets, but I didn't realize how much milder they are; scotch bonnets are 15-40 times hotter than the average jalapeño. Oh well, dinner was still tasty. We finished with some incomparable Teuscher Champaign Truffles and a bottle of Lindemans Framboise.

We decided to finish the long weekend on a strong note so we headed into the city for what I was told - by someone who knows! - is the top Ramen Noodle in town, Ippudo. Unfortunately, the place was packed. Despite the temptation of the rarely sighted Yebisu beer, having not eaten since breakfast we couldn't justify the hour wait so we headed to the nearby Menkui Tei. We ordered the Tonkotsu Ramen and a miso based pork ramen, the Mabo Tofu, and washed it down with a 33.8 oz Asahi (which came with a spicy shrimp appetizer for a budget pleasing $12!!!). Filling, delicious, and the perfect way to finish a weekend full of great eats. Dinner came to $37 before tip. Menkui Tei is located at 63 Cooper Sq., between 7th St. and Astor. Cash only.

Iron Chef Brookyn - The Blog

As you may remember I participated in an Iron Chef Battle a couple of months ago - Battle Cheddar. Since then I've judged a couple more battles, Battle Cereal, and this past weekend, Battle Pasta. The host, and until this past weekend, reigning champ, has set up a blog chronicling the battles thus far. It's still under development but I can see it becoming a good resource - several of us will be adding our recipes to the site. This is timely stuff because my battle partner Cybele and I will be battling the new champs on March 21 in Battle Pork. Who can resist pork?

Buy And Hold? Not So Much

This snapshot shows the Dow's performance over the last 10 years or so (roughly the amount of time since my graduation from law school). Without even adjusting for inflation, the Dow is netting a big fat 0% return over that period. I don't think many people "buy and hold" these days but I remember when that was considered good advice. Or maybe it still is? I don't have much invested but what I have was saved by pure luck. Early last year I rolled over an old employer 401K into a new IRA but neglected to complete the instructions indicating how I wanted the rolled over funds allocated. Absent instruction, the funds were placed in a money market account. I forgot all about it until the current crisis started to really snowball. When I finally checked on my account, imagine my surprise to find out that instead of losing most of my money during the last year, I'm up a killer (in this market) 1%. Me, your new financial genius.

What Don't You Fuckin' Understand?

The remix. If you have no idea what this is about, check here.

Where's Urkel?

He probably told them he was busy ...