Lately.

Just a quick roundup of things I've eaten and sipped lately. First up, superlative green papaya salad from Wondee Siam II in Hell's Kitchen. This place has some delicious Thai and is a stone's throw from Ars Nova (my brother's theater), so we spend a serious amount of time here. (Also worth trying? Any of the curries.)

Speaking of curries, they come with a pyramidal side of fluffy white rice. As a rice lover, I hardly need any inducement to eat mine, but come on. That's too fun.

Shake Shack does day-of-the-week flavors, which change up once a month. August's Friday flavor is blueberry coffee cake: soft blueberry custard with coffee cake mixed in. It's pretty freaking good, and is delightfully redolent of cinnamon (my favorite compliment to the juicy blueberries of summer).

 

A gin gimlet at Ouest on the Upper West Side. These guys sling the most reliably delicious cocktails north of 59th Street, and I love spending an evening sipping and nibbling - the kitchen sends out regular batches of toasty warm gougeres.

Finally, a pickle sampler from the new restaurant Jacob's Pickles. The biscuits are good; the pickles are awesome. From left to right, we've got dill spears, carrots, spicy beets and dilly green beans. More pickles than even this obsessive could finish.

Improving myself.

Louisa, my cousin Jason and I took a pickling class at Murray's Cheese a couple of weeks ago, and it was awesome! The class was led by the lovely and patient Bob McClure (Of McClure's Pickles, of course!), who put up with all of our inane questions, most of which went something like, "If I do XYZ, will I poison myself by way of pickled goodness?"

A lot of the technique focused on canning, as opposed to pickling itself, but since canning has always scared the bejesus out of me (see above question), I found that pretty helpful. I'm willing to mess about with flavoring and ingredients, but I like to know how to do it without risking botulism, you know?

(One cardinal rule: always follow the brine proportions in the recipe. They're there for a reason. Muck about with spices and herbs as much as you like, but keep the ratio of salt to water to vinegar, mmmkay?)

We made cauliflower pickles (garnished liberally with bell peppers and cucumbers), but I haven't tasted mine yet. (Or Louisa's, which she left here for my snacking enjoyment.) I promise a full update - and recipe - when I do.

My bo has been ssämed.

I've written about the Bo Ssäm dinner at Momofuku Ssäm many, many times, so I'm not going to bore you all with yet another recap. If you're interested in details, you can check out my past reports here (2009) and here (2007).

What was notable about my most recent trip, though, was that was finally able to get decent photos of the goings-on. Finally! So enjoy the food porn, and I hope you have porkified dreams.

Ladies (and Nick) who lunch.

After our visit to DeLoach, Miriam, Nick, Louisa and I took a drive up the road to the ridiculously adorable town of Healdsburg. Nestled in between Dry Creek and the Russian River, Healdsburg is a great jumping off point for exploring the eastern side of Sonoma. It's full of delicious restaurants, and we've already decided we want to give the Hotel Healdsburg a try.

But we hadn't come to Healdsburg looking for a place to sleep - we were hungry, and in search of good food. We poked around my guide book a bit, but it was a Tuesday afternoon and lots of places listed were closed. We decided to just park the car downtown and wander a bit. A block or two into our walk, we stumbled onto the Healdsburg Bar & Grill (listed in the book, but noted for its child-friendliness, something we'd specifically avoided) and decided its outdoor seating and salad- and sandwich-heavy menu was just the thing.

We sat in the sun (though we were still a bit chilly; it was incredibly windy that day) and ordered a bucket of pickles to share, along with macaroni and cheese (me), a BLT (Louisa), tomato and fig salad (Miriam) and the portobello burger (Nick).

Like pretty much everywhere else I ate in California (save the taqueria truck), Healdsburg Bar & Grill is obsessed with the origin of its food; almost every item on the menu listed the provenance of the primary ingredients. While this convention can get a bit trying, it did telegraph a level of care and attention for the food that boded well for the meal.

The pickles came first, in all their salty, briny glory. Nick and I both loved the bread & butter pickles; the other items on offer (dill spears, pickled peppers, green beans) were good, but not great. Of course, they were still pickles, so I liked them fine.

Next up, our mains. Louisa loved her sandwich - so much so that I couldn't get a picture of it before she got started on it. Ditto on Nick's portobello burger. Miriam, though, is family, so I had no qualms ordering her to hold off for a photo of her beautiful salad. Figs, tomatoes and creamy (not crumbly) feta made for a delicious combination, rich and sweet and salty all at once.

My macaroni and cheese was good, but not great. More of a creamy pasta with a sprinkling of panko on top, it was dotted with bacon and rich with stinky cheeses, as opposed to mild, kid-friendly cheddar. That said, it could have used a bit more tang, and the bites I enjoyed most were those I supplemented with teeny dots of mustard.

Overall, though, I'd highly recommend Healdsburg Bar & Grill as a lunch destination. The food was really well-done, and the menu is small enough to ensure that every item is given the care and attention it deserves. I can't speak for dessert, though - we went down the street for that. And, oh boy, was it good.

Healdsburg Bar & Grill
245 Healdsburg Avenue
Healdsburg, CA
707.433.3333

Momofuku fried chicken dinner, or: we almost finished the whole thing, except not really.

A few weeks ago, word came down from on high that Momofuku Noodle Bar would be offering a fried chicken dinner for $100 via their online reservations system. Obviously, I signed up immediately. I knew my brother, Jeremy, would be as excited as I was, and he and my sister-in-law Miriam agreed to join me. We still had two spots open in our reservation, so I consulted the Twitterverse. Sure enough, the lovely and freshly-married Kathryn Yu (who also photographed the meal) volunteered to join us, and to bring her husband Dan along for the fun.

Our motley crew met up at Momofuku Noodle at eight o'clock last Thursday. We were the second fried chicken dinner of the night; the restaurant does three (6 PM, 8 PM and 10 PM). The night got off to a serendipitous start when we found out that our waiter was none other than Eric Murdoch, who'd performed as an actor for the first play Jeremy produced here in Manhattan. Eric got us going with a round of the restaurant's justly famous alcoholic slushies (these were watermelon spiked with soju, a Korean rice wine).

Eric told us the chicken would take about 20 minutes to cook, so we decided to kill time by ordering a couple of appetizers. We ordered the pork buns, the heirloom tomato salad with melon and the corn with fingerling potatoes.

All were fantastic, though the tomatoes and pork buns outshone the corn a bit. The pork buns, which are the same ones you find over at Momofuku Ssam Bar, are just flat-out insane. Fluffy and chewy and filled with pork belly and lightly pickled cucumbers, they're just ridiculously good. The tomato salad was really interesting; I was surprised at how well the sweetness of the melon complimented the tomatoes instead of competing with them, and the smoky saltiness of the ham crisp brought the whole thing safely back to porky Momofuku land.

The chef sent out a special treat: seared scallops with corn and chili oil. These were delicious as well; we couldn't quite suss out what seasoning had made its way onto the scallops, but it was something truly yummy. The scallops themselves were large, but still tender and moist. And who doesn't love corn?

And then, finally, the main event. A giant - and I do mean giant - platter of chicken was set down on the table, along with a stack of moo shu pancakes and a bowl of gorgeous herbs and veggies, including radishes, carrots, shisito peppers, opal basil, thai basil, mint, bibb lettuce and shiso leaves. Next came a flight of four sauces: hoisin, jalapeño-garlic, bibim, and ginger-scallion.

There were two kinds of chicken: half of the meat was dipped in buttermilk and seasoned with Old Bay, while the other half was cooked Korean-style, triple-fried and basted with bibim sauce and vinegar.

The idea is that you take a little of everything - the veggies, the herbs, the lettuce and, of course, the chicken, fold it up in a pancake, add some sauce to your liking, and eat the whole thing. After a few minutes of tearing into the chicken with our bare hands, it became clear why the restaurant had covered the table in a sheet of butcher's paper. We left grease stains everywhere, evidence of how thoroughly we enjoyed ourselves.

Overall, our group preferred the Korean chicken to the buttermilk; the meat seemed a bit more tender and well-seasoned, whereas the Old Bay seasoning was confined to the crust of the buttermilk chicken. That said, we enjoyed both offerings and tried to divide our attention as evenly as possible. We didn't want any chicken to feel bad about itself.

We were divided on the topic of the sauces; I was partial to the bibim sauce spiced up with a dash of Sriracha, while Jeremy favored the jalapeño-garlic mixed with the hoisin. Obviously, though, there was something for everyone. The only thing I would do differently? Order a pot of the house pickles to go with everything.

Despite Eric cheering us on, the five of us were not up to the task of eating every last bit. Though I'm sure they were ever-so-slightly disappointed in us, the staff did a crack job of boxing everything up (in three containers) for us to take home and enjoy cold from the fridge.

All of these gorgeous photos were snapped by the very talented Kathryn Yu. You can find more of her work at KathrynYu.com.

Charcuterie, chez moi.

It was pretty dang warm here on Friday. Don't get me wrong - this spate of summer-like weather we've been having is very, very welcome - not to mention good for Memorial Day business at the local beaches. That said, my motivation to actually cook tends to dwindle as the temperature rises. So, for lunch, I decided to break out the charcuterie.

Pâté de campagne is one of my favorite types of charcuterie - I tend to prefer the more rustic versions, where the meat is chopped as opposed to pureed, and boldly flavored with cognac and black pepper. Of course, going for pâtés made of pork (pâté de grandmère is another good example) is also a more economical option than springing for those made with duck and foie gras.

Lately, I've been favoring Les Trois Petits Cochons for my charcuterie needs. They're based in Brooklyn and produce a full line of delectable charcuterie, including vegetable terrine and the aforementioned pate de campagne.

When I got home from the Greenmarket (where I'd bought a loaf of whole wheat sourdough from one of the bakery stands), I cut a few slices of pate, spooned a few pickled ramps out of their jar, sliced the bread and dished out a little whole grain mustard. A little light on the veggies, sure - but who needs salad when you've got pâté? Not I, my friend. Not I.

In a pickle.

My love for pickles is famous, in certain circles. When I was growing up in Connecticut, we'd pile in the car for drives up to my aunt and uncle's house in Massachusetts. The best part of the drive (aside from the destination, of course) was our regular pit stop at Rein's Deli just south of Hartford, where the sandwiches are massive, and the pickles just keep coming.

My love for pickling is a more recent development, but is no less of an obsession. When spring rolls around, I find myself desperate to pickle everything in sight, the better to preserve the bounty of the season through the long, cold winter I know is coming. Well, that - and I just love the sweet, vinegary crunch of a good pickle.

For the last few weeks, the greenmarket vegetable most worth pickling has been that stinky harbinger of spring: ramps. I follow this recipe from Serious Eats for my ramp pickling, and it hasn't steered me wrong yet. The fennel and coriander lend the ramps an additional complexity, enhancing their essential garlic-tinged, meaty flavor.

Pickling is super-easy, too - I don't have the storage space to do actual canning, so I just store my jars in the fridge till I have the opportunity to use the goodies I've accumulated. (Need some ideas about what to do with your bounty? Check out this link.) They also make fabulous gifts, and a couple of the jars I have in the fridge right now are slated to make their way into some hot little hands in the next couple of weeks. Lucky ducks.

Once you go local...

Blue Hill at Stone Barns is, for many New York food-lovers, a place of near-mythic importance. One does not visit; one pays homage, or, at the very list, makes a pilgrimage. Its chef, Dan Barber, is justifiably famous for his pioneering role in the evolution of haute barnyard cuisine, and the food at the restaurant is truly delicious. I first visited last December, and, due to a Christmas season traffic jam, my group arrived too late to take our planned jaunt around the farm. So when Lisa and I were looking for something to do last Saturday afternoon, we decided to get in her car and head across the Tappan Zee to the Stone Barns Center in Tarrytown.

Stone Barns sits on the old Rockefeller estate in the Pocantico Hills section of town. The buildings themselves date from the 1930's, and were first part of a dairy farm, and later the location of Peggy Rockefeller's cattle ranch. In 2004, the Rockefellers invited Dan Barber to open a for-profit restaurant as part of the larger not-for-profit agricultural and educational experiment - a center for learning about environmentally responsible, four-season farming with a restaurant to match.

It's easy to see why the experiment took root so quickly and so deeply. The property itself is stunning - all gentle slopes and rolling hills, with the stately barns rising out of a hollow in the valley. Walking around the pastures and the vegetable fields, you run into all sorts - parents pushing strollers, locals out for a morning jog, and foodies paying homage. In addition to the restaurant, there's a casual cafe open daily that serves strong, hot coffee (a must for keeping warm on long, blustery walks around the farm), sandwiches, salads and pastries. Almost all of the food on offer is grown or raised on the property, which means the menus are exclusively seasonal and change daily.

Lisa and I arrived around 1 o'clock, and started our visit with a quick trip to the gift shop. I know, I know - but, this is a truly excellent shop. I picked up a couple of $6 grocery tote bags - perfect stocking stuffers - and a fantastic (and challenging) trivia game called Foodie Fight. I also spied a truly gorgeous cookbook called Country Cooking of France, which is going on my Christmas list.

Since it was lunchtime, and since we needed fortification for our planned walk, we decided to have lunch next. The line snakes around the tiny cafe in a circle, which gave us ample opportunity to scope out all that was on offer. I grabbed a jar of cucumber pickles from the shelf, and thought seriously about the cow-printed tea towels and teeny coffee cakes. Also available: the decidedly not local but truly delicious Rancho Gordo heirloom beans.

We finally made it up to the counter, where we ordered the bologna sandwich with pickles, zucchini fritatta, caramel apple, apple custard tart, and two big, steaming cups of coffee. We camped out at a picnic table outside and wolfed down our feast.

The homemade bologna was the best bologna I have ever tasted - light in texture, tangy and meaty in flavor, and layered on a fluffy piece of focaccia spread with strong mustard. The apple tart was a bit too sweet, but the cookie crumble crust on the bottom was salty enough to cut the sugar. The caramel apple, served on a twig, was deliciously smoky, if tooth-crackingly tough to bite into. All in all, a good lunch.

Finally, filled with lunchtime goodness, we set off on a walk around the property. We walked past the private dining room, where the staff were setting up for a wedding, arranging flowers and building a chuppah out of twigs and berries from the farm and surrounding park. We saw a fallow vegetable field, walked past the dairy cows relaxing in their pasture, and paid a visit to the chickens, who gathered around our feet, pecking gently at our toes in search of a snack.

Just past the chickens were a flock of pure-white ducks and a few gigantic pigs. These guys had to be at least three hundred pounds each. As we approached, I remembered the bologna sandwich and started feeling a bit, well, guilty. But then I realized how happy the pigs were, rooting around in their trough, enjoying the sunshine, wandering at will, and realized it was not only the best-tasting bologna I'd ever eaten - it was also probably the most ethically sound.

All in all, that was the prevailing lesson of the day. Seeing where your food comes from, spending time with it, smelling the earth out of which it grew, picking your way across the field where it was raised - it makes you that much more appreciative of it, and far more aware of the impact your choices have. The peace of mind you gain by understanding how your food was produced cannot be overstated. Yes, it can be expensive and a bit of a hassle to eat locally and humanely, but if you can afford the little bit of extra money and a little bit more extra time, it truly is worth it.