Squash, Sprouts and Symphonies

Accompanying this fall market meal was the sweet and savory serenading of Andrew Bird's latest album's extension, Hands of Glory. The carotene laden roasted sweet butternut squash, savory fennel, red onions and garlic cloves were simply dusted with fresh sprigs of thyme, salt, pepper and olive oil and thrown in the oven at 400 for about 40 minutes. I took brussel sprouts fresh from their thick stalky vine, cut them in half, and sauteed them with garlic and some proscuitto. I added a side of Arborro rice to bulken it up a bit - but honestly the two veggie dishes would have sufficed.

Needless to say, Andrew Bird's poignant layering of violin, voice, and looping symphonics synchronize well with a fall dish such as this - you have savory flavors of the earth soaking up the last of the season's nutrients generating an orchestral foundation for the trusted and sturdy cruciferous vegetables that grace our presence through the Northeast November. Adding to that the reliable flavors and fillers of proscuitto and rice, just as Bird peppers in his whistling, and mostly dependable guitar, you cultivate a rich and layered meal, providing your body, soul and sense with the abundant nourishment of the seasonal transition.

I Can Only Dream of Garnering this Type of Food Passion

Auto-Tune Love: Original:

Javelin & Garlic Scape Pesto Dip

Javelin has sparked creativity in me like no other artist has yet to achieve, and I would like to attribute their poppy but funky, electo-infused harmonies to my innate tendencies to bring together unassuming but workable flavor combinations in food.



This pesto was originally purposed for pasta, but once I tried it, I knew it was a multi-purpose dip. Eat with crackers, spread for sandwiches or use to coat your pasta. Ingredients inclue: garlic scapes (about 8 full scapes), tahini, raw zucchini, and a splash of balsamic vinegar and water to great fluidity.

Purple Carrots, Pink Rutabaga, & the Fruit Bats

This is my first attempt to showcase multi-taste integration through this self-indulgent web platform. For me, cooking is a creative outlet, and in order for the creative juices to flow, I have to pair the food with the proper ambiance: music and lighting. These sensory escapades are a part of my daily life, and to archive them seems a natural outlet, so please enjoy more holistic food experiences to come...

I purchased these lovely purple carrots and pink rutabaga at the market, tossed with olive oil and roasted them with garlic, red onion. I served the roasted vegetables over raw kale with olive oil, some fresh white cheese and balsamic dressing.

To accompany this farmers market bounty, the Fruit Bats folksy, dreamy serenading seemed quite fitting. The earthiness to their sound paired well with the way the carrots crisped up and crunched with the raw kale.

I LOVE ELECTROFUNK

Sharing some of my current favorites.

Smoked Salmon Pasta Salad

My neighborhood Asian/Hispanic grocery store carries a wide selection of fish at really good prices, but for some reason cooking with fish has always intimidated me (a relic from days as a vegetarian).

Not so practical, I know, so I'm going to start with the cured stuff first and slowly re-integrate these proteins back into my home-cooked cuisine.


I made a smoked salmon pasta salad with a lemon-yogurt-dill sauce, cucumbers, avocado, red onion and capers. Note to self: yum, repeat.

I Have Been Granted Free Lobster Rolls for Life

So the story goes like this: My dear friend Mariana Cotlear (with whom I have shared many follies of foodie culture in NYC) invited me to visit her new friend who opened a food truck in the West Village that sells lobster rolls. The whole concept is to bring to the city a bona-fide, Montauk-based lobster experience, served up in the park straight from a shiny, refurbished Airstream RV, painted turquoise on the interior and operated by a bronzed beach goer named Stephane.

We were drinking white wine and eating lobster and brainstorming names for the food truck. After some time, throwing around words, and I offered The Lobster Tank. Stephane decided that was it.We proceeded to celebrate by consuming more of our surrounding delicacies.

What does it mean for me? Free lobster rolls, indefinitely. Check and check.

Oh So Close! HIGGS, where art though?

"Known as the Higgs boson, it explains why things in the universe have mass, and is a cornerstone of modern physics despite never being seen....The discovery of a new fundamental constituent of nature, as the Higgs would be, is a once-in-a-generation event and the imminent discovery of the Higgs at CERN, outside Geneva, has thrown physicists into a frenzy of rumor and speculation."

Today's NY Times.

Pastrami Reuben at Katz Delicatessen

Pastrami Reuben sandwich at Katz Delicatessen in the Lower East Side. Makes me question why was I ever a vegetarian.

RAM

I can't believe I've lived 26 years without hearing this album:

Asparagus Brunch Salad

Asparagus

Frisée

Bacon

Poached or Boiled Eggs

Pecorino Cheese

Dressing: Lemon Juice, Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil

Please people, get to the farmer's market and treat yourself to some spring asparagus. For this salad, I cut the asparagus up diagonally and blanched it in boiling water for just 2 minutes. Serve over frisée or mixed greens with a lemon & olive oil vinaigrette.

Spontaneous Bruschetta

I was rummaging through my fridge, and this is what I had:

beets + their greens
red pepper
goat cheese
hummus
loaf of bread about one day away from croutinizing

So, I sauteed garlic (a given in my fridge), beets, peppers and their greens, splashed a little balsamic over the mix, toasted the bread, spread them with goat cheese and bit of hummus and topped it with the vegetables.

Spontaneous bruschetta: tasty, filling, & exceptionally nutritious - from iron to fiber, this one's got the micro- & macro-nutrient fields covered.

mmm...sweet, sweet succulence

EASY PIZZIE

Almost every Sunday night growing up, my family would eat pizza. No, we didn't order it, nor did we throw a it's -just-like-delivery-DiGiorno in the oven, my mom made the dough and we selected our toppings and constructed our pies ourselves. A recent reconstruction of this tasty Sunday evening treat is to the left. The dough is so simple and delicious you'll wonder why in the world you've never given it a shot before.

Proof 1 tbsp yeast in 1 cup warm water with 1 1/2 tsp of salt and 1 1/2 tsp sugar for about 5-10 minutes. Pour this mixture of 2 cups of all-purpose flour (don't go for wheat, you'll regret it later). Knead the dough with another 1/2 - 3/4 cup flour under smooth (it shouldn't be sticky). Let the dough rise till it's doubled in size, 1 1/2 - 2 hours.

Spray your pan with PAM (very important) and color your pizza with your favorite toppings. I chose peppers, onions and Sopressata for this one. Bake at 425 or so for 12-15 minutes. Eat as many pieces as you can.

A Timely Dosage of Rufus

Rufus Wainwright's new album, Out of the Game, is utterly beautiful.

Fool's Gold - The Dive

From now on, I'd like my nature excursions to be like this:

The Last Warm Winter Salad Before Summer

I know its spring now, but we're in that awkward stage before the real growth happens and still stuck with an abundance of winter veggies. So I'm doing it one more time, making my roasted vegetable kale salad. 

Inspired by my dear friend and food comrade, Mariana Cotlear (whose amazing food blog you can follow at Epicuriosa), I have officially established this as my favorite winter vegetable dish. I believe the trick to surviving the winter (especially in cold, drafty NYC apartments) is onions, garlic, root veggies and your oven.

Give the kale nice rub down with olive oil (literally, massage it with your hands as my sista Joanna has taught me), and chop your veggies into pieces that are relatively uniform in size (unless you want to leave some small pieces for yummy charring).

Toss all the veggies in oil, salt and pepper, and roast in the oven at 400-425 for about 30-40 minutes.

For this dish, I chose:
Beets
Fennel
Red Onions
Sweet Potatoes
Yams
Carrots
Garlic

Serve your veggies over the kale with a sprinkle of balsamic vinegar or lemon juice and voila: warm winter salad.

Ever Need Some Blogging Inspiration?

Read David Byrne's Journal.

For me, right now, he's like the Carl Sagan of my music world. I keep going back to learn more from him. Oh so wise, so full of integrity, a man of pure ingenious. Now I just need to find him riding your bike around the streets of New York. Eyes are peeled for sexy, tall, slightly awkward, white-haired man.

Green Onion Regeneration

My dear friend, food science champion and taster extraordinaire, Patricia Peters, let me in on a little secret about green onions: you never have to buy them again! Use the green portion, leave about 3-4 inches of white stem + root, stick 'em in a glass of water, place them on a windowsill and reap the benefits of plant regeneration! This batch lasted a few months before the roots were exhausted of nutrients.

Bright Moments

Once I read that Kelly Pratt, the visionary behind Bright Moments, had but the co-conspirator of Beirut, LCD Soundsystem and Arcade Fire, my deeply ingrained itch for mainstream Indie rock started tickling. I love this music. The heavy beats interplayed with the light touches of clapping and multi-instrumentality of it makes it feel somewhat transnational (I think). I can't help it, YES I do proscribe to the prototypical sounds of mainstream Indie rock. Bring on that electronica infused accordion knee slappin' toonage!

What my Grandpa Burd taught me

Soft Boiled Eggs: a yummy, healthy alternative to frying. Just place them in boiling water for 5 minutes, and voila, a cooked white, a soft yolk, a great way to add some protein to your salad, sandwich or sauteed veggies.

My Special Sauce

Due to popular demand, I am revealing my special-power-sauce-that-makes-everything-taste-amazing to the cyber world. I grew up in America, so yes, I'm a big junkie for sauces and despite my shameless food snobbery, I am willing to admit that sometimes I do engage in the blasphemous treatment of vegetables as solely a vehicle for sauce.

There are several variations of this sauce, but the basic ingredients are as follows:

Peanut Butter
Rice Vinegar, Lime Juice, or both
Soy Sauce
Cilantro, or Green Onions, or both
Ginger, Garlic, or both
Tahini (optional)
Sesame Seeds (optional)
Splash of water

The key is to not add too much soy sauce rice vinegar, but also to tame the peanut butter and/or tahini by adding a little water. Chop your fresh herbs, garlic and ginger finely. Tastes best over buckwheat noodles, rice noodles, with of course, a bountiful array of sauteed veggies.

Rolling into Spring

Although my domestic cooking repertoire has been on the up-and-up lately, I have clearly lacked the motivation to share my skills on a cyberspacial level. Posting about musical tastes takes less effort, but alas, here my latest creation, thanks to inspiration from my one of my soul sisters, Joanna, who was visiting from Chicago for a couple weeks.

SPRING ROLLS - A fun, fresh, healthy commencement of the tasty new season.

Ingredients: Variable
I used the following (going clockwise in the picture): bean sprouts, red cabbage, julienned carrots, cucumbers, avocado, cilantro, firm tofu, peanut butter, Siracha, mint leaves, rice paper. I kinda went all out with ingredients, but you could use half the ingredients and they would still turn out great.

How to make the perfect spring roll: Be patient, it's going to take a couple tries! I poured some water onto a plate and dipped the rice paper in and out of the water 7 times. You want to make sure the rice paper isn't too soaked and stretchy when you put it down on your work surface since it will continue to change in composition as you fill it with ingredients. Also, do not be overly enthusiastic when filling your spring rolls: you only need a small, small portion of each ingredient to fill these things up.

Roll up the ingredients and just before wrapping it burrito style, spread a layer of peanut butter, Siracha and a mint leave on paper. This will sort of glue the whole roll together.

Dipping Sauce: I'm a sauce junky. I used a little rice vinegar, soy sauce, tahini and/or peanut butter, sesame seeds, mixed to a consistency of your liking. If it gets too thick or intense, just add a bit of water to calm it down.

Menahan Street Band

This is precisely what I've been waiting for - a funky, sexy, soulful conglomeration off of Daptone records. Satisfaction attained.

This is so rad.

Andrew Bird Bliss.

It's about time the Shins came out with a new album!