Zagat's is out -- and Queens is on top

I love to complain about Zagat's. It can be so glib. It's subject to the whims and trends of finicky diners (especially in New York). I hate how it's such a shorthand for food, reducing everything to a numerical score. All too frequently the score is a reflection of what a bunch of diners think about what the New York Times critics think. A friend of mine likes to mock restaurants that put a big "Zagat Rated" display in their front window. "It's like saying 'We're in the phone book'! Who cares? It's meaningless!"

Nevertheless, in the jungle of NYC kitchens and tables, it can be a useful guide. I'm happy to see Queens is represented well in the latest version of the guide, which gives major props to Trattoria L'incontro, Sapori D'Ischia, Sripraphai, and Tournesol.

Best milkshake in New York?

I stumbled upon Brgr yesterday, having somehow avoided any buzz or or word-of-mouth. And the days of me seeking out good hamburger restaurants are a distant memory.

But as I was walking back from the art galleries in Chelsea, I happened to see they claimed to have the best milkshake in New York. Could it be true? Could a place without vowels actually have a frosty cold river of frothy, bold taste? I decided to find out.

I ordered a black and white shake. They only have one size and it costs $5.50. After five minutes or so, a small, clear, plastic cup arrived about the height of a soda can. The color of the milkshake was deep sienna. The size smaller than I expected. But the flavor. Oh the flavor.

It was just the right consistency, melted enough not to roadblock the straw but frozen enough to have a slow creep of wintery goodness. The vanilla taste was up-front and all around and the chocolate was subtle and lasting. It's easily as good as Shake Shack's milkshake, which is the most comparable shake I have to compare it to. And there wasn't a line.

Unlike Stand, which I'm boycotting because of bad service issues involving bored cooks brazenly bouncing ketchup bottles off their biceps while I waited for 20 minutes, I'll definitely put Brgr in my list of fvrt NY shks.

Brgr is located at 287 7th Ave (between 26th and 27th Streets), Manhattan.

Carrot cake cupcake recipe

Since the cupcakes I made for Jennifer's birthday were such a huge success, I thought I'd share the recipe (and the modifications I made from the Barefoot Contessa's).

The biggest change I made to this recipe were adding a lot more carrots, baking at 400 degrees for the whole time, and... the coup de sucre... injecting frosting into the carrot cake cupcakes.

I've put up a food porn photo set from the making of.

Here was the finished product (sorry for the fuzzy but the photo was taken *after* the party):

Here's the recipe, with my modifications. Pretty shamefully ripped off of the Food Network's site, but I hate how URLs can disappear.

2 cups sugar
1 1/3 cups vegetable oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 extra-large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 cups grated carrots (less than 1 pound) Use a whole pound
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped walnuts

For the frosting:
3/4 pound cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 pound confectioners' sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Beat the sugar, oil, and vanilla together in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the eggs, 1 at a time. In another bowl, sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low speed, add 1/2 of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Add the grated carrots, raisins, and walnuts to the remaining flour, mix well, and add to the batter. Mix until just combined.

Line muffin pans with paper liners. Scoop the batter into 22 muffin cups until each is 3/4 full. Bake at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes then reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F and cook for 35 45 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a rack.

For the frosting, cream the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the sugar and beat until smooth.

When the cupcakes are cool, poke a hole in them. Put cream cheese frosting into a baker's bag and inject the frosting in until it begins to ooze out. Frost and serve.

The recipe makes A LOT of frosting. I only decided to try injecting it when I realized I'd have way too much frosting just for the tops of the cupcakes. Even after injecting, you'll still have enough, in fact, that after your cupcake party you'll come home a little tipsy and find a little frosting in the fridge waiting for drunken consumption. PERFECT.

I made the frosting to taste, adding little bits of confectioner's sugar until it met my exacting sweet tooth. I went ahead and added all the carrots because #1: have you ever had carrot cake that's too carroty? I haven't. And #2: Who wants a stray carrot or two rotting in their fridge, turning gray and limp and lonely?

One note on the bakers bag: you can make it yourself. I rolled up a piece of cardboard into a cone and taped it to the corner of a heavy-duty freezer bag. I taped it to make sure it was secure and that precious frosting didn't ooze out all over the place.

The best things about this recipe: The tops of the cupcakes get slightly crunchy. The raisins and walnuts are delicate and not overpowering, which raisins and walnuts can certainly be. And there's frosting inside!

Burritopedia

What's with the burrito? It's conveniently wrapped to eat with your hands, but almost impossible to do so. You can stuff anything in a tortilla and call it a burrito. Of course, the burrito is as close to Mexican food as Pizza Hut is to Neopolitan pizza. It's American, which of course means it's going to be unruly and overstuffed and weird and delicious. Don't believe me? Ask the folks at Burritophile.

Getting Wet

Knowledge for Thirst, an endlessly fascinating blog of beverage taste tests, reviews everything wet. They sort out Mountain Dew Baja Blast:

Mountain Dew is some crazy motherfuckers. Why would you create a ridiculously good soda and then basically hide it from the general public? They are really making a concerted effort towards market saturation these days, to mixed results. Mountain LiveWire is pretty terrible, I feel. Code Red is just OK. But Mountain Dew Baja Blast is freaking amazing and has shot to the top of my favorite sodas list. So why is their best flavor only available at Taco Bell? That is some wacked-out shit that I cannot wrap my brain around at the moment. I would be buying this stuff by the gallon if it was available at the local 5 and 10. But who’s going to trip over themselves in a mad dash to Taco Bell just to try it? The whole thing just don’t make no sense.

The party line, flavor-wise, is that this is Mountain Dew with a bit of a tropical lime twist. Which I guess I get, aside from my uncertainty about what makes a lime tropical. But the beverage itself is a lovely fluorescent blue, and it totally fills the Pepsi Blue-shaped hole in my heart. I wish I could try them side by side to compare, but since all you punks failed to get my back on the Pepsi Blue tip, it’s no longer available. Thanks for that. But whatever, it’s fine, since Baja Blast is here now. Although wait, Mountain Dew is owned by Pepsi, so what are the chances that this is all just a rebranding strategy? Oh my goodness I am totally smart. That’s why it reminds me so much of Pepsi Blue, that‘s exactly what it is. Do you feel the magic of the moment we are sharing right now or what. I knew that Pepsi Blue and I were destined to be together and even 100 million idiots voting with their wallets for Diet Cherry Pepsi Vanilla with Lemon (*rolls eyes*) could not keep us apart.

Except the problem is that I’m still left feeling totally skeevy driving through the Taco Bell a few times a week, just to get a large soda. That’s some junkie-level shit right there. You can’t spend that much time at Taco Bell each week and still manage to meet your own stare in the mirror. You can’t. I am telling you I been there, and you can’t. I’m willing to admit that the just-out-of-reach-ness of Baja Blast informs the appeal and increases what we in the industry call “cravitude,” but I can’t believe for a second that that was anything but an unforeseen by-product of the marketing plan. Come on. Have you ever known marketing executives to be anything but lazy? Not if you’re honest, and I want you to be honest. I mean they were too lazy to invent a new flavor, as we established above.

Butchering a pig, Tuscan style

Ever want to know what goes into that rustic Italian sopressata? Ever want to go to your local greenmarket and drive away with a whole pig carcass draped over your Vespa? Here's a great article by Bill Burford about learning how to butcher a pig from Dario Cecchini, the man who inspired his Babbo-ness, Mario Batali.

In one passage, Buford describes an old Tuscan recipe for the pig's hind legs, called proscuitti.

You started by breaking the legs down into their major muscles, using your fingers to find “the seams.” The Maestro had taken me through the process and created a road map of sorts. The result was a bowl of pork pieces—around a dozen. Next, you brined them by tipping an abundance of salt into a bucket of water and swirling until it half dissolved into a soupy paste. Two days later, you removed the pieces and cooked them slowly in white wine, leaving them to cool overnight before storing them in olive oil in the morning. The pieces, half cured, wine-flavored, and submerged in oil, keep for a year.

The recipe, I now appreciate, was probably devised to clean up problem pork during the hot months. In general, you don’t kill pigs in the summer unless they’re ill, and Dario once let slip that the contadino had used the recipe for his sick pigs—not the kind of information a butcher forthrightly shares with his customers. (“Here, try this, a bit of diseased pork I incinerated.”) In the event, what Dario did or didn’t say was immaterial, because no one bought it. Who wants fat (pork) in fat (oil)? But the meat was actually lean, with the texture of fish, and in a moment of marketing clarity he renamed it tonno (tuna) del Chianti. In 2001, the Ministry of Agriculture recognized it as a food unique to the region, and today you find it on restaurant menus throughout Chianti. I prepare it with beans, lemon, and olive oil—like tuna.

A good, brief profile of this famous butcher of Chianti, without any blood or guts, can be found here. Dario's recipe for Florentine roast beef is here.

Cheeseheads, unite! And podcast!

No, not that kind of cheesehead.

If you've always been afraid of the word "podcast," it's time to get over it. The husband-and-wife team of Michael Claypool and Sasha Davies are setting out to travel the country and visit artisanal cheesemakers, documenting it on their site Cheese By Hand. And they'll be producing a regular podcast. About cheese. Get those mp3 players fired up now.

Save the Pastrami!

Another Lower East Side institution has been forced to close its doors.

The owner of the 2nd Avenue Deli said he closed the restaurant Sunday after a lease dispute with the building's new owners.

"My current rent is $24,000 a month for 2,800 square feet,'' Jack Lebewohl told The New York Times. "They want $33,000. I can't afford that.''

Jossip's tongue-in-cheek-on-rye obit here.

And sign the petition to save the 2nd Avenue Deli!

Turducken: A fowl game of Russian dolls

Here's another unholy stop on my continuing quest to see just how much human beings can pervert the natural order: turducken. When you put a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey, and then roast it for eight hours, you get turducken (thanks to Mattthew for the reminder).

I've heard of putting squab in chicken, and then chicken in turkey. But there's no name for that. There's a certain elegance about turducken. The name that fits together like a puzzle. The different birds, deboned, that fit together so snuggly with stuffing inside. I plan on using this idea behind all my eating habits, starting with my afterdinner mint: a tic-cert (a tic-tac stuffed inside a Cert).

Turducken is a Bayou favorite. Here's a recipe. Here's a story about a town in Louisiana where turducken reigns supreme (includes great multimedia!). And here's another link just so I can type turducken.

Kids getting Tastykaked

Remember high school lunches? I remember the choice: soggy gray food from steam trays, or yummy sweet goodies from the snack bar. One could spend $2 on limp pizza and mashed potatoes made from flakes (that tasted and felt more like grits), or for the same price get a bottle of Coca-Cola, three butterscotch krimpets, and a bag of Cheetos. Really wasn't a hard choice for me.

The snack bar gives kids what they want, but also treats parents and schools. Schools get money for textbooks and scoreboards, and parents get lower taxes. Meanwhile, their kids blow up and feel entitled to eat junk food all the time.

Now, as I go to the gym every morning to burn off those krumpets, I wonder why I was even given the choice. As a 16-year-old, I just wanted what tasted good all the time. As a 30-year-old, I know healthier food is better for me and (usually) make the choice for better nutrition and lower calories over savory, sweet snack food.

And as an adult taxpayer, I've learned a lesson: unhealthy youngsters grow into unhealthy adults. The small tax savings come back as a burden to kids when they grow up to pay for gym memberships, surgery, etc. Your insurance premiums go up as more and more obese people must get surgery to maintain a semblance of healthy living. Your taxes go up as more people on Medicaid and the poor have heart and respiratory problems. Simply put, feeding kids junk food is bad for America.

Now people are realizing it. Connecticut has enacted the nation's strictest junk food ban in schools, and 17 other states have similar policies. In a recent article about the school lunch program, Ron Haskins asks hard questions:

Consistent with the intent of the original school-lunch program, created by Congress in 1946 to provide “nutritious agricultural commodities” to children, the major purpose of today’s school-lunch program is to ensure that children, especially those from poor and low-income families, have nutritious food at school. The school-breakfast program started as a pilot in 1966 and was made permanent in 1975. How these programs, and the money that travels with them, have grown steadily over the years is a story that illustrates many of the underlying mechanisms of social policy creation in the nation’s capital. But can this aging machinery adapt to the demands of a fast-food culture? We created school lunch to feed the hungry. Can we now ask it to fight obesity?

This Makes Me Feel Kinda Dry-Heavey

Now you can DRINK Krispy Kremes. (Thx, New Yorkish!)

(I think I'll just drink the holes, thank you.)

God Bless the USA

What's the difference between whiskey and bourbon, you might ask. Cecil has the answer:

For a whiskey to qualify as bourbon, the law--by international agreement--stipulates that it must be made in the USA. It must be made from at least 51% and no more than 79% Indian corn, and aged for at least two years. (Most bourbon is aged for four years or more.) The barrels for aging can be made of any kind of new oak, charred on the inside. Nowadays all distillers use American White Oak, because it is porous enough to help the bourbon age well, but not so porous that it will allow barrels to leak. It must be distilled at no more than 160 proof (80% alcohol by volume). Nothing can be added at bottling to enhance flavor or sweetness or alter color. The other grains used to make bourbon, though not stipulated by law, are malted barley and either rye or wheat. Some Kentucky bourbon makers claim that the same limestone spring water that makes thoroughbred horses' bones strong gives bourbon whiskey its distinctive flavor. Kind of like that "it's the water" thing with Olympia beer.

Good Morning America

Harry Dean Stanton in Fire Walk with Me called fresh coffee "a cup of Good Morning America." I've recently discovered a new contender for that title, a surprisingly delicious and all-American drink to start out your day:

1 parts Beer
1 parts Tomato Juice

It's tempting to dismiss this combo out of hand. Especially after I tell you that the ideal beer choice is Budweiser. I'm no fan of either of the two ingredients, but they are perfect complements. The taste is something between the two dominant morning drinks, the Bloody Mary and the Mimosa. It's basically sparkling tomato juice.

Any unambitious yet palatable beer will do the trick. You can do better than Beast, but Stella really isn't necessary. One advantage of using Bud is that it has just enough alcohol for a nice morning glow, but not enough to negatively affect your morning commute.

The drink doesn't seem to have a common name. Recipes on the web have various other ingredients with various names. I learned about it from a guy I met on a camping trip. When I asked him what he called it he said, "beer and tomato juice." Give it a try at your next hangover!

The real thing may be dying, but the fake ones are everywhere

The death of the French bistro.

Finding the Carbs Within

Sick of all the anti-carb hysteria? The Amateur Gourmet has compiled a short list of ways you too can celebrate the carbs within and, um, solve some interpersonal issues as well. [Thx, The Morning News]

An Open Letter to America's Pizza Retailers

Dear Pizza People of the United States,

Pizza, as we have come to know and love it, has been long been a staple of the American diet. I, for one, salute your tireless innovation and dedication to the customer. Through the years you've given us myriad variations in crust thickness and density. You've found more receptacles for mozzarella than we ever dreamed possible. You pioneered the pizza delivery, the pizza buffet, the tiny plastic implement that holds the box lid off the top of our steaming pie. You gave us somewhere to spend Friday nights in our small Southern hometowns when our friends who dropped acid swore they could hear the cheese.

Pizza retailers, because you've stuck by us in some difficult times, I am only trying to help you when I say that this time you've gone too far. While I recognize that the tried and true sometimes may seem, well, tried, the abominations you are currently foisting on the pizza-eating public are straining our nation's loyalty to the industry. What focus group convinced you that the Steak-Umm-littered Philly Cheesesteak Pizza was a good idea? What Nascar Dad misled you into believing that average Americans want to dip an Overtobascoed Buffalo Chicken slice, suppurating with provolone, into a small tub of Ranch dressing-flavored Xanthan Gum?

I urge you to mend your ways before the Chili Cheese Burger overtakes the pizza as America's favorite food to eat on a Saturday night, stoned, with a three-liter of Sprite Remix. I trust you to come to your collective senses. As always, I am

Very Truly Yours,
Pizza Fan in NYC

I almost did this with Zagnut bars once

Woman buys 10,000 Mars bars, drives off in limo

Sushi omakase

All this time I've just been shoving sushi in my mouth without knowing how to properly order and eat the stuff. Should one put sushi in one's mouth with the fish or the rice on the tongue? Look to the Japanese character for "delicious" and you'll have the answer. Sushi etiquette.

Mint Julep Recipe

It's Derby time, so don your white suit and pretend you're either Colonel Sanders or Tom Wolfe, depending on your level of sophistication and how much you like fried chicken and/or modern architecture.

Here's an old-fashioned recipe for an old-fashioned race:

2 cups granulated sugar

2 cups water (branch water is ideal)

Fresh Mint

Crushed Ice

Kentucky Bourbon (2 ounces per serving)

Make a simple mint syrup* by boiling sugar and water together for 5 minutes; cool. Place in a covered container with 6 or 8 bruised mint sprigs. Refrigerate overnight.

Make a julep by filling a julep cup* or glass with crushed ice, then adding 1 tablespoon of mint syrup and 2 ounces of bourbon. Stir rapidly with a spoon to frost outside of cup or glass. Garnish with a fresh mint sprig..

*This makes enough syrup for about 44 juleps.

Extra Tips:

Always use a premium Kentucky bourbon
Use crushed or shaved ice and pack in cup.

To bruise mint, place in a cup and gently pass the back of a spoon between cup and the leaves a time or two. You want the mint to release some of the fragrant oils.

Add a straw cut to protrude just above the rim of the cup and serve. You should be able to get a faint whiff of the mint sprig when you're sipping.

Keep the covered syrup in the refrigerator (after removing the mint leaves) if you don't plan on drinking all the servings.. Enjoy later....

Posted by harry / Food / PermaLink

Ice Cream Socialism

In case you missed free cone day yesterday at Ben and Jerry's (or honestly, even if you didn't), Baskin-Robbins has their own free scoop night tonight from 6-10pm. When will Laboratorio del Gelato have a free sample night?

DG has happily fattened quite a few guests with our own easy ice cream recipe. It's for a semi-freddo, which is Italian for "stays soft as silk while in the freezer and melts perfectly on your taste buds." I usually make it with candied ginger bits in it, but you can exchange the ginger with anything really. The hardest part about this recipe is owning a candy thermometer.

Ginger Semi-Freddo Recipe

Ingredients:
1/2 cup fine sugar
4 egg yolks
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
2/3 cup candied ginger

1. Stir the sugar and 1/2 cup cold water over low heat until sugar is dissolved.

2. Bump up the heat and boil for 4 to 5 minutes without stirring until the syrup is 238 degrees (F).

3. In a large heatproof bowl, whisk egg yolks until frothy. Place bowl over a pan of simmering water and whisk in the syrup, whisking until the mixture is very thick. Remove from heat and whisk until cool.

4. Whip the cream and gently fold it into the egg mixture with the ginger (or whatever else you'd like). Pour into a freezerproof container and freeze for an hour.

5. After the hour, give your semi-freddo a stir. This brings the yummy bits up from the bottom and guarantees their suspension in your ice cream. Freeze for at least another 4 hours and serve.

Bronx Pasta Ecstasy

Remember the media brouhaha when Brooklyn's Grocery restaurant received a Zagat score of 28, putting it in league with Manhattan's culinary elite? Grocery's co-owner said "I don't think we're doing earth-shattering food. We're just a really good restaurant." I haven't been to Grocery, but this sounds like a pretty good description of Roberto's Restaurant in the Bronx, too.

In a world apart from the stroller-pushing yuppie cool of Smith Street, Roberto's is a ten-minute walk from the Bronx Zoo through Boogie-Down's Little Italy.

Manhattan's Little Italy is a safe and tourist-supported stage set of what was once an exciting and vibrant immigrant community. Now neighborhood associations negotiate for its survival. In the Bronx, however, borders aren't clear and things are a bit unpredictable.

Red, white and green "Little Italy in the Bronx" flags wave above bodegas and taquerias while drug dealers stand by trash-encrusted payphones. If you follow the razorwire down Crescent Avenue, you'll come to Roberto's at the corner of East 186 Street.

At 5pm, there was already a line. The dining room is small, with about 40 seats, and feels cozy without being cramped. The dark wood of the tables and chairs, warm paintings and a nice big frosted window makes the room comfortable for relaxing, drinking wine, and chatting. It's a neighborhood restaurant, so though there are formal touches, there were plenty of people in sneakers and jeans just there for the good food and company.

Everyone seemed to know each other. The waiters talked with regulars, the regulars talked to strangers, and strangers talked to each other while sometimes sharing a table. At the end of the meal we overheard two big-haired women who had been strangers a couple hours earlier. They exchanged numbers. "I need a girlfriend," one woman said as she left. The other replied, "Well, you've got one."

We ordered an appetizer of baked scallops and shrimp served on flat escarole leaves with a white wine and butter sauce. A touch of paprika or chili powder gave it a subtle bite, and garlic made the seafood even more robust.

For her entree, Jennifer ordered a pasta special that comes out of the kitchen wrapped in tinfoil. The waiter unwrapped the foil to reveal a molten mass of pencil-thick homemade pasta steaming with rough-chopped basil, pinenuts, breadcrumbs, garlic, and tiny red uncooked tomatoes. I've gone camping before and made "hobo dinners" with tinfoil. This was more like an "ohno" dinner, as in "Oh no, this food is so fucking delicious I'm going to have a heart attack right now." There was enough pasta for two of us. Or at least I tried to convince Jennifer of that as I stole forkfuls.

My dish was even better. Roberto's Pollo alla Chef is a full tender chicken breast with a thin layer of prosciutto and spinach smothered under soft melted mozarella and a buttery sherry sauce. How can it be possible for food to taste this good?

After a dessert of fluffy tiramisu that was light on rum but long on creaminess, I was decided. Roberto's deserves its Zagat 27 and then some. Total cost of one appetizer, two entrees, one dessert, and two glasses of wine: $65. Go there now, before camera crews and the cuisinoisie discover good Bronx cooking.

Needing the Dough

We've seen Larry David bribing a Maitre d' to get a table at restaurants on Curb Your Enthusiasm, and his surrogates on Seinfeld trying to do the same. Gourmet finds out if it works in real life.

I've never bribed my way into a restaurant. I've never slipped a C-note or greased a palm. In truth, I've never even considered it. I've assumed, of course, that people do such things. I've seen my share of Cary Grant movies. I've heard — and wondered whether such old-fangled gestures would work in the high-stakes, high-hype world of New York City restaurants. For everyday diners in Manhattan, cracking the waiting list at Nobu is said to be harder than getting courtside tickets for the Knicks. But is that true?

How much can a chicken take?

If the chicken nuggets shaped like stars weren't enough of an indignity, now Burger King has created an internet chicken slave for the public to boss around. This is the worst thing to happen to poultry since Chixon.

Eating Samosas At The Epicenter

Going out to eat and drink in New York City, especially if you're a bit of food reviews junkie like myself, there is always this lingering feeling that there's someplace hotter and hipper than where you are. But as I stood in the upstairs bar area at Spice Market in the Meatpacking District last Saturday night, after Amanda Hesser published a rave review in Wednesday's New York Times, I realized I was at the epicenter of the buzz. And a word to the wise, at the epicenter of the buzz, everyone is staring at everyone else trying to determine if they might be at all famous. I sort of felt a little bad that I wasn't Courtney Love, minus the incoherent ramblings and the boob flashing.

I ate at 66 last spring, another Jean-Georges Vongrichten restaurant in TriBeCa often compared to Spice Market because of their similar Asian inspired cuisines. However, the two places are wildly different -- where 66 is sleek, sparse, cool and Chinese; Spice Market is textured, warm and Pan-Asian in the decor and the food. Housed in a renovated warehouse, the restaurant fills two floors -- a ground floor with a bar/waiting area and tables and then a lower level lounge. The two floors are connected by a massive staircase of carved wood in the center of the building, surrounded by enormous hanging purple lanterns with strings of crystals dangling inside to refract the light, and halfway down the stairs a mini-canopy of curtains reminiscent of a Jewish wedding huppah. It's the sort of staircase you wish someone adoring was sitting at the bottom of, so you could make an awe-inspiring grand entrance through it.

Our reservation at 6 pm, just as the restaurant opened, ordinarily might have made for a "too early for the party" scenario, but already the joint was hopping. I overheard a few people practically pleading with the hostess for a table but were informed reservations were necessary, as we swanned past them to our table. Our waiter had a fresh faced enthusiasm surprising for a habitude in the buzz, and he promised us "a flow" to the dishes we ordered which would appear "family style." This proved to be our down fall, as every item on the menu looked better than the last, thus forcing us to order far too much food. I would make you a list of the highlights including the blood orange mojito, the spicy chicken samosas with cilantro yoghurt, the crab salad and the pea shoots with mushrooms and water chesnuts except each dish was better than the last. However, by the time the main meat dishes arrived, pork vindaloo and chicken, we were too stuffed to do more than taste them and they've made for enviable lunches the last few days.

Our waiter and the manager apologized for interrupting "the flow" as our salad was delayed by a ordering mix-up, but we barely noticed as we soaked up the laid-back ambience and the hum of chat around us. Also, the server's outfits with their crisscrossing bare back ties and fluttering thin material were enough to keep me entertained. In the cab going home the pungent smells emanating from my handle sack of white cardboard take-out leftovers overwhelmed me a little and reminded me again of Hesser's ruminations about Vongrichten potentially controlling the air's scent surrounding his restaurant. It's an apt way to characterize eating at Spice Market, because it really is such the full sensory experience. And it is valuable to know now, there are some good samosas to be had at the epicenter of the buzz.

Phatwood

I will never buy lighter fluid again! Sunday I went to a cookout and was introduced to fatwood -- a more effective and environmentally friendly way to start up a charcoal grill, camp fire, or fireplace.

Cancerous Curry?

Oh no! One of my favorite Indian dishes, chicken tikka masala, frequently contains "excessive levels of three chemicals linked to hyperactivity in children, allergies, asthma, migraine and even cancer." And here I thought that glowing atomic red color was just a symbol of its yummyness, like the appealing pink of Hostess Snoballs. Wait a minute... could they be bad for you too?

Don't balk at single malts

Now that I'm recovered from inadvertently poisoning my body with one deadly toxin, it's time to pour another one in.

For those in NYC, there will be a "live-online" Islay scotch whisky tasting at d.b.a., 41 First Avenue, this Sunday (3/14) at 4pm. Editors from Slate, the New York Times, and NPR will be there for commentary and insight. A bunch of reporters drunk at a bar and calling it work? Yeah, that's never happened.

Be sure to read Slate's introduction to the wonders of peat before you go.