Three Pounds

Throwing up six times in eight hours--and avoiding that huge list of non-kosher-for-Passover foods all week--yielded a loss of three pounds at Weight Watchers this week.

I know bulimia is a terrible, tragic thing, and I know it's probably a sign that my psyche needs adjusting, but the fact that I lost more weight this week than I have in any of the last seventeen does make me wish (just a teeny bit) that I threw up more often.

In more pleasant, healthier news, I braved the downpours and went to the farmer's market in Union Square this morning, where I bought some more buffalo bacon (used in both my Clean-Out-the-Fridge Lentil Soup with Turkey Meatballs and Farro & White Bean Soup with Escarole), and a nice buffalo brisket. Now that I know how rewarding and easy it is to make a brisket myself, I'll use a healthier kind of meat. Assuming it's defrosted in time (they're sold frozen), that's on the agenda for tomorrow afternoon.

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Jello and Rice for Passover

Have you ever had a stomach virus so violent you collapsed on the bathroom floor after each round, grateful that the cool tiles took the edge off your feverish body?

Late in the afternoon on Wednesday, I started to feel queasy. Didn’t think too much of it, kept working, even had a brief business meeting over coffee after work—although I did opt for mint tea, thinking it might help. It wasn’t until I stood up afterwards that I knew I was in trouble. I wasn’t about to let on to my clients, so I said goodbye quickly and headed for the subway. All I could think about was getting home, and it would be far quicker to travel underground than to take a taxi.

The train came quickly enough, and I got a seat, but once it started moving I knew I’d made a mistake. The streaks of light outside the windows, the fluorescent glare inside, the incessant rocking… I was doomed. When the train pulled into the next station—Times Square—I got off as quickly as I could and collapsed onto a bench. I think I may have even shoved somebody. I sat there, unsure of what to do, for about thirty seconds. Should I go back above ground and take a taxi? That would take a long time, and I couldn’t imagine how I’d fare in stop-and-go traffic. Maybe I should call S to come get me? Well, fine, but then I’d be sitting in the subway station for a half-hour, and still have to ride the train to get home. I was on the verge of tears, and panic. Williamsburg has never felt so far away. In mid-debate, a rush of bile came up and I dashed to the track’s edge, barely making it in time to avoid vomiting all over myself and the platform. Luckily, I had some tissues in my bag, so I was able to clean myself up a bit. I was surprised, but nobody batted an eye at the woman puking onto the tracks. Or maybe it’s not so surprising—we New Yorkers pride ourselves on minding our own business, and the station wasn’t exactly crowded. It’s entirely possible nobody even noticed.

I sat back down on the bench, and let three more trains go by in case it was about to happen again. After ten minutes of relative calm, I decided that the only way I was going to get home was to get back on the train. So I did, and amazingly enough, I made it home in one piece. My public vomiting was blissfully brief.

On the other hand, the private kind continued every 90 minutes through the night. I had no idea it was possible to get so violently sick, so many times, with just one meal in my stomach. My lunch just kept coming and coming… after a while, it was fasinating, in a sick way, to see what was left. It finally subsided around 3:30 Thursday morning, leaving me weak and shaky all day, and unable to sit up for more than a few minutes at a time. S took good care of me, though, making Jello and plain white rice so I’d have something in my stomach. Neither of them is kosher for Passover, but I have a feeling God understands.

I’m much better today—it truly was a 24-hour bug. And here’s where my eating-disorder-brain emerges: when I woke up this morning, the first thing I thought was After all that, I’d better have a huge loss at Weight Watchers on Saturday.

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A Visit from an Old Friend

I had a glass of wine last night. Cabernet, deep and rich and smooth and luscious. No hives!

If you offered me a million dollars I couldn't explain why my allergy seems to be abating, but I've never given up hope that it would. So I've been trying, here and there, to reintroduce wine to my life. About a month ago I had a red wine spritzer at a friend's house. She'd made a lovely dinner, and the thought of not being able to enjoy a little vino with the meal threatened to put a damper on my evening. When she suggested the spritzer, it seemed worth a shot. It wasn't the most delicious beverage I've ever had, but I was thrilled to make it through the evening without breaking out in angry, itchy splotches. A few weeks later, I tried some sangria made with white wine, and escaped without incident again. Last night was my first time in nearly two years with a full glass of full-force good stuff. Seriously good stuff--it was a $14 glass. That's as much as I often paid for a bottle! I figured if I was going to get hives, I might as well get them off something worth the pain.

It's funny, how relieved I am to be able to sip a glass of wine again. It's as if I've rediscovered an old friend, one who comforted me when I was down, cheered me in good times, and made many a meal that much more memorable. Now, lest you think that I put too much import on my relationship with wine, I must point out that I'm talking about a glass with a meal, not a bottle drunk alone. That's all I'm asking for, just one thin, elegant, crystal glass of something fine and red. Thank you very much.

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Matzo Brei

I hate Passover. Most of my favorite foods are forbidden, and in their place we get matzo, the original flatbread. Stick to the roof of your mouth matzo. Crumbs all over your shirtfront matzo. Halt all intestinal activity matzo. Oh, I’ll admit, for the first day or two it’s kind of fun to eat a special food, one that you’d never even think of eating the rest of the year—but the reason you’d never eat it the rest of the year is that just this one week is enough to turn you off the stuff for the other 51. The only saving grace of this cardboardy so-called food is that it’s the main ingredient in matzo brei.

When I was a kid, my grandparents would usually come down from Newton, MA, for the seders, which meant that in the mornings we’d have Grandpa’s matzo brei. He’d pull out the giant yellow frying pan (the dairy, kosher-for-Passover one—my parents are observant so they have separate dishes, pots & pans, etc, that get hauled out for one week of the year) and start cooking before we kids were out of bed. We’d wake up to the alluring aroma of melting butter, and know that a treat was imminent. Buttery, eggy, soft with crispy edges, with just the slightest salty undertone playing off the hint of cinnamon, Grandpa’s matzo brei was heaven. My brothers would slather sour cream all over theirs—the smell of it was enough to make me gag—but I’d eat mine with strawberry jam.

The version I make is true to his in spirit, but modified for both my weight-watching needs and S’s cholesterol-watching ones. This morning I woke up earlier than usual and couldn’t get back to sleep—all I could think about was making matzo brei. I let S slumber as long as I could bear to wait, until I finally kissed him gently to rouse him, then whispered: “I’m going to make some matzo brei now. Do you want any?” He nodded, then dozed while I cooked. When it was nearly ready, I rushed back into the bedroom and jumped on the bed, fairly giddy with excitement. “The matzo brei is ready! The matzo brei is ready!” I couldn’t stop bouncing. S isn’t Jewish, so he didn’t exactly share my enthusiasm, but he’s a good husband so he got out of bed and joined me.

It was wonderful. While I ate I sang a little matzo brei song to myself, something along the lines of "Matzo brei, matzo brei, matzo brei." I plan to eat it every day this week. Of course, by Wednesday I’ll probably realize cooking breakfast before going to work isn’t exactly practical…

Weight Watchers readers: this version is 5 points per serving. DO NOT make the matzo brei recipe on WW’s web site. It’s so far from being actual matzo brei it’s practically criminal.

Matzo Brei
Serves 2

1 t. butter
3 boards of matzo, broken into 1-2” pieces
6 egg whites
1 whole egg
¼ cup milk [I use 1%]
Pinch of sugar
Pinch of salt
Cinnamon to taste [I probably use about 1 t.]

In a large nonstick frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

Put matzo pieces in a bowl large enough to hold them comfortably, and pour cold water over—not enough to submerge them fully, just enough to moisten them. The idea is not to create soggy matzo, it’s just to loosen it up a bit.



Let it sit for a few seconds (not more than 10-20), then drain.



Add drained matzo to the frying pan and let it cook, undisturbed, for a minute or two. Stir it around to expose the other side to the pan’s surface, and let cook another minute or two. The idea here is to get most of that water you just added to cook out. Don’t ask me why we wet the matzo and then dry it out again, but it does something wonderful to the texture. While the matzo’s frying, put the rest of the ingredients in a mixing bowl and whip with a fork, as you would for scrambled eggs or French toast. Pour this mixture over the matzo in the pan, and let it cook undisturbed for a minute or two.



When the egg begins to set, stir the mixture around and let it cook for another minute or two. Repeat this process until the matzo brei is no longer shiny and the eggs are cooked through—you don’t want to break it up too much by stirring it around a lot, so try to just let it sit as much as possible. Serve immediately, with jam or sour cream.

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Passover Birthdays Don’t Have to Suck (Not When There's Chocolate Souffle Cake)

Today is my sister-in-law K’s birthday. It’s also the beginning of Passover—starting at sundown tonight, for eight days observant Jews will forego all kinds of forbidden foods, known as chametz: bread, pasta, corn, legumes, rice, flour, yeast, baking powder & soda, and even mustard.* This includes any and all prepared foods made with even the tiniest smidgen of chametz—corn syrup alone wipes out a huge swath of packaged goods. (In fact, now is a good time to buy things like Coca-Cola, if you drink it, since the bottles marked kosher for Passover are made with actual sugar instead of that more highly-processed stuff.) This is all done out of respect for the ancient Jews’ pass over from slavery to freedom, when they fled Egypt without enough time to let their bread rise. It has to do with leavening—anything that swells up when cooked is considered a no-no, although I couldn’t possibly explain to you why some things that swell are still a-ok, like matzoh balls. This is why I am no longer an observant Jew: There are so many rules that my family just accepts without questioning, and once I was old enough to ask why we could eat meat after dairy and not vice versa—only to be answered with a shrug and “just because”—it stopped making sense to me. But for one week out of the year, at Passover, I swear off chametz.

As for my sister-in-law, well, having a Passover birthday means you get cheated out of a real birthday cake, because so many key ingredients are forbidden. It still doesn’t suck as bad as a late-December birthday, though—because the Jewish calendar is different from the one used in secular life, her birthday only falls on Passover every few years, and on a seder night, maybe once a decade. And just because we can’t have a traditional birthday cake, it doesn’t mean there’s no cake at all. On the contrary, in K’s honor I baked a more sophisticated, more decadent flourless chocolate cake, the kind served in high-end restaurants. It’s surprisingly easy to make, dense, moist, rich, and deeply chocolatey. This particular recipe is called a Chocolate Souffle Cake, although it’s more like a Fallen Chocolate Souffle Cake—when I pulled it out of the oven it was fully inflated, but an hour later it had collapsed into itself, as expected. (There’s a picture of it in the cookbook I used, and it’s clearly the effect they’re going for.) The only thing it won’t have is “Happy Birthday K” written on it, since kosher-for-Passover icing is beyond my capabilities—confectioner’s sugar is yet another no-no.

We’ll be seeing K and the rest of my family at the second seder, tomorrow night. I baked the cake for her today, since it needs time in the fridge to settle. Watch for a report on Monday as to how it tastes!

Weight Watchers readers: This is a WW recipe, adapted from Weight Watchers Entertains. Normally I hate WW recipes, since they call for so many processed foods and half the time they don’t seem to work. But this book was written with chefs from the Culinary Institute of America, and the recipe seems pretty sound. The best part: it only has 4 points per serving!

* I’m an Ashkenazi Jew, which means my ancestors were originally from Northern Europe. Sephardi Jews, who claim ancestry mostly from North Africa, have a much more lenient interpretation of chametz. Oh, how I wished to have been born Sephardi when I was a kid! We used to go to a seder at the home of my cousin’s in-laws, who were Sephardi (their Ashkenazi-Sephardi marriage was looked upon as mixed by some of my more stringent relatives), and to see peas and rice as part of their traditional dinner, but not be allowed to eat any of it…it was torture.

Chocolate Souffle Cake (Kosher for Passover)
Serves 16

8 oz high-quality semisweet or bittersweet chocolate [I used bittersweet]
5 T. kosher-for-Passover margarine or butter
5 large egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
¼ cup Cointreau or Grand Marnier
9 large egg whites

Preheat the oven to 350. Spray a 9” springform pan with nonstick spray and set aside.

Melt the chocolate and the margarine or butter in a double boiler set over barely simmering water.


[I used my great-grandmother’s double-boiler, which gave me a small thrill.]

Stir until smooth; set aside. [Take the top pan off the water, and dry the bottom of the pan. Chocolate and water do not mix, and mine looked like it was about to seize before I did this.]

With an electric mixer at high speed, beat the egg yolks and 1/3 cup of the sugar in your largest mixing bowl until tripled in volume and pale yellow. Gently stir in the liqueur, and set aside.

With clean beaters, with an electric mixer at medium speed, beat the egg whites in another large bowl until thickened and foamy. Beat in the remaining 1/3 cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, until shiny, soft peaks form.

Using a large rubber spatula, gently fold the chocolate mixture into the beaten egg yolks until almost blended. Gently fold in the beaten whites, one-third at a time, until just blended.



Pour the batter into the prepared pan.



Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 55 minutes to an hour.



Cool completely in the pan on a rack.



Unmold onto a serving plate. Refrigerate at least one hour before serving.

Tip: It’s best to use a long, thin knife to cut this cake. Before each cut, dip the blade into hot water, then wipe dry with a clean towel.

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A Brisket, a Tasket (What is a “tasket,” anyway?)

On the great, long list of Jewish dishes worth losing a kidney for—kasha varnishkes, matzoh balls, potato kugel, kishke—one stands head and shoulders above the rest: Brisket. The traditional main course for virtually any Jewish holiday, it’s a classic case of taking something of supposedly lesser quality—in this case, a tough cut of beef—and transforming it into something sublime, with strands of richly flavored meat lilting away at the mere suggestion of pressure from a fork. And the gravy! Plate-licking good, that stuff.

Brisket is a staple in my mother’s repertoire—it will be on the menu at both seders this weekend—but until now it had never occurred to me to make it myself. And then (there’s always an “and then” in these stories, isn’t there?) we decided to have our friend L over for dinner midweek. Normally such a thing isn’t an issue, and it wasn’t when we set the date, but last week I got called in for a full-time freelance job. I’m not sure why, but for some reason working regular hours, in an office, taxes me considerably. I come home exhausted from the commute, and the last thing on my mind is cooking. You may have noticed a lack of posts these last two weeks—this is why. When I’m too tired to cook, I’m also too tired to write. It’s all very silly, really. I worked a regular job for fifteen years, getting up at 6 to go to the gym beforehand and then going out for drinks or dinner after, or coming home and cooking. Millions of people the world over hold full-time jobs and put food on the table every night. But I’m somewhat spoiled by my freelance life, and it always takes me a while to adjust to the demands of a regular schedule.

So. Anyway. L was coming for dinner on Wednesday, and I knew I wouldn’t want to rush home and cook. Circumstances called for something that would benefit from being made ahead of time. There are very few dishes that love advance cooking more than brisket. When people talk about letting something sit so the flavors can meld, it’s brisket they’re thinking of. It’s just so deeeeeep, so mellow, so rewarding. I made it on Tuesday after work—see, I can find the energy when I need to! Here’s what it looked like when I pulled it from the oven:



(Bonus: I got to use Big Blue.)

It luxuriated in the fridge overnight. When I got home from work last night I cut up some potatoes and some asparagus to roast, and reheated the meat. While it cooked we nibbled on a little plate of marcona almonds, pappadew peppers, cheese, and figs, and sipped refreshing spritzers made with the Lorina pink lemonade brought by our guest.



And then it was time to eat. Oh, it was good! And so easy! Who knew? OK, the Jews knew.

Oh So Good Brisket
Adapted from Joan Nathan’s Jewish Cooking in America
Serves 6-8

2 t. salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 3 ½-lb brisket of beef
1 garlic clove, peeled and halved
2 T. vegetable oil
3 onions, peeled and diced
1 10-oz. can tomatoes [I use Pomi brand chopped tomatoes]
12 sun-dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 ½ cups red wine, divided
1 bay leaf
1 sprig fresh thyme
1 sprig fresh rosemary
¼ cup chopped parsley
5 carrots, peeled and sliced on the diagonal about ½” thick
½ cup apple juice

Preheat oven to 325.

Trim the excess fat from the meat. [NOTE: this is extremely non-traditional. Most recipes expressly forbid it, and in fact I called my mother in a panic after I’d done it out of habit. She thought things might turn out ok anyway, and sure enough they did, so I’m making it an official part of the recipe.]

Sprinkle the salt and pepper all over the brisket, and rub with the cut sides of the garlic halves. Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a large ovenproof casserole or Dutch oven, and sear the brisket on both sides. Remove the brisket and throw in the onions, then place the brisket on top. Add the tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, 2 cups of the wine, bay leaf, thyme, and rosemary.

Cover and bake for about 3 hours, basting every half-hour or so with the pan juices.

Add the parsley and carrots (submerge the carrots in the braising liquid) and bake, covered, for about fifteen minutes, then remove the cover and bake for another fifteen, or until the carrots are cooked. To test for doneness, stick a fork in the flat (thinner end) of the brisket. When there is a light pull on the fork as it is removed from the meat, it is “fork tender.”

If you’re like me, by now all your liquid has cooked out of the pot, and you’re wondering where on earth all this fabled gravy is supposed to come from. Fear not! Here’s what to do:

Remove the meat and the carrots from the pot and set aside. Scoop out the soft, well-cooked onions and tomatoes and place them in a blender. Blend thoroughly (be careful when blending hot liquids—make sure the cover’s on tight), adding some of the reserved wine if it still looks too thick.

When the meat is cool, slice it against the grain and put it in a storage container, along with the carrots. Pour the gravy over. Refrigerate overnight.

The next day, remove the meat and carrots from the container, and pour the gravy into a pan large enough to eventually hold everything. If it looks too thick, add some more red wine and apple juice, a splash at a time, until it is the desired consistency. Let it simmer for a few minutes, to give the flavors a chance to mellow. Adjust salt & pepper if necessary. Add the meat and carrots to the pan, cover, and reheat over a low flame.

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The Better-Than-Carvel Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Cake

Mint and chocolate are the perfect couple. She, a flirty pale green, enlivens his deep, somewhat predictable flavor. He, brown and strong, grounds her airiness, providing ballast lest she float away on a cool breeze. Now, I could drag this metaphor out and wrap it around my relationship with S, but that might be pushing things. While I’ve been known to flirt, I am neither green nor airy; S, strong, brown-haired fellow that he is, is hardly predictable. But we both love us some mint chip ice cream, which is the theme of today’s program—more specifically, the Mint Chip Ice Cream Cake I made for S’s birthday last weekend.

What kind of downmarket celebration is this? you may be asking. He requested Benihana and an ice cream cake? Maybe S is trying to tell me to lighten up on the highfalutin foodie stuff. Perhaps, but in reality I like to get down with some fine junk food as much as he does, maybe more. Let’s face it: this stuff is fun.

Initially, S requested a Carvel cake, and any of you who grew up on the East Coast know why: the crunchy bits! The secret weapon that saves many an out-of-control kiddie birthday party, the Carvel ice cream cake’s main reason for being is those little nuggets of god-knows-what, layered in there only to break up the smooth white custard. They’re what makes it a cake, and not just a pile of hardened soft-serve in the shape of a whale. So when S made his request, it didn’t take long for us to realize that what he really wanted was the crunch. In the end I was free to make any kind of ice cream cake I wanted, as long as it had those little bits.

I feared that I wouldn’t be able to secure a supply of the little nibs. It seemed to me that if Carvel was willing to part with the secret to their ice cream cakes without the actual ice cream, it might well decimate their business. Not to mention the fact that Carvel feels like such a corporate entity these days that I was hard-pressed to think of an outlet where the cakes didn’t come from HQ--where the individual ingredients might actually be on hand. But find one I did, in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, when I was visiting a friend. It was a stand-alone shop, with dingy cases and worn signage—it’s probably been there for forty years or more, without being renovated much after the seventies. Before we went in, my friend and I strategized about how to ask for the crunchies: should I be up-front, and tell them I was planning to use their product in my homemade ice cream cake? Or should I pretend that it was just to top a bowl of previously-bought Carvel? As it turns out, I needn’t have worried—there were pre-filled plastic cups of the stuff right there on the counter, along with the sprinkles and chopped nuts. I bought two, and only ended up using one in the recipe that follows—so now we’ve got a nice little treat to spruce up lowly bowls of ice cream for the foreseeable future!

This recipe takes a little forethought—first you bake a deep, dark chocolate cake, which must cool completely before being used in the final assembly (I made it the day before). And there’s lots of freezer time in between layers, so the assembly itself takes what feels like hours—but for much of that time you’re just waiting for the newly added layer to set so you’re free to do other things. It’s worth it, for sure—the end result is pretty spectacular, and getting there is not at all difficult (even the cake-baking is Easy with a capital "E"). Do eat it within a day or two, though, since the cake isn’t quite as yummy once it’s frozen solid.

Now look at this picture:



Isn’t that just gorgeous? Seriously, who can think of a better combo than mint and chocolate? Not I, that’s for sure.

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Cake
Adapted from Best of Martha Stewart Living: Desserts
Serves 10, with a nice 8” square snack cake leftover

1 layer Dark Chocolate Cake (recipe follows)
½ gallon mint-chocolate chip ice cream [I used Healthy Choice, since I couldn’t find our favorite Turkey Hill Low Fat]
½ to 1 cup Carvel crunchies

Trim chocolate cake to six inches square [you get to eat the scraps—not to mention the spare layer—while you assemble, yum…]. Slice the cake horizontally, making two thin layers, and put one layer on your serving plate. If your ice cream isn’t soft, microwave it a little, about 20 seconds, and stir it around until it’s spreadable. Using an offset spatula, spread a nice thick layer of ice cream over the top of the cake. Sprinkle the crunchy bits liberally over the top—the idea is to completely cover the ice cream, making another layer of texture. Press gently all over the top of the cake, and place it, along with the rest of the ice cream, in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Remove the cake and the ice cream. Stir the ice cream to soften again. Using the offset spatula, spread another thick layer of ice cream over the cake. Place the second cake layer on top. Place the cake, and the remaining ice cream, in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Remove the cake and the ice cream. Using a long serrated knife, trim a hair from all sides of the cake, to give you an even surface to work with. Stir the ice cream one more time—this is the last step. Spread the remaining ice cream over the top and sides of the cake, completely covering it, as if it were icing. Return the cake to freezer, and freeze until completely hardened.

Dark Chocolate Cake:
Nonstick cooking spray
1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, melted
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
1 ½ cups sugar
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa [I used Dutch]
½ t. salt
1 ½ t. baking powder
¾ t. baking soda
3 large egg whites, room temp
1 t. pure vanilla extract [I also added ½ t. mint extract, which was a nice touch but far from necessary]
1 1/3 cups strong, hot coffee

Heat oven to 325. Spray two 8-inch square baking pans with cooking spray. Line with parchment, and spray again. Flour the pans, and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, place all the ingredients except the hot coffee. Mix on low speed until combined, about 1 minute. Slowly add the coffee. Mix until smooth, about 1 minute. Divide batter between pans; smooth tops with an offset spatula.

Bake until a cake tester inserted into the middle of each cake comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. [Be sure you’re really testing well—I thought both my layers were fully baked so I put them on a rack to cool, but half an hour later I noticed that one half of one of the layers had collapsed a bit—it was still raw in the middle! I popped it back in the oven for twenty more minutes, and all was well.] Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Cover tightly with plastic wrap or aluminum foil until ready to use.

NOTE: This cake is really yummy on its own, and the way I’ve adapted the recipe you’ll have an entire 8” layer left over. What could be better than that?

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Here's Who Goes to Benihana

I might have known.

So the food wasn't bad, exactly. Trowels of garlic butter on everything, which was a little disorienting—I didn't think Japanese food was known for its abundant use of dairy, after all—but it actually tasted pretty good (of course it did; it was smothered in garlic butter). The place itself was a strange combination of airport lounge and theme park, slightly worn and blatantly synthetic. Fourteen hibachi-centered tables, each seating eight, were filled with groups of raucous twentysomethings downing umbrellaed frozen drinks, blonde families clearly on vacation, and Benihana veterans from outer boros wearing white sneakers and thick gold chains. Red-toqued chefs entertained each table with an assortment of tricks using knives, spatulas, and squirt bottles. Clearly they’re all sent to the same clown school, though, since we saw at least four different men (no women chefs here) catch first a piece of shrimp in his shirt pocket, and then an egg on top of his hat.

During dinner we noticed that our chef's arms were glistening. Was it sweat or grease? We got our answer while waiting for the subway to go home, when S realized that everything looked a little foggy:




Our chef’s name, by the way: Karim. He was about as Japanese as I am.

On board the subway car, the guy sitting across from us looked up from his book and sniffed, as one might when a particularly ripe homeless person wanders through. I took a deep breath and realized what he smelled: It was us. We reeked of burnt garlic butter and cooked meat. In fact I’m pretty sure we still do, a full day later.

I must admit, though, that we had a great time. It was like a mini-vacation for us, the most non-New York experience you can have without leaving home. No wonder it’s “America’s Most Popular Restaurant.”

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Who Goes to Benihana?

Tomorrow is S’s birthday. He wants to go to Benihana. At first I thought he must be joking, but no. This is his choice, and it’s his birthday, so to Benihana we’ll go. Who knows, it could be fun.

It never occurred to me that anybody else in New York would want to go to Benihana, so I didn’t make a reservation. Repeat after me: Debbie is an idiot. S just asked me if I’d reserved a table, and smirking, I said no. He was clearly nervous about that fact, so to humor him I called. Their first available opening is at 9:30! I have no idea who all these people are, going to Benihana in midtown Manhattan on a Saturday night. Tourists? Possibly, but why would they be so anxious to go there that they’d make a reservation in advance? Is Benihana a destination restaurant in New York, and I just never realized it? Maybe it’s a phenomenon akin to the inexplicable crowds at the Times Square Olive Garden—with all the authentic Italian food to be found in this city, exquisite preparations unique to specific chefs in specific restaurants, people choose the bottomless bowl of mass-produced faux-Italiano.

Or perhaps my food snobbery has gotten the better of me.

No. I just looked at their web site, and it uses the word “eatertainment.” I am not a food snob (not to an extreme extent, anyway). This is silly.

Please, let me be wrong about all this. I just want S to have a happy birthday! Something tells me he will, though. He seems to know exactly what we're in for.

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My Dinner at The Red Cat

Not every restaurant will lead a diner, disappointed by her entrée, to blame herself for a poor choice. That kind of culinary hypnotism can only be pulled off by an establishment whose store of goodwill has been built up by cheerful, service-oriented service, a handful of never-fail dishes, and a convivial crowd beckoning you to share in their good time. Such a restaurant is The Red Cat, the first of Jimmy Bradley and Danny Abrams’ successful ventures, a West Chelsea fixture since the day it opened in 1999.

At 6:00, the bar was filled with people sipping wine and dipping radishes in salt. The wainscoted, red-banquetted dining room was already half-occupied, and by 6:45 every table was taken. Hanging from the ceiling, Moroccan candle lanterns cast spidery, mysterious shadows. The room hummed.

Expectations were high, and the appetizers did not disappoint.A salad of bitter greens, described as having “gruyere fondue, smoked bacon, potatoes, and shiitake,” led my friend to bounce in her seat. She expected a small bowl of melted cheese and perhaps a crouton to dunk into it, so when the plate arrived looking like, well, a salad, her bouncing stilled. But soon she discovered the gooey, satisfying secret of the dish: the fondue lined the plate, lurking beneath the greens for her to scoop with a potato chunk or toss into the salad itself. She opted for the latter, lending a creamy, luscious tang to the bite of the greens. I chose the quick sauté of zucchini with toasted almonds and pecorino, a Red Cat perennial. A small haystack of barely-cooked, shredded zucchini tossed with mahogany-colored sliced nuts, veiled beneath twin sheets of salty, crumbly cheese, it disappeared as fast as my fork could shepherd it into my mouth.

Expectations soared even higher.

My friend had selected the poussin, that night’s special, served with braised escarole and a sauce made from chilies and breadcrumbs. The baby chicken was perfectly cooked, tender and juicy, and the heat of the chilies was more of a suggestion than an assertion. What appeared to be a whole, small, head of escarole was lackluster, though, and difficult to cut. My grilled Atlantic salmon, served on a bed of shaved Brussels sprouts and carrot puree with smoked bacon vinaigrette dotting the plate’s rim, was a more overt disappointment. The fish had very little flavor, and the bacon vinaigrette seemed to intrude upon the rest of the dish, rather than complement it. I focused on our side order of addictively crisp tempura green beans, admiring the way their vibrant color shone through the light coating.

At the table next to us, an older couple tucked into their simple roast chicken with mushrooms. “He has this every time we come here,” the wife explained when she caught us looking. We watched, wistful, as he put a morsel in his mouth and smiled. Why hadn’t we ordered that?

Desserts redeemed the situation—utterly greaseless risotto fritters with gingered blueberries and a smooth, not-too-sweet honey semifreddo for my friend, and the Red Cat rocky road sundae with homemade, barely bitter caramel ice cream, candied walnuts, chewy brownie bits, and gooey hot fudge for me. When I asked the waiter to hold the marshmallows, go easy on the whipped cream, and make it a child’s size portion, please, he was somewhat puzzled but perfectly accommodating.

By the time we left, the table next to us had been turned twice already, but not once did we get the sense that management wanted us to clear out. We bundled into our coats, stuffed but smiling, only half-kicking ourselves for not ordering that simple roast chicken.


The Red Cat
227 10th Avenue
Between 23rd & 24th Sts
212.242.1122

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The Barefoot Contessa’s Turkey Meatloaf

This’ll be a short post since for some reason I’m exhausted at 5:30 in the afternoon…

It’s also short because this is, bar none, the most flavorful turkey meatloaf I’ve ever had. I could wax poetic about it for paragraphs, but really, you only need the recipe. Trust me. You won’t be sorry.

Ina Garten’s recipe in the book calls for a whopping five pounds of ground turkey to serve 8-10. Five pounds to serve 8-10! They must be very hungry, because the halved recipe I’m about to give you serves 6-8.

WW readers: the slightly modified recipe below is 6 points per serving, assuming there are eight servings in a loaf.

Turkey Meatloaf
Adapted from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook
Serves 6-8

1 large yellow onion, chopped fine
1 T. olive oil
1 t. salt
½ t. freshly ground black pepper
1 t. fresh thyme leaves (½ t. ground)
3 T. Worcestershire sauce
6 T. chicken broth
1 t. tomato paste
2 ½ lb. ground turkey [I use 1 package each of “lean” and of breast]
¾ cup plain dry bread crumbs
4 large egg whites, beaten
6 T. ketchup

Preheat the oven to 325.

In a medium sauté pan, on medium-low heat, cook the onions, olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme until the onions are translucent but not browned, approximately 15 minutes. Add the Worcestershire sauce, chicken broth, and tomato paste and mix well. Allow to cool to room temperature. [I put it into the large mixing bowl I’ll be using in the next step, and stick it in the fridge for 10-15 minutes.]

While onion mixture is cooling, line a baking sheet with foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Set aside. Combine the ground turkey, bread crumbs, egg whites, and onion mixture in a large bowl. Mix well and shape into a rectangular loaf on the prepared baking sheet.



Keep your cat away while fetching the ketchup from the fridge.

Spread the ketchup evenly on top and sides of loaf.



Bake for 1 ½ hours, until the internal temperature is 160 degrees and the meat loaf is cooked through. (A pan of hot water in the oven, under the meatloaf, will keep the top from cracking.



Serve hot, room temperature, or cold in a sandwich. [Sandwiches made on lightly toasted rye, with mustard and ketchup, are killer.]

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Bargains Are Where You Find Them

Now, I’m as much of a bargain hunter as the next person—maybe more so, since I was raised by a discount-shopping pro—but I don’t generally browse the day-old bread bin (unless I’m making something that calls for stale bread, of course). Those price chopped, plastic-wrapped trays of bruised mangoes, wrinkly red peppers, and wobbly carrots? No, thanks. And when things actually have an expiration date on them, generally speaking I respect that.

There are exceptions. There are always exceptions.

Today I was at Williamsburg’s Bedford Cheese Shop. Cheese is not my thing, really—it’s part of my overall aversion to dairy products. When I was a kid, on Thursday afternoons my three brothers and I would take turns helping our mother do the shopping at the Waldbaums down the street. Lord, the stink from the appetizing section! I would breathe through my mouth for what felt like hours while my mom took a number and waited her turn… But I digress. Yes. Today I was at the Bedford Cheese Shop, not shopping for cheese, but shopping from their well-edited selection of delicacies: Spanish sherry vinegar, crusty artisanal breads, hot chocolate mix from Chocolate Haven. Large glass bowls of olives, marinated mushrooms, pappadew peppers.

While the friendly guy behind the counter was weighing out my peppers, I asked if they had any nut oils—lately I’ve been experimenting with salad dressings. He pointed to a display of small bottles on a shelf behind the counter, with sign: “Almond Oil from France: $12.99.” The sign wasn’t entirely accurate, he said. There were a few varieties up there. He pulled down one of each for me: Amande, Noisette, and Noix (almond, hazelnut, and nut), in adorable little porcelain-stoppered jars. The hang-tag, attached with silk ribbon, identified the brand as Moulin de la Tour, from Périgord. I was charmed, and ready to buy all three. The only thing stopping me was the hefty price—thirteen dollars for a few precious ounces of oil…that would be forty dollars if I bought all three. Not a pretty thing on a freelancer’s budget.

Clearly, I’d have to start small. Buy one this time, and come back for more if I liked it. But which one? The almond was tempting—it’s an oil I hadn’t seen anywhere else—but the hazelnut… Well, I bought some cheap hazelnut oil at the supermarket last week, and it was a miserable failure. No discernable hazelnut flavor whatsoever. It might be a good experiment, I thought, to see if any oil could really be worth nearly $4 an ounce. "I’ll take it," I said. And then I unfolded the hang-tag and saw an expiration date of 31/03/05. That was last week.

Of course I know that this oil wouldn’t have gone rancid in the four days since its official expiration date, but I also knew that I might not be able to use it all before it did turn. (Duh. It’s not even half a cup…). Same date on the almond oil, too. I was disappointed. That’s when the friendly guy behind the counter mentioned that the workers would all be taking home a lot of oil tonight—that’s what they do when something expires. Opportunity knocked! Since they weren’t going to be able to sell it, I asked, would it be possible for me to taste the oil? That way I’d know what it tasted like when they got a fresh batch. He readily agreed, and sliced two small pieces of baguette—one for me, one for him. We opened the jar and inhaled, a rich, lightly nutty smell. Poured a bit of thick golden liquid onto each slice of bread. I dipped my finger in it and licked, wanting to get an unadulterated hit of its flavor. Smooth, and deep, and undeniably hazelnutty. It was wonderful. A wave of disappointment washed over me—I wanted this oil, now. I didn’t want to have to wait for a new shipment to make its way across the ocean.

Did you see the lightbulb go on over my head?

"What if I bought this bottle for half-price?" I asked, smiling.

"I was just about to make that offer," the friendly guy behind the counter said.

Another entry for the Annals of Bargain Shopping. My only mistake: I didn’t think to ask if I could buy a bottle of the other flavors, too.

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The Big Five. Oh!

In what must be some kind of Weight Watchers record, I have finally hit the five-pound mark. It only took me fourteen weeks.

The funny thing is—funny odd, not funny ha-ha—I was absolutely certain I gained this week. I had a small gain last Saturday, after my first week on the Flex Plan, and that instilled a certain What the Fuck attitude which lasted much of the next seven days. This week I ate not one but two big cookies from the new Whole Foods in Union Square, two different times. I baked shortbread cookies with my niece and ate far too many of them. For crying out loud, I had a hot fudge sundae with caramel ice cream at the Red Cat, one of my favorite restaurants, Thursday night. But (you knew there was a but, didn’t you?) I acknowledged the cookies in my points tracking. I requested a smaller version of the sundae, with no marshmallow sauce (eww, anyway), and then didn’t finish it. And most important of all, Spring finally arrived this week. We had several days of sunshine, with temps in the high forties and fifties, and I actually put on workout clothes five different times and logged at least fifteen miles power walking/jogging, plus another five or so just strolling. On Thursday, Red Cat day, I covered a total of six miles.

I must admit, there were days when I wanted to walk right into one of the bakeries that pop up on my path, blooming like frickin dandelions exactly where I don’t need them to be, and as I mentioned above several times I succumbed. But there were also several days when I didn’t, or if I did I chose something smaller than I normally would have. For example, yesterday—the day before weigh-in, when any sane Weight Watcher would be filling up on fresh fruit and vegetables—I went walking in Greenpoint, the neighborhood next to mine. Not an official Power Walk, with workout clothes and iPod, just a brisk walk. On Manhattan Avenue is Peter Pan, one of the best donut shops in the city, possibly the best. I’m not all that into donuts, truth be told, but these babies really are something special, crisp and cakey and homey and fresh. About two blocks before I hit it, I started thinking about one of their marble crullers, the delightful twixtiness of the chocolate and vanilla dough, the luscious sugary glaze. Then I thought about the heft of it, literally how much one of those suckers weighs—it must be a good eight ounces—and how heavy I’d feel after I ate it. Half a block from the entrance to Peter Pan, I realized I should’ve just turned the corner so I wouldn’t even be tempted, but it was too late. I was going to walk right by. Pass it. Pass it. Pass it. Come on, Debbie, pass it.

No. I went in. But instead of buying (and eating) a marble cruller, I bought a pair of donut holes instead. They were delicious, and I enjoyed every crumb. Even licked my fingers afterwards, and felt no guilt. Two donut holes, I could account for.

This week’s goal: to combine the exercising with better eating. It’s pouring right now, supposed to rain all weekend, but hopefully by Monday it’ll be better. If not, I do have a gym membership and I’m not afraid to use it.

Tomorrow I’m going to cook one of my favorite meals, Turkey Meatloaf from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, with mashed potatoes and braised escarole. WW readers: the meatloaf is 6 points a serving, and worth every bit. Don’t forget to come back for the recipe!

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