the vacationist

MORE TOKYO

2009-05-21T19:51:00.005-04:00

On the left: Healthy shishito peppers. On the right: Grilled salty chicken skin. Balance.

Bookstore, Shibuya.

Tasting Japanese whiskies.

Probably if I lived here I would stop taking pictures in convenience stores of fluffy bread snacks. Probably.

Tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet) + Tsukemen (dipping ramen) = shirt stains, sweat.

TOKYO: BESUBORU!

2009-05-21T05:57:00.005-04:00

Bobby Valentine to me: "So you're a Yankees fan or a Mets fan or you don't really give a shit?"
Me: Ummm.
BV: Have a donut. [Note: there was a box of donuts on the table]
BV manages the Chiba Lotte Marines. My friend Shun works with him and was kind enough to invite me and another Tokyo pal, Shinji, to the home game last night against the Yokohama BayStars and to introduce us to his boss. The Marines lost but it was a fun night out.

One of the many dozens of beer girls that roam Japanese baseball stadiums, bowing before they make their way up the aisle to dispense draft beer from their keg-backpacks. If you imagine a cross between a st. bernard, a school girl in knee socks and a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger you sort of get the idea.

Chiba Marine Stadium, Chiba Prefecture, outside Tokyo.

This is not the real ball they play with. This is a person dressed as a ball.

Light Up the Passion For Your Team. Other motto, on back of every chair: "A Passion for Our Dream, A Commitment to Our Flag."

KYOTO: A VISIT TO THE YUBA MAKER

2009-05-17T01:08:00.004-04:00

Yuba is "tofu skin," a delicate, creamy silky thing made by carefully lifting the thin film that forms on top of gently simmering soy milk. I like yuba and have eaten in many times but never really gave any thought to how it was made until the other morning when I visited an old yuba maker in Kyoto. I sat in the back of the room and watched a young guy (a member of the family who has run the place for centuries) presiding over these vats of steaming soy milk, just barely at a simmer. When a skin had formed, he'd run a wooden dowel across a vat and pull up a translucent sheet of yuba and let it dry on a rack. It is slow work, a sort of mesmerizing ritual. Hours and hours and hours, one by one harvesting these dainty, weightless sheets, waiting for another skin to develop on the warm surface. The young tofu maker's aunt gave me a bowl of warm, freshly made yuba, scrunched up in a bowl with just a few drops of soy sauce. Simple, oishii, delicious. The family cat sat next to me in a styrofoam crate. The aunt brought a plate of salty, deep-fried yuba. An old man washed out the giant pots used to soak the soy beans. The young guy kept walking around his vats, watching. The cat yawned off for a nap. After a morning snack, I was ready to do the same.

KYOTO (DAY TWO AND A HALF)

2009-05-14T17:58:00.008-04:00

I'm working in Kyoto for a week. Bright and sunny here a good time to walk the city. This morning I'm going to see more temples, wander through the food market, do some interviews and try to stop eating pillowy frosting-filled white-bread snacks from 24 hour convenience stores. From top: Little, sweet, miso-slathered fish. A famous tofu maker outside his shop. A not-famous tofu apprentice in his hair net. Watering the concrete (wet stone outside a restaurant or shop is a sign of welcome). Kyoto, 5/13–14.

REFLECTIONS IN A TUB OF DUCK FAT

2009-05-11T10:00:00.003-04:00

Perhaps some time ago you could have asked me, "Do you think you might possibly become a person who takes pictures of duck fat?" Then I could have answered you, confidently, No. What sort of person takes pictures of any kind of fat? I might have asked you, What is duck fat for? And: Why would I ever be near a tub of it? I wouldn't have cared about a giant tub of perfectly creamy rendered duck fat sitting in my refrigerator. And just the thought of it resting there for months, concealing in its opaque depths, the color of french vanilla ice cream, salty pieces of confit duck legs, necks and wings, wouldn't have comforted me at all. So I'd have no reason to take it out once in a while just to admire it. But these days I do think about it and do look in on it sometimes. And so I'll take a picture of it now—just so I don't eat the whole thing today.

COUNT DRUNKULA

2009-05-04T16:29:00.007-04:00

L to R: me, my colleague Andrew, Count Niccolo Branca of Fratelli Branca, producers of Fernet Branca and the deliciously old-man minty Branca Menta. Today at a press lunch somewhere in Midtown. It's a very food nerd kind of day for me, this rainy Monday. Next up: I'm guest live-blogging the James Beard Foundation Awards all night at http://www.jamesbeard.org/blog. There is apparently a Hendricks Gin bar in the press room. Oh no.

FYI

2009-05-01T15:34:00.016-04:00

Have a happy and safe Friday, imaginary readers.

SOME PICTURES THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH EARTH DAY (EXCEPT THEY'RE FROM THERE)

2009-04-22T16:37:00.009-04:00

Top to bottom: Botswana, Lisbon, London, Tokyo, Nairobi, Hong Kong, Tokyo.

THE SACHS-MEEHAN PLAN FOR SUSTAINABLE DRINKING

2009-04-07T17:18:00.006-04:00

Step 1: Make sure someone else is paying. Step 2: Pick up the April edition of GQ which has a story of mine in which I follow the very talented and likable Jim Meehan, proprietor/barman of the very tiny and likable cocktail place PDT around on an investigative bar crawl. The idea is there are a lot of fancy cocktails out there now but none of us really know what to drink when, how to construct a menu of these things, what follows what so you're happy and don't feel terrible at the end of the night. You'd call PDT a hole-in-the-wall if it wasn't more properly described as a hole-in-a-phone-booth-inside-a-hotdog-joint. It's a nice place and you should go and drink Black Flips and That One Sachs Likes with the Pomegranate-Molasses But Made With Rye & Not Gin (pretty sure that's not the real name but it's the only way I can remember it) and eat Chang Dogs. Unless it's crowded and you might take my seat, in which case you should just send Jim your money and good wishes. I think that's supposed to be Jim in a jacket, facing the bar in the magazine illustration above. To the left is our friend Dr. Michael. The woman is GQ's own Sarah Goldstein. And I'm the woodcut on the right, though my hair doesn't look nearly that good in real life.

Have a look at the story HERE

NZ AM/PM

2009-03-25T11:19:00.003-04:00

Just back from two very nice weeks in very nice New Zealand. More pictures, stories soon. For now, top: on the ferry to Waiheke island with the Auckland skyline falling away. Above: long-exposure shot of the view from the deck of the house we were staying at, on a starry, cloudy, moon-filled night on Waiheke.

RANDOM SUNDAY: PICTURES FROM HERE AND THERE

2009-03-01T13:01:00.003-05:00

Bistrot Paul Bert, Paris 1.09

Buenos Aires, 2.09

Dubai, 12.07

Hobart, Tasmania, 12.07

Monte Argentario, Italy Tuscany, 6.07

THE SCARIEST SIGNS IN THE WORLD

2009-03-01T12:45:00.002-05:00

Skull and crossbones? Check. Little girl in pigtails running away from the death wave? Check. Top is from Ticino, Switzerland. These signs are everywhere, next to the most innocent looking little quiet mountain streams. Bottom is from Montreal and is just plain evil. What is the instruction here? Simply: death is coming from above.

MY WAR ON BRUNCH; MORE MARCH MAGS

2009-02-27T13:17:00.006-05:00

GQ this month has a big thing about the best breakfasts in America or the world or something. Within this larger story there is a tiny, angry, lunatic piece by me called WHY BRUNCH BLOWS in which I declare brunch dead and use a lot of exclamation marks. To read this important piece of breakfast journalism, go HERE. On a more positive note, the flip side of that very same piece of printed paper carries an even smaller ode to the DELICIOUS MORNING BUN from Tartine Bakery, San Francisco which I non-blogged about last summer HERE. GQ actually used my photo of the morning bun, which is kind of cool.

MONTREAL IN MARCH NGT

2009-02-27T12:56:00.004-05:00

The nice editors of National Geographic Traveler called to tell me that Montreal was the most "playful" city in the world. OK, I said. Would I, they asked, go there and find the playfulness and report back? OK, I said. Mostly this involved talking to contortionist teachers at the national academy of circus, dodging the rain and drinking coffee with some interesting folks who love their city. Also: eating sweet Fairmount bagels, foie gras poutine (above, from the excellent Au Pied de Cochon) and a lot of other things that didn't make it into the story because it wasn't a food story. Anyway, I think everyone can agree Montreal is a fine city. PDF of the story is HERE. I'll put up a link to an online version when I can find one.

FAUXMOFUKU? MYMOFUKU?

2009-02-24T15:23:00.003-05:00

I know this is supposed to be mostly a travel not-blog but sometimes I'm not traveling which means, usually, I'm at home trying to avoid avoiding work. Which means, usually, playing in the kitchen (if my office and kitchen were on different floors I would be much more productive). Walking home from Chinatown yesterday I stopped at a market to look for a quick lunch snack. Noticed these buns labeled "Steam Pita Bread" which look similar to the ones Momofuku uses to wrap their justly-famous pork buns. Figured I'd make my own homegrown approximation. Bought a couple pounds of pork belly at the same Chinatown market. Added some hoisin sauce I had and leftover white wine and some randomish spices, threw it all in a pot in a low oven and let it gurgle away for the afternoon. Assembled the pork in the buns with a quick cucumber pickle I made and steamed it all together which made everything nicely warm and gooey. Added a couple of drops of sriracha. Have to say: pretty momofukuing good. Cheap. Basically no work. Which reminds me…

STILL LIFE WITH BREAD & BUTTER (OR: EVEN MORE ABOUT THE DOLOMITES)

2009-02-20T16:47:00.005-05:00

Still harping on my Bon Appétit story about the Dolomites. For some reason my pictures of the bread and butter at La Perla hotel's La Stüa de Michil in Corvara came out very arty. I wasn't sure what kind of arty so I asked my good and wise friend Val who is a fancy art dealer (I believe that's the term) what kind of pretty picture I was taking. Val writes: "That's a goddamn beautiful bread basket. Too sensual to be Dutch. I'm going to put your photo in with the Spanish painters of the 17th c., for its contrast of dark to light, its stagelit aura. Zubaran. Velasquez." So the Zubaran-Velasquez setting on my camera works!

MORE ABOUT THAT POLENTA

2009-02-20T16:18:00.003-05:00

This is Rifugio Scotoni, the little mountainside hut I mentioned in my Dolomites story in this month's Bon Appétit, and this is the polenta at Scotoni, the best polenta in the world. If you are some other polenta, really it's time to pack it in, give up, go home and just be happy being cornmeal and get a job being a taco or at the bottom of an english muffin. This is the polenta elite and you don't have what it takes. And what it takes apparently is a lot of cheese. The cook here sees polenta as primarily a cheese delivery system. He takes three local cheeses—Fontina, Schiz and Dobbiaco—and folds them into the polenta and flips and turns it and keeps working the stuff until as, as I say in the story, he somehow manages to "elevate the humble polenta to a many-textured thing of complex, creamy, grainy, crisp-edged, gooey-but-sturdy wonder. The magic polenta sits next to a pork sausage, more German or Austrian than Italian, split down the middle and grilled—simple, salty, good. This is fortifying food that cries out for its own classification in the Michelin Guide: Worth Climbing a Mountain For."
(Whole story is HERE)

ARGENTINA ON TWO HOURS OF SLEEP A DAY (SOME RANDOM PICTURES)

2009-02-15T18:38:00.002-05:00

Down in sunny Buenos Aires today, getting ready to fly back to cold NYC. Good week here and in Mendoza. There was a lot of wine involved. And fancy chefs. And, above, empanadas.

Polo match at Cheval des Andes, the winery owned by Chateau Cheval Blanc. The Andes are behind the players. The sparkling wine and ladies in sun dresses are behind the camera. Not a bad way to spend the morning.

A private tasting with Laura Catena and her charming winemakers at Catena Zapata in Mendoza

A coffee, some water con gas, old men reading newspapers, taxi blurring by and a book (not shown): Pretty good recipe for how to spend an afternoon.

DOLOMITES (FINALLY)

2009-02-15T18:12:00.002-05:00

My story about hiking up snowy mountain passes in search of perfect polenta and driving the rental car into walls of ice in the insanely beautiful Dolomites region of northern Italy is finally out in the March issue of Bon Appétit magazine. Check out the story HERE. Hope you like it.

BUENOS AIRES BOUND

2009-02-10T21:32:00.003-05:00

Headed down to Buenos Aires tonight. As I have no picture of me sweating and running to catch the Air Train (and who would want to see this) I offer SOMETHING ELSE, randomly: recently published interview with the lovely Rashida Jones, part of my continuing series of brief conversations with pretty women about what they like in other men. More, relevant and, I hope, sun-drenched pictures from Argentina shortly.

HALL OF FAME OF PORK (VII)

2009-01-12T15:22:00.005-05:00

Behold the andouillette de Troyes. Rarely a crowd-pleaser, sometimes a room-clearer, and not to be confused with either the firmer, smoked French andouille sausage or its distant Cajun relative, a good andouillette is a fine and noble thing made of coarse and ignoble stuff. Specifically it is a loose assemblage of pig parts, roughly two parts large intestine to one part chopped stomach, stuffed into more intestine. Cut into one and—well, fragrant is the polite way to put it.

Ed Behr, in an excellent story about andouillette in the latest issue of his always excellent journal The Art of Eating quotes a former prime minister of France and mayor of Lyon who put it this way: "Politics is like an andouillette, it should smell a little of shit but not too much."

I first tasted an andouillette somewhere in Lyon about ten years ago. Half enjoying, half put off by the steamy funk, I liked it enough to eat them again every now and then in Paris since then. The flavor is…I was about to write "earthy" but that's wrong: it is deeply animal-y. I've had some good ones (and a couple of literal stinkers) but never a great one until last week, following Behr's suggestions, I made my way the tiny l'Estaminet d'Arômes et Cépages in the Marché des Enfants Rouge, a covered market in the Marais. The andouillette served here is from La Charcuterie Daniel Thierry, considered the best in Troyes. Grilled to a papery crispness on the outside, the smell was mild but the taste of the meat was deep and alluring. As usual Ed Behr gets it precisely right : "A good andouillette is rich, meaty, tender, and—almost like some distant, suspect relative of a truffle—highly sensual."

Funkadelic.

MR. ADAM GOES TO LUXEMBOURG

2009-01-08T23:34:00.003-05:00

My friend Pavone and his family recently moved to Luxembourg. Over in the friends' column on the right of this page, I've got a link to his blog about living and cooking there. It's really good—both the writing and, as it turns out, the actual living and cooking there. Sunday I took the TGV from Paris to Luxembourg (two hours in pitch black; there could be a tunnel there for all I know) to stay with them for a couple of days. I'd never been to Luxembourg, was a little skeptical of its existence and, after a fun week, needed sleep and tennis. Pavone picked me up at the train station. He is by birth and temperament and fierce loyalty a true New Yorker, so it was a fun to find him standing by an idling Audi in the icy dark of middle Europe. He expertly guided the Audi through a kind of stone slalom of ancient roads back to his apartment which, as promised, was directly across the street from the Grand Duke's palace. (He looks out on the back of the palace; I took the picture above early the next morning after waking unaccountably early). I got to hang out with his excellent almost-five-year-old boys, Sam and Alex, who decided to call me "Mr. Adam". This at first seemed slightly formal, deferential, fitting given the proximity of the ducal palais where foreign heads of state are welcomed. By day two however the boys had taken to pinning me into the kitchen with a plastic sword and screaming so that all the world's last remaining grand duchy would know, "Mr. Adam is a monster!" Pavone roasted a blue-legged Bresse chicken. In the morning we played tennis at a sports complex in Kockelscheuer that also housed badminton courts and a pizzeria. So I'm happy to report that Luxembourg exists and my friends seem well there. After I'd left for Paris, Pavone reported this verbatim exchange with his all-knowing all-seeing kinder.

"Why can't Mr. Adam stay?" [Alex asked]
I told him that you needed to get back to New York.
"Why?"
Because you had a job, I said, and you needed to get back to it.
"Job?" he asked, looking at me incredulously, actually shaking his head.
"Mr. Adam doesn't have a job."

IF IT HAS TO BE A SALAD

2009-01-06T06:18:00.002-05:00

If the first thing you eat in the new year has to be a salad, then: Eat it in Paris. In a friendly, funny old place. Share it with someone nice. Make sure it has fresh, perfectly cooked eggs on top. And a lot of cured duck ham. And gesiers confit. And lardons. And bits of foie gras tucked underneath just the littlest bit of lettuce. A satisfying, stabilizing beginning to what I hope will be a happy new year for everyone.

SOME THINGS I FORGOT TO MENTION

2008-12-27T06:42:00.011-05:00

A magnum of nice old champagne. Which has nothing to do with this except that someone was kind enough to share it at a friends birthday recently and I thought I'd commemorate it with a photo — that and the subject here is OLD STUFF. I've been bad about posting links to stories I've had out recently. So— some VERY LITTLE THINGS that have cropped up here and there over the last couple of months (none of which will age as well as the '61 Moet). Click dates for links.

GQ 8.08 "Provide anything but hookers and drugs" — and other advice from hotelier Klaus Ortlieb.

GQ 11.09 In defense of drinking on the job. The fact that I can't remember writing this is proof that if nothing else I occasionally follow my own advice.

GQ 1.09 Tips for running a great restaurant from the boys at Frasca in Boulder. OK, this one's not technically old yet but it will be soon!

DEPARTURES 12.08 A story about the Apple stores. In case you are just waking up from a coma.

From Best Life, brief telephone conversations with pretty ladies in which I ask them about what attracts them to other men.
11.08 KIM RAVER And 12.08 Mad Men's CHRISTINA HENDRICKS

Talking about Swedish rock and Bjorn Borg underwear in Stockholm in SPIN 7.08

COQ BLOCK R.I.P.

2008-12-05T15:49:00.004-05:00

It is with a heavy (though unclogged) heart that I must report that BLOCK ROOSTER FOOD has disappeared from Varick and Downing Sts. With it goes one of the great nomenclatural mysteries of the city. When I first moved to the neighborhood this was just a typical KFC-rip-off joint—Kasparov Fried Chicken or Kennebunkport Fried Chicken or something. One morning the familiar red-and-white awning was gone. In it's place, a sleek blue awning and bold re-branding: Block Rooster Food. How did they come up with it? What did it mean? I always meant to stop in and talk to them about it. Maybe pitch it as a story for Fast Company or something.

Q: Did you use a consultant for the name?
A: Yes, we have a friend and he has a thesaurus. We told him we wanted something that says basically "neighborhood chicken restaurant." You know, but more interesting, more jazzy. We considered "Area Poultry Chow" but it seemed ill considered to go from KFC to APC. "Local Avian Eatery" was very vowel-y and sounded like an illness. Then we hit on Block Rooster Food and it just sounded right.
Q: Can I really get thighs-and-fries for $2.50.
A: Yep.

So long BRF.

OIL OF POULET

There is, however, some good news in chicken shack signage. The line about "moisturized chicken" disappeared a couple years ago from the awning of the Chester Fried on 23rd St. But I found another one where the strange, beautiful description still lives.