With Intent to Eat

2011-01-17T00:15:00.001-05:00

The funny thing about the holidays is that you have to be with your family, which inevitably causes the dreaded questions to come up. You know the ones - in high school it was "So, which colleges are you looking at?" then, in freshman and sophomore years of college, it was "So, what are you going to major in?", and, once you become a junior, people start to ask the worst question of all - "So, what are you going to do with your life?"

It's really easy to just nod along and either deal with the judgement of not having an answer or make up something false that people will vaguely nod at and say "That's great! Good for you!", but the harder thing is to say what you're really thinking. For a while (from freshman year of college through about two months ago), my answer to the last question was "something in the restaurant industry" - an atypical answer that usually inspired people to give me a puzzled look silently asking why I'm wasting my potential, which would cause me to delve into one of my spiels about how many awesome things are going on with food right now and how there is so much talent in that industry, at which point people would give me a sympathetic nod, like I'd failed my LSATs or something and had to resort to working in a restaurant, and leave for more wine.

Since I've decided to join TFA, the reactions have been really varied. A lot of people feel like my response to their question invites them to give me their opinions on the public education system, the teachers' unions, and immigration - things that I'm not always up for hearing. Just because I don't want to lie when I tell you what my job will be for the next two years shouldn't permit you to rail at me for the decisions I've made or to rant about the current situation in our schools. I know it's an issue and that's why I'm trying to help do something about it.

My family, however, has been awesome. They've asked the kinds of questions that have allowed me to come to terms with next year, balancing the excitement with the nervousness. They've also showed a ton of respect for my choices, letting me talk about my decision making process instead of bombarding me with the reasons why they would never do it. It's inspired a series of great conversations about some deep topics, including the ones I named above - discussions that have made me even more excited about what's to come.

Bay Area for the first time

2011-01-13T01:21:00.000-05:00

So, last Wednesday, i headed out to the Bay Area to check it out for the first time since i learned I'd be living and working there next year. I had to take the first round of certification tests (yay CSET), meet some of the people I would be working with at a meet and greet cocktail party thing, and, of course, check out the city's food scene.

The test went OK, I think - I'll know for sure on the 31st when we find out if we passed, but it was just about what I expected.

The meet and greet went really well. There are always nerves when you're meeting people for the first time, but everyone seemed really cool and nice, which is a really good sign about the next two years.

And the food. Some was good; some was, quite frankly, disappointing.

The first really California meal I had was a quintessentially West Coast thing: In n' Out burger. It really is fast food, but if you need to eat something and your other choices are McDonald's or Burger King, your best bet is to opt for In n' Out. They pack a lot more vegetables onto every burger, so you don't feel quite as sickly overwhelmed after eating one as you would after eating a Big Mac or a Whopper. The burger itself is pretty tender and the sauce is quite delicious. All in all, not bad for fast food.

Our next meal was at the standard bearer for American cuisine: Chez Panisse. Started by Alice Waters, it has espoused the wonders of healthy, fresh, local, farm cooking since the day it opened. Because we had to cancel our original reservation because of the meet and greet, we had lunch at the cafe - the more casual alternative offered in the space above the actual restaurant. The menu is relatively small and simple - all vegetable heavy items aplooking as fresh as can be. I opted for the halibut tartare served in endive wedges and then the house made spaghetti with baby arugula and mint pesto and sun dried tomatoes.

First, the tartare. The dish looked beautiful upon presentation, but was off-balance in terms of taste. The sweetness of the fish was completely overwhelmed by the tartness of the endive leaving this bitter ugly taste behind.

Then, the pasta. The spaghetti was well made, delicious and perfectly cooked with the toothsome quality that you don't find often in the US but that the chefs in Italy could do with their hands behind their backs. The sauce, however, was way too oily and out of proportion to the spaghetti, leaving a bowl full of oil behind once the spaghetti was gone.

Both of these dishes were completely disappointing and I really expected better from what should be the best of the best. Chez Panisse did excel on one point, though: about tphalfway through our appetizers, the electricity went out, leaving the staff scrambling to find alternate sources of light for the guests and to alleviate the smoke from the kitchen since the fans were no longer working. They handled it like pros, however, within minutes, a server had brought a lantern to our table and hey had opened all of the windows to get the smoke out of there. It was really cool to watch and definitely an example of really good service.

That nit, we headed over to a restaurant we had found throu Open Table, called Ame. We didn't really know what to expect, but knew that it "combined Japanese, Italian, and French flavors." Yum.

The space was spare and modern - rather dimly lit with tables spaced pretty far apart. I went for the barbecued eel and foie gras Napoleon - because, after all, if you saw something like that on a menu, wouldn't you have to order that too? The fish and foie were served on top of a daikon radish whose juice perfectly balanced the overwhelming richness. Honestly, when the dish drives it looked overwhelming - too big, too rich, too much, but the end result was amazing. The juice and the radish perfectly complemented the fish and foie. Unbelievable.

The next course - a survey of each offering from the sashimi bar - was less than remarkable. Or, to put it this way, I don't even know what I had because it's not worth remembering.

The next meal was really awesome. To recover from the awfulness that was the CSET and from the awesomeness that was the night out with my fellow future TFAers, we went out for dim sum at the highest rated Chinese restaurant in the Bay - Yank Sing. It's a lot more elegant than your average Chinatown place and the food represents that. It's absolutely delicious and i can't even begin to list the great things we tried but i can tell you to get the pork buns. They are light, fluffy, sweet, sour - really worth the trip.

Monday night was a dinner we had all looked forward to - Quince, an upscale Italian restaurant in San Francisco. I had really high expectations and, like Chez Panisse, the only one that was met was the service. None of the appetizers or entrees really interested me, so I opted for two pasta dishes, both of which were incoherent and lukewarm. Really disappointing.

And that was San Francisco. The trip was really fun and made me excited about next year.

2011-01-12T15:57:00.003-05:00

After last night's fevered rush home (involving all flights to NYC being cancelled and our getting last minute on a plane to Baltimore and then racing to catch the last Amtrak train to Penn Station and arriving safe and sound at 3AM), I woke up this morning and decided there would be nothing better to do than to make chocolate chip cookies today. This is one of my favorite things about being home - the fact that i can just wake up and decide to cook or bake something and, if it's something simple, we will most likely have the ingredients and the equipment needed.

Right now I'm waiting for the butter to soften up (I always manage to forget about the butter until the last minute and then have to wait impatiently while it slowly softens) but more on this later...

Dinner: A Photo Essay (Roast Chicken with Homemade Stuffing, Salad, and Broccoli and Mushrooms with a Ginger-Garlic Soy Sauce)

2011-01-03T12:15:00.002-05:00

Szechuan Gourmet, Momofuku Ssäm Bar, and Colicchio and Sons

2010-12-30T21:33:00.001-05:00

To catch you up on some goings on:

Tuesday night we went to dinner at a great place in Times Square (yes, there is at least one decent dining establishment near Times Square) called Szechuan Gourmet.

I learned about it from my idol, Frank Bruni, when he reviewed it for the Times, and yesterday was my second trip back. It's a medium sized place with a bunch of people always rushing around, but it usually takes around 20-30 minutes to get seated. If you're a party of 5 or more, you can make a reservation, otherwise you need to tough it out with the rest of us.

We decided to go family style, ordering szechuan pork dumplings with roasted chili soy, sliced pork belly with chili garlic soy, eggplant with garlic sauce, braised whole bass with sichuan chili miso, and crispy lamb filets with chili cumin - all to share. The pork belly arrived first, with a pile of sliced belly in a brown-tinted sauce. From the first bite, it was delicious with the slow soft burn in the back of the throat that Szechuan cooking should have, offset by the richness of the belly and the sweet-salty punch of the soy. The dumplings came next - served one atop the next in a small bowl, drenched in the fiery, sweet sauce. If you really like dumplings (and I do), you need to try these. Fried pork dumplings from the neighborhood Chinese restaurant will never seem the same. The eggplant came next and had the same effect - all of that overdone, mushy eggplant slathered in a thick, gummy brown sauce seemed so inedible compared to the soft, garlicky, tangy fire that this dish presented. The whole fish was served by a server who with three deft flicks of her wrist deboned the fish and spooned some of the bright red sauce over it. The heat of the chili did not overwhelm the delicate bass but rather enhanced it but adding the tanginess of miso and the heat of the chili. Yum. Last to come was the lamb, the dish about which Bruni raves and, thus, for which I was most excited. Unlike the other dishes we had chosen, it came without sauce, just strips of lamb that had been rubbed with a chili-cumin dry rub. My first bite was tender - the juiciness of the lamb offsetting the dryness of the rub, but it just missed the mark. It may be that I'm just not that big a fan of cumin, but it just didn't do anything for me. Too dry, earthy, thick - if you accidentally inhaled, the cumin would go running down your windpipe and you would start coughing to get it out. Despite this one flaw, it was a great meal - and one that I am very excited to have again.

Yesterday was a really interesting day in the city. NYC is still recovering from the knockout punch of that snowstorm (patches of Brooklyn were not plowed until yesterday morning), but it's fun to be out because everyone seems to be enjoying the weird weather and snowbanks, etc. and is just generally having a good time.

Although my main goal this week is to prepare for my CSET exam a week from Saturday (current reaction: ahhhhhhhhh), I wanted to get out a bit so yesterday I went to lunch at one of my favorite places: Momofuku Ssäm Bar. Ssäm Bar is part of the David Chang group of restaurants (which also includes Momofuku Noodle Bar - another favorite, Momofuku Ko - impossible to get a reservation, and Mà Pêche, which is good, but not that good) and offers a twist on Korean street food. The one thing that anyone who's been to either Noodle or Ssäm Bar will tell you is that it's not even an option not to order the pork buns. They're are a large part of what made Chang famous at the start and they are still awesome. Let me put it this way: I've eaten at Ssäm Bar and Noodle Bar a fair amount, considering they are two of my favorite restaurants, and I ALWAYS order pork buns. The bun is light and fluffy, with two hunking pieces of pork belly, two slices of cucumber, and a dash of hoisin sauce inside. Delicious. You can add some of the sriarcha sauce they give you, which adds a nice kick to the finish, but then you just gotta dig in.

One of my favorite dishes at Ssäm Bar is the short rib sandwich. It came on the menu a couple years ago and since then has changed preparations a couple times, but always remaining delicious. Right now, it's served with slices of taleggio, bacon, and a beet slaw and is unbelievable. I basically devoured it.

After lunch, I spent some time perusing the Barnes & Noble at Union Square. Did you know that they have armchairs for people to hang out on the fourth floor and read? What a great thing. At 4PM, I met my dad to go on a tour of Grand Central Terminal that we had arranged with some friends. Our guide took us all around the terminal itself and then down into the basement, where we saw the presidential train platform (cool) and the elevator that is specifically designed to fit the presidential limo that goes up from the basement into a ballroom in the Waldorf-Astoria (cooler).

Afterwards, we headed down to Colicchio & Sons for dinner - a meal which I can honestly say was a disappointment. I ate at Gramercy Tavern when Chef Colicchio was there and at Craft when he opened up his own place and can remember nothing but truly amazing meals. This, however, was a dud. And that's putting it nicely. To start, I had a raw salmon dish served with a sweet and sour soy sauce and edamame - delicious pieces of luscious, fatty salmon yet the beans really didn't work with the dish and neither did the overly salty sauce.

Then, we shared the roasted chicken, served with winter vegetables and roasted potatoes and the play on surf n' turf - a dish featuring scallops and pork belly. The chicken was good - if anything slightly overdone, but the sauce was once again oversalted.

The surf n' turf was bland and unimaginative. Imagine two seared scallops on a plate. Then imagine two pieces of pork belly next to them. Then a couple pieces of citrus fruit. And, on the side, a dollop of bacon mayo. There was no cohesion, no element or theme tying the different ingredients together and the bacon mayo tasted more of mayo than bacon.

All in all, not horrid, but not good. The meal was a huge letdown - I expected more of Chef Colicchio and the attention to detail and pursuit of perfection just wasn't there.

All in all a great couple days - and look for some photos and a review of Vinegar Hill House coming soon!

The Number One Reason That Working At Home is Different

2010-12-25T23:43:00.001-05:00

Oh hey there, Suki. Didn't see you there. Are you enjoying this as much as I am?

Hours Left: 24
Pages Left: 7

Julie and Julia

2010-12-24T12:27:00.000-05:00

Last night, after an epically good dinner at Union Square Cafe (including, but not limited to: lamb and polenta ravioli; scallops with butternut squash, brussel sprouts, pancetta, and black truffle butter; kabocha squash polenta with walnuts and gorgonzola; carrot cake with cream cheese ice cream; chocolate brownie custard with whipped cream), I came home and of course embraced the couch potato-ness that just happens at home, even when there is a thesis chapter to write, and guess what was on? Julie and Julia! That wonderful movie that makes you alternately (1) wish you were Julia Child and living in Paris with a husband that adores you and (2) wish you were writing a blog that caused Amanda Hesser and Frank Bruni to come to dinner, not to mention the book and movie deals that came after. Meryl Streep, as always, is delightful, and just makes you want to run in the kitchen and start making some coq au vin.

Now, back to the writing!

Countdown:
Hours Left: 56
Pages Left: 15-20

North and Home

2010-12-23T16:25:00.000-05:00

After about a week of really tough work - I have finally finished almost all of my finals! My thesis chapter is still hanging over my head until Sunday, but that's more of a labor of love and will manage to get done somehow.

Anyway, yesterday I met my friend Margaret for lunch at North on my way home. It was my first time doing lunch at North and OH. MY. There's a pork confit grilled cheese on the menu (See picture below). After tasting it, I can honestly ask the question WHY HAS NO ONE EVER DONE THIS BEFORE? Smoky, cheesy, meaty, delicious, with the depth and earthiness of the pumpernickel bread in the background - it was delicious. I could have done with some acid - maybe in the form of a pickle or some coleslaw or something, but then again I do love my acid and it was delicious as is.

Try it try it try it. Regular grilled cheese will never seem the same again.

Another highlight of the lunch was the delicious pasta I had as my mid-course. It combined bucatini (my fave!) with mussels, vegetable sofrito, and a touch of olive oil. Silky smooth and light with a slight salty kick that spoke to the sea, it was delicious.

2010-12-21T02:06:00.000-05:00

Finals Period Always Has Its Moments of Genius

2010-12-21T00:11:00.001-05:00

When you take this:

And you add this:

You get THIS:

2010-12-20T20:19:00.002-05:00

No fro yo or ice cream during finals? Shameful, Val, really shameful.

2010-12-19T20:15:00.001-05:00

Finals:

Finals Therapy:

San Francisco and Me: Already Turning into a Love Story

2010-12-13T23:18:00.001-05:00

So today I was perusing the Serious Eats website, in true procrastination fashion, and found this:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/12/best-food-cities-for-pizza-sandwiches-hot-dogs-sichuanstreet-food-ice-cream-slideshow.html#show-128093 - a guide to 8 cities which are doing great things in certain culinary areas. Clicking through, I saw that they talked about San Francisco and ice cream. Oh. My. God. Considering that nothing goes together so well as ice cream and me, could you imagine any place that would be better suited to me than SF? I am getting more and more excited about this...

A Little Shoutout to Start the Week

2010-12-13T23:15:00.000-05:00

So today I want to talk about the amazing woman who I like to call my food mentor here in Amherst, Betty Rosbottom. Betty and her husband, who is my English professor this semester, invited a couple Amherst students over to their house to decorate their Christmas tree and eat a wonderful home-cooked meal (which is UNREAL to anyone who's ever tasted Val). We had a lovely time decorating the tree (it looks spectacular) and then Betty served us a wonderful casserole with rigatoni, tomato sauce, olives, and basil. It looked relatively simple to make and tasted delicious. She then followed it up with some of the most outrageous brownies I have ever tasted. I of course have to stay loyal to my mom's brownies, which are unbelievable, but Betty's are of such an intensely fudgey rich character, they are in a whole new category. The Brownie recipe is already on her website and Betty promised to put the pasta recipe up in January so you have to check it out: www.bettyrosbottom.com

Enjoy!

PASTA

2010-12-12T13:14:00.000-05:00

I forgot to mention this in my previous post, but I absolutely could not be more excited for what I'm getting for Christmas. Aside from the necessary (a new computer before I go to Institute next summer and a ski jacket), I am getting a pasta board and rolling pin so I can make pasta at home! I've been longing for one of these pretty much since I went to Bologna and took my epic pasta-making class there and I am so excited to try it out. Get ready for some sweet posts featuring that whole process.

Esselon Cafe

2010-12-12T13:12:00.000-05:00

Wow, I actually made it a couple of days without blogging as a method of procrastination. Look at me go! It's mostly because I've turned to Sporcle instead (if you don't know what it is, go there now and, if you do, you know what I'm talking about) playing every kind of geography, Oscar, literature, and Harry Potter-themed quiz imaginable. Last night was the incredible and always epic Crossett Christmas, which turned out to be a great night. Today, however, I'm paying for my folly in taking almost a whole day off between getting an outfit for the night and going out. I'm camped out at Esselon Cafe, a great little coffee shop/breakfast place on Route 9 in what would probably be called Hadley. The food is a couple notches above diner yet with the same consistency. The blueberry pancakes (served with free maple syrup) are killer, as are the specials that are detailed on the chalkboard as you enter. Today I opted for the special omelette, which was with ricotta, tomatoes, and arugula (yum!) and, instead of toast, opted for one of their bagels. Now I am a New Yorker and I know my bagels, and I can honestly say that Esselon's bagels are up there with anybody's. They are smaller than most of the NYC bagels I've found, but that just lends to their crispiness and general small proportion of gooey dough to crust. Delicious.

The Highs and Lows of Val Chili

2010-12-09T19:04:00.000-05:00

So, as all Amherst kids know, Val is pretty much the bane of the Amherst student's existance. It serves consistently over- or under-cooked food made from a low-grade product that turns out a meal that is at best satisfactory and more usually just plain disappointing. Every year, the one bright spot on the Val menu occurs on Friday of Parents' Weekend, when Val hosts local farmers, chefs, and purveyors, inviting them in to set up samples of their products. Val also designs the menu of the day to reflect the amazing local food and it is usually the one day a year that I am happy at Val. This year, our new Executive Chef, Jeremy Rousch (who I believe knows what he's doing but doesn't have enough leeway or money to make anything happen) made some incredible chili featuring local farmed beef. The beef, for the first time ever at Val, was juicy and tender, able to be sliced with just a fork. Awesome, right? I walked up to all of the Val management and more or less begged them to put this on the menu.

Well, here's where you can start shaking your head because no story about Val ever has a happy ending. Today I saw that "chuck wagon chili" was on the menu and I got super excited because that was the chili! It was coming back! I loaded up a bowl and more excited than I've been at Val since they got rid of cereal at dinner, took a bite. A chewy, tough bite. Wait a second, this can't be right. I've had this before - the beef was so moist and tender! Another bite - same result. After eating enough to be convinced that my first bite was not a fluke, the answer came to me: this time, Val had not advertised the origin of the beef, meaning that it was definitely not the same product. Knowing Val, this inevitably means a product of less quality and, man, it showed. Instead of a chili that was one of the best I've ever had, I had something that I will never eat again. Ever.

Finals Tally

2010-12-08T23:38:00.000-05:00

All that lies between me and that lovely meal at North with Margaret on December 22nd is:

1 4-5 page paper (due 12/09)
1 2-hour exam (12/18-12/22)
1 10-15 page paper (due 12/20)
1 8-10 page paper (due 12/21)
1 20-25 page thesis chapter (due 12/22)
TOTAL: 42 pages and 1 2-hour exam

I can! I can! I can!

It's (Finally) Clementine Season!

2010-12-07T21:40:00.000-05:00

I could argue that the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is, aside from exams, the best time of the year. Even so, one of the highlights has to be the start of clementine season. Every year, these mandarin orange varieties come from California, Morocco, Spain, and south of Bosnia and Herzegovina and stay for the majority of winter. They are small, sweet, super easy to peel, usually seedless, and delicious. I just picked up my second crate in about a week from Whole Foods. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Break

2010-12-02T20:56:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! The break was nice and much needed, but now I'm back at school, fully rested and recuperated and ready to tackle the hell that is finals period. Before I get back to work, I do want to share some photos of the cooking I did over the break.

The first 7 photos are from my delicious first dinner back at home. My parents were nice enough to cook up my absolute favorite: bucatini all'Amatriciana (ala Marcella Hazan), with bucatini straight from Italy (via Eataly), San Marzano Tomatoes, and crunchy, salty pancetta. To top it all off, we had a delicious appetizer created with all the best of Italy: prosciutto di San Daniele, Mozzarella di Bufala, fresh arugula, and a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

The 8th photo is from the middle of my marathon bake-a-thon, in which I successfully made 2 apple pies, a pumpkin pie, a triple-layer chocolate cake, pumpkin brownies, and chocolate biscotti. This is the start of the cake in the mixer.

Thanksgiving - Almost

2010-11-18T15:03:00.000-05:00

It is so close to Thanksgiving it's unbearable. After a lengthy decision process, I've picked the three desserts I'm making for the Lang Thanksgiving: Mario Batali's Apple Pie, as featured in New York Magazine (it will be my first time working with lard - yum!), Martha Stewart's Pumpkin Pie, and my specialty: a three layer chocolate cake with whipped cream filling and chocolate frosting. I've also started to pick the restaurants I'm definitely visiting when I'm home: Maialino, Union Square Cafe, Momofuku Noodle Bar, and North (duh).

Now to get through all of the work I have to do before I leave on Saturday...

Bay Area Here I Come!

2010-11-16T00:44:00.000-05:00

Kinda big moment. OK, HUGE moment.

Today I officially accepted my offer to become a 2011 Teach For America corps member in the Bay Area teaching English to students somewhere between 6th and 12th grade. So, I will be moving out there come June!

Crazy, right? All in a good way, but still. While this does mean that I am putting my restaurant industry dreams on hold for a couple years, it offers an exciting and challenging new opportunity that I am super excited to take! Don't worry, restaurant industry, I'll be back. And probably on the sooner side, since I do get all summer off both years!

On the other side of it, it will be a great place to explore culinarily with my parents when they visit! Chez Panisse, French Laundry, Ad Hoc - here I come!

Betty Rosbottom

2010-11-15T20:00:00.000-05:00

So, when I'm at Amherst, the one thing that makes me not go insane from not having access to a. good food and b. a kitchen is my work with Betty Rosbottom, a local cookbook author and cooking school teacher. Through my amazing French major advisor, Paul Rockwell, I met Mrs. Rosbottom, who is the wife of Amherst profess Ron Rosbottom, and I volunteer with her once a week for a couple of hours, helping her prepare for her classes or a column. Her newest venture is an updated version of her website, where she lists tried and true recipes, restaurants she loves, and great products she's found. It's a great site that you should definitely check out: www.bettyrosbottom.com

A Weekend in Vermont

2010-11-07T21:51:00.001-05:00

So this weekend I went up to Middlebury to visit some of my friends from study abroad. First of all, all of the things you hear about the food at Midd are true - it IS that good, it IS that local, it IS that fresh. They have maple syrup at breakfast, multiple flavors of Stonybrook Farms yogurt, homemade granola, they don't overcook their vegetables: I could actually go on for a while. However, one of my favorite things was this hot chocolate that we had at the local chocolate shop that we stopped in at. It's a cute little place with children crawling around (adorable!) and they offer a selection of truffles, chocolate bars, and warm drinks. They have two versions of hot chocolate: the warm sipping chocolate, which is the more classic hot chocolate, and the hot cacao, which is literally crushed cacao beans, so you have all of the bitterness that they provide. I decided to be less adventurous and went for the sipping chocolate, which was delicious. Not too intense, but unsweetened all the same and topping with creamy, thick whipped cream. Yum.

The photo on top is just one of my favorite things - fall at Amherst.

On the way home, we stopped at this amazing store that you feel like you would only be able to find in rural New England: the Vermont Country Store. It's at the start of VT103, just after you get off of 91N. It's huge and offers pretty much anything you could ever need: flannel pajamas, slippers, winter jackets, cheese, candy, chocolate, fudge, medicine, health products, kitchen supplies, toys, etc. I picked up some amazing chocolate covered pretzels and marshmallows, sea salt caramels, and a wheel of extra sharp Vermont cheddar cheese. So good.

21st Birthday Weekend - it's the big one!

2010-10-31T12:51:00.000-04:00

Wow, I knew it was a while since I had last posted, but I can't believe it's been over a month! And what a glorious unbelievable month it has been. Since I last posted, I have turned 21 and am now able to enjoy all of the yummy benefits that come from being able to legally imbibe (only with food, of course!), I also had my thesis proposal approved by the Amherst French Department (and I am officially a scholar of food in Rabelais and Zola), and I have taken one step further in my quest to actually graduate here by starting (and continuing, as we speak) English comps, which are required to graduate with a major in English!

All great developments, of course, but the main one I want to talk about here today is my birthday weekend. I turned 21 on the Friday of Columbus Day Weekend and, as I was heading home for Fall Break, which turned out to be a food extravaganza, there was only one place that I could think of eating my birthday dinner - Restaurant North in Armonk, NY! It was so great to see everybody (and to see the looks on their faces - as if they had seen a ghost! - when I popped up out of the blue, but the best part was the incredible things that are happening on their menu right now. First of all, I will remind you that I am biased here - I love these people - however, I promise you, if there's one thing I will always be honest about, it's food. If something's not good, it's not good - It doesn't matter if my mom makes it or if it's from Per Se. The meal I had at North that night (and I'll be honest in saying that Chef was nice enough to let me taste a bit of a bunch of different dishes) was AWESOME. INCREDIBLE. Top seven for sure (along with Per Se, Taillevent, EMP, Gramercy, L'Arpège, Da Cesari). It all started off with a salad and the tuna tartare which, if you know me, you know I ADORE. Then, I got to taste bucatini with lobster (rich, buttery, delicious) and garganelli with short ribs, which was pretty much everything I love in life rolled into one dish - intense, flavorful, tender short ribs in a rich ragu with homemade garganelli - YUM! Then I tried the scallop, which was delicious although I admit I cannot remember the accompaniments, and the braised pork cheek and braised short ribs, both of which show off why Chef (Eric Gabrynowicz) is amazing at braising. Yes, I realized that rhymes. I was talking with Stephen Mancini, the owner, and he mentioned that he believes the fall and winter is where Eric really hits his stride, really showing off all of the incredible talents he has, and you can see that in these dishes. The last dish, a bread pudding with chocolate sauce and peanut butter whipped cream was created by Michael Boulos, the former sous chef, and was pretty much everything a college student dreams of while writing papers at 4AM.

This was pretty much the best way I could ask to have kicked off my birthday weekend, which also featured my real birthday dinner at Eleven Madison Park and then a Fried Chicken Lunch at Momofuku Noodle Bar. First, EMP.

There was an article in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago titled "Fixing What Ain't Broke" and it took a look at the general manager of EMP, Will Guidara, and the chef, Daniel Humm, who, after receiving their four stars from then NYT food critic Frank Bruni, decided to overhaul the restaurant, changing the menu, space, and format to create a totally new experience. At its best, the restaurant is a innovative riff at the way we dine out. In lieu of a menu, you find a square card inside of your napkin with 16 words on it, each one a protein (or vegetable substitute) that will be the heart of that course. You can either choose a 4 course meal, choosing one from each row, or opt for a fifth, choosing a second word from any row. This is ideally supposed to turn the ordering process, which is usually a presentation followed by individual choices, into a dialogue, forcing the chef to deal with the constraints and inclinations the diner presents. For instance, I chose "chocolate" for my last course and I added the caveat that I like simple desserts with no nuts, nothing crazy or fancy. When the server delivered the dish (a chocolate caramel torte), she added that the chef had decided to return to basics and keep it simple, going just with caramel and chocolate. What I then realized was that I should have said that I like my chocolate to be paired with a form of dairy to wash it down - either milk, ice cream, or whipped cream. This kind of moment made me realize that this experience really demands as much precision out of the diner as it does out of the server and chef. While we are encouraged to enumerate our allergies or aversions, the server could have taken it one step further and asked me what I do like with chocolate, as opposed to what I don't like - coffee, nuts - but she didn't and thus I ended up with something about which I was less than thrilled. Nevertheless, do not let these ruminations fool you - this is a meal to be had and soon! Every single course was unbelievable and EMP, in the manner of all Danny Meyer restaurants, takes it one step further, making sure that they make your experience unforgettable in any way they can. We were invited by one of the managers to step in to the kitchen before our dessert course, where a pastry chef assembled a kir royal deconstructed right in front of us, letting us chow down in plain view of Chef Humm and the other chefs at work. It is those little moments that truly take the experience to the next level - something that Mr. Meyer and his disciples are so very good at.

After these two incredible meals (and I do mean that in the true unbelievable sense of the word), I was scared that the fried chicken at Noodle Bar, which I had seen, smelled, and yearned after so many times, would not stand up to the challenge. However it is not like David Chang to back down from a fight and did his very best to end my birthday weekend extravaganza on a high note. The fried chicken is the one thing you can reserve at Noodle Bar and it includes a heaping plate of chicken fried two ways: Korean barbecue style and a classic Southern triple fried with Old Bay seasoning. The unanimous favorite at the table was the Korean, if only because the marinade was so finger-licking good! You also get a bowl of fresh vegetables, lettuce, and herbs, 4 different sauces (bean, jalapeno soy-ginger, hoisin, and ginger scallion) and and a set of steaming peking duck-style pancakes. The chicken is unreal - so moist and delicious; and the vegetables are all crunchy and super fresh. The pancakes are a bit gluey, but still good. The sheer quantity of food is astounding and this is definitely something where you want to round up all of your friends (preferably after a night out) and chow down.

All in all, these were three flat-out stellar meals and it made me sad to head back up to the wasteland that is Amherst College in terms of food. I'm already planning Thanksgiving break (Momofuku again, Po for the delicious duck ragu that appears in late November, and obviously another stop at North on the way home!) and am super excited. Now, back to work to make sure that I don't flunk out before then!