Come Saturday morning, Cavanagh was kicking ass. It had doubled in bulk, was nice and spongey and airy looking, and smelled sweet and floury, as Chad Robertson said it should in Tartine Bread.

Trouble is … once I looked at what we had on the slate for the day, I knew there was no way I’d be making bread.

So I just turned my leaven into my starter and waited….

The reason I’ve been doing this is that Robertson describes wanting to use a “young” starter as the leaven for the bread — this is to catch the starter right as A) it’s vital enough to leaven the bread and B) at the point where it’s sweet and not yet sour and acidic (as it would be in its “mature” state). He describes a “young” starter as occurring at either:

• 2 to 4 hours after feeding where the total inoculating amount is 20 percent
• 4 or more hours after feeding where the inoculating amount is 5 percent starter

Because he places a strong emphasis on getting to know how your starter’s life cycle, I’ve been trying to be careful about amounts and doing the same thing each time. Hence the 20 percent inoculant etc.

If I’ve lost you, oh well, I’m mainly keeping these notes for myself. It makes sense in my own head right now.

With Cavanagh I’ve been a little more lax. My primary concern early on was bringing it back to life. To watch for signs of life, I made sure to feed Cavanagh with a flour-water mixture that was heavier on water — so I could better see bubbles, etc.

I’m now feeding Cavanagh with a 100% hydration feed (equal parts flour-water) but I’ve been using a varying proportion of inoculating starter each morning. This morning I think I used too much of all components, because Cavanagh overflowed its modest jar. Lucky I placed it on a towel in anticipation of this. (The fact that I placed the towel there, I think, shows that I truly am getting to know Cavanagh’s life cycle.)

Anyway, all this is to say that A) I need to start using a larger container for Cavanagh and B) I need to formalize its proportions.

I’ve been growing Francis in Gladware plastic bowls, pouring 20 percent into a clean bowl and mixing in the feed. With Cavanagh, I’ve been using a small glass bowl in conjunction with an IKEA glass crock jar. I might move Cavanagh over to the Gladware method, just so everything’s on the same page. Though for aesthetic reasons I do prefer the glass.

Anyway, that’s my blab for today. Not much else going on. Cavanagh continues to thrive like a mofo. Francis is coming along and probably ready to use in a leaven now.

* At the suggestion of my wife, whose reasoning was, “It’s based on a recipe from a place based in San Francisco.” I’m still not sure if it’s the masculine or feminine version of the name, and I’m happy for that ambiguity to remain.

This morning I tried using a timelapse video app to capture the activity while I was at work. Unfortunately, the app seems to have crashed about 15 minutes into the day. Going to try to set that up again this weekend or Monday.

The Tartine Bread starter has lost the stink, so I think the “bad bacteria” has died off. It’s bubbling here and there but not very vigorously. Could be that the starter is so thick. It’s showing gas formation, though, so that’s good.

I’m thinking of making two loaves Saturday, one with Cavanagh, one with TB stater.

ilcornicione's Tartine Basic Country Bread

That’s Il Cornicione’s Basic Country Bread. He and I (and Caleb Schiff) have been talking on Twitter about this recipe, and Il Cornicione shared this loaf he just made via photo.

Caleb, of the pizzeria Pizzicletta in Flagstaff, Arizona, also was inspired by the Tartine chatter to restart his own Tartine starter.

It’s kind of cool to see the chatter of the internet spin off into real life action.

In other news, Cavanagh appears healthy and will probably star in my Tartine bread on Sunday.

From left: The Tartine Bakery starter and 'Cavanagh,' a starter I made a long time ago.

Again, not much to report on the starter front these days. The Tartine Bread starter is less stinky and shows a small to almost-moderate amount of bubbling after feeding.

The book mentions that it’s supposed to double in bulk a couple hours after feeding. I’ve not seen this to be the case. But, as I said, patience. I’m sure it’ll start eventually. That’s what happened with my “Cavanagh” starter. Speaking of which …

I don't have a 'before' picture to show, but trust me when I say that it has doubled in bulk after I fed it earlier today.

I’ve brought Cavanagh up from off the bench (i.e., the refrigerator) and have revived it after months of neglect. Which is first-hand proof for me that you really can resuscitate a starter you’ve all but left for dead.

I brought Cavanagh back to life a couple days ago, stirring it up, adding some warm water to it and some flour. I’ve fed it regularly the last couple days, and today it doubled in bulk nicely.

'Cavanagh, is crazy bubbly.

What I’m going to do is keep feeding the TB starter and see if I can get it to take, but if not, I’ll use Cavanagh next weekend to make my first loaf of the Basic Country Bread.

Seriously, don’t bother watching this video. Nothing much happens. I got the notion of setting up a time lapse thing so I could see if the starter really was bulking up as part of the feeding cycle, as the book suggests it will.

This is about 3 hours’ worth of time here. I’m thinking I should have at least seem something, as Robertson seems to peg the cycle at about 4 hours.

Not much here but some bubbles, which at least tells me there’s something going on. Just going to have to wait it out before this one gets going.

FWIW, it took my original starter, Cavanagh, about 9 or 10 days before I started seeing vigorous activity — enough to make a leaven with.

(If you watched the video, don’t put it on me. I warned you.)

I love the effects in this video. Colored string and construction paper. High tech.

As I said yesterday, I decided to time-shift my feeding schedule to the mornings. Trouble is, I’m pretty groggy in the mornings. Today, for instance, I almost forgot about tending the starter. But then I went into the kitchen to take my vitamins, and BLAMMO. “What’s that smell?” …

“Oh. Yeah. Gotta feed this thing.”

It’s like it evolved this horrible smell just to remind me it’s there and needs my care. Ingenious.

After getting some advice from Andrew Janjigian in the comments of yesterday’s post and from John Wozniak via Twitter, I realize I just have to wait for the correct balance of bacteria/yeast to flourish. That may take some days. I know from reading along with Donna Currie‘s Sourdough Starter Along on Slice that it can take up to nine or ten days (though YMMV).

I don’t think I’m going to be making bread this weekend.

Photograph: monikahoinkis on Flickr

I fed my starter last night around 9pm. In his book, Tartine Bread, baker Chad Robertson recommends feeding in the morning. Not for any technical reasons. It’s just how he likes to time his day, he says. So he can feed the starter in the morning and use it for bread that’s ready for dinnertime.

That fits in with my own schedule. So I’m not feeding the starter tonight. I’m going to time-shift the feeding cycle to the mornings. That way I can stoke the starter when I get up on the weekends and prep dough for dinnertime baking.

In other starter news, this shit STINKS. Like something you’d smell in a gym locker. It is RIPE. I’m wondering how long my wife is going to put up with this.

A sort of dark crust has formed above the rest of the starter.

It’s Day 3 of my Tartine Bread “journey.” I started the starter on Monday night. The book said it may start bubbling by the second or third day. Here, it did.

Beneath the crust the mixture is very active.

Under the crust that formed on top, the mixture is very active, bubbling before my eyes. And it stinks. Like “a stinky cheese,” as the book says.

So I proceeded as directed — to the first feeding of the starter. I discarded 80 percent of the mixture after giving it a good stir. To the remaining 20 percent (91 grams), I added a 1:1 ratio of my flour mixture and water. I added back the same amount I had discarded.

This is where I will get into this… I had a very interesting Twitter conversation with John Wozniak earlier this evening* about the Tartine Bread method of starting a starter. John uses a different method. I won’t divulge it, because I’m hoping that eventually he’ll write about it on his own website. But basically, John is adamant about using the least amount of flour you need to get the job done.

As he points out, and I as discovered tonight, throwing out 80 percent of the mixture each time you feed starts to get wasteful. And quick.

Yeah, it’s just flour, but I don’t got that kinda dough!

* Via DM, so don’t bother looking at our timelines. Not that you would. Because if you did, you would be kind of lame and have way too much time on your hands.

I picked up Tartine Bread over the weekend after seeing my buddy John Wozniak rave about it on Twitter. I’ve been meaning to find a great book on naturally leavened bread, and this seemed a good candidate. After reading the first chapter and coming to an understanding of the recipe, I felt I could justifiably start the “Basic Country Bread.” To make it, you’ve first got to grow a starter.

King Arthur whole wheat– and white bread flours.

The recipe advises you to mix up 5 pounds of 50-50 white and whole wheat flour. Then fill a small clear bowl halfway with lukewarm water. To that, add flour and mix by hand until you get a thick batter:

Photo: Claire Lui

I’ve read from a bunch of Slice commenters that it’s a bit of a myth that wild yeast just sort of floats from the air into your starter. Yes, some of it does, but most of the yeast that’s going to inoculate your starter is already on the wheat and in the flour. That’s what Tartine Bakery owner (and the book’s author) Chad Robertson echoes in these pages. But he also notes that some of the yeast comes from the baker’s hands. Which is why, I’m guessing, he has you mix this batter by hand. Even though it’s a bit messy and prevented me from personally shooting pics of myself going at it.

I actually used a whisk for most of the mixing — until the batter thickened enough that I wasn’t constantly having to add more flour to the bowl.

The waiting is the hardest part.

Once it was thick enough (top), I covered it with a clean kitchen towel and placed it in a cool, dark place, as advised. As a nod to Tartine Bakery’s location, I used our San Francisco–theme towel. Now it’s a matter of waiting two to three days while the starter comes to life.

I should note that Harvest Astoria also publishes a recipe exchange on its blog, which is quite useful.

Garlic Scapes

Garlic scapes are curlycue stalks that would otherwise sprout flowers. Farmers cut them before they do so the growth doesn't rob the bulb of nutrients and it can grow big.

I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be getting garlic scapes in our weekly share. This is the only item that has rolled over into the next week so far. Only because we weren’t too fond of it in garlic scape pesto, which seems to be the one recipe all the foodos out there wet their pants over every season.

• Garlic Scape Pesto … I made this one. First time I’ve ever made this stuff. We ate it on pasta. I found it to be a bit too spicy and aggressive, though I’ve read it mellows with time. I suppose we’ll find out when we defrost our leftover scape pesto in The Future
• Another Garlic Scape Pesto (Plus some other suggestions, though no real recipes to go along with those suggestions)
• White Bean Dip with Garlic Scapes: Meg Cotner from We Heart Astoria recommended this one to me over on Google+
• Garlic Scape Tart … This looks kind of interesting
• Pickled Garlic Scapes: Angrywayne suggested doing this. It might be our solution to our growing collection of scapes
• Other ideas: My buddy Minty suggested using them as a bed for roasting a fish on. Says it looks beautiful and tastes good, too. I’m also considering cooking them whole on pizza

Swiss Chard

• Basic Sautéed Swiss Chard: This uses just the leaves. Reserve the stalks for something else … maybe …
• Sautéed Swiss Chard Ribs with Cream and Pasta … I made this and the one just above tonight. The chard rib recipe is killer rich. Watch it! It’s good, though. Damn.
• Cream Grits and Chard: Bookmarking this one. The wife loves grits
• Lidia Bastianich’s Swiss Chard and Crostata: This one sounds good, too
• Chard with Potatoes and Tomatoes

Fava Beans

I've read that the reason you see fava beans used more as an accent in many restaurants is that they're a pain to deal with in the shucking.

• Grilled Fava Beans: Fava beans are apparently a pain in the ass to cook. I wouldn’t know. The first and only time I’ve cooked them (so far) was after reading this recipe. You eat them like edamame, first popping them out of their pods and then slipping them out of their whitish skins. Makes for messy fingers. Lick them clean, if you’re among people who don’t care about your heathen ways
• Fava Bean and Brown Rice Salad: This is probably good if you want to poop. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t made it yet
• Mushroom Risotto with Asparagus and Fava Beans: Michael Natkin used to write a vegetarian column for SE, which I thought was spectacular. I miss that guy. This recipe looks promising

Pole Beans (Romano Beans)

Our CSA labeled the beans we got as “pole beans,” but I could not find that many recipes for “pole beans.” It wasn’t until I saw them called Romano beans that a world of recipes opened up to me…

• Grilled Pole Beans: Heck, the grilled fava beans were such a hit (with me anyway), that these seem like they’d be a good variation on the theme
• Garlicky Romano Beans: Looks simple yet flavorful, with its rosemary-infused olive oil and breadcrumbs
• Braised Romano Beans
• Zuni Romano Beans: I’ve never eaten at the SF restaurant Zuni. But I have heard GREAT things. I’m clipping this recipe to try against that hype. Warning: This takes a while

The taps for soda water at the Queens Kickshaw.

Claire and I had dinner at the Queens Kickshaw for the first time last night. Preliminary report: great stuff. But what I want to draw your attention to is the fact that they have sparkling water on tap there — and it’s free.

Yes! We hadn’t yet tasted the food and already I loved this place.

Complimentary soda water. On tap. How often have you had that at a restaurant? It’s a small luxury that probably costs the Queens Kickshaw pennies.* Very classy — and smart. That cost is probably recouped a thousand times over from a customer loyalty standpoint.

Wherein I reminisce

I remember when I first started going out to restaurants in NYC that the old “Can I bring you sparkling water or flat?” line tripped me up a bit. Flat, of course, is not the same as tap. Like sparkling water, “flat” is bottled, and you will be paying for it. What you want is tap water, if what you want is free water.

Which is why I was a bit thrown when our waiter (Kickshaw co-owner Ben Sandler) asked, “Still or sparkling water? Both are on tap.” Does that mean what I think it means? I asked Claire. She had picked up on the wording right away and was like, “Yeah. It’s complimentary. Duh. That’s why he said both were on tap.”

So yeah. Anyway. Long story short: Free sparkling water with your meal. A small everyday luxury in Astoria.

See also…
Superb Grilled Cheese at Astoria’s Queens Kickshaw [Serious Eats New York]
The Queens Kickshaw Is Awesome [We Heart Astoria]
The Future is the Past, Queens Kickshaw [Jeffrey Tastes]
Coffee Chronicles: The Queens Kickshaw in Astoria [Serious Drinks]

* Of course, I suppose you could look at it from the point of view that the restaurant is missing out on sales of bottled water. But my guess is that the fancy soda-fountain sodas they serve — mixed with PH & Co. syrups — makes up for it. Artisanal sodas are trendy now and probably garner more sales among hipster clientele, and at a greater mark-up, than bottled water.

The Queens Kickshaw

40-17 Broadway, Astoria NY 11103 (Steinway/41st Street; map)
718-777-0913; thequeenskickshaw.com

You may be asking how it’s different from, say, Twitter. The truth is that it’s very similar on the surface but different enough in a very fundamental and interesting way — at least so far. It’s essentially filtering and surfacing the best of the best stuff that your friends and followed are looking at or producing.

I’ve been using it for 3 weeks now and am kind of addicted to it. It reminds me a lot of Twitter circa 2006–2007, when it was more personal and had a higher signal-to-noise ratio — back before it became the brand-pimping behemoth it is today. (To be fair, if you’re careful about who you follow on Twitter and keep that list small, you’re probably still getting a more personal experience.)

It’s also similar to Twitter 1.0 in the fact that it’s very simple. There aren’t a lot of bells and whistles to it — but the fact that it can back-favorite things across all the services it pulls from is pretty slick.

Small network of interesting people

I oversee six different Twitter accounts at Serious Eats — and then there’s my personal account. Between all those, I follow a lot of bloggers, writers, websites, chefs, etc., all of whom are trying to get attention for their posts, products, restaurants, what have you. Are all those links going to be worth clicking on? Of course not. But the majority of the items that come through my Stellar flow truly are clickworthy.

Granted, there doesn’t seem to be a huge number of people yet to follow on Stellar, and I’m only following 39, so things are naturally bound to be quieter there. Unlike Twitter, though, where I often feel compelled to follow people back across all accounts (even my personal) for “political” reasons (fostering/maintaining goodwill with the foodie community), on Stellar, I think I’m going to focus more on following people I find truly interesting and hope in turn that their favorites are clicked with sincerity.

Favoriting behavior affected

That brings me to an interesting point. I’ve seen a number of my friends & followeds mention in tweets that using Stellar has changed how they favorite things. It’s affected my favoriting behavior as well:

• I’ve favorited more things on Twitter and Flickr in the last 3 weeks than I have in the last 3 years*: Prior to using Stellar, I think I had starred a total of 3 tweets — and most of my Flickr faves were just “bookmarks” of pizza crap I wanted to come back to later. Now that faving these items shares them with my friends, I’m using that feature several times a day. But I’ve also noticed that…
• I do most of my favoriting from Stellar: Because I find much more faveworthy stuff on Stellar than in my Twitter feeds, I often end up starring stuff on Stellar visits. This essentially is a snowball effect — and it means one of my friends has to have found the thing first
• I am more conscious about what I fave now, too, knowing that there’s now a page that aggregates all the stuff I’ve liked across various networks
• Sometimes, when I’m really bored, I look for great stuff to fave in the hopes that my Stellar friends will pile on a snowball that I’ve started. (This rarely happens, though)
• Favoriting as a form of retweeting: Sometimes I just favorite things knowing my core of Stellar friends are going to see them. Sometimes that’s enough

* FWIW, I actually joined Flickr in August 2004 and Twitter (as @Slice, before opening my own account as @akuban) in November 2006,** so I’ve been using both more than 3 years. I just liked the parallelism of 3 weeks vs. 3 years — and the comparison still holds up.

** Officially the @Slice account registers as having been opened in March 2007, but that’s because I quit Twitter after a couple months and then rejoined a couple months later. Thank goodness @Slice was still available.

Stellar as a measure of wit

Like most people on Stellar, I suspect, I visit my Best Of page compulsively, secretly hoping people favorite a tweet of mine I think is especially witty or a photo I think is really strong. (This rarely happens, though.)

Trends are emerging

It’s not like I’m using any sort of analytics to measure Stellar trends (I’m sure Kottke is, though), but what I’ve noticed just from browsing day to day is that I can pretty accurately predict who among my friends & followeds has favorited an item before I even scroll down to the “Liked by” line.

• Baby-related: Jake Dobkin and David Jacobs
• Cycling: Matt Haughey
• Cocktails and concerts: Kathryn Yu
• Entrepreneurship: David Jacobs, Anil Dash, Wayne Surber
• Apps: Anil Dash, Marco Arment
• Prince: Anil Dash

I’m also surprised when I look at the faves of some people and see they’re relatively free of the things I most associate with them. Software developer Cabel Sasser*, for instance, doesn’t really favorite a lot of stuff that has to do with software dev. Mule design director Mike Monteiro doesn’t fave a lot of design things — but his flow is expectedly acerbic.

I would also point out that my own Faves have very little to do with pizza, despite what you might otherwise expect.

I should note that folks like Cabel Sasser or Marco Arment, who have an alphanumeric string in their Stellar profile URLs, seem to be people who are not members of Stellar but who have been placed on the network as follow candidates anyway — presumably by Jason or some sort of algorithm and presumably to give a larger pool of interesting people to follow. Trying to root out trends in their favoriting behavior is more problematic than usual as they are likely favoriting without mind toward how the Stellar community will receive them. They are, essentially, the observed, unaware of the observer.

Stellar is a Kottke.org preview

I’ve seen a lot of great stuff on Stellar eventually wind up on Kottke.org a few hours later or the next day. I can see why Jason built this thingamajigie. And if that’s not the reason why he built it, it’s interesting to see how closely the creation mirrors its creator — for now, that is. Stellar is still a closed community while it’s in beta — so the folks on there are only a degree or three away from Jason. Makes sense that the material surfacing there reflects his taste.

Jason better watch out! He might be building an auto-generating Kottkebot.

My Stellar.io Wishlist

I like the simplicity of Stellar, but there are at least two wishlist items I keep wanting to see …

• Filter: Would have been nice during SXSWi and surrounding the launch of that Color app thingy. I realize it would be difficult to filter things and maybe the filter is “STOP FOLLOWING XYZ-PERSON.” But whatever. A guy can dream
• Retweet option from Stellar page: Sometimes favoriting something for my friends to see is enough. But sometimes I’d like to RT something straight from Stellar. Yeah, I know I can click the “#” to go to the original item and RT it from there. But, hey, I’m lazy, too, and I like instant gratification

Anyway. Those are just a few of my thoughts on Stellar.

From left: Crust not stretched thin enough, and one stretched just about right.

Having finally found a couple dough recipes that yield great at-home pizza with no “hacks,” I kinda don’t need to experiment anymore. But what fun would life be without futzing with something that works?

See, I’ve been using both the Kenji Lopez-Alt NYC-style pizza recipe and the Cook’s Illustrated thin-crust pizza recipe more or less equally at home. Though, truth be told, I turn to the CI version a little more often because it’s not as hydrated and is easier to work with. (I often end up making my doughs around 11 p.m. and put a premium on the nonsticky, easier-to-clean version.)

Anyway, the problem I’ve had with both these doughs is that they call for you to stretch the round out to 13 inches. My (round) pizza stone is … exactly 13 inches in diameter.

So I either have to stretch to 12.5 or 13 inches and be super careful about placing the pizza on the stone or have to make smaller pizzas, which, of course, end up being too thick (left-hand photo, above).

So tonight I made two batches of the Cook’s Illustrated dough. The first batch I prepared and divided as directed — in half to make two rounds.

The second batch, however, I decided to divide in thirds.

Batch 1: Two portions, each 396 grams
Batch 2: Three portions, each 265 grams

I’m going to try a couple things with the smaller portions. First, I’m going to stretch them out to a size I’m comfortable with on the stone — usually around 11 inches.

Second, I’m going to stretch one of them to near 13 inches and see just how thin I can get this pizza. We’ll see.

The nice thing about not having to experiment with the dough (this is pretty much foolproof pizza) is that now I can concentrate on sauce and toppings. I’ve been taking topping requests from the wife now. This coming Pizza Night, we’re going to do brussels sprouts à la Motorino. But I’ll be marinating them in olive oil first; I’m hoping that helps me avoid burning them as I have been. More on that another time.

[This photo is part of my 2011 Picture a Day project »]

I’m trying to perfect my recipe for chile-infused honey before posting it on Slice. Credit where due: It is 100% inspired by Mike’s Hot Honey, which is available online or from the bar at Paulie Gee’s.

I’m playing with the spice levels. The honey on its own is pretty damn hot. But on a recent pizza I drizzled it on, it wasn’t overpowering. The wife, though, said that the honey (again, on its own) was all heat — that it lost any other flavor components. On the pizza, though, I was able to discern the sweetness it added, and the spiciness was a slow burn. So I might be at the right power level. Still, I want to tweak before posting the definitive recipe.

I’m also a bit concerned about food safety issues. My original source for the technique was actually Serious Eats (imagine that!). But the commenters there brought up the possibility of botulism spores growing in the anaerobic environment of the honey.

Mike’s Hot Honey, I suspect, gets around this by using vinegar (you’ll see it listed on the label). From what I’ve read, heating the honey to 185°F for five minutes should be enough to kill any botulism microbes that could later produce botulism spores. To play it safe, I’d say that you should probably consume this honey within a few days of making it and trash any remaining at the end of a week.

My shipment of King Arthur Sir Lancelot flour came in yesterday, so I made pizza dough last night. I’m probably the worst at using the scientific method to find out what’s wrong with my pizza. I don’t really “control” for anything and end up changing the dough recipe, flour, kneading technique, and/or cooking method (any or all of those) from one pizza night to the next. With these ingredients I ended up using the Jeff Varasano dough recipe with KASL flour. I’ll probably do the skillet-broiler method for cooking when the dough is ready (it’s undergoing a 72-hour cold rise in the refrigerator as I type this.

Note, in case the wife is reading this: I did not use our Epices Roellinger sea salt in this dough. The recipe calls for 18 grams (about 1.5 tablespoons) — that’s too much to use such a precious commodity on. (We got it in Cancale, France, on our honeymoon, so it’s got sentimental as well as flavor value.)

* If you’ve noticed that I skipped 1/10/2010, it’s because the photo was pretty lame. I don’t think I’m going to blog every “Year in Photos” photo here on Kublog. My 365 Photos 2011 set on Flickr will serve as the official repository of year-in-photos images.

** Water not pictured.

These types of stations in Brooklyn are always interesting. I like how you can see the cutaway — how there’s subway life going on below a building or houses. The people in the windows above are probably quite oblivious to the comings and goings of the riders below them.

This photo is part of my attempt to take at least one photograph a day in 2011.

Inspired by SE’r PoorOldMama, we declared January 8 International Serious Eats Day and tried to spark a series of distributed, autonomous meet-ups of SE’rs across the U.S. and around the world.

At the NYC meet-up at Radegast Hall & Biergarten, we had easily more than 100 folks show up. At one point, we pretty much OWNED half the hall,* taking up three-plus tables.

These two women were sitting at one of the SE tables, and I sat down across from them, attempting to be an affable host. They had a box, which I began pawing. “What’s in here?!?”

“Cupcakes. It’s her birthday,” says the one on the left.

“Oh, wow! Happy birthday!”

How cool, I thought, that an SE’r would choose to celebrate her birthday with us during ISEDay.

“Did you make them?!?”

“Um, yeah. Do you want to see them?”

“Sure.”

The one on the left opens the box, and I start shooting pictures. I thank them and leave.

About an hour later, I’m chatting with SENY editor Carey Jones and her boyfriend. Carey’s like, “Um, did you know those two women with the cupcakes weren’t here for the meet-up?”

I AM MORTIFIED.

“It’s OK,” Carey’s BF says, “I explained to them what was going on. But they were pretty freaked out at first.”

So, if you’re reading this, ladies, I’m sorry for bugging you and freaking you out. My birthday gift to you is the weird story you had to tell your friends later that day.

* Many thanks to Radegast, whose hospitality in the face of such unexpected numbers was impeccable. The beer and food were great, too!

To say that this is not the most glamorous Date Night would be an understatement, but Claire had a craving for Mexican. We tossed around the idea of doing Taco Night at home with a box-taco mix, but we were slow getting out of the house. So down to the local Chinese Mexican place we went.

That’s a Mexican joint run by Chinese folks. I guess I’ve been in NYC long enough that that does not sound weird. In fact, there are quite a number of these places now. The hallmark of a Chinese-run Mexican joint (besides the unconventional ethnic mashup) is the fresh tortilla machine. All these places have a tortilla press that spits out thin rounds of flour dough onto a griddle, a process you see happen before your eyes after you order.

The first such instance of this now-classic NYC restaurant genre seems to have appeared in 1991, when De Shi Zheng and his wife, Rose, opened the first Fresco Tortilla at 24th and Lexington. The New York Times has a good history of the place in this 1997 story by Anthony Ramirez.* The Zhengs own the original (which appears to be there still) and maybe a couple others (though the one on 42nd Street closed when the B of A building construction razed the block in the mid 2000s). But a legion of imitators has sprung up in the years since. Sounds kind of like the Ray’s/Original/Famous Ray’s pizzeria mystery. (You’ll notice, for instance, that the one near us is Fresca Tortillas whereas the Zhengs’ chain is Fresco Tortillas.)

Anyway, the thing I love about Fresca Tortillas (and the others like it) is that it pretty much tastes like the taco nights my mom used to do. I’m pretty sure they’re just getting a Lawry’s taco-seasoning mix (or, more likely, the industrial food-service equivalent from, say, Sysco) and flavoring the ground beef with that. And the shredded cheddar cheese, iceberg lettuce, and flavorless tomato is straight out of the white-Midwesterners-make-tacos playbook. So is the hard-shell taco. Gotta get it in the hard shell.

Once we finally get our house organized and cleaned so we can entertain, we’re going to do Taco Night here at the homestead. I want to serve it on our good china. Until then, we’ll have to be content with Frescas Tortillas.

* It’s somewhat remarkable in and of itself that Fresco/a Tortillas managed to get this much ink — the 1997 story I linked to above, and also a 1991 mention in the “$25 and Under” column by Eric Asimov, which is reprinted on the menus and hangs on the wall of the one I go to. These days, these places are fairly unremarkable and are shunned by “foodies,” but at one point — maybe just because of the unusual ethnic mashup — they warranted coverage. Then again, the Times is often pretty good about noticing quirky offbeat stories.

The Citigroup Center building (on the left, with the sloped roof) has a fascinating story. I’d explain it, but you can just go to Wikipedia to read it.

On the right, the oval-shape building is the Lipstick Building. It was designed in part by Philip Johnson and is where Bernie Madoff schemed his schemes.

OK … so I didn’t actually take this photo — but I art-directed it, so I think that counts. (Claire took it.) Plus, I took other photos today that I could have subbed in to this slot, so I’m still within the spirit of the project.

Here, I’m using the mini grater that Claire got me for Christmas from a cool little store in Soho called Kiosk. Here’s the description of the grater from the Kiosk site:

Ah…Italian invention! We were actually introduced to this grater by friends in Berlin. Brilliant. Great for those nights when you have to cook something but can’t even reach for the metal grater. Too much effort! We store our Parmesan inside of it in the fridge so it is always on standby. Our student life would have been saved with this one, it is never too late!

I’ve been doing the same — leaving it in the fridge with a chunk of cheese in it. I use it up fast enough that it doesn’t A) smell up the fridge or B) take on other fridge smells.

Has a sort of Star Wars feel. Or a very sinister Space Mountain vibe.

Inspired by the semi-dried cherry tomato topping at Di Fara, I did a trial run of semi-dried grape tomatoes (my market didn’t have the former in stock). Lesson learned here? Shoot before-and-after photos under the same lighting conditions. Duh. The top photo is shot under our range’s built-in fluorescent cooktop light, while the photo just above was shot under the incandescent oven bulb. I’ll make these again, at which point I’ll normalize the lighting in both shots.

I know Christmas is over, and New Year’s is already a thing of the past, but I liked this Christmas scene in the lobby of the Citibank building in Long Island City. Very corporate.

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Impromptu pizza night tonight. Just two pies. This is one of them. (Didn’t bother shooting the other; it sucked.) Made with the fennel sausage recipe I posted today on Slice.

It’s like this … I found some Italian type “00″ pizza flour last week at Rosario’s Deli in Astoria. Made dough with it Sunday night and fridged it off for a cold-ferment/retarded rise. It was pretty much use it or lose it tonight. I really wanted to see how the “00″ stuff would work. First pizza sucked. Again, it was “creepy bagel.” This one was better. Think because I stretched it thinner. Might start making the dough balls a little small. These were all between 230 and 240g. Might go for 200g and see where that takes us.

5. ‘We Three Kings of Orient Are’

I like how, as a song, “We Three Kings of Orient Are” starts out all SERIOUS and then pops into the peppy “star of wonder” part. This Beach Boys version is pretty damn good, IMO. As a bonus, here’s a cool version of them doing a snippet of it on a TV show:

And now let’s shift to this:

I wanted bring you THE BEST versions these songs. But that would have pretty much meant a post filled entirely with Mariah or Beach Boys videos. So I did some googling for alternate versions. And the people out there recommended this one of “We Three Kings.” It’s from Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas Celebration, which I have never seen, but I was surprised at its quality.

4. ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear’

This is just one of my favorite Christmas songs ever. I flitted around on YouTube to find a good one to post here, and this Frank Sinatra version was one of the best.

3. ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’

I especially like when this one is arranged so that it starts with the Latin “Adeste Fidelis” version intro and then goes into English. Because as cool as Latin sounds, I don’t know but a lick of it. I know I’ve been foaming on Yuletide Mariah this year, but you really can’t beat Perry Como for Christmas songs. Go read the Wikipedia entry on him — he’s sort of a fascinating guy.

2. ‘O Holy Night’

OK. So here’s where I wanted to put in a non-Mariah version of this, but there really is no better version than hers — except … wait … what’s this? The people in Googleville recommended Michael Bolton’s version. Seriously? Oh, wow. It’s not bad. Following that trail, though, I found this mashup of Bolton’s rendition and Mariah’s into a “duet.” For my money, I don’t know if it gets any better than this.

Also while searching, I came across the version above from the Christmas episode of NBC’s now-defunct show Studio 60. In it, the producers of “Studio 60,” the SNL-like show within the show, hire refugee New Orleans musicians for their Christmas show as a way to get them cash and help them get union cards. Turns out that Aaron Sorkin and the producers of the actual Studio 60 did much the same thing. Confused, just read this. Anyway, the jazz band in that episode was called “The City of New Orleans,” but it doesn’t really exist. The trumpeter here, though, is Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews. [via 101 Squadron]

1. ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’

My favorite traditional Christmas song of all time. I love the line that says “To save us all from Satan’s power …” It’s so hardcore and old-school. But I guess if you’re getting traditional and getting into the religious aspects of the holiday, it all boils down to that.

Again, I wanted a version other than my old standbys, and this one came up. I’m just going to say now that I HATE Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLaughlin’s stuff. But they do a great version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” Even the wife here was asking who it was when she heard it coming out of my computer. Enjoy.

And, Merry Christmas!

5. ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over),’ John and Yoko, The Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir

I know I’m going to take some flak for this, but I do not like this song. It pretty much falls into my definition of “hippie music,” and I do not like “hippie music,” all of which depresses me in a mild and indescribable way. Like most hippie music (almost anything played at Woodstock, if you need examples), it expresses sentiments that, in my heart, I completely agree with but that are so naive as to be eyeroll-inducing. I think it depresses me exactly because it delivers its message effectively — most “hippie music” (as I define it) presents either an ideal world or laments the world as it is, sometimes both at once. On top of that, “hippie music” is nakedly earnest. There’s no wink-wink back door of irony to slip out of. It’s the disconnect between reality and idealism that depresses me, because I feel like “hippie music” is always urging me to do something I feel powerless to do anything about. Why can’t it just let me be blissfully ignorant?!?

“Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” elicits this feeling in me — it’s also completely overplayed (see next two songs for that rant).

I also think that Lennon is just so damn smug in his delivery: “Oh, another year over, huh? And what have you done? … Play Angry Birds for hours on end?” I guess if I’m going to be preached to in a Christmas song, I’d prefer the old-fashioned carols, thankyouverymuch. (Note: Check back tomorrow for my Top 5 Traditional Christmas Song list.)

4. ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,’ Brenda Lee

In a perfect world, I would love this song. It’s kooky, vintage, and just up my alley. In my more hipster days, I would have owned it on vinyl and played it on my portable turntable. But radio stations like 106.7 Lite FM* have absolutely hammered the shit out of this song, and I now cannot stand it. Seriously, it’s on at my neighborhood market almost every time I go in there — which is quite often, as I have to maintain my Foursquare mayor status there.

So, sorry Brenda Lee. In another world, I would have loved your song.

3. ‘Jingle Bell Rock,’ Bobby Helms

Same with this song. I’ve heard it so damn many times that it drives me crazy. When I hear that twangy guitar intro, I want to drop my groceries and run out the door or complete my purchase as fast as possible. As with Brenda Lee’s song, I would have loved this song in a world where 106.7 FM did not exist — and I probably loved it when I was younger. Just not anymore.

An aside: It’s funny to complain about Christmas music being overplayed. I realize that songs like Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” and Mariah’s “All I Want for Christmas” get as much play as Nos. 5 and 4 here, but something about those I can stand. Just not these two songs — I think because they are a little too hokey.

Also, may I rant? Thank you. … WHY DOES 106.7 PLAY ONLY THE SAME 20 CHRISTMAS SONGS?! Go crawl around FaLaLaLaLa.com and see how many great Christmas songs are out there. I’d love to hear The Waitresses’ “Christmas Wrapping,” or The Kinks’ “Father Christmas” or Slade’s “Merry Xmas Everybody” — just three fairy accessible songs that would break up some of the monotony on commercial Christmas radio.

2. ‘Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer,’

You know, this video actually makes me hate this song a little less. Dr. Elmo (left) and Randy Brooks really seem to be having fun here. (Note that Brooks is the song’s actual writer — it wasn’t written by Elmo & Patsy.) Still, I always picture a bunch of hicks from the sticks coming up with this song and then invading my life via the radio waves with it.

1. ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’

So fuggin’ repetitive. Boring-ass song. It’s the “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” of Christmas. Enough said.

* 106.7 Lite FM is the NYC radio station that plays Christmas music nonstop from around, oh, just after Thanksgiving until Christmas.

5. ‘The Little Drummer Boy’/'Peace on Earth,’ Bing Crosby and David Bowie

OK, so this one is pretty much traditional as most people would define it, but I think the fact that it’s a David Bowie and Bing Crosby duet, complete with cheesy banter at the beginning, puts it into post-modern pop territory. For a while, you think Crosby is going to overpower Bowie, but then the Thin White Duke pipes up, and … wow, that’s some beautiful harmonizing there.

From as early as I can remember, “The Little Drummer Boy” has always gotten to me. There’s something I’ve always found moving about stories like the drummer boy’s — people of modest means offering up all they have. Blah blah blah.

4. ‘Fairytale of New York,’ The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl

This one is less a Christmas song than it is a song that mentions Christmas, but I like to break it out at this time of year anyway. It’s a nice antidote to the relentless holly-jolly cheer and jingle bell rock. It’s also quite moving in a sort of co-dependent, abusive-partner, drunk/junkie kinda way. It’s like a Christmas song from an early Gus Van Sant film.

3. ‘Last Christmas,’ Wham!

OK. So now we move into 106.7 Lite FM territory — you know, the station here in NYC that plays Christmas music nonstop from just before Thanksgiving until the night Santa shows up. I think the Pogues/MacColl and Bowie/Bing songs have more artistic merit to them, but they’re only good in small doses. This one, and the next two, really stand up to repeated plays.

I pretty much love ’80s cheese-synth and most of Wham!’s and George Michael’s hits, so that explains this one. I love the sleigh bell that picks up in the chorus and the stutter drumbeat — and the falsetto “Once bitten, twice shy” line.

2. ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You,’ Mariah Carey

OMG. How can you NOT love Christmas Mariah? Did you see her special on ABC last week? She was so cute. It’s clear that this woman LOVES Christmas — either that or she’s a great actress, milking the Christmas thing for a steady stream of royalties. … Naw, she loves Christmas, and it’s infectious. This video is great — it’s like a Super 8 Christmas memory.

1. ‘Christmas Wrapping,’ The Waitresses

“Christmas Wrapping” is No. 1 because A) it’s awesome and B) if you didn’t listen to the lyrics, you’d just think it was just a great early ’80s New Wave hit. I think that, all in one song, it combines “artistic merit” (whatever that is), an insane amount of catchiness, and enough of the Christmas sentiment to qualify as a true Christmas ditty. Bonus, too, for the fact that it starts a little grinchy but has a sweet ending, thus touching on the season’s disappointments but eventually lifting us out of them.

Also, this video? Whoever synched their Christmas display to this, well, good call.

But then I found there were foreign versions:

There’s also Моя прекрасная няня, the Russian version, but it’s not embeddable.

Also, Fran Drescher has had a heck of a personal life.

‘‘I can barely keep up with my friends in Napa,’’ said Alyssa Shelasky, 33, the fiancée of the ‘‘Top Chef’’ contestant Spike Mendelsohn, who blogs about her cooking (mis)adventures at Apronanxiety.com. ‘‘I do the best I can’’ was how she characterized her humble attempts at homemade pasta and herb-garden cultivation, which in another era would’ve been considered super-foodie but now — when some civilians are slaughtering antibiotic-free cattle with their bare hands — seem the bare minimum for entertaining.

Peter Meehan, “Grass Fed: A Few Beefs,” T, November 10, 2010:

With some prodding, the butcher explained that hogget is meat from a sheep that is older than a lamb and younger than the animals that make mutton. It was delicious, this hogget. A concise description of its qualities, so far as I could identify them: it tasted exactly like what has been called “lamb” for the entirety of my 33 years on the planet.

For me, the problem in this scenario isn’t that the butcher wanted to overshare about the specific maturity of the darling woolly creature we ate a few parts of that night, but that my friend was treated like an idiot, then sold exactly what he was asking for, for top dollar.

Frank Bruni, “Loving Coffee Without Being a Drip,” New York Times, November 24, 2010:

How much pinpoint labor do we owe the gods of culinary discernment? In these food-mad times, have the economically privileged among us gone too far in turning simple acts of nourishment into complicated rituals of self-congratulation? Must all shortcuts and conveniences be subject to so much epicurean bullying and such internal shame?

Irv’s Burgers: 8289 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood CA 90046 (at N. Sweetzer Ave.; map); 323-650-2456

In late August, Domino’s invited me and a bunch of other bloggers on a tour of its corporate headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and also of a “supply chain center” outside of Ann Arbor. The supply chain center supplies regional Domino’s with dough, cheeses, condiments, and other varies supplies. Prior to this, I had no idea that there was such a thing as a beard net. Read more about my visit on Slice »

Night of the Weretot from Studio N8 on Vimeo.

Somewhat tasty. Too mushy.

When I worked at Martha Stewart Living magazine, staff members used to get a $20 meal allowance anytime we worked past 8 p.m. Among the places I used to order from was Afghan Kebab House. I’d get this dish called Kabuli palow. A palow is simply a pilaf; Kabuli here is obviously referencing Kabul.

The dish I remember ordering was delicious, spiked with fragrant and zesty orange peel, raisins, and pistachios.

At some point, Afghan Kebab House stopped making its Kabuli palow with orange peel. Maybe it was under new management, because when I asked about it, they claimed they never had such a dish. Or, more likely, the Afghan Kebab House I originally ordered from went out of business. (If I remember correctly, there was an AKH No. 1 and an AKH No. 4 — dunno about numbers 2 and 3, though.)

Anyway, I took the wife to Khyber Pass in the East Village at one point. (She had never had Afghan food until then and wondered why I was raving about it.*) I ordered Kabuli palow thinking it would have the orange-peel awesomeness I remembered. She ordered something called shireen palow.

As it turns out shireen palow is the orange-peel spiked dish. It is awesome. Given that there are only two or three places in town that serve it (according to MenuPages, that is), I figured I’d try to make it at home. I found this recipe from DallasEats.

It calls for 1 1/2 cups of uncooked basmati rice and a whole heckuva lot of liquid (1 quart chicken broth and 1/2 cup orange juice) — seemingly too much for the amount of uncooked rice.

Nevertheless, I always try to follow a recipe as written before modifying it. This one turned out rice that was flavorful and close to what I have eaten in restaurants, but it was way too mushy.

My notes for future makes would be to back way off on the liquid and cook the rice in the rice cooker rather than in the dutch oven, as called for in the recipe. I think I’m going to keep the same proportions of broth-to-juice but use only as much as the rice cooker bowl recommends with its little easy-to-follow bands around its interior. Of course, I’d still sauté the onion and spices before adding them to the rice cooker. (And the wife says to allow those things to cool, since the heat can affect the cooker’s sensors.)

Anyway, not a horrible first attempt, but I know this can be improved upon! (And, DallasEats, if you end up reading this, it’s not an indictment of your recipe! I just may have done something wrong — I’ll experiment with some tweaks and report back here.)

Note: While this is technically my first attempt at shireen palow, I have tried a couple Kabuli palow recipes that included orange peel — both with similar mushy results.

* She has since joined me in admiration of this cuisine.

It should be understood from the onset that within that stand, whatever I say or do is always right and that anyone working for me at that stand within that 12 x 12 foot space must accept that. This includes when I contradict myself from moment to moment. It is never a negotiation.

That said, I am (usually) very nice and tolerant. So long as you do not argue or whine.

* I could probably handle the shut-up and put-up aspect of this gig, but I’ve only ever gotten as far as college-level languages and never became fully fluent in Spanish or German. Anyway, you can read the full text of the ad after the jump.

Work in nature, in the great outdoors, meet and talk with interesting people… learn lots about bees and beekeeping…

Help me sell excellent honey at Union Square on Wednesdays, and maybe other days in other places.

I sell New York City honey, and honey from New York State and Connecticut.

I am looking for someone clean, smart, speaks at least two languages (and speaks them well, not at a middle school level) and is not afraid to be bold and creative in approaches to selling honey and soap.

It should be understood from the onset that within that stand, whatever I say or do is always right and that anyone working for me at that stand within that 12 x 12 foot space must accept that. This includes when I contradict myself from moment to moment. It is never a negotiation.

That said, I am (usually) very nice and tolerant. So long as you do not argue or whine.

Still sound appealing? In fact it is a fun job and if you like people and being outside, and hearing funny and sometimes (often) cutting remarks, you will enjoy yourself.

The ONLY way to apply for this job is to show up in person at Union Square on Wednesday, look for Andrew’s Honey near the corner of 16th and Union Square West.

I would need help between 7AM and 6PM, but not necessarily all of those hours.

Apply in person. Do not e-mail. Bring with you a piece of paper that has

1) Your photo (so I can remember you amongst all of the others)
2) Your full name, address, contact information, and the languages that you speak well.
3) The times you are available on Wednesdays.

That’s it.

- Andrew

All heat. No flavor. Disappointing.

Ramen Setagaya
34 Saint Marks Place, New York NY 10003 (near Second Avenue; map)