passionfruit butter

Excitement and relocation

2009-02-01T16:21:00.007-06:00

Hello, all! So, I've got exciting news... I bought a domain name. From now on, I'm just Passionfruit Butter. No .blogspot or anything. Incidentally, this makes it easier for you to visit and easier for me to tell more people about it. As of right now, it is COMPLETELY under construction: I'm using a pre-made layout, and while I'm not in the least bit satisfied with it, I'm keeping it until I can figure out something better.
See y'all there!
-Rémy

Should I be more disturbed or giddy at the sight of this?

2009-01-30T00:01:00.000-06:00

I don't even know what these are. I'm guessing they're actual ROMAINE -- it's starting to click that all this time, the Romaine I knew was only the heart. So maybe this is the whole behemoth of a body... I think, sadly, I am sheltered when it comes to produce.

Anthony Bourdain proves to Mario Batali and the rest of the world that his heart is not made out of stainless steel.

2009-01-29T19:01:00.001-06:00

My latest box of chocolates

2009-01-29T18:32:00.000-06:00

TOP ROW, FROM LEFT:
Malted milk palet d'or: Luscious little coins of milk chocolate ganache infused with malt and coated in a shell of the adorable printed chocolate you see here.
Avery: My personal favorite, this is a ganache of chocolate (mixed milk and dark) and caramel, swirled on, covered in a thin layer of chocolate, and topped with a succulent flake of salt from the Avery mines here in Louisiana.
Gianduja crunch: I keep making a mental note to send in a request for something creamy and hazelnutty, but since there's nothing of the like currently at Sucré, this is what I always get to satisfy my hazelnut-chocolate craving. What's inside are caramelized cacao nibs, hazelnut gianduja, and something crispy -- essentially a crunchy, wafer-y, dense inside, coated in dark chocolate.
Avery
Bolivian palet d'or: A monthly staple, this is plain and simple bliss. Silky dark-dark chocolate ganache that's thisclose to being a liquid (so yummy), swathed in a matching outer layer of Bolivian dark chocolate.

MIDDLE ROW, FROM LEFT:
Gianduja crunch
A space formerly occupied by the Crown: One of Sucré's more popular chocolates is the Magnolia, which is distinguished by the flawless pecan half that tops each one. I've tried it and, while it is of a lovely quality, never really fell in love -- I like nut flavors but am despicably and involuntarily deterred by nuts themselves (how many times have I tried to enjoy snacking on almonds!). That said, this Mardi Gras-time special is really just wonderful, and I wish they'd carry it year-round. The inside is silken pecan ganache starred with bits of caramelized pecan, and it's all inside that cute little dark chocolate crown. It's yummmyyy and Southern.
A space formerly occupied by the Wedding cake: In case I wasn't obsessed enough with weddings as is (totally impractical, as I'm not even finished with high school), I tasted this for the first time this month. Predictably, I fell in love, not only with the wedding association but also with the flavor: the inside is smooth, creamy white chocolate, infused with the flavoring of lightly toasted almonds, and it's all housed in this utterly adorable white chocolate sculpture that looks like a wedding cake for a mouse.
Crown
A space formerly occupied by the Gianduja crunch

BOTTOM ROW, FROM LEFT:
Avery
Bolivian
Meunière: This is another Sucré classic, and while I don't love it enough to stock up on it every month, I do find it quite delicious and I was inspired to get it this month. It's named after sauce meunière, a New Orleans native brown butter sauce. Sucré's version is a brown butter and white chocolate ganache inside of a dark chocolate fleur de lis, New Orleans' symbol. I like to eat it in TINY nibbles (wait, what am I saying? I like to eat all good chocolate this way) so I can look at the pretty ganache on the inside.
Bolivian
Je ne sais pas.

As I was packing up this lovely little mint-colored box of joy, my eyes fell upon the passionfruit and I realized I'd totally forgotten to get one of my favorites. To me, of course, this was cause to get an entirely new and additional box:
The green ones are Sicilian pistachio, recently remodeled so that they're taller and more square shaped. This means that the ganache filling (white chocolate infused with pistachio flavoring and, thankfully, a hint of cinnamon) is denser and more abundant.
The yellow ones are Passionfruit, which, if you couldn't tell, now comes in the same proportions as the Sicilian. This one, though, is initially more subtle, and when you first bite in, it tastes and feels like any top-notch dark chocolate ganache. But don't be fooled. Wait for it... and ah, yes, after a second, you get this yummy pang of passionfruit, enough that you are pleasantly surprised but not overpowered.

$46 dollars later, I am a happy foodie.

Rémy Eats: Boucherie

2009-01-28T22:31:00.002-06:00

In case you're just now seeing this, I went to Boucherie this past weekend, where I ate my first meal as a... food columnist. Wow. Bizarre to actually write that out, but it works for me.
Anyway, I posted a preview of my blog a few days ago, but it's finally up on Blake Makes. If you want to read the whole synopsis (psst... you do), head on over here. SO exciting!

Top Chef spoiler alert*

2009-01-28T22:24:00.002-06:00

I am struggling to conceive of an adequate expression of the emotions I am feeling right now in a way that wouldn't offend anyone. I think the best analogy is a break-up.

Sure, at the beginning of the season, everyone** loved Jeff because, well, he was the hot one. It probably happened a little bit after Jeff whipped up that marvelous, glorious, innovative tomato sorbet for Gail's bridal shower that it dawned on us, one by one, that Jeff was married. We probably would have been upset by this news if we'd noticed in the first episode, when Jeff had little more significance to us than as eye candy, but we were truly crestfallen to be hit with the news after Jeff had begun to prove himself in the kitchen as a really solid talent.

Top Chef is as much a frothy reality TV show as it is a gourmet cooking show, so it would be appropriate for me to take a minute out to focus on that other aspect. In a nutshell, Jeff was characterized for his creativity. In the quickfire challenge when the chefs had to whip up a dish using only packaged, processed foods that would be found in the average pantry, I felt certain that most of those chefs were doomed, but for a couple flukes. Jeff proved me wrong with his very well-plated, interestingly conceptualized dish of deep-fried conch and a pina colada-esque blend of flavors. If making a colorful, memorable, genuinely tasty dish out of crappy packaged food on a VERY strict timeframe isn't a test of talent, I don't know what is. In any case, he was eliminated tonight for crafting a ceviche that was "too watery" and had "too much going on."

I will now stop with my elegy and focus now on my emotions. First off, tonight's episode was psychologically exhausting for me, as I was very sentimentally/emotionally/gastronomically tied up with each of the three men on the chopping block. Stefan is far too talented to be cut until the bitter end of the show, in my opinion. Fabio is admittedly not a genius and in fact committed a culinary sin in the way he cooked that venison, but he's so charming, and his personality is part of why I look forward to the show every week. And then there's Jeff... oh Jeff. Two weeks ago, I wrote down my fantasy Top Chef bracket, and Jeff was in the final three (with Jamie and Stefan).

It looks like I will have to re-write that.

What it comes down to is that I feel a bit of a void. He is the background of my phone (obsessive, yes, I know, but if everyone else gets the carte-blanche to obsess over Robert Pattinson, I think it's fair enough for me to harbor an irrationally extreme crush of my own)... but, again, as much for his looks as for his talent. After the show was finished, I looked at my phone and started faintly tearing up.

I'm taking that as a sign that my heart is involved in this show to an unhealthy degree.

It's bittersweet, for sure, considering that two of my favorite cheftestants are still in the running -- and, I'd speculate, on solid ground. I feel hopeless and upset at the injustice of the judging/elimination conditions (do they not weigh past successes/failures into their deliberation at all?) and think it's a travesty that Jeff didn't at least make it further.

But I guess you win some, you lose some... Because guess who's guest judging next week!?!

*: For the record, the melodrama in this entry is entirely intentional and mostly for the sake of rhetoric.
**: By everyone, I mean teenage girl Top Chef addicts everywhere.

Cochon: A Pig Field Folly

2009-01-28T00:17:00.000-06:00

Essentially, it was a festivity assembled to celebrate food as art as well as the success of Prospect.1, which was coming to a close at the same time (last weekend). Mom and I arrived at the Brickyard, which looks exactly how it sounds: a large space of piled bricks, the remains of a former factory (was it molasses?) situated right by NOCCA. A man sat at a table right at the entrance, soliciting donations to save endangered pig species.

But the center of attention was rather a giant ball game going on. As it turns out, it was human foosball, with members of two opposing teams (Swine and Sausage) placed in rows across the field, each row of players connected by a rope that was manned by people on the sidelines, who'd pull towards themselves when they wanted to move their players. When a ball neared a player, that person would kick and squirm about (from the confines of his or her roping) and attempt to kick it towards the team goal.

And I ask myself, would this happen anywhere else?

In the background, a whole pig was being cooked by none other than Donald Link, who served up hot boudin and pork sausage in the meantime for hungry bystanders.

Rémy Eats: Tales from a Teenage Gastronome -- Boucherie

2009-01-25T15:01:00.000-06:00

My first official adventure as Rémy Robert, Teenage Gastronome was to Boucherie. Many New Orleans foodies are familiar with Iris, a beloved jewel of a restaurant that was located on Jeannette right off of Carrollton until it relocated recently to the French Quarter. As it happens, Boucherie has filled its spot.
My friend Lexie and I walked into the main dining room (adorably small and quaint, with a compact little bar in the back corner). A waiter smiled and greeted us immediately, and we took our seats at a small table near a window. The room was clean and well-lit, with just a couple of other tables of diners (I imagine it'll get much more popular as more people hear about it, but as of right now, it's still just a nebular little newcomer that's not on most radars).

Helloooo, everyone. This is just a little taste-test of my first full-length column (!), which should be up on Blake Makes later this week! Stay tuned on his blog and mine.

Galette des rois, or French king cake...!

2009-01-25T10:01:00.022-06:00

I'll be the first to admit how lucky I am to live within ten minutes of La Boulangerie, an adorable French bakery that is so charmingly authentic that it inspires acute nostalgia.

It's Mardi Gras, which means that La Boulangerie, bakeries, and grocery stores citywide are producing their own variations on the king cake. Although I am a sweet tooth, I have zero tolerance for the cloying white icing that is glopped onto many of these- the kind of icing that just screams diabetes, that tastes of nothing except processed sugar... gross.

What I do love, however, is La Boulangerie's galette des rois, which bears so little resemblance to these garish others that it's humorous:
Its crust is that of a quiche in love: flaky, ecstatically buttery, brushed with a tasteful lick of sweetness. On the inside is a creamy almond filling like you'd find inside the best almond croissant in all of Paris. And instead of a plastic baby, lodged somewhere inside is a porcelain trinket. In the past, I've gotten everything from a little tile to an actually very beautiful navy-blue and gold-painted heart-shaped pendant, which I wore everyday on a silver chain until, sadly, it broke off and was nowhere to be found... sad.

I also stocked up on pastries to eat for breakfast this week. First, the almond croissant:
With something like this, there isn't much to say. It is everything a croissant should be, and the dusting of powdered sugar is just enough to get on your nose.

I also got two each of these scones:
The one on the left is apple cinnamon; the one on the right is white chocolate raspberry. Let me say first (underline this) that THESE ARE NOT YOUR AVERAGE SCONES. As a child, I had many a bad experience with that awfully dry variation of scones. I thought it made sense that these scones were to be eaten with tea, because their utter lack of moisture and personality required the heat of tea to detach the concrete glop from the roof of my mouth.
These, though... they're as fluffy and edible as cupcakes, but you can eat these for breakfast and still have it be socially acceptable! The white chocolate raspberry was a bit burned, as you can see, but I ate one of those for breakfast today and the inside is still as good as can be.

Laurel Street Bakery

2009-01-25T10:01:00.010-06:00

These are the remains of the first bagel I had there:

I loved it so much I forgot to take a picture! Worry not, though; I went back just two days later (this was less than a week ago, and I've returned once since then) and remembered that time around to commemorate photographically... I'll be uploading photos soon, but until then, imagine: a freshly baked bagel, still piping hot out of the oven, less dense and insurmountable than every single bagel (even the ones I thought were good) I've ever had in my life. Instead, these seem to have a slight family history of brioche, as evidenced by the tender biteability and the tiny little crispy buttery pinpricks that freckled up all over the bottom as it was baking. Add to this a thin but thorough spreading of sundried tomato cream cheese (garlicky and savory and oh so housemade) and you've got all the makings for a perfect breakfast. Now I know why they call it the most important meal of the day.

...Thanks for waiting. Here's more adequate imagery.
!

Mmm... tapas.

2009-01-25T09:31:00.006-06:00

Last year, I mentioned Baru in passing during a time when I was feeling very melancholy about the absence of a working camera in my life. I will remind you that I have nothing but exuberant, grateful feelings toward this restaurant, and it was precisely that attitude that made me feel so glum about the prospect of not being able to include photos in what would inevitably become a novella of tapas raves.

How ironic it is, then, that I returned to Baru wielding a new and high-tech and adorable digital camera, and all I have to say for myself are a few photos that exhibit no sense of aesthetics whatsoever. In any case, that must be better than nothing.

After amusing our bouches over at Sucré, Baru was the perfect place to go. Think about it! Rather than commit ourselves to a single appetizer and/or entrée, we could nibble on some delectable little snackings and decide later on how many tapas we'd need to fill our tummies. On this night, three was the perfect number of dishes for us to split.

First on the lineup was the mazorca:
I first got this on the very same night I was feeling so dreary. At first, I was skeptical: roasted corn, "pink sauce" (what is that anyway?), and potato sticks did not sound as thrilling as, say, the grilled skirt steak with chimichurri. But my brother insisted, and at about the same time it arrived at our table, it disappeared. That's how good it was. We couldn't eat it quickly enough. As it turns out, the roasted corn exuded freshness and commingled happily with pink sauce (made pink with a whisper of tomatoes... duh). Salao cheese, a salty farmers' cheese, adds another dimension of flavor and texture, and potato sticks -- fried bits of goodness, like the ideal French fries if they were shrunken x10 -- completed the mix. Heaven on earth.

Next up were the empanadas:
Normally, these are filled with spiced ground beef, and they are delicious. On this night, though, the waiter informed us that they were improvisationally filled with chicken instead. We were set on the empanadas, so we decided to keep them on the line-up. Unfortunately, they were definitely the low point to the meal. The chicken was ground to a degree that must have humiliated it. What did this mean for us? We bit through the scrumptious corn-cakey outside and arrived at a core of mushy fill that vaguely resembled canned pet food. I hate to be so harsh, since I have faith it could have been good. It just goes to show you that having just one thing off -- in this case, consistency, to which I previously hadn't given much thought -- can ruin a plate. That stuff opposite the empanada was a fruity, sweet-then-spicy salsa.

Last up was the ceviche:
Oh my god. I have gotten this every single time I've been to Baru, and never once have I regretted it. Each time, it has metamorphosed a bit. For example, the first time I got it, it came in a martini glass with slightly different ingredients and crumbly saltine crackers rather than the thick tortilla chips you see here.
Inside the bowl is a serendipitious rendezvous of redfish that breaks apart in one's mouth in the most gratifying way. In case you didn't know, ceviche is raw fish that is "cooked" with citrusy juices (lime and the like). It's worth noting, then, that the fish tasted less fishy than some cooked fish dishes I've had in my life. It was buttery in consistency and full in flavor. There were also chunks of perfectly green, dazzlingly fresh avocado, cut into cubes the same size as the fish (not too big -- good for me, since I don't go wild over giant scoops of mushy avocado). Pickled onion makes another appearance here, and in case you didn't get my point when I mentioned this in my last entry on Sucré, I'll say it again here: I am obsessed with this. They were present here in a completely different context (in an already QUITE tart broth-esque of lime juice rather than atop some velvety crab), but they remained my favorite part of the dish, thoughtful and crisp, eye-squintingly tangy with a lingering hint of the onion's sweetness. I liked to eat this stuff straight on the fork, but it was also yummy scooped up with those chips over on the side.

For the adults out there, if you decide to hightail it over to Baru like we did, you should know that it is, as of right now, BYOB. This didn't matter to us, but it could quite possibly matter to you, and I want to give you fair warning, as I know that the sometimes-justifiable anger that would ensue at the lack of a wine menu would unfairly spoil what could be a delightful dining experience!

Free wedding cake for all!

2009-01-21T20:44:00.004-06:00

Let me start by saying that I was wildly surprised that the party at Sucré was as relatively intimate as it was. Make no mistake, it was busy and quite a success, but I guess I am dogmatic at least to the extent that, as a fervent foodie and sugarholic, I could not comprehend why the rest of the world wouldn't be as enthusiastic as I would about this turning-out of free wedding cake and hors d'oeuvres!

In any case, Jenna and I arrived at our favorite dessert place. Tariq Hanna's cake ideas ranged from the tried-and-true, conventional all-time favorites (white-chocolate almond) to salted caramel (mmm) to this elaborate concoction of coconut and other ingredients (sorry for the ambiguity; there were no slices left on the plate, so I didn't get a taste or even a look). There was even one dark chocolate cake (imagine devil's food to the power of six) slathered with a gooey chocolate buttercream frosting. Mmmmmm. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to take photos.

Hors d'oeuvres were also present -- i.e. vegetable crudités in dill cream cheese and truffled quail eggs (like tiny, tender deviled eggs... with the flavor of truffle... mmm, so help me God). Here's my favorite:
In case you can't see the photo, it's a little shot glass of crabmeat salad over tiny yummy greens topped with a smattering of pickled onion and a single beet chip. The pickled onion was my favorite, as the tartness was the perfect foil to the creamy crab, not to mention the fact that my mother craved vinegar when she was pregnant with me. Isn't there a theory floating around that people love what their pregnant mothers craved?

Anthony Bourdain and Mario Batali making a valiant effort to cross as many lines as possible.

2009-01-21T19:19:00.001-06:00

I need to visit:

2009-01-19T16:23:00.002-06:00

Alinea -- top of the list, mostly because it's more accessible than...
...El Bulli, headed by Ferran Adria, the king of avant-garde cooking. El Bulli is only open from April to September each year, and 300,000 people annually try to snag one of the 8,000 seats available. I guess I should start planning my rehearsal dinner now? I'll just take a shot in the dark when I plan the date.
Le Doyen
The French Laundry
The Spotted Pig
Le Bernardin
Cochon
MiLa
Tony Angelo's
~~Herbsaint~~
Restaurant August
Luke
Boucherie
Kanno California Sushi Bar
Stella!
Savvy Gourmet
Bayona
Iris
La Petite Grocery
Elizabeth's
Rock-n-Sake
La Cote Brasserie
7 on Fulton
Marigny Brasserie (I've only been for brunch... and it was the essence of perfection.)
Vizard's
Hip Stix?
Slice (would you believe I still haven't been!?)
Theo's (clearly I am not a pizza connoisseur)
Pascal's Manale (mmm BBQ shrimp)
Mimi's in the Marigny
Coquette

This list is totally under construction and I will be constantly adding to it... which may stress me out, although fortune has recently happened upon me in a most becoming way. Sucre had a little party on Wednesday night where we could taste samples of pastry chef Tariq Hanna's wedding cake creations as well as snack on hors d'oeuvres from Joel Dondis' catering. While I was there, I happened upon Blake of Blake Makes, etc. (he's got a whole empire, of which Blake Makes is just the foremost), and we got to talking about a magazine he's got in the works. We exchanged contact information, one thing led to another, and now we've concocted a plan for me to write a weekly column that'll be featured on his blog. This means I'll have the budget to go to many more restaurants much more frequently. Definitely head over to his blog; the man positively churns out creative ideas. Check out his latest idea, the Food Chain. Fun!

I'm tremendously busy today reading up on Emerson (yeah, yeah), but I'll be posting some entries this week on Sucre, Baru, Herbsaint (possibly my new favorite?), and other random quips. Hope the three-day weekend and DELICIOUS weather in NOLA is treating you well, loves.

Lilette

2009-01-15T11:44:00.009-06:00

As those of you who care may have noticed, Jenna is in town. For those of you who don't know, Jenna (my partner in the fluffy luv patty extravaganza) is my culinary accomplice, and although she doesn't channel her passion into writing, she's as much of a foodie as I am. The fact that we're in her last week of vacation before heading back to college called for commemoration, so we headed to Lilette with Dad, Caroline, and Raphe.

I faced my usual dilemma, which goes as follows: WHAT IN GOD'S NAME SHOULD I ORDER FROM THIS MOST LUMINOUS OF MENUS? Beyond a shadow of a doubt, this is one of those restaurants so near and dear to my heart that I have developed some habits with the menu that are very hard to break. So I narrowed it down to four things: grilled beets with goat cheese and walnuts; shaved fresh hearts of palm with lemon juice, olive oil, and parmigiano reggiano; Alaskan king crab claws in passionfruit butter; and the special of Kobe New York strip with duck-fat roasted potatoes and gremolada. I decided to just indulge, since it doesn't happen everyday that someone takes me to a meal at Lilette. Prepare yourself for a veritable deluge of photographic wonder, lovelies!

My appetizer (note that this nectary butter was the muse for this blog):
Aren't the crabs just beautiful? The colors nearly make me tear up. The portions, the simplicity... this just does not look like food to me. It looks more like a pseudo-sculpture. What I like to do is toil away on extracting every last morsel from the insides of those really hard claws and to stir them around the butter so that the white meat becomes passionfruit yellow. It feels like soup to me, but of course it trumps chicken noodle. Since the meat extraction takes so long, everyone else is usually just finishing up, which is serendipitous since it provides me with an audience as I dig into this most wondrous of appetizers. Below is the result of my toil (just some dregs).

These are the grilled beets, which both Jenna and Caroline got. Just really, really good -- a testament to talent in its artful combination of dense-fruity-earthy beets, crunchy walnuts, and creamy, almost tangy goat cheese. The bright purple oiliness left at the end is good for bread-swirling (fortunate, since the bread at Lilette is SO. GOOD.).

These are the hearts of palm. They are tart, unexpected, and fresh to an extent words can't encapsulate.

Here's the gnocchi. See my previous post on Martinique to read my thoughts. Basically: thick Italian gnocchi, sage brown butter, lovely slices of reggiano, chives. Mmmm.

Moving on... main courses! This is a special that Dad got. It's called bracciolo -- Google the name and almost all the results will be Italian, so that should tell you something. Basically, this dish consists of pounded-thin beef and pork, rolled together with hard-boiled egg and garlic, and cooked for a bit, then covered in red sauce. The dish was good, but it perturbed me for a few reasons. Part of what makes Lilette so fantastic is that the dishes there are singular and stunning and utterly unique, in one way or another. This seemed like a classic dish that your hypothetical Sicilian grandmother would make you while you were home for the holidays, and for that reason, it was a bit contrived and awkward. The spices were aromatic, perhaps to a fault, but the meat and the red sauce were both done very well.

Raphe got grilled hanger steak in marrowed bordelaise and housemade French fries. The hanger steak and fries were indisputably good, but the bordelaise truly made the dish -- perhaps it's embarrassing that I'd drink a small shot glass of it? It was very wine-y and the marrow gave it a profound depth that was a nice complement to the meat.

This is the roasted poulet breast -- the only dish on the menu that employs French (presumably because "chicken" is too base?). Mom gets this nearly every time she's at Lilette (it means to her what the beets or the crab claws mean to me) and it's just stunning. The chicken is unfailingly moist, topped with/soaked in a mushroom vinaigrette, over a bed of superbly tender brussels sprout leaves and balsamic glazed onions that I'd buy in a candy shop if they were there. Everyone says to pass up chicken dishes at restaurants since they're almost always not worth it, but this is one of the few very qualified contenders.

This is my Kobe NY strip. I asked for it to be cooked however the chef would have it; as you can see, it was quite rare. Normally, I don't like this, but with a meat like Kobe, there are bound to be exceptions. I was ultimately quite pleased (particularly because I felt so European with my super-rare steak), although a smaller portion would've been ideal for my palate (which, in its heightening snobbiness, grew a bit bored by the end of the meal) and my stomach (which needed all the room it could save for dessert). The gremolada was a tasteful accent, like a perfect pair of shoes on an otherwise minimally accessorized, super-chic French girl. The potatoes may actually have been the highlight, especially when they were swirled around in the steak-y juice and the lingering bits of gremolada. Duck fat is heavenly, the potatoes were cubed in perfect proportions that saved them from being too fatty or too potato-y, and the outside was crisp in a way that really just melted my heart. How lovely it is to encounter a glorified meat-and-potatoes dish like this one. I could learn how to cook something similar and win the heart of any man I pleased.

Believe it or not, we actually had just a bit of room (and plenty of motivation) to tackle dessert... I got Nutella custard with fleur de sel, caramel cream, and chocolate-hazelnut brittle. I was SO, SO, SO jubilant with how it turned out. The custard had definite Nutella notes, but it refrained from being overwhelmingly sticky, dark, and nutty, as the spread itself is prone to do. Ultimately, it retained only its best assets, and the consistency of the custard was thick without sticking to my ribs. I couldn't see the fleur de sel but it was definitely present, and it surprised me up through the very last bite. The caramel cream was fluffy, not gooey or dense -- perfect for glorious harmony with the custard, since the two textures played off each other. The nuts you see were candied and salty-sweet. I only had room for one stick of brittle, and I took home the other stick but lost it. :[

Here's Jenna with her mascarpone panna cotta, which almost looked fake since it was so smooth and glossy. It came atop an anise shortbread cookie with Louisiana strawberry sorbet and a sauce that tasted like red wine and balsamic vinegar. I loved everything except the cookie, which gave a nice crunch to the panna cotta but which left far too strong of a licorice aftertaste for my taste (though, to be fair, I hate licorice, so any aftertaste is too strong for me). The sauce was a very nice foil to the sweet creamy strawberriness- LOVED the red wine.

Here's Caroline's satsuma sorbet. Pretty self-explanatory- very, very, very true to the satsuma from whence it came. I couldn't have eaten a whole bowl since it was very single-noted, but the bites that I had were exciting and zingy.

Raphe got this impressively plated assortment of, from left, chocolate cookies, ricotta ice cream, pistachio ice cream, and milk chocolate ice cream. I was let down by the ricotta ice cream, which didn't taste like I thought it would. The other two ice creams were more the consistency of gelato, which of course I went crazy over. I loved the pistachio the most.

Of course, after this ridiculous epic of a meal, I never thought I'd eat again. But I did manage to eat at both Sucre and Baru the next night... stay tuned.

Martinique, finally.

2009-01-14T23:22:00.002-06:00

It happened one night when I suggested that my dad, stepmom, brother and I go to Mila for Dad's birthday dinner. As it turned out, Mila was closed for the holidays. Were we up a creek? Who was to say? We tossed around other ideas but ultimately settled on Martinique. Martinique is that neighborhood bistro: upscale but familiar, indulgent but low-key. Maybe it's not as thrilling as reservations at Restaurant August, but it is reliably yummy and that's what matters most at the end of the day.

I should mention the menu first. It's not rife with innovation, but it's ALWAYS full of things I really want- imagine French homestyle cooking with a facelift. The soups are hearty and the salads thoughtful. One of my favorites has always been a goat cheese salad, a variation of which is ever-present on the menu. It's got a warm goat cheese crouton, crusted in a certain nut (sometimes hazelnut, sometimes macadamia, you get the picture) and dressed in a certain vinaigrette (strawberry, pomegranate-molasses, etc.).

That day was just damp-damp-damp, and as I drove home to get ready for dinner, I could smell the earth through my car windows. (Wow, that sounded much more hippieish than I meant.) My point is that the smell of soil was pervasive, and I was struck with this very carnal craving for beets. So I got a salad with watercress, beets, chive-scented goat cheese, and toasted hazelnuts. It was good enough that I ate the whole thing but not remarkable enough that I still remember the dressing. Caroline got a tomatoey soup that was smooth and rich and tasted of bacon. Dad got a salad which I will talk about in a second. I don't remember what Raphe got.

The point of this entry is the gnocchi- an appetizer I ordered for my entree. This gnocchi was à la parisienne, which means that the adorably stumpy little dumplings are made without flour, unlike their Italian counterparts. They came in a warm sage cream sauce redolent of Lilette's gnocchi in sage brown butter, but in some ways I prefer this gnocchi to Lilette's. First of all, the dumplings are smaller; at Lilette, it would seem a bit gluttonous to eat two gnocchi in one bite, whereas they are more compact at Martinique. This dish comes with thin ribbons of fresh spinach and prosciutto (cut to roughly the same size so each bite has the perfect balance of flavors) as well as little bits of autumn squash, an appropriate and pleasantly seasonal accompaniment. A good shaving of parmigiano reggiano cheese was duly in the mix as well.

But that's not all! Because the next day, my mom calls me and asks if I'd like to go to dinner with some family friends. "Sure," I said, never passing up an opportunity to eat out, "where are we going?" She informed me that we'd be going to Martinique. Like I said above, though, everything on the menu has appeal if not whimsy, so I looked forward to dinner. To start, I got the same salad my dad had gotten: a jumbo lump crab Cobb salad with baby spinach, arugula, applewood-smoked bacon, avocado, hard-boiled egg, and blue cheese tossed together in a creamy, earthy green goddess dressing. The plating is part of the fun, since the salad comes shaped in a perfect little cylindrical tower that one can then demolish and devour. I'm just now training myself to like blue cheese, and that made it slightly harder for me to truly adore the salad -- although it did give me progress in my training.

For our entrees, Mom and I decided to split the gnocchi (she'd heard my raves and wanted to see what the fuss was all about) and the soup du jour, an artichoke-brie soup. The gnocchi were good, of course, and so was the soup, although I felt it had far too much artichoke and Mom thought it had far too much brie. Go figure. In any case, there was not a good balance of flavor, and I also had to put in lots of black pepper, which I hate doing since I think any dish should come properly seasoned.

In total: Martinique is a blessing to have in the neighborhood, particularly for the nights when other nearby places (Reginelli's, Taqueria) just don't cut it. The service could be better but the restaurant itself is well in tune with its identity, and it produces quintessential, delicious bistro food every time.

The glory of the noodle.

2009-01-14T22:41:00.003-06:00

It's been a deplorably long time since my double feature at Martinique (dinner two nights in a row! Would you believe?), but anyway. All I'll say now is that I had some really fabulous gnocchi that prompted the thought: what does gnocchi translate to in Italian? I had heard that it came from the Italian word for "pasta," but of course I had to check my sources before I could blog about it. I was ultimately led into an extravagant process of tracing linguistic roots that involved conceiving of every pasta name I could think of and attempting to translate each one back.

Without further ado, here goes... I apologize if your favorite noodle has been excluded; most likely, the reason is that the translation was far too boring or redundant to be of any interest to anyone. Pictures of some of the more intriguing pasta shapes are underneath the names.

Campanelle: little bells

Conchiglie: shells
Fusilli: from "fusile," or rifle, in reference to a rifle's screw-shaped barrel?
Orecchiette: little ears

Strozzapreti: priest-stranglers (!!!)

Cannelloni: big reeds
Cavatappi: corkscrews

Manicotti: sleeves

Mostaccioli (like smooth penne): mustaches!
Penne: pens (boring)
Rigatoni: from riga --> line
Spaghetti: from spago --> twine
Vermicelli: little worms (appetizing)

Capellini: thin hair
Fettucini: little ribbons
Linguini: little tongues
Lasagne: cooking pot
Agnolotti: lambs' ears

Gnocchi: from gnocco --> a knot in the wood
Ravioli: little turnips

Also, just a quick to-do list, so I don't forget:
Martinique
Lilette
Sucre
Baru
Herbsaint

FLUFFY LUV PATTIES...

2009-01-07T23:53:00.005-06:00

...or the greatest chocolate chip cookies known to mankind. How many people can honestly say that they themselves created the best chocolate chip cookie they've ever tasted? I am a lucky girl indeed. Jenna and I make these whenever we're together. They are so called because, well, they are chewy and perfectly fluffy (which is to say, not dense in the least bit), so full of love that one can even misspell the word, with a flavor vaguely redolent of tollhouse cookies but infinitely better because, duh, they're fresh. Mmmmm the butter. There's just enough salt in there that you get that very subtle aftertaste that prevents the cookie from being cloying. Here we are with the cookies; obviously, we hadn't stirred in the chocolate chips during the photo shoot, since they looked so much prettier in that freshly-poured puddle:

Okay, yeah, we were too hyper to scrape that little clump of flour off the side of the bowl (honestly, we didn't even notice it was there; I'm just now noticing it), but the cookies didn't suffer for it, I promise. The patch of white on my cheek is thanks to the flour that Jenna hurled at me vindictively.

St. James, and an overload on hyperlinks

2009-01-06T18:31:00.009-06:00

I really don't need to write yet another blog entry about either this place or this sandwich, considering the relative frequency at which they appear in my thoughts and in my writing (also here)

So a picture (or a few) will have to suffice, courtesy of the fantastic and utterly adorable digital camera that was given to me for Christmas by my fantastic and utterly adorable mother! As you may have surmised, I got the mozzarella. After having tried sandwiches with roast beef and smokey blue cheese, with turkey and avocado and basil and tomato and sharp white cheddar (varying between Beecher's and Grafton), and with gruyere and caramelized onions on a really nutty grainy bread (like a dressed-up, all-grown-up grilled cheese), I see now that this one is my favorite. As I wrote that last sentence, "gruyere" was just on the tip of my tongue and I was going crazy trying to think of the name of this fantastic cheese that I eat all the time. I found the St. James website and was blown away by how engaging and interactive and well-designed it is. It's only fitting, I guess. You should definitely investigate. Now I'd die for the piave with salami rosa, spicy radish sprouts, garlic mayo, and dijon mustard on toasted rye. MMMM. Next time, I might just try that one (although I keep saying that about literally every single thing on the menu and really just hope one day I'll be brave (and rich) enough to walk in and order each and every thing.

But I digress. Hopefully my pictures are sufficient testimony to the Fra Mani salami and fresh basil pine nut pesto and lovely white meltiness that completely blankets the ciabatta. There's also a photo of my really yummy blood orange soda, simply because it tastes the way a sundress feels at Jazz Fest.

Note the impossibly poetic layers of salami and cheese, with the pesto as a tasteful and artfully executed garnish that isn't overpowering at all. It's the ultimate sidekick -- supportive but not overbearing.

And here's the drink of perfection.

Not so crabby

2009-01-06T17:43:00.000-06:00

One would think that a restaurant called Crabby Jack's would at the very least have one fried softshell crab po-boy to offer me in my dire hunger. I found no such luck when Mom and I walked into the charmingly squat little shack on Jefferson Highway, which is not to say that I didn't have an overall delightful po-boy experience.

The menu at Crabby Jack's is really one to be celebrated. Mom and I decided to split two small po-boys -- same overall amount of food, but twice as much variety. You really can't go wrong. Our first choice was the slow-roasted duck po-boy, a true specialty of Crabby Jack's that I haven't found anywhere else, but the girl ringing us up told us they were already sold out of it (and this was at lunchtime! The horrors). So we decided to get fried green tomatoes with shrimp remoulade and cochon de lait. Turns out cochon de lait is also sold out, so we stuck with half-and-half (fried shrimp, fried oyster).

We managed to find a seat, and if you've ever been to Crabby Jack's, you know that that is no easy task. The seating arrangement there is such that there's one looonnggg table in the middle of the room, a long countertop with barstools, and a couple of smaller tables. We snagged two spots at a smaller table and hungrily (HUNGRILY, as it was already 1 at this point) awaited our meal.

I had high hopes for the fried green tomatoes and shrimp remoulade. The tomatoes were fried in a very perfect batter, and I was perfectly content and excited by them. The shrimp, however, slightly disappointed me, but I think it was more due to the fact that I really was disoriented by the presence of something cold in a sandwich that is typically filled to the brim with juicy hot fried things. The remoulade sauce was pretty good, although it was more soupy and less spicy than I prefer. Ironically, the old standby of half-and-half ultimately stole the show. Crabby Jack's is famous for filling its sandwiches with so much seafood that you could make a whole sandwich with all the stuff that falls out of the bread. Hands cannot fully contain the immensity that lies within that lovely bread, which shatters at first nibble as any good po-boy bread should. I was more than happy to settle for nibbling on the straggling shrimp and oysters, though it's true that they could easily have comprised a sandwich for someone else.

All in all, it's a great po-boy joint. Like I've said before, every po-boy joint needs to have a hook, just as every college applicant needs to have a hook (can you tell I've been brainwashed by all my apps?). My hook is a love for chocolate and gastronomy that borders on the insane. Crabby Jack's' (is that grammatically correct?) hook is that their menu contains all the staples and throws in a few zingers to entertain a palate that might be growing bored. I am eagerly anticipating my next jaunt there -- Mom and I have already narrowed down our selections to three (roast beef, cochon de lait, slow-roasted duck) and are agonizing over which to ultimately eliminate.

It's been a while.

2008-12-31T01:17:00.001-06:00

College applications. Lots of them. But they're due by 11:59 pm tonight (December 31) so I'll be back in food writing mode shortly. I've got some writing to do about Crabby Jack's and Martinique. Soon. But not now.

P1 and other wonders

2008-12-24T13:00:00.013-06:00

I've realized something recently. 99% of the time, when we decide to allot more attention, time, and effort to something, we burn out, get fed up, and become utterly exasperated with that which previously commanded our extra attention. It can happen with everything from schoolwork to relationships. Things just get old. But here I am, and I've started a food blog on a whim, and given that I'm a pretty driven girl, I'm devoting myself to maintaining this, if for no other reason than that it is hopefully preparing me for my career. Yet I haven't even begun to burn out. The reality of writing this has bolstered my initial interest, and it has lodged food into my permanent consciousness to the point where I deliberately seek out inspiration for my frequent little quips. Amen!

Moving on. For those of you who don't know, there's this incredible art biennial here in New Orleans called Prospect.1 (is that properly punctuated? I can't seem to ever get it right). There are literally artists from the world over using every medium you can dream of, displaying their art at tons and tons of venues across the city. It's a big deal. A darling family friend, David Buckingham, has his art over at the Universal Furniture Store. He uses found metal to craft these wild, fantastic, sometimes quite offensive wonders. This is what he has at P1 (from Pulp Fiction):

Anyway, at the CAC, there are these two sculptures of sorts made by Lee Bul. The first is this glorious, delightful, frivolous, borderline garish chandelier-esque structure, draped elaborately with glass and beads and chains that reflect light in every which way. Its framework is spirally and ornate, reminiscent of pirate ships or even a tiny metropolis, bedecked in jewels.

Opposite this ostentatious masterpiece is its counterpart, a hulking blackblackblack bunker. It looks like a miniature cave, with a molded fiberglass shell and rocky peaks. On its own, it's morbid and base and slightly confounding at first glance -- an abstract manifestation of the elephant in the room, this gargantuan behemoth that seems out of place on the mirrored floor of the gallery. Two things contradict this first impression, though: first, its simple juxtaposition with what we will refer to as the chandelier calls in a yin and yang perspective that helps add insight and intrigue. More importantly, though, is the realization that the bunker is more than something to look at. Walk inside, put on the headset, and whisper -- strike up a conversation -- break out in a spontaneous tap dance. Every slight sound that is captured in that cave is magnified by about a thousand times, so that even if you're restricting your noise to the most basic and quiet noises necessitated by life itself, you hear this uproarious, unnerving, discordant cacophony in the headset. It's just wild.

And, okay, so this is a food blog, not an art blog. I'm here to talk to you about dishes and techniques and chefs on whom I have crushes, not so much about sculptures and structures that have caught my eye. But all this build-up does, indeed, have a culinary purpose. Because in my later reflections on those two pieces, I felt that kind of singular, rare inspiration that makes you truly proud to find. The notion of that dichotomy captivated me, and I started dreaming up flavors that reflected a similar duality. Here's a short list of my inspiration thus far, the first item as the chandelier and the second as the bunker:
* Ebullient champagne / dark amber beer
* Fluffy vanilla meringue / dense, flourless chocolate cake
* Shaved hearts of palm with fresh lemon juice / warm, earthy beets (can you tell Lilette inspired this one?)
* Tangy, zingy, flaky-white ceviche / decadent grits and grillades
* Tart balsamic vinegar / velvety olive oil
* Mahony's ethereal onion rings / Mahony's roast beef po-boy with wine-y dark gravy
* Wasabi / roux
* Sorbet / foie gras
* Passionfruit / eggplant

Take the idea and run with it! Let me know if you have any whimsical ideas of your own.

Iberico bellota

2008-12-20T11:17:00.009-06:00

So now I'm officially done with my last set of high school midterms and I've got an entire two weeks ahead of me to think about food. I'm hoping to visit Lilette, Herbsaint, Cochon, and Tony Angelo's over the break. Of course, the first is a favorite and the others are places I tragically have yet to taste. My very culinary aunt raves about Tony Angelo's frog legs. I'll be writing.

I was leafing through the January issue of Food & Wine, reading about food trends of 2009 and new restaurants to visit and great things to try cooking at home. As usual, it was all I could do not to eat off my hand. No kitchen is satisfactory to my obscure cravings after I see glimmering photos of new dishes like Mario Batali's Fusilli alla Crazy Bastard or after I read Lettie Teague's 2009 wine diary.

Anyway, St. James sounded fantastic for lunch with my mom -- to me, its spot in New Orleans' restaurant world is as that girl who just throws on an outfit and looks effortlessly, enviably cool. Its cheese assortment borders on the profound, the sandwiches are always elegantly divine in a very simple way, and the chutneys and spreads that line the walls for purchase are adorable in a terrifically sophisticated yet genuine and humble way.

I almost got the ploughman's lunch, which has an assortment of cheeses (cheddar, Stilton, and one other kind, which has not yet lodged itself in my memory since I have not yet eaten it), pate, and chutney. The problem was that, while it was everything I had been craving recently, it was not what I was craving right then. I stuck with a sandwich: turkey, tomato, avocado, basil, and a magnificent cheddar.

As we were paying, we saw a sign advertising a new shipment that had come to the store. It was called iberico bellota and a sample plate was eight dollars. We wondered, a sample plate? Almost ten dollars? What could this possibly be? As it turns out, it's the creme de la creme of ham, made of hogs who are fed only acorns for the duration of their lives at pasture. It's also $80 a pound. We considered: this is either horrifically indulgent or so supremely perfect that it's worth it. I decided we should have it. I am, after all, an aspiring food writer and should take every chance I get to dabble.

As it turns out, the latter of our expectations was the correct one. Oh. My. God. This ham was beyond compare. We got a simple white plate that bore four thin ribbons of this legendary iberico bellota. No oils, no garnishes, no trappings, just unadulterated meat too perfect to be tainted by anything but its own essence.

It's wonderfully oily in a totally organic way that isn't heavy at all. The acorns lend themselves to the flavor, which is nutty and earthy and briney and ever so slightly buttery. It tastes like salted caramel, and it's so velvety and impossibly rich that I'd snap it up as a dessert in an instant. This is not the type of ham to put on a sandwich. This isn't deli meat or something to fry up for breakfast. This is elemental ham, platonic ham, the form of ham. It's fantastic and worth every cent and, dare I say, reduces prosciutto to the level of Oscar Mayer.

Also, as a quick last note: yesterday, I took my dear friend E. Leigh to Gumbo Shop -- she was born and raised here, moved away after her dad got a job teaching at Clemson in South Carolina, and hasn't been back for a year and a half. The Gumbo Shop is the embodiment of food to which locals become accustomed but which is craved by the rest of the world after first taste. I got a small cup of seafood (meaning shrimp and crab) and okra gumbo, which duly came with rice and had an admirable, rich brown roux that was NEARLY as thick as cake batter. I also got alligator sausage, which was a special; I'd actually never tried alligator meat before (!). The dish came with two small sausages with a special, sweet-spicy side of something vaguely resembling creole mustard on the side. And the meat was sweet!

Feast your eyes, lambs

2008-12-11T23:56:00.003-06:00

...because unless you're ridiculously fortunate, your eyes will be the only things feasting on this marvelous array of foods from French Laundry in the Napa Valley.

My family used to vacation in Sorrento, Maine, and we'd always stop at this restaurant on the water where one could get the freshest of fresh Maine lobster for a ridiculously low price, considering. You sat with bibs at picnic tables, swabbing your lobster in melted butter, while water rushed over rocks in the river. So of course, lobster is sentimental for me as it is. It's like dessert, no matter how you do it. In this case, it's poached in butter and served with King Richard leeks, pommes maxims (imagine a gourmet potato chip), and red beet essence. Mmmm.

It seems that this is essentially a glorified chocolate-mint ice cream sandwich, done with Thomas Keller's unique finesse.

These are the truffles they serve you at the end of your meal. The ones second from the left look like Sucre's port chocolates. They're all beautiful. For some reason, the one on the right cracks me up -- it's faceted like a precious gem!

Credit to Google Images. I wish I could say I'd taken them.

M.F.K. Fisher, a food writer in a league of her own.

2008-12-11T17:53:00.006-06:00

It seems that this woman is appearing far too serendipitously in snippets of my conversation these days: with my poetry teacher; with my women's history teacher; over a bowl of buttered spaghetti, a simple dish that Fisher champions, with my mom; with my classmates, who are curious as to why I am lugging around this 800-page volume entitled The Art of Eating; and, today, with Julia Reed, a food columnist at Newsweek who spoke at my school. In any case, Fisher is a major part of my life right now, and given that I am far too broke from Christmas shopping to enjoy an actual meal out right now, the next best foodie thing to write about is a fellow epicure.

Perhaps this excerpt from The Gastronomical Me sums it up best: "It seems to me that our basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it... and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied... and it is all one."

A more serious or self-respecting gourmet might spend seven pages elaborating on how and why P is for Pasta, or Parmigiano Reggiano, or Panna Cotta, or Pâté. Fisher, though, is an entirely different story, and although she does pay homage to Pâté in a single page, she chooses to devote seven pages to a chapter entitled P is for Peas. (Later on, I might add, she spends only four pages on how R is for Romantic, glossing briefly over the inextricable connection between food and love.) Such is Fisher's eccentric and whimsical Alphabet for Gourmets, in which letter designations exactingly and comically refrain from the trite, so that C is for Cautious rather than Coulis and H is for Happy as opposed to Hamachi. Perhaps it's not the most elevated book out there as food literature goes, but it is undoubtedly among the most genuine, and that, in short, is Fisher's hook.

What is most alluring about Fisher is her effervescent wit and infectious passion. Important to note is the fact that Fisher is not just a food writer the way Brett Anderson is for the Times-Picayune. As opposed to an author of ephemerally significant newspaper reviews, she is a writer unto herself; her subject of choice just happens to be food rather than star-crossed lovers or the American Dream. Her writing style has an effect similar to that of an effortless host: instantly relaxing, humbled, and infinitely inviting in its lack of pretension. Rather than elevate herself superficially with typical food jargon, she has a no-nonsense but all-joie de vivre approach, so that one can read it without a familiarity with typical culinary semantics. She's a real human being, concerned more with the sentimentality of a certain meal than with emulsions or aromatics, who can devote solid, sincere writing in praise of kasha, the simple oatmeal-esque dish pervasive in Eastern Europe, just as well as she can effortlessly discuss the gastronomical benefits of beluga caviar or pâté de foie gras truffé en brioche. Regardless of her topic, there is a sheer joy that glimmers through every word, and why wouldn't you want to read that?

...as I aimlessly research chefs in a deft procrastination attempt,

2008-12-07T20:49:00.005-06:00

I keep finding little morsels of enlightenment that make the procrastination completely worthwhile.

Allow me to introduce him. He is Graham Elliot Bowles, and he deserves his own Wikipedia page. Known for his chef-dom at Chicago restaurant Avenues in the Peninsula, he also presides over the eponymous graham elliot, where he upholds his reputation for serving unexpected things that tickle one's palate and seduce one's imagination.

As a high school senior, I haven't had the good fortune to dabble in his gastronomical ventures, so I'm relying on Frank Bruni's NY Times review to do the trick:
"Mr. Bowles has been known to serve crushed Altoids instead of mint jelly with lamb and to present diners with lollipops of foie gras encrusted with Pop Rocks. His cooking typifies another facet of this cuisine: the way it recruits junk food into the service of fancier dishes or creates highbrow versions of lowbrow classics.
'Why not go to the store and get the curiously strong mint?" Mr. Bowles said in a telephone interview, going on to reject "that horribly boring quote, 'I love to use farm-fresh products and local ingredients and European technique.''"

Irreverence and innovation, as anyone knows, are two surefire ways to win my heart.
Below, a deconstructed Caesar salad from graham elliot:
I like that the crouton is standing there like this immovable monument amid the frivolous ruffles of lettuce and anchovy.

A match made in culinary heaven

2008-12-07T20:34:00.004-06:00

...at the very least, a match made in our dreams.
As I was chatting with my dear friend Laurin about food and film (!), we mentioned our respective culinary crushes: I was yammering on about the dish in my previous post, and she was, well, discussing Eric Ripert in an informed way. I effused that I had used the same word -- "wit" -- as a New York Times food writer to describe Grant Achatz, and that whether or not I was making mountains out of molehills, I was going to take that to be providential.
She then gave me a very sweet and sincere compliment and hinted at maybe, MAYBE, getting a shout-out on PFB. So here's a toast to the entirely fictional but wholly ideal marriage of Laurin to Eric Ripert. Perhaps they will honeymoon in the South of France, as Ripert was born in Antibes and Laurin spent a summer in Nice. Quite obviously, the stars have aligned over their union, since Laurin is a pescetarian and fish is precisely Ripert's specialty.
Here's to decade upon decade of pseudo-connubial bliss...

passionfruit sponge between spirals of dehydrated prosciutto

2008-12-07T20:22:00.004-06:00

thank you, grant achatz.
(i stalk)

I am preparing myself

2008-12-07T18:38:00.003-06:00

for a deluge of baking in epic proportions. I've felt it coming for a while now, and as the suspense builds, so does my mental list of things to bake. Somehow I got suckered into baking snacks for the entire Upper School during exam week, so at least my cooking will be put to good use. I'm planning on doing some roll-and-cut sugar cookies with this delicious icing, chocolate-mint thumbprint cookies, my famous oatmeal-craisin-white-chocolate-chip cookies, vanilla cupcakes, shortbread, and hopefully some peppermint bark as well. All from scratch. More to come. It's too bad I actually have ambition, because I'd make a kickass stay-home-and-bake housewife.

A flurry of thoughts

2008-11-28T17:27:00.004-06:00

Nothing really compares to the bliss of that mixture made by Crystal hot sauce and mayonnaise. It's too humble to realize its magnificence, but it is always there in its glorified state of almost-aioli to make my po-boy that much better.

My mind, body, and appetite almost collectively shut down Wednesday night when Grant Achatz of Alinea fame showed up as the guest judge on Top Chef. I wrote about Alinea a little while ago; though I have never been to the restaurant itself (I've never even been to Chicago), I have been enamored of molecular gastronomy for a while now. There was a fantastic article about it last year in the New York Times called "Food 2.0: Chefs as Chemists" (the link should be foot-noted) with which I completely credit my infatuation. The article mainly focused on Wylie Dufresne of WD-50 in the Lower East Side, but I've had a special culinary crush on Achatz ever since I stumbled upon him.

I think my fascination with molecular gastronomy is rooted in a deep appreciation for the whimsy and intellect that seem attributable to that kind of conceptual cooking. Suddenly, food is no longer food; food can't be divvied up into convenient pigeonholes. Molecular gastronomy is its own realm, not necessarily in terms of taste but undoubtedly in terms of thought. It seems as though every dish I've heard of -- from the knot foie that was mentioned in the Times article to the potato-and-truffle dish that quickly stole my heart -- is infused with a certain vivacity and wit. Tongue-in-cheek, refreshing... I like it all.

Now, of course, I just need to taste it, since all my observations are purely speculative...

Raphe and I went back to Mahony's today and it's quickly rising into my canon of favorite po-boy shops. I realized today that it has a unique inviting quality; Domilise's still trumps them all in terms of flavor, but I go so rarely because the atmosphere there is dark and almost intimidating. At Mahony's, I feel more than welcome to hunker down, watch a football game with my little brother, and ask to have the rest of the onion rings wrapped up (they make for surprisingly good leftovers when they're toasted!). My sandwich comprised of grilled shrimp with fried green tomatoes and remoulade... mmmm. I'm living on the edge and stepping out of my po-boy comfort zone! And, today, I'm quite glad I did.

Now I get to look forward to cozying up with M.F.K. Fisher's The Art of Eating -- my poetry teacher told me about her and I am SO excited to delve into Gastronomical Me. She has everything at this point to suggest that I would desperately want to befriend her if she was still alive. Maybe I'm flattering myself, but she sounds like a kindred spirit.

Looking forward

2008-11-23T10:14:00.004-06:00

to a day of great food. Today is the second annual Po-Boy Fest over on Oak Street -- I didn't go last year since I heard about it too late, but apparently it is a bastion of every possible variation on the po-boy theme. I'm hoping the samples are small because I'm not sure how many different regular-size po-boys I could eat...

Then tonight I'm hosting a potluck! Those are always fun because they are an excuse to eat comfy simple food. I'm making spaghettini with garlic-infused olive oil, red pepper flakes, and mushrooms. Mmmm. Should be delightful.

ALSO: my first issue of Food & Wine came in the mail yesterday and I'm in the process of reading it cover to cover. It practically oozes fabulosity. I'm loving reading about the ten best restaurant dishes of 2008- each one is inspirational in its own right, although it's all I can do not to eat my hand. One of the dishes -- a lovely crawfish ravioli -- is actually from Bistro Daisy here in New Orleans. I guess I'll have to make it a point to go there sometime soon. I'm particularly enamored of the duck-fat fried chicken... who can possibly resist an upscale, clever take on a comfort-food classic? Now I just have to wait for the first issue of Gourmet to arrive before I can be truly immersed in love and hunger.

I can't help it

2008-11-17T21:44:00.004-06:00

I have to put in one last word about the holiday macaroons that have been newly introduced at Sucre. I went to get my monthly fix of chocolate yesterday and picked up a box of eight macaroons while I was there because I just couldn't walk out. I got two each of the pistachio, strawberry, and hazelnut ones, which are staples, but what I simply can't get over are the triple-chocolate macaroons. The girl who was helping me accidentally broke one of the macaroons as she was putting it into my box, so I got to eat it right then and there. The cookieish outside is feathery and indescribably fragile; as soon as you bite in, the inside just explodes and it's this warm dark brown that's decadent and tastes exactly like brownie batter. I wish I was kidding. It's unbearably delicious. There are little cacao nibs as garnish that add to the adorableness factor (although they didn't add that much in the way of taste).

A few new chocolates have been added. I tried the pecan praline, which has a pecan-infused dark chocolate ganache and is itself a plain old square enrobed in dark chocolate, which was good but not great. The pistachio and passionfruit chocolates have been slightly changed -- they used to be rectangular and now they're taller, denser, more substantial squares. The grand coeur (a heart-shaped chocolate with a Triple Sec- and orange-infused ganache) and port (a dark chocolate bonbon in an intriguing but mildly frightening dark eggplant color) both caught my eye, but I wasn't in the mood to experiment. Next time I go, I'll pick up a grand coeur -- Giada de Laurentiis's show today featured a chocolate cake with hazelnut brittle and a garnish made of chocolate and orange zest... hopefully, Giada can train me out of my skittishness of that orange/chocolate combo.
My only disappointment? I was all ready to get five each of the passionfruit, gianduja crunch, bolivian palet d'or and avery when I discovered that their boxing has been revamped. If I wanted to pay the price I was used to paying ($30) for my usual medium-sized box, I could only get fifteen (rather than eighteen) chocolates -- they used to charge by weight, and now they have a flat price of $2 (steep even by my standards) per chocolate.

So I guess this'll be a lighter month... but at least I've got my macaroons to console me in my times of need. :]

An Ode to Sandwiches

2008-11-17T19:58:00.005-06:00

For some unknown reason, I am always seized with this carnal craving for a very particular dish or food group whenever I am in after-school choir practice. There is no explaining it, but every week, without fail, it happens, and I'm nearly keeling over because I am so hellbent on finding a juicy pink steak, some mushroom pasta, or some tortellini. Today, the food group of choice -- or, more accurately, of involuntary spastic craving -- was cheese. Ask Elizabeth; I was spouting out "mozzarella sticks," "cheesy ravioli," and other such novelties between verses for the entire rehearsal.

But at the heart of the matter was a very simple but very pressing issue. I was a girl who needed a grilled cheese. And with that said, I have decided to compile a very sincere, very dedicated declaration of my love for the art of the sandwich. First off, were you aware that John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich, is credited with pioneering this delectable dish? (He didn't invent it, though; he was just a fond champion.) Wikipedia is such a joy.

Now:
La Divina's Il Tacchino panini -- I'm usually at this cute little place to get gelato (their crema di limon is like nothing else on this earth; it's exactly like a lemon icebox pie, and it's got a dreamy consistency), but every now and then, when I have company, I stick around for a sandwich and I'm never disappointed. The ciabatta bread is, well, ciabatta bread -- I'm not sure anyone has ever raved about plain old ciabatta, but it's certainly decent. Inside are thin-thin-thinly sliced smoked turkey, gorgeous avocado that is unfailingly green, diced red onions that are small enough to not overpower, and parmigiano reggiano cheese. I always ask for dijon mustard, because really, when can you go wrong with mustard on a sandwich?!

Sucre's sashimi tuna sandwich -- I actually haven't had this one in a little while so I'm having a hard time remembering the ingredients; I'm a foodie but not a cook, so I have a keen memory for finished products but very rarely pick out and remember particular flavors and ingredients. (I'm working on it!) Anyway, the sandwich is comprised of a soft kind of French bread that is the polar opposite of Leidenheimer's (it's firmer and moister, so it stays intact and dignified for the duration of your sandwich experience) but which lends itself nicely to the rest of the item. Then you've got strips of delicious, tender, perfect sashimi tuna enrobed in black sesame seeds, some sandwichy green vegetable garnishes, and a sensational but simple wasabi aioli that is mellow with a kick.

Camellia Grill's cheeseburger -- Hands down the best burger I've ever had. When I get married, I will bend over backwards to ensure that my wedding is catered with these things. They're just yummy slabs of plain ground beef, of a manageable but thoroughly satisfying thickness, cooked on that buttery Camellia grill until sizzling and served on the squishiest of squishy white hamburger buns. The best way to go is to get it dressed (mayonnaise is, for me, only okay when it's on a Camellia Grill burger); bonus points if you also ask for grilled onions, which are diced up and practically caramelized in the same butter in which the burger is cooked. Some might say this universal grill is brutish, but I think it's genius; I'm positive that the union of all the different items on that one cooktop makes for a sandwich that has subtle nuances and a pleasing sense of togetherness. I like my burger to have faint traces of fried egg in its flavor, and I like my onions to have faint traces of bacon grease or burger juice. Scrumptious.

Domilise's half-shrimp, half-oyster po-boy -- How can I possibly do justice to the way that bread crumbles at the slightest touch into a million tiny flakes? How can words possibly attest to the euphoria incited by that first bite into bread that is at once crunchy and soft? How can poetry possibly convey the glory of a single fried oyster bathed in Tabasco hot sauce? Enough said.

St. James Cheese Company's delicious concoction of salami, buffalo mozzarella, and pesto -- I haven't blogged about this place yet because I can't get over the mourning I have for my broken camera; I guess I haven't felt confident enough to do it justice in its own entry with words alone. St. James is really quite awe-inspiring the first time you go in; as the name suggests, it is a bastion of artisan cheeses -- every kind you can imagine -- as well as other cutesy little spreads and dips from all over the world. The lunches there are a favorite of my mom's and she's gotten me hooked, too; among the offerings are assortments of cheeses/pates/chutneys, gigantic salads, and a host of constantly changing sandwiches named after their respective starring cheeses. My favorite is toasted on thinly sliced ciabatta, with just a few slivers of this really hearty salami, fresh and splendidly white mozzarella that is melted to cover the entire sandwich in all its velvety goodness, and some good old-fashioned basilly walnutty pesto. The sandwich is aesthetically pleasing because contrary to so many other sandwiches you see these days, it is slender and easily fits into your mouth; with such strong and high-quality ingredients, there is absolutely no need for gross excess.

Lilette's pulled-pork sandwich with natural gravy -- I hesitated to mention this one because it hardly counts as a sandwich, what with its hedonistic extravagance and ostentatious flair. I decided to put it in because it fits the technical definition of a sandwich and because it nicely follows the prim tastefulness of St. James' creation. Pulled pork never loses its whimsy, in my mind; pulled anything is practically made for sandwiches, what with its easy biteability, and it absolutely doesn't get better than juicy, well-seasoned pork (unless PERHAPS we are talking about a very particular brisket). The natural gravy is creamy-silky, and it makes the sandwich as a whole utterly lavish, serving a purpose similar to that of icing on a cake. The fries on the side are not perfunctory, either, and they are worth poking around in any extra gravy you might have.

That's all for now because I'm a little swamped. Consider this a work in progress, and feel free to add your own input! I am always looking to expand my sandwich repertoire...

The best authentic rootsy French food I've ever had outside of France.

2008-11-14T17:20:00.004-06:00

Eleanor mentioned today that she's having dinner with her parents tonight at Crepe Nanou. Could I be more jealous? Probably not. Crepe Nanou is this adorable little joint with a cozy bar up front and small, candlelit tables. The lighting is dark and moody. They take no reservations, but it is such a well-loved little place that you usually see groups of people huddled outside a few minutes before opening time in hopes of snagging seats before the dinner rush.

Anyway... now I am sitting here pining for a bowl of their perfectly herbed and delectably warm mussels, or one of their many tasty and creative crepes, or a fantastic dessert crepe that is positively oozing chocolate fudginess. Save me now.

carbs>!?!

2008-11-09T20:10:00.004-06:00

This is a photo of that Cuban beef sandwich I had at Surrey's about a million years ago. By the way, I was there again this morning and had some phenomenal shrimp and grits... next up on the Surrey's lineup is their huge banana pancake. You can get it with peanut butter (!!!). How much better does breakfast get?

I was so hungry on Friday that I ended up researching cheeseburgers on the Internet and this is what I came up with. It is allegedly the biggest cheeseburger ever made. Don't you just love it?

Today was a good eating day. I had yet another baking flurry and made some delicious lemon pound cake with sour cream. The sour cream made the inside really moist and soft, but the top baked perfectly golden and crispy, almost caramelized. It's perfect when it's reheated in the toaster oven and drizzled with some glaze I made just by mixing two cups of powdered sugar with about five tablespoons of fresh lemon juice. SO delectable. We also had spaghetti bolognese for dinner that was just sumptuous and will make just perfect leftovers...

Hope everyone's weekend was grand and restful.

National Cupcake Day and other baking sprees...

2008-11-03T22:12:00.003-06:00

I realized today that I completely forgot to mention National Cupcake Day, which happened several weeks back on October 18! That was a Saturday, so the night before school on Friday, I slaved away at a triple batch of bittersweet, dense chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese icing so that all my classmates and teachers could celebrate. Imagine a giant Tupperware of about 40 or 50 cupcakes, accompanied by two smaller Tupperwares filled with cream cheese icing to be added accordingly. It was quite an absurd scene, but it did earn me a round of applause in senior study...

Anyway, this realization occurred to me because today, I had a similar such experience with a baking tantrum. It would appear that I am becoming increasingly and unknowingly domesticated. In the middle of poetry class, it dawned on me that I wanted to have chocolate soup. Stream of consciousness: chocolate soup --> chocolate soup for the class --> announcing this thought out loud --> this thought being met by a few dubious glances --> me reevaluating my plan for socialized desserts --> me settling on the idea of creating variations on the brownie theme. I ended up with the following:

First, a batch of a chocolate brownie-cake -- less chewy and melty than usual brownies, but equivalently glorious in its novelty -- with white chocolate peppermint icing and a preposterous amount of dark chocolate ganache that has since solidified in the fridge. Imagine: a glorified peppermint patty. It really doesn't get much better.

Second, a batch of my more famous fudgy brownies smeared with some really delectable homemade peanut butter frosting -- PB and powdered sugar and butter, oh my! -- as well as a thinner, sweeter bittersweet chocolate glaze. These are ideal because they're baked in a 13x9x2 pan, so the batter spreads pretty thin = easy nibbles. Okay, so they wouldn't make the most impressive birthday cake, but still...

Mahony's Po-Boys

2008-10-31T13:22:00.008-05:00

One would think we'd have set some sort of quota for po-boy restaurants in this city. There's Domilise's, Crabby Jack's, Guy's, Magazine Street Po-Boys, Mother's... those are just the first few that come to mind, and I guarantee you we've got more abounding in every pore of this city. That said, I was a little surprised when a new place called Mahony's opened on Magazine a few blocks off Louisiana Avenue. It seems just a tad superfluous, but I guess the philosophy is that you can never have enough Leidenheimer's bread and fried oysters in a city like this one...

With that said, it's fairly implicit that each of these subway meccas must find its own hook, its own tagline, its own claim to fame. I would imagine that this has been easier for some than for others. Mother's and Domilise's, for example, are just permanent fixtures, and we love them as much for their decadent roast beef po-boys or interminably long lunch lines as we do for their familiarity. But for the places that aren't older than God and have had to work to win locals' respect, one fact is of the utmost importance: New Orleans will find justification to eat a po-boy just about anytime. So, even though Magazine Street Po-Boy is by no means remarkable, I eat there because it's just a few blocks from school. Guy's has a grilled shrimp po-boy, which is fairly rare. I'm sure you get my drift. Both places have earned special places in my heart because they have certain assets, insignificant or imperative, that set them apart.

Luckily, Mahony's has a few things to its advantage. The ambiance is casual and (as one would expect of any self-respecting po-boy establishment) exactingly no-frills, with old football memorabilia decorating the walls and a video game machine. Unlike some other dearly beloved locales, it's welcomingly and abundantly spacious, with simple chairs and simple tables scattered throughout several rooms and a big bar up front where you can sit and chat with the very friendly hostess/bartender/waiter. There are two front doors, each decorated with its own charming "In" our "Out" sign. Nobody really questions the fact that, sure, the "Out" door can, in fact, be entered from the outside. Mostly, people are reverent of the doors' designations.

Then there's the menu. Ironically, this is important, and that's coming from someone who is loath to eat anything other than a half-shrimp, half-oyster po-boy, no matter where I am. Mahony's menu is generous and diverse, with the old staples as well as some new additions. Most notable are the onion rings. They're not the most substantial things I've ever seen (as substance goes, I think College Inn on Carrollton takes the cake with its giant juicy rings of thickly sliced onion); rather, they're shredded like cole slaw or like the lettuce you get on a burger. This makes the ratio of fried batter to onion inordinately and extraordinarily high, and while I nibbled on them, I realized how perfect it would be to stick some on with my po-boy. It was sheer bliss- like a whole new level of onions on sandwiches. For that alone, I recommend Mahony's, though the po-boy was good enough on its own that the sandwich joint managed to weasel its way into a corner of my heart...

Things I have eaten lately

2008-10-26T17:47:00.003-05:00

-A really awful peanut butter and honey sandwich. I woke up on Spirit Day to find that our entire bread loaf was moldy, so I had to resort to getting two slices from the cafeteria at 8 in the morning. I stored them, uncovered, in my locker, and by the time I took them out at lunchtime, they were crusty and dry. Exacerbating the situation was the fact that I had to use the handle of a plastic fork to spread the peanut butter. It was poorly distributed and wretched.

-Some delectable leftovers from a lunch Mom had at St. James Cheese Company: prosciutto, buffalo mozzarella, the smallest little tomatoes I've ever seen (grape? no. cherry? no. I'd say... blueberry tomatoes. wait, those don't exist), pesto... mmm. Can't get enough.

-A ROAST! With mashed potatoes. Nothing like comfort food.

-PJ's has started carrying sunrise muffins. They're deep and dark (must be molasses-y) with carrots and raisins and (I think) coconuts mixed into the batter. Presumably lots of brown sugar. The top is crunchy. Delicious.

-Some special Moroccan Mint tea that Sean got for me at this lounge near his apartment. It's so perfectly sensuous with all kinds of layers of flavor wrapped up into a single tea bag.

-Oh, and gooey just-baked chocolate chip cookies... or someone's leftover flourless chocolate birthday cake (which, by the way, is really just sneaky fudge in the shape of a cake). Jealous?

Oh, and

2008-10-21T18:37:00.010-05:00

http://www.alinea-restaurant.com/index.html

Molecular gastronomy, meet reckless conceptualization.

Some pictures, which I must attribute to blogs and photographers only Google Images could find:

The item on top is short rib. The red sheet below consists of Campari, beet root juice, cranberry, salt, sugar... etc. The chef then added agar agar, which gives the sauce its suddenly jellyish consistency, thus allowing it to be manipulated as such.

This is a photographic representation of the 24-course meal that Alinea calls "the tour." If you want to actually read about each of the dishes, feel free -- I found the description here: http://www.foodite.com/foodite/2006/09/alinea.html#more

Potato soup chilled to 30 degrees Fahrenheit, served with a ball of potato heated up to 275 degrees Fahrenheit, a single black truffle, and Parmesan cheese. It's designed to be eaten in a single bite so that one has time to enjoy the nuances of flavor as they naturally progress.

Hearts of palm. (!!!!!) Who knew?

Bacon. Somehow, the assortment looks at first like a stage of dancers in frilly green tutus. Why? No one knows, but I for one will not ask any questions...

Crab apple.

Chocolate, passionfruit, lemongrass...!

What sweeps me away is the utterly romantic notion that food can be as much an artistic medium as oil paints -- it's an idea I've always believed but never seen in practice to such a degree as this. I'm dying to go and aching to figure out some sort of bribe involving someone taking me to Chicago to eat at this restaurant... hmm. Let me know if you have a brainstorm.

Ode to Appetizers

2008-10-21T18:24:00.003-05:00

Well, hello, it's been a while. Mainly because I've been borderline nomadic and haven't dabbled in many culinary wonders of late. HOWEVER, this weekend... everything changed.
You see, my best friend flew in from college, and in doing so unleashed as much of an extravaganza as could be fit into the course of 24 hours.

First:
Surrey's- breakfast for them, "lunch" for me (I had previously devoured a CC's chocolate chunk cookie, which, by the way, is sent directly from Jesus to us). I haven't gone to Surrey's much because it's on Magazine Street way down where it turns one way. For some reason, this repels me; presumably because it's one way the wrong way when coming from my house? So psychologically, I reason that the restaurant doesn't want me to come. Every time I'm there, though, my heart breaks a little. It was there that I enjoyed the greatest bowl of shrimp and grits I have ever, ever encountered, and it was there this past weekend that I devoured a fabulously perfect Cuban beef sandwich, comprised of realllly really tender beef, ham, Muenster cheese, and dill pickles that tasted homemade. All on sourdough. Need I say more? It was juicy.

Then:
My monthly venture into Sucre- six each of the Gianduja Crunch, Avery, and Bolivian Palet D'Or, plus two Passionfruit for the road. The guy who was ordering before me seemed to be waffling and amateurish. I didn't let him go before insisting that he try the Gianduja Crunch. Other moments: Joel, who works there, surveyed my selection and said, "Ooh, that's gonna be a good box." I explained to him that I knew what I was doing; in fact, I wrote my college essay on this, such is my expertise. He shook my hand and snuck me a free tasting of macaroons -- two pistachio, two strawberry. I had one of each yesterday, and I now know NEVER to pass them up again (I was previously a bit wary of their colors and went straight for the chocolate-hazelnut ones instead). Sucre macaroons melt in your mouth; they retain a perfect gooiness redolent of chocolate chip cookies straight out of the oven. I'm not sure if this is an accurate representation of the Idea of the Macaroon, but whatever it is, it's AMAZING. I'm going to get every color of the rainbow next time I'm in.
Before I left, Joel introduced me to Tariq Hanna, Sucre's chocolate chef, and explained that I had written the essay that might determine my future gushing over his creations. Then... the man KISSED MY HAND. My hand has been kissed by the genius of Sucre. It was a major watershed.

Last:
Baru- A veritable deluge of tapas! And oh, what amazing inventions they are. After all, why would you limit yourself to the steak entree when you can order 10 tapas with three friends and enjoy a bit of all of them? Every time I am at Baru, I am struck by how obsolete the idea of traditional dining is nowadays. All I have left to say on this subject is that the Mazorca -- a plating of smoky roasted corn, Salao cheese (a farmer's cheese), "pink sauce" (a sort of tomato aioli), and potato sticks (imagine whisper-thin crunchy potato fries) -- will save my life. That, and I want to devote my entire life to the ceviche there. It's superb.

A picture of me basking in the glory of my Cuban sandwich will be up as soon as I get it from Jenna.

Maple Street Cafe

2008-10-05T13:36:00.005-05:00

I had dinner Friday night at Maple Street Cafe, a cute restaurant uptown in the Riverbend vicinity. I remember picking up dinner from there and eating it for dinner from way back when I was a little kid, and even though I hadn't been there in an awfully long time, it's a fixture in the neighborhood and seems to have an inherent feeling of familiarity and warmth that lends a lot to the atmosphere of the restaurant. All of the tables are in one room, and everyone there seems to be in good company, talking and laughing and eating and connecting. There isn't an ounce of pretension, noise levels are perfect, and while the degree of frilly luxury stops with the fancily-folded napkins, it really just works.

I am a firm believer in bread at restaurants. It's a quick and simple way to exponentially up the feeling that you're being served -- it's just an added bonus that, in my opinion, sets the distinction between a great meal out and a great meal at home. This bread was crusty and rustic in all the right ways, with teeny morsels of garlic (but not too much at all) baked in. The butter was to die for. I wish I knew what they put in it. It was both sweet and savory and turned into this succulent melting yellowness on the warmth of the bread. To start, Mom got a Caesar salad, which, quite frankly, I hated. With something like a Caesar, it's all about getting the details right, since there's so little room for creativity. I found the dressing tangy -- cloyingly so -- and the consistency was off.

Nonetheless, dinner itself was scrumptious. Mom got mussels in a really fresh red sauce that offset the mussels nicely and made us both wish for more bread. I got a pasta dish that just really epitomized everything I look for in a pasta dish. It consisted of angel hair pasta in butter and olive oil. There was a generous amount of three different kinds of wild mushrooms. The best part, though, was the crushed red pepper, which was invisible but which really added the kick that was necessary to take a dish from simple comfort food to quintessential delightfulness. Truthfully, the only downside was the service, but all in all, we left the restaurant content and excited to see The Funky Meters playing for Tulane's homecoming weekend.

The perfect snack for a sunny Sunday afternoon.

2008-09-21T15:32:00.007-05:00

If you haven't yet tasted the sheer joy that is a Honeycrisp apple, I highly recommend that you run to your nearest grocery store and pick one up. I found mine at Whole Foods so you'll probably have luck there.

For a while, I thought an apple was an apple. I remember picking up a copy of Cook's Illustrated that featured a recipe for apple pie, and the writer detailed an extensive search for the perfect "pie apple." I remember thinking: pie apple? What happened to the simple days of red delicious, green delicious, and yellow delicious? Since 4th grade, my apple lexicon has expanded a bit -- it now includes Fiji, gala, pink lady, Braeburn -- but I still don't think I could explicate to you the subtle nuances of firmness, juiciness, or flavor. Apples are sweet and firm enough to fill my tummy and that's pretty much all that matters.

But today at the grocery, I happened upon the Honeycrisp and was quite honestly attracted not by its lovely two-toned color, its pleasing aroma, or its satisfying firmness. No, I was allured by its name, and I think that now, after having eaten one of the apples myself, I am at the very least qualified to say that this apple is everything its name cracks it up to be: sweet, sweet like honey and crisp, crisp, crisp. As soon as I bit into it, juice literally poured onto my lap- it's ambrosia. According to Wikipedia, these criteria make it the ideal snack apple. Whatever, that works for me.

I'll also take this opportunity to get in a quick word in favor of Tillamook white cheddar cheese. It's a little too creamy and the apple's a little too sweet for the two to be paired together, but on their own, they are both remarkable.

MAX BRENNER: CREATING A NEW CHOCOLATE CULTURE.

2008-09-21T11:10:00.019-05:00

First snippet of groundbreaking news: upon entering this restaurant, I knew that I could only achieve salvation if I converted my religion to Brennerism. I have seen the light.
Second snippet: I actually managed to attend lunch here with someone who owned a working camera -- finally, I get to post photos of my own (or at least Margo's)!

So here goes the deluge of photos. Prepare yo'self.
As soon as you walk into Max Brenner, here is what you see: a large glass case of beautiful chocolates and truffles arranged aesthetically on printed trays; decadent gift boxes the size of a beagle and filled to the brim with chocolate novelties; a sign on the wall that proclaims "VERY MUCH CHOCOLATE"; a gigantic vat -- like a narrow, deep kiddie pool -- filled with melted milk chocolate and connected to an intricate framework of dark brown pipes. The pipes are this color because, of course!, they are filled with 100% chocolate, and they transport the chocolate you see at the front of the restaurant up through a tangled nest of pipes under the ceiling and back into the kitchen. Take note:

T-shirts for sale in the boutique up front:

One of the many kinds of artisan chocolates for sale:

Believe it or not, though, Max Brenner has more to offer than just plain, straight-up chocolate. So upon sitting down at our table, we were handed giant glossy lunch menus. To drink, each of us essentially decided that any hope of being nutritionally conscious was shot to hell, so we each chose one of Mr. Brenner's many variations on the classic hot chocolate (Andrew got toffee, I got hazelnut, Tess got spicy Mexican, and Margo got mocha). These came in heartbreakingly adorable "Hug Mugs," which are ergonomically designed for optimum holding capacity (imagine a teardrop-shaped mug that fits perfectly in one's cupped hands, thus creating both a cozy sense of euphoria as well as allowing the warmth of the mug to travel to your hands. Genius!).
To eat, Tess got a smoked salmon sandwich on some luscious-looking poppyseed-and-what-have-you bread; Margo got a perfect omelette that came with roasted potatoes, hollandaise sauce, and (why not?) chocolate sauce (in case it occurs to you that an omelette or potatoes might be even better with some rich milk chocolate -- it occurred to Margo, and boy was she happy!). Andrew and I split a smoked turkey/mushroom crepe and a bowl of the most perfect penne carbonara I have ever had. This includes all the carbonara we ate in France, and God only knows how many different kinds we tried while we were there.

But, of course, it's always a good idea to save the best for last, so after thoroughly sating ourselves with the savory stuff, we were ready to usher in the sweets. The final verdict? We all decided to split two desserts: the banana split waffle and the intense double chocolate fudge cake. The waffles were topped with fresh bananas, melted chocolate sauce, and candied hazelnut bits, served with fresh berries, vanilla ice cream, and a cute little beaker of MORE chocolate sauce. The fudge cake was dense, dark, moist and succulent, filled with the kind of dark chocolate lava you could drown in. This, too, was served with fresh berries, ice cream, and an extra beaker of chocolate sauce.

Here's a close-up on the cake:

In case you were wondering, the chocolate sauce in the beakers was warm and oozey enough to be chugged, as such:

Mmmm... I'm not embarrassed in the least bit. In fact, I embraced it so wholly and so lovingly that I felt inclined to spread it all. over. my face... but I'll spare you the picture of what Margo calls my Dali-stash, considering I do need to get into college. Explicit as the photo isn't, I do have to set boundaries somewhere. Here we are, eating away (sorry you're excluded, Margo; I guess you were being the photographer? So at the very least I'll give you due credit for that):

Here I am, quite obviously enjoying myself to no end:

And the damage:

At long last, when our stomachs were happily but uncomfortably full and our faces were becoming exhausted due to the inordinate amount of laughing we had done over the course of the meal, our suave waiter handed us the check -- and at Max Brenner's, not even the usual black leather folder is good enough to encase such a thing. No, our check came inside of a tin box that looked strangely like a box of chocolates. So as per usual, I painstakingly agonized over the check, giving everyone an accurate-to-the-cent (I'm only slightly OCD, actually) amount of what they owed...
...and as though I wasn't left COMPLETELY ecstatic by my marvelous meal, hot chocolate, and entirely over-the-top desserts, the waiter dropped by with one last thing. He handed me a small plastic container full of -- guess -- CHOCOLATE. Beautiful, hand-cut slices of the very milk chocolate that Max Brenner liquified into his god-like creations. "A gift for the freak," he muttered under his breath as he turned to get back to his other tables -- a reference, probably, to the fact that, before he could even give dessert menus to the rest of the table, I enthusiastically extracted my own tattered, printed copy from my purse. "It just makes me so happy that I always carry it around," I explained. So, YES, my lunch experience was capped off by a personal gift from (let's hope) Max himself to me. You must understand, this kind of miracle doesn't happen everyday.

So that was that, and after paying the check, we ventured back out into the torrential downpour for a jaunt into the Virgin Megastore to leaf through inappropriate books and a quick outside tour of the Met Opera. Good day? I seem to think so.

I went ahead and bought a box of 19 chocolates

2008-09-15T22:10:00.006-05:00

in celebration of my completed college essay on the famed Sucre.
Here's a picture:

The green ones are a white chocolate ganache with Sicilian pistachio, vanilla, and a dash of cinnamon + a dark chocolate couverture.
The fleur de lis is the Meuniere -- dark chocolate on the outside, brown butter and vanilla on the inside.
The shinyish square (shiny for a reason; it's edible glitter!) is chicory coffee with a really soft creamy dark rich core.
The plain dark chocolate square in the lower right corner is the Bolivian Palet d'Or -- perfect simplicity -- "bittersweet chocolate ganache made from the rarest Bolivian cacao bean."
The triangular chocolates with flecks on top have a really satisfying density, and they're made with hazelnut gianduja, crispy wafer, and caramelized cacao nibs. (!!!)
The purple ones are Paris, my love; dark chocolate couverture, white chocolate ganache infused with tea, orange, and vanilla notes.
The red is Earl Gray. Straightforward? Yes. lovely, too.
Yellow is passionfruit -- in light of this blog! I have been saving it so I can't say yet how it tastes. It'll be blissful, to be sure.
Last but definitely not least (quite the contrary, in fact): the Avery. God has indeed manifested himself. Caramel + dark milk ganache with salt from the Avery Salt Mines, all wrapped up in a delicious dark chocolate blanket.

This isn't my actual box, but as I've so sickeningly reiterated, my camera got smashed so sometimes I have to resort to photos stolen from the Internet. Hm at least this will do justice to the excellent verdancy of the box.

harrumph

It makes me sad

2008-09-11T19:31:00.006-05:00

that my last blog was photoless; a meal isn't much of a meal without color, so presumably, a meal-enjoyed-vicariously probably can't be enjoyed as much with no visuals. Because, really, saying you ate a delicious filet mignon isn't enough -- I'd much rather see the steak myself. Maybe it's a psychological thing, and we insist on seeing these photos so that we can make our own judgments because we're too stubborn to follow someone else's, but prose -- phenomenal or not -- is just insufficient, I think.

Which leads me to my next point. As you may or may not have noticed, next on my list of delicious delectables to discuss was lunch at Max Brenner's. Yes, THE Max Brenner's -- known by some as Chocolate by the Bald Man, where pipes literally run across the entirety of the restaurant pumping none other than 100% chocolate. But I smashed my camera in the trunk door of a rather large SUV, so I'm waiting... waiting... waiting on Margo to post the photos online before I can act on the passion and enlightenment incited by that one meal.

So I think I'll wrap this one up here, to leave you guys as aggravated with the lack of any significant meaning as I am with the lack of my very significant camera... because while prose alone doesn't suffice in the tantalizing-description-of-scrumptious-meals department, it does just fine in the spitefully-evoking-frustration-and-angst department.

Hope your week has been as marvelous as mine has. I'm about to head to dinner at Baru, a Latin-Caribbean bistro with a tapas menu for which I wake up every morning, but for which I'd gladly die if it came down to that. I plan on ordering everything... more on that later!

Well, hello!

2008-09-09T21:39:00.008-05:00

It's been a little while; I took a weekend trip to New York and got back in school yesterday, so schedules have been tumbling around and crystallizing. The good thing is that my girlfriend-who-doesn't-know-she's-my-girlfriend, Gloria Steinem, wrote an article about Sarah Palin, and it was nothing short of kickass. More good news: I definitely won't be short of things to talk about; in fact, I'll bullet them out now so that, as I catch up with everything, I won't forget:
-lunch at Max Brenner's
-breakfast at Sip
-mushroom brie cheese
-superb macaroni and cheese

But for now, I'm going to talk about Criolla's, where I had dinner on my last night in Florida. Rather than get entrees for everyone, we split into two "teams," if you will, and ordered an inordinate amount of appetizers. On the menu for us:
West Indies crab & Johnny's guacamole with tropical root crisps
Griddled black bean queso cakes with tomatillo-avocado salsa
Flash-fried domestic calamari, island-spice dusted, with Creole mustard and key lime aioli
Criolla's Caesar salad with Cascabel Chile dressing, cumin flatbread, Dry Jack cheese, and applewood smoked bacon

I wanted so badly to get the plaintain-encrusted fried oysters with green tomato chutney, marinated cabbage, grilled cornbread and coconut creme fraiche, but alas, it appears that oysters aren't as agreeable to everyone as they are to me. As for the entrees, there were some tempura-fried Maine lobster tails on a sweet pea risotto cake and served with heirloom tomato jus that sounded divine; how could it not when it was a culmination of tempura, Maine lobster, sweet peas, risotto, and heirloom tomato? Given, I've never thought too heavily about the idea of fried lobster, nor of the idea of risotto in a dense cake form, but I can't imagine it would be possible for anything to go too terribly wrong.

So back to my praise, critique, and analysis. The crab was in the form of a dip -- a yellow one, curried, at once spicy, sweet, and creamy. I love crab, but I have to say that I'm a bit of a purist, or at least a traditionalist, and a devout New Orleanian at that; as such, I have a hard time enjoying crab when it strays too far from its perfect form, unless we're talking about the fried softshell crab po-boys at Jazz Fest or numerous other decadent New Orleans creations. Nonetheless, I am sure now that crab shouldn't be combined with curry. Like steak and ice cream, they're both amazing on their own, but shocking and offensive when combined. The guacamole, however, was to die for, and I'm such a freak for foods' consistencies that I seldom like the mushiness of guacamole. The chips were fried, paper-thin slices of "tropical roots" (which roots, I do not know), perfectly salted, and they were divine.

The queso cakes were... alright. A little bit grainy and just a bit bland for my taste; I would've loved just the slightest hint of jalapeno baked into the cakes. As it were, they tasted exactly how they sounded -- like warm black beans with a small core of melted white cheese and some cornmeal thrown on for kicks -- and left very little to the imagination. Swished around in the salsa, which looked like a thinned-down version of guacamole, they were infinitely more enjoyable, though still probably my least favorite dish of the night.

I have to admit that I was very bitter when I started eating the calamari because, as I said, I was so eager to have the plantain-crusted fried oysters, but my mother made the spur-of-the-moment decision to get the more innocuous calamari instead. They didn't knock my socks off (I don't think it's possible to do a truly OUTSTANDING version of something as simple and as relatively common as fried calamari), but the delicacy of the batter and the combination of flavors -- key lime, island spices, and that Creole mustard I know and love so well -- was harmonious and delightful. Like designer potato chips, though, they were ultimately unremarkable, despite how easy it was to eat them ceaselessly.

For me, the Caesar salad truly stole the show -- and that's saying a lot for such a simple salad, but I guess the originality lacking in the calamari took center stage with the salad. It wasn't even like any Caesar I'd had before; imagine it as the Caesar's sultry and enigmatic older sister, who has exotic coloring and knows how to tango. The dressing, first of all, could be bottled and sold as shampoo; I'd buy it simply because it's invariably flawless -- smoky, spicy, warm and autumnal. Bottom line: it tastes like hearth and woodburning ovens and smoky little chiles. I didn't even try the flatbread, but the cheese, which was nutty and hearty with a bit of grit, was a perfect complement to the dressing, and the bacon (I don't even like bacon!) added an ideal crunch and an extra layer of substance. Toasted pumpkin seeds made it feel like a true present.

We were all so sated that by the end of the meal, none of us really wanted dessert. However, being the true dessert aficionado that I am, and given the fact that one of my major criteria for a good restaurant is a great dessert menu, I needed to at least see it... but you know how that goes. I laid eyes on the chocolate gateau with ice cream of the day and raspberry coulis and couldn't pass it up. This is one dish that requires no innovation, no excitement, and no creativity to satisfy me -- all I need is mastery, and the dessert chef at Criolla's definitely had that to spare in this case. The chocolate ice cream was so creamy and smooth; the coulis waxed fudgey in its perfection; and the cake was the awe-inspiring combination of textures, consistencies, and nuances that it should be at its best.

All in all, a good meal for me and a great meal for Grayton Beach. I wouldn't describe it as the "cutting edge, dazzling" cuisine as it has been described, but it was undoubtedly a nice change from the Italian and Asian fusion foods I'm so used to, and in a town that has, I'd guess, 8 restaurants, Criolla's is definitely worth a return trip.

Yes, Cameron

2008-09-02T01:51:00.007-05:00

I will marry you. I was wondering when you'd ask.

...not food-related at all, but we just watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off and I was far too overcome to not publicly accept his proposal.

For dinner, we had a veritable smorgasbord of nostalgic New Orleanian food (even though technically we now know that we should all be home in a few days): Langenstein's red beans, which I sometimes (but only sometimes, in all fairness, because I am a waxing diabetic and consequently favor my sweets a bit more) believe to be better than ice cream. Also present was some delicious chicken and andouille gumbo, which was so delectable and so perfectly seasoned and so singularly New Orleans, and which inspired musings on the delightful shreddedness of the chicken (which happens naturally when you cook it down long enough; it's actually so so so comforting and not at all repelling). For dessert were stuffed green bell peppers (and I don't even really like green bell peppers)- this stuffing? It's like nothing I could've fathomed before. You know the sheer incomprehensibility of the universe, because humans have never experienced anything to which we can liken it? It's kind of like that.

Oh, and Grace and I did go on an *EMERGENCY* run earlier to the grocery store when we were seized with cravings for Ben & Jerry's. It all started when she imparted to me the gorgeous secret that is Chubby Hubby. Thank God she was wrong when she said it was discontinued, because where else can you find chocolate-covered, peanut-butter-stuffed pretzels in ice cream? Nowhere, I tell you. Nowhere.

P.S. Rum raisin ice cream is officially for old people only.

Andrew love, this is for you

2008-09-01T00:00:00.008-05:00

since evidently you will refuse to believe in the value of our friendship until you are mentioned by name in this blog. Pause for a moment and reflect about the patheticness of that statement. Consider also the fact that we have shared no earth-shattering culinary experiences anyway.

That said, I will make it known to everyone that, as soon as I make it up to New York City (whenever that may be), I will look forward to what could only be a whimsical romp and gourmet extravaganza. What's planned? A jaunty little spree over to La Maison du Chocolat for some binging -- a skip through Central Park -- a wild-eyed wondrous whirl through the MoMA -- and lunch at Max Brenner's.

Did you know that Max Brenner wants to start a chocolate nation? The dessert menu is twelve pages. I carry it around in my purse (no, actually, the saddest part is the fact that that's true) because it makes me happy when skies are gray.

Anyway, Max Brenner and his fancy-free creations fill me with inspiration.

Diversion at its finest

2008-08-31T15:07:00.006-05:00

As excerpted from a Chris Rose article about the one, the only Jazz Fest:
Every day, I walk in the Fair Grounds with a stock and steady plan and a vow to follow it. And maybe I'll catch Susan Cowsill as scheduled at 11:20 Friday but then it will all fall apart, it always does.

At some point, I will hear some horn blowing out of a tent and say to myself: Don't look. You're supposed to be on your way to Big Sam's Funky Nation at 2:15 in Congo Square and it's already 2:25 (I have synchronized my cell phone to Gentilly Mean Time) but you're passing the WWOZ Jazz Tent and you hear James Rivers paying his bagpipe and who can resist a bagpipe?

So maybe you'll stop for just a second -- JUST FOR A SECOND -- and, well, might as well grab a beer and sit down and hey, look, there's your best friend from college, visiting from Chicago and one thing happens and then another and pretty soon it's 6:30 and you missed every act you came to see but saw five acts you'd never even heard of before and danced in the Gospel Tent with some crazy old lady with an umbrella and there's only one way to pronounce the day: glorious.

This is the time of year when music falls from the sky like rain in New Orleans; just open your window and let it fall in.

There's music everywhere, busting out of the French Quarter, Wednesday in the Square, Voodoo, Essence, everything else giving this town a special pulse, a steady beat, the rhythms of life, energy and vitality that make you scratch your head when you read in faraway journals and periodicals that this town is dead and gone.

Well, if that's the case, you can just bury my heart in Congo Square.

Yeah, I'm missing New Orleans. This afternoon, I've been doing everything humanly possible to find focuses other than the obvious weather channel, which is a bit too morbid at times for an idealist like me. So it's ironic, I guess, that I've finally attained this distraction by none other than steeping myself in all things NOLA-related, particularly the inimitable Chris Rose (my personal favorite NOLA crusader). Here's what I'm loving right at this moment:

Then, this past Tuesday, I was in a little grocery by Tulane University and a young student from the university asked me: "What's your opinion of the hurricane?"
He asked me, I suppose, because I was 30 years older than anyone else in the joint, thereby exuding, strictly by process of Darwinian elimination, a greater store of wisdom than anyone else present.
"My opinion?" I asked, while gratuitously scratching my chin in ponderous repose. "My opinion is that I am against it," I said, and then walked out of the store.

Nothing like Chris Rose's caustic sense of humor (and, yes, the smell of homemade bread wafting from a schizoid, eccentric breadmaker) to soothe my mind -- or, at the very least, to tinge the imminent disaster a slightly brighter shade of dark and gloomy.
New Orleans, my heart is with you.

A while back,

2008-08-30T18:57:00.009-05:00

I went for a mother-daughter double date with my best friend to a beloved restaurant with which you'll quickly become acquainted if you have any plans of reading these blogs even just fairly religiously: Lilette. The ambiance is that of a clean, happening Parisian bistro; the feeling is very clean -- the main restaurant is one big room, tiled, a former drugstore from the 1800s. Whenever we go, we sit in rich cream leather booths. At this particular dinner, Jenna serendipitously discovered that even the tables are cushioned at the bottom -- a nice little luxury for diners' knees was the only purpose we came up with.

I mention this occasion because it's among the best, most memorable meals I've ever had. All four of us had made up our minds for both appetizer and entree (after a good deal of agonizing, I might add) when the waiter came to us and elaborated on the specials. Our previous reassurance was shot to hell: how could we possibly pass up a Kobe beef New York strip with diced roasted potatoes and flash-fried gremolada? Remaining buoyant, my mom piped up with the solution to all our problems. "This might sound appalling and piggish," she said diplomatically to the waiter, "but we'll start with the Kobe, cooked however the chef would have it, with four plates, please." And then we went on our merry, meal-ordering-as-usual way.

The steak was phenomenal, cut in impossibly thin strips that divided perfectly between the four of us, but the potatoes, too, were not to be outdone (which is saying a lot when they were alongside Kobe beef): delicately, perfectly crisp on the outside and flaky yet creamy on the inside. Altogether, not too much, not too little -- just a perfect amuse-bouche, we all agreed.

My appetizer salad of shaved fresh Hawaiian hearts of palm with parmigiano reggiano, lemon juice and olive oil was nothing short of gorgeous in its simplicity; each bite was a multi-faceted little gift- tart, smooth, hearty, and fruity, in perfect succession. Mom's chilled corn soup with crab and avocado bucked every ounce of my skepticism with its comforting/novel/summery-fresh hybrid of inspiration- I'm sure there's a psalm written about it somewhere. Holly got sweet-and-sticky fried short ribs with a lime-ginger vinaigrette that stole the show (though in truth, there weren't enough short ribs for me to take what most normal humans would consider a "bite," so my assessment may not be fair). And, of course, Jenna got the classic grilled beet salad that I've only recently been able to quit: dense, sweet, rich purple beets, grilled and served in a little puddle of olive oil with walnuts, mouth-watering goat cheese, and a few chives for kicks. What it lacks in originality, I can assure you it boasts in angel-chorus-caliber heavenliness.

But truly (and if you know me, you could've predicted this), the lifeline of this post is surely the Alaskan king crab claws, which come in a pool of none other than the passionfruit butter that inspired this blog in the first place (if you could've heard the gleeful squawking that ensued after my first bites of this dish, you'd understand -- but I'm jumping ahead). As someone who always likes a challenge, I took well to the crab, which was truly a labor of love, as a tiny fork was my only tool of defense against the rock-hard shell that encased the crumbling, velvety, snowy-white meat. To the enchantment of my tablemates, I intrepidly approached that crab with full intention to extract every last morsel -- and I did. Though my obsessive nature triggered this spree, I quickly reaped the benefits, as each little bite that I postponed was bathed in that delightful delicacy that is Chef John Harris's rendition of passionfruit butter. Needless to say, the minute I was sure that both claws had been thoroughly drained, I shamelessly devoured my meal, torn between wanting to share this newfound bliss with those loved ones around me and wanting to hoard it selfishly in the realm of my own shallow bowl. So as those around me delighted in roasted chicken breast with balsamic-glazed onions, mushroom vinaigrette, and only the most delicate outer leaves of baby brussel sprouts, my crab and I loved with a love that was more than love, with a love that the winged seraphs of heaven coveted it and me...

If only all breakfasts could be like this

2008-08-30T10:02:00.003-05:00

Heath toffee crumbles in a ramekin with melted semisweet chocolate chips are sinfully good and dangerously simple. It's warm, it's decadent, and you can eat it with a spoon. Molten oozing scrumptiousness -- how could you find any better way to start the day?

Good things come in small, wax-paper envelopes...

2008-08-29T08:11:00.001-05:00

We decided yesterday afternoon to evacuate early for Tropical Storm Gustav -- worst case scenario, we beat the evacuation traffic and aren't on the road for 10 hours like we were during Katrina; best case scenario, we've got a four- or five-day holiday.

Now, we've been approaching this optimistically, but we all know what happened to Candide and his optimism... so as a survival mechanism, perhaps, we decided to make our last meal in the city count. Why not? Looking back on the days before Katrina, my fondest memory (not that there are many) is that of coincidentally taking the streetcar down to the legendary Camellia Grill for cheeseburgers, waffles, and chocolate freezes, not knowing we'd wake up early the next morning in a frenzied rush to pack the bags and get out.

With that said, before we got on I-10, we took a short detour to Bud's Broiler. Not even the thickest, most gourmet burger ever to be made can truly compare to the burgers at Bud's: thinly sliced, charcoal broiled, and impossibly juicy. They're redolent of a hybrid between backyard barbecue nostalgia and flat-out nirvana... and don't even get me started on the smoked sauce, which is phenomenal on burgers but honestly, it could probably be phenomenal on an ice cream sundae. Use it in lieu of ketchup on fries -- you get just a little closer to enlightenment.
Needless to say, after a quick meal of #4 with smoked sauce and diced onions, not an ounce of trepidation or fear remained in us as we left the city for what we knew would just be a long Labor Day weekend.

Passionfruit butter.

2008-08-25T21:15:00.001-05:00

We'll kick this thing off with a bit of word association.
First: passionfruit. Exotic, sweet, aromatic, juicy, maybe a little tart and tangy. Sensuality... maybe just plain passion (hence the name?).
Butter. Indulgent, rich, warm, inviting. Anything's better with it, and if you think otherwise, you're most likely just lying to yourself.

The culmination of the two is unexpected, golden-yellow, and has a million nuances of flavor. Nectar of the gods? Maybe a variation. It's silky, simultaneously sweet and savory, the quintessential condiment. Who'd've thought?