Found Money, Barbecue and Dieting in Times Square

The time – a little while ago. The place – another rainy day in New York City. The rain is pounding hard as I dash across the intersection of 52nd Street and 7th Avenue. Imagine if this were snow, as the New York DJs always say. Already, the day is damp, unremarkable, and just a bit grim. But, as I scamper over the asphalt and look down, I spot a soaked $20 dollar bill underfoot. I scoop it up, wring it out, and shove it into my pocket. Now, there’s a ray of sunshine. I know exactly how I’ll use this found money. My colleague “Splint McCullough” is in town after a long absence. Splint is a fellow road warrior and my barometer for the dining preferences of the Everyman. The $20 will pay for the first round of drinks at dinner. Not that we need an excuse for drinks with dinner …

Lately, Splint’s been on a physician-imposed diet, strictly enforced by his wife “Blanche” who definitely wears the pants suits in that family. I’m a little worried about coercing Splint into an excessive meal, because I’m not sure I want to tangle with Blanche. But, all I need to do is dangle a little red meat under Splint’s nose, and he is complicit.

The dining hour approaches and Splint and I set out for Virgil’s Real BBQ, a New York institution. Well … it’s an institution to New York tourists. The last time I was at Virgil’s was the night President Clinton admitted his affair with a White House intern to a national television audience. The confession was broadcast on the big screen in Times Square. To this day, I still associate southern barbecue with infidelity.

Splint fancies himself a Memphis barbecue veteran, and in a past life he was a player on the Memphis chow circuit. We turn the corner at 44th Street and inhale the aroma of charred meat. The red neon Virgil’s sign winks at us and another neon sign in the window announces “Home Cooking.”

Splint raises an eyebrow. “You can’t claim “real” barbecue unless someone’s been shot on the premises,” he declares.

Inside, the patrons look very much alive and we are seated at the bar to wait for a table. The air is singed with fragrant barbecue smoke. I fork over the still-damp lucky $20 for a round of spicy Bloody Marys, that are more Worcestershire sauce than vodka. I ask Splint for his assessment of the clientele. He studies the room.

“They’re poseurs,” he pronounces, finally. “Nobody here would know real barbecue if Big Bob Gibson walked up and slapped them in the face with some ribs.”

We swig our Bloody Marys and Splint chats with the bartender about the photos of Elvis impersonators over the bar. We are told that they are regulars. Shortly, we are seated by a sunny hostess, born and raised in Texas. “Keep that smile,” Splint tells her.

Our place settings include a paper placemat with a printed illustration of the United States with top barbecue restaurants – those spots where the Virgil’s staff got its inspiration. It’s kind of a Michelin Guide complete with barbecue sauce stains.

Our utensils are wrapped in large red terry cloth hand towels. “I don’t think this is the kind of place where you need to ask the thread count,” says Splint.

He takes a quick glance at the menu and announces, “It’s virtually impossible to eat healthy, so I’m diving in.” For our appetizer, we share a football-sized platter of Hush Puppies – tender, deep-fried corn batter – with a side of maple butter. Splint offers up a few tidbits of culinary history he has picked up in the Deep South. Either that, or he’s cribbing anecdotes off the placemat.

“Did you know that Hush Puppies got their name because in the South, dogs would roam the fields, and the farm workers would toss them a handful of cornmeal to keep them quiet, or hush the puppies?”

“I’m a Wikipedia of fried food,” says Splint.

He holds up a single, fried morsel and gives it a look of adoration. “In my opinion, a Hush Puppy is really just a delivery vehicle for the maple butter.”

Splint offers ongoing commentary as I examine the menu, explaining that barbecue sauce in North Carolina is vinegar-based, while in South Carolina, the sauce is tomato-based. And, if you travel further South or West, the sauce is usually sweeter. By now, I’m convinced that Splint has been watching too many “Boy Meets Grill” marathons on the Food Network. I order a mixed platter of North Carolina Pulled Pork and Texas Beef Brisket with sides of slaw and Georgia Pecan wild rice.

The health-conscious Splint has chosen Virgil’s Barbecue Salad, a large bowl of greens with about two pounds of barbecue beef piled on top. “They throw some shaved carrots on top to give the illusion of healthy, but it’s still a heart attack in a bowl,” he notes.

Splint picks carefully at his salad. The man eats like a bird now. I devour my scorched brisket dressed in a perky barbecue sauce and chomp on the crunchy Cole slaw. The pulled pork has a nice tang.

“When my wife asks, what did you order? I can truthfully say salad," says Splint, "Until she reads your blog, of course.”

In between bites, the waiter gives us the lowdown on the smokers in the back of the restaurant. Virgil's uses a combination of hickory, oak and fruitwoods. Splint bemoans that fact that his wife has become a fan of "Cooking Light." During a trip upstairs, I note that a group of tough guys are wearing pointed Happy Birthday hats, and at the table next to us, a patron has been composing a haiku on his Blackberry. It's a typical night out in New York City.

The waiter clears away the plates and we are given hot towels. "Classy touch," notes Splint.

We are too full for dessert. In Splint’s case, no doubt it was all the fiber in that salad. The bill arrives and the barbecue salad is a mere $9.50. Splint remains the quintessential cheap date.

He sighs. "Taking me here on a diet is like watching those football players on "Dancing with the Stars." It's entertaining, but unsettling."

As we leave, I grab a handful of the obligatory dining souvenier – matchbooks. It’s quite possibly the only tool I’d really need to recreate genuine Southern barbecue at home. I note that Splint is actually looking a bit gaunt. I'll have to talk to Blanche. He could use a couple of good "stick-to-your ribs" meals.

©2008 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

Devil Dog Cake and Brown Bag Lunch Legends

My mother always packed a wholesome and healthy brown bag lunch.

During our high school years, she’d create what amounted to an assembly line atop our white Formica kitchen counter to prepare the daily lunches for me and my three brothers. She would quickly layer a sandwich with Oscar Meyer cold cuts and whole wheat bread (my favorite was bologna with mustard), and gather together precisely-cut celery and carrots with an apple for dessert. All this was carefully stacked inside a brown paper bag that was labeled with our name in black magic marker. The top of the bag was neatly folded over three times and stapled shut. To this day, Mom is still a packaging genius.

The trip to school was a long one, so instead of carrying a beverage, we were given milk money. After years of harboring guilt, I must finally confess that there were many times I did not use the coins to buy milk.

It was a horrific example of teen rebellion. The worst. Even though I was aware of the importance of milk in building strong healthy, bones, I would brazenly walk past the milk case, hand over my loose change to Mrs. Rindethorsen and purchase … yikes … Devil Dogs!

Yes, now the story can be told. Even at the tender age of 15, I was addicted to cake. Oh, I would eat the apple in my sack lunch, but I was also secretly supplementing my pubescent diet with cream-filled cakes.

For the snack cake challenged, here’s a quick primer. A Devil Dog is made of two slender layers of chocolaty, devil’s food cake with cream filling between. It’s sort of a “cake sandwich” in the shape of a hot dog bun. Devil Dogs are sold by the Drake’s Cakes Company based in New Jersey. Founder Newman E. Drake started a business selling pound cake by the slice in Brooklyn in 1888.

Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s we were bombarded by commercial messages for snack cakes – Hostess Twinkies, Hostess Cupcakes, Drake’s Ring Dings and Devil Dogs and Dolly Madison Cakes, which were a longtime sponsor of the Charlie Brown television specials. The competition for our adolescent brand loyalty was fierce. In what has now become a curious case of a corporate confection conglomerate Interstate Bakeries today owns all of the competitor companies – Drake’s Cakes, Hostess Cakes, Twinkies and Dolly Madison Cakes.

What drew me to Devil Dogs, when most of my peers were smoking in the Boy’s Room? Devil Dogs were a soothing, rich respite from the monotony of Earth Science, the mental anguish of Algebra which made my head hurt, or the perils of Chemistry Lab which quite frankly terrified me. Much like Mrs. Kast’s English Literature Class, Devil Dogs fed my restless teenage soul with something sweet and just a bit poetic – at least according to my embryonic view of the world at the time. Devil Dogs gave me a reason to persevere, to slog through Health class and gym, because I knew something luscious and just a bit illicit awaited me at lunch.

I haven’t eaten a Devil Dog in years, although I have been known to scarf a Twinkie from time to time. So, when the February issue of Gourmet magazine arrives, featuring a recipe for Devil Dog Cake inspired by the original, I can’t resist the urge to bake it. Now, you may ask, Is Gourmet slumming? Let me tell you – anyone who turns up their nose at this recipe because of its humble, mass-produced, mass-marketed snack cake origins is missing a taste of heaven. I’m not quite sure how they managed to capture that true Devil Doggy essence, but it tastes like the genuine article, and ten times better. Ruth Reichl is a genius.

I share a slice with Mom and confess the whole story of the diverted milk funds. After all these years, she deserves to know, and it is good to get it off my chest. Fortunately, Mom is very forgiving, particularly when I’m handing out squares of chocolate cake with marshmallow frosting. And, I didn’t turn out too badly, either. I still eat apples regularly.

©2008 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

The Foodie Blogroll

Culinary Types has joined the Foodie Blogroll! Jenn, "The Left Over Queen," who makes masterpieces from leftovers, has gathered hundreds of bloggers who are passionate about food under the Foodie Blogroll banner, which you'll find to the right. It's a fantastic method for building momentum in the food blogger community -- almost as good as being an honored guest at one giant, continuous dinner party! You can also click here for additional information on how to join.

©2008 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

A Bird in the Hand with a Dash of Salt and Pepper

I was a fussy child. I did not like bones with my chicken.

This presented a problem. For a family of six on a budget, boneless chicken breasts were rarely an option. Chicken was typically served in pieces, bone-in, Shake ‘n Bake style. After all, we were growing up in the heart of suburban Long Island. I must admit, it was not my favorite meal. I would push the meat around the plate and whine a bit. It was not exactly what you’d describe as quality time at the dinner table.

Mind you, I didn’t dislike chicken – far from it. I longed for those Sunday dinners when my mother would roast a whole chicken, and I could eat the thinly carved breast slices that my dad would fan across the platter. Even then, suburban ingenuity defined the meal. A pop-up button, inserted into the breast of the “Oven Stuffer Roaster” would signal that the bird was done. If we were lucky, there would be bread stuffing as well, usually made with Pepperidge Farm bread crumbs.

As an adult, I clung vehemently to my independence, and my ability to eat boneless chicken breasts no matter the cost. It didn’t matter if the rent money was tight, I would spend the extra cash for boneless chicken breasts.

It was only long after when I started classes at the French Culinary Institute in 2005 did I learn that roasting a whole chicken was considered an epicurean art form.

Indeed, in the memoir, My Life in France, Julia Child muses on the romance of a roasted chicken:

“Oh, those were such fine, fat, full-flavored birds from Bress – one taste, and I realized that I had long ago forgotten what real chicken tasted like.”

The French Chef goes so far as to make roasted chicken a requirement of culinary proficiency: “But my favorite remained the basic roast chicken. What a deceptively simple dish. I had come to believe that one can judge the quality of a cook by his or her roast chicken. Above all, it should taste like chicken: it should be so good that even a perfectly simple, buttery roast should be a delight.”

For some reason, I always found the idea of preparing a roast chicken intimidating. It was our instructor, Chef Candy – in her practical and authoritative way – who got me to relax about roasting. Even the FCI’s signature chicken recipe, Poulet Roti Grand-mere or “Grandmother’s Roast Chicken” inspired thoughts of a simpler life of sensual pleasure. Chef Candy carefully walked us through each step: removing the wishbone, trimming the wings, and trussing the bird so that the breast is plump and cooks evenly. We learned how to trim the leg bone, French style, and cut the breast on a bias.

Maybe it is the dark days of February that demand some homespun warmth, or the somewhat disconcerting feeling that the wonderful, exhilarating time spent learning at the French Culinary Institute is now three years past. Whatever the reason, I have become obsessed with thoughts of trussing and roasting a chicken.

I consult Alice Water’s “The Art of Simple Food,” and the technique could not be more poetic – one chicken, about four pounds, seasoned with salt and pepper. Stuffing the cavity of the bird with bundles of fresh thyme, sage and marjoram perfumes the meat. Waters recommends, if possible, that you season the bird a day or two ahead and refrigerate allowing the salt and pepper to penetrate the meat.

My trussing skills are rusty and several times, the twine slithers from my hands. But, eventually, perseverance pays off and I wrestle the roaster into submission. It is tied into a taut, tidy package and placed in the refrigerator.

On the afternoon of roasting, the chicken must sit out for about an hour before cooking. A chilled bird will not roast evenly. The oven is a searing 400 degrees. The directions are elementary – roast 20 minutes with breast side up, 20 minutes breast side down, and finish roasting 20 minutes up.

The oven sizzles with anticipation, and the chicken breast acquires a lustrous, golden hue. That hot, buttery aroma – so beloved by Julia and now dressed with sprightly herbs – permeates my kitchen.

My carving skills have endured the years and the tender, luscious meat peels from the frame. I French the bone and arrange several pieces on the plate, topped by an amber reduction prepared from pan drippings deglazed with white wine and chicken stock.

Make no bones about it. Accompanied with a glass of white Bordeaux, the roast chicken is a meal of supreme comfort and elegance.

©2008 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

Lemon-Lime Soda Pop Cake from 1965

She hurries through the back kitchen door at 5:55 p.m. and hangs her coat and handbag over the hook by the entryway. She slips off her black pumps and slides her sore feet into a pair of pink terrycloth slippers sitting by the doormat. It has been a long day. It is inventory season at Gimbels Department Store and She and her colleagues have all been working extra hours.

Moving through the kitchen like a controlled tornado, She turns on the oven and grabs a pan of frozen lasagna from the freezer. She hasn’t had time recently to organize the kitchen and it upsets Her. She’s thought about asking Him if they can hire a woman from the neighborhood to do some light cleaning, but She’s not sure how He’ll react. The discussion is long overdue and the kitchen linoleum is developing an unsightly waxy yellow build-up.

She turns the knob on the radio and the voices of announcers Lou Adler and Kenneth Banghart, hosts of the program “Up to the Minute,” are describing the events of the day. She is only partially cognizant of the story – something about President Johnson increasing the number of troops in Vietnam. The staccato news report is somewhat distracting as She tries to think through Her dinner plan.

It is His birthday. At exactly 6:25 p.m., He will walk through the door, shed his suit jacket and pull on His tan cardigan sweater. She is determined to be ready with a celebratory dinner and a special birthday cake.

They have already made plans to celebrate by taking the children to the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows on Saturday. He has seen pictures of the Unisphere and wants to get a closer look. She wants to see Michelangelo’s Pieta at the Vatican Pavilion. Tonight, though, He has only asked for a nice family dinner and a quiet evening at home.

She can barely remember the last time She baked something from scratch. She’d baked all the time when they were first married. However, these days there was always so much to do. But She’d promised herself that tonight she would bake her mother’s special lemon pound cake. Next to Her German Chocolate Cake, it is His favorite.

She pulls the opened bag of Gold Medal Flour from the cabinet, and quickly removes several eggs and sticks of butter from the refrigerator. She has tacked her mother’s handwritten recipe to the cork bulletin board by the telephone on the wall. She glances at the items on the counter and checks the ingredient list on the recipe. She looks again. Where are the lemons?

“You can’t make lemon cake without lemons,” She says out loud. She crouches in front of the Frigidaire and pulls out the produce drawer. “Lettuce, apples, celery …where on Earth are the lemons?”

She glances at the clock. There’s no time to make a run to Bohacks. She’s got to get the cake in the oven.

Vexed, she leans against the counter. There is nothing else in the house, and She can’t deprive Him of cake on his birthday. This would be the moment when that blonde actress on TV would twitch her nose and magically conjure up a solution.

She closes her eyes and wiggles her nose.

She opens her eyes.

No lemons have appeared out of thin air, but She has an idea. She opens the Frigidaire and removes a bottle of 7 UP from the door, Her favorite lemon soda pop.

“It will have to do,” She says with resolve. Within minutes, She has her Sunbeam electric beaters in hand and is watching with pleasure as the frothy beverage folds into the batter.

“Heloise would be proud,” She murmurs, as she slides the cake pan into the oven.

The Story Behind the Story:

For a quick, back-of-the-box recipe, the Lemon-Lime Soda Pop Cake proved a bit challenging for your happy-go-lucky baker. These Retro Cakes can tend to be a bit rascally. Widely known as the 7 UP Cake, this recipe is one of a classically-suburban series of soda pop cakes that were popular throughout the 1950s and 1960s. According to Jane and Michael Stern’s book “Square Meals,” a bubbly baker can find historic recipes for Pepsi Cola Cake, Fresca Cake and Coca-Cola Cake. During the 20th Century, enterprising homemakers got a kick out of pop as a culinary ingredient. They glazed hams and spiked Jello Fruit Salad with Coca-Cola and basted duckling with Vernors Ginger Ale.

It is difficult to find an exact chronology for the advent of the 7 UP Cake, although some recipes note that the only leavening necessary was the soda, so perhaps it was considered a culinary marvel. The bubbles gave the cake its lift. There are other clues that suggest that soda pop cookery was a Southern phenomenon, and in fact, many soft drinks were invented in the South. Perhaps a food historian, more skilled than I, can confirm the actual origin of the recipe.

My first attempt was an abysmal failure. I used a 12-cup glass Bundt pan, and a scratch recipe from America’s Test Kitchen similar to this that uses a hefty amount of butter, shortening and granulated sugar. The cake should have had a rigorous structure, but the seemly-perfectly browned cake collapsed into a mess of molten batter when I turned it out of the pan. The crust had browned nicely, but after more than an hour in the oven, the center hadn’t baked at all. So much for recipes thoroughly tested by kitchen professionals. I suspect the glass Bundt pan conducts heat very differently, baking from the outside in, and the recently-reformulated 7 UP may not have offered the same buoyant effect that the original formula delivered.

In my second attempt, I used a traditional aluminum Bundt pan, Sprite, and … gasp … a box of Lemon Jello and a box of white cake mix as directed in this recipe. Please don’t vote me out of the food blogosphere. The use of a box mix is shocking, I know, but rumor has it that the original 7 UP Cake recipe, published in newspapers around 1950, was actually made with a cake mix. The made-from-scratch recipe, used by the fictional home baker in our story, started to pop up … um … appear during the 1960s. My short cut would be deemed historically accurate in any court of culinary law, and it's the kind of cake I grew up on.

In my case, made-from-scratch was not necessarily better, but the quick version has a light, tart, effervescent taste and gave my nose a pleasant tickle.

©2008 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

For Sale: Vintage Cookbooks, Cookbooklets and Grandma's Kitchen Comfort

Bonnie Slotnick has a website, but she discourages her customers from using e-mail. She’d prefer to speak to them directly.

She rarely cooks in the compact kitchen of her circa-1892 New York apartment, yet each day, she is surrounded by nearly four thousand cookbooks.

What might appear to be curious contradictions in an era of web-based businesses and instant search results are quickly dispelled during a visit to Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks at 163 West Tenth Street in New York’s Greenwich Village. The experience is like a journey back in time.

It is a bitterly cold day in Manhattan, but a whimsical early-Valentine’s Day window display of red paper-doily hearts and cookbooks on food and love beckons visitors to enter the town house. Inside the narrow shop, tidy white shelves hold a plethora of cookbooks from floor to ceiling. Sections are neatly labeled according to categories – Regional Cooking, Children’s Cookbooks, Household Manuals, Holidays, Cocktail Guides, or James Beard. There is a smattering of antique kitchen gadgets and utensils and bric-a-brac throughout the shop.

Bonnie Slotnick is a slender, soft-spoken woman. Her words are underscored with fluid, graceful hand movements that convey a sense of gentle elegance. She describes her inventory as vintage cookbooks and ephemera, which is the word typically used for something short-lived and without lasting significance. Yet, she quickly clarifies that the term is really a misnomer in her mind when it comes to her collection.

She spent 16 years in cookbook publishing, and over time, honed her skills as a “book searcher,” someone adept at tracking down rare editions. She opened her New York store on West 10th Street just off of 7th Avenue South in 1997.

I have just finished a leisurely browse through the shop, and carry three treasures to the front desk – a 1928 edition of The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook by Fannie Farmer, a 1969 facsimile edition of Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, and a book from the 1970s titled Recipes from America’s Restored Villages. I ask Bonnie if she recalls her first cookbook.

She removes a fragile pamphlet from a cubby hole at her desk. The red cover has faded over time. The title is Butternut Bread’s Interesting Collection of Good Ideas, a pamphlet from the “Here’s a Good Idea Radio Series.” There is no date on the pamphlet, but it is probably from the late 1950s or early 1960s. The name “Libby” is written in pencil at the top of the cover. It is her mother’s name, and Bonnie wrote it there as a child because it was her mother’s book. Inside is a checklist of household tips organized according to iconic homespun green illustrations. She remembers being captivated by the book, and particularly the illustrations, as a child. When she discovered it again in a drawer as she was preparing to sell her parent’s house, it immediately evoked “the most comforting, wonderful nostalgic things.”

I mention my favorite book from childhood, Betty Crocker’s New Boy’s and Girls Cookbook. “That’s the one with yellow stripes,” she notes immediately.

Bonnie personally tends to gravitate towards 19th century American and English cookbooks of the period 1850 to 1950 – “books without dust jackets.” She points out that as she began to collect, she wasn’t necessarily doing so for the recipes. “I love reading the recipes, but in the period that attracts me, the recipes aren’t all that attractive.” Indeed, she notes that most cookbooks of that period advocated the systematic overcooking of vegetables.

While she does enjoy baking, her attraction to cookbooks amounts to something more. “I’ve always been nostalgic, even when I was very little,” she notes. “They kind of take me away. It seems like a gentler time.” The aura of vintage cookbooks even extends to the language. “The word grand is one I miss. It was used a lot in early food writing.”

While she does stock some volumes by celebrity authors, she is not enamored of the current celebrity chef obsession. “The celebrity chef, I cut off at Julia Child.”

I ask her if she knows the answer to my father’s favorite question – “Why are so many of us are addicted to cookbooks?” She smiles, and talks about how people are drawn to cookbooks for different reasons. One might buy a modern cookbook for a specific recipe, while someone else will buy a vintage cookbook because of the memories they inspire.

What is it that draws her customers to her collection? “They like where the books take them. Maybe an older book takes them back to their grandmother’s kitchen.” In a large, often impersonal city like New York those kinds of associations can be important. “They [vintage cookbooks] represent some kind of comfort and security,” Bonnie responds.

“Cookbooks tell you about the one universal aspect of human beings. They eat.”

Bonnie recommends taking pictures of your cookbooks, especially if you have a large collection. She talks about customers who have lost significant collections in fires, and have then had difficulty reconstructing their collections from memory.

She shows me a lower shelf lined with boxes that are stuffed with food company promotional cookbooks. “My friend calls these cookbooklets,” she laughs. She opens a box that contains dozens, ranging from Chocolate to Cheese. She is quite taken by the evocative illustrations and photography. The small booklets seem to carry a Proust-like ability to conjure up sentimental memories for her.

She pulls out a first edition of Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, priced at $250, and places it on the desk. The gilded lettering on the spine is faded. I feel a sense of awe. I’m almost afraid to touch it. “Go ahead,” she encourages. “That book has been taped together so many times.”

As we conclude our conversation, two women are preparing to leave the shop. They have not made a single purchase, but they are clearly delighted. “It’s just so much fun in here,” one woman enthuses.

Upon hearing the comment, Bonnie gives me a contented smile. That is exactly the reason she collects cookbooks.

©2008 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

A Birthday Bite of the Big Apple

Monday, January 21, 2008

Today, I am another year older. The birthdays seem to come faster now.

There are certain inevitable truths about my birthday. Sometimes it falls on a holiday, and everyone gets the day off. Hurray! If it doesn’t fall on a holiday, I take the day off anyway and dream up an adventure just for me. Either way I win.

Other birthday truths – it is certainly going to be cold, as anyone born is January is forced to reconcile. You rarely celebrate with a backyard barbecue. If the sky is clear, the moon is usually nearly full, something I have always considered a celestial celebration of me. Finally, my birthday celebration, whether it lasts one day or a week, will most certainly involve food.

A prior plan to fly south for the long holiday weekend has been scuttled by a pesky sinus infection, but I am nothing if not resilient, especially at my age. So I cook up an alternative escapade – an epicurean expedition through various neighborhoods of Manhattan – a chef’s tasting menu of the best that New York has to offer.

I am bundled tight as I trot along East 86th Street towards 5th Avenue. Central Park is visible just ahead. I turn into Café Sabarsky at 1048 Fifth Avenue. It is part of the Neue Galerie which contains 20th Century German and Viennese art.

The café is in the style of a Viennese coffee establishment. I slide into a booth with a white marble table and a red and gold velvet upholstered banquette. I order espresso with hot milk and foam, or Wiener Melange. The steaming, caramel-colored drink is delivered on a silver tray.

My breakfast entrée is Klimttorte, a traditional chocolate and hazelnut confection (pictured above). The cake – a Viennese Waltz of delicate chocolate and nutty layers – is finished with a regal accent of gold leaf.

Several hours are spent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art viewing everything from Van Gogh’s “Wheatfield with Cypresses,” the new Galleries for Oceanic Art, and a jewel-box-of-an-exhibit of timepieces called the “Art of Time” which is a slightly sobering experience on one’s birthday.

As the afternoon marches on, I head downtown to Greenwich Village. The guide books tell me that Greenwich Village was once a “country village.” The maze of narrow streets mimics the boundaries of small farms and streams of centuries ago.

McNulty’s Tea and Coffee is at 109 Christopher Street. The shop opened in 1895. At that time, the location was just about on the banks of the Hudson River. Tea and coffee were unloaded at the docks and sold at McNulty’s. Inside, there is an ancient tin ceiling and rustic bins of coffee and tea. I am torn between several options, and inquire about the difference between Delmonico, Turkish and Viennese-style coffees. The man behind the counter explains that the coffees are listed from mild to strong, with Viennese being the most robust. He tells me that McNulty’s once supplied coffee to the famous New York restaurant Delmonico’s, hence the name of the coffee at the top of the list. That’s enough to convince me to buy a pound of the coffee.

On 163 West Tenth Street, I enter Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks. Bonnie is a dealer in vintage cookbooks, and her warm and comfortably-decorated narrow shop is stocked from floor to ceiling with every conceivable cookery book, the collection numbering nearly four thousand. Specialties include cookbooks on American regional cooking, children’s cookbooks and housekeeping manuals. I locate a facsimile of Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, and an early edition of the Boston Cooking School Cookbook by Fannie Farmer. Bonnie and I have a long chat about cookbooks and the people who love them, which will be the subject of an upcoming post.

The sun is starting to set as I approach Murray’s Cheese at 257 Bleecker Street. In fact, the store is bathed is a golden haze. But, maybe that’s the warmth radiating from within. Murray’s has operated at several locations in Greenwich Village since 1940, and was originally opened by Murray Greenberg, an Eastern European immigrant who operated a wholesale butter and egg shop. The current owner, Rob Kaufelt bought the shop in 1991. There is a long glass display counter generously stocked with wheels of cheese from upstate and across the world. I don’t know where to begin.

Jonathan, an affable staff member wearing a red ball cap and wire rimmed glasses, asks me if I’d like a sample – “Just pick anything,” he advises. Jonathan takes me on a vigorous run up and down the cheese case sampling exquisite slivers of cheese that warm me to the bone. When we are done, he has introduced me to Goat Tomme from Twig Farm in Middlebury, Vermont (described as “fudgy”), Meadow Creek Grayson, a washed rind cheese made from raw Jersey cow milk, Gres Des Vosses, a cousin of Munster with a “barnyard aroma” and a creamy and potent Cashel Blue from Ireland. Jonathan wraps each of my prizes in gold and white Murray’s paper, and places them in a small wooden box that I take to the checkout counter.

It is dark and frigid when I arrive at the restaurant Blue Hill at 75 Washington Place. Supper is spent dining at the bar, where Rocky the bartender is the master of ceremonies, entertaining a group of Monday night regulars.

Rocky is a powerfully-built gentleman with a welcoming smile who bears a resemblance to the actor Lou Gossett Jr. in his prime. Blue Hill is Chef Dan Barber’s restaurant, set in a Greenwich Village townhouse, where the meat and organic vegetables are shipped in daily from Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, New York. Chef Barber is one of New York’s leading proponents of the locally-grown movement.

Inside Blue Hill it is toasty. Rocky’s cohorts around the bar include Tamara, an opera singer, wine purveyor and ringleader of a weekend supper club, and Warren and Ally, a young couple from the neighborhood.

My appetizer is This Morning’s Farm Egg, Foraged Mushrooms, and Stone Barns Greens, Lettuce and Herb Broth, served with a spicy Pinot Noir from Ayers Vineyard in Willamette Valley, Oregon. The fresh poached egg nearly melts over the haystack of warm greens and broth. My entrée is Stone Barns Berkshire Pork. A waiter brings the hot plate to the bar and says, “You are the proud owner of this beautiful pork chop.” It is indeed gorgeous – a glistening chop with a Frenched bone, sitting atop a dark, glossy reduction of cranberries and root vegetables.

In between, Rocky serves up his homemade version of an apple martini, a powerful concoction that suggests liquid apple pie in a cocktail glass.

Rocky doesn’t quite approve of my choice of Apple Cobbler for dessert, and instead recommends the Chocolate Bread Pudding with Chocolate Sauce and Vanilla Ice Cream. Warren heartily endorses the idea. “If you don’t like it, I’ll finish it,” he offers.

He doesn’t have to.

After dinner, I make one more stop, even thought the night temperature has dropped considerably. I walk briskly to Magnolia Bakery on 401 Bleecker Street, home of some of the best-loved cupcakes in New York. Veronica has recently reminded me how we had wandered aimlessly last summer in search of the shop. This time I’m taking no chances and I’ve brought a map. Standing outside on the street, I nearly talk myself out of a purchase. After all, that bread pudding that Rocky insisted I eat was pretty filling. But then, those red velvet cupcakes in the window call to me. “It’s your birthday, T.W.,” they chant. “You must have cupcakes!”

I squeeze my way into the tiny shop, take a piece of wax paper and select four cupcakes which I place in a white cardboard box. The young man at the counter barely looks up, but slaps cellophane tape on the box to keep the lid secure, and takes my money.

Nothing frothy or saccharine. Just cupcakes to go.

I take the cupcakes home, and they are a fitting culmination to the day.

If there is any insight to my birthday story, it is this – all over New York, and in every town, there are people just waiting for you so they can share the best that life has to offer. Take them up on it. You won’t be sorry. It will taste good!

©2008 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

Breakfast at Fisherman’s Wharf

The streets are deserted. I’m conscious of a solitary jogger, an occasional dock worker, and a cold, salty breeze buffeting me off of the San Francisco Bay. A sea gull dips in my path. Del Monte Square, part of the historic Cannery Row, is still asleep.

I need to get some breakfast before the day of meetings begins.

Along Fisherman’s Grotto – a sequence of stalls and restaurants offering the victuals of the sea – plump, gangling crabs sit on ice, and proprietors prepare dozens of bulging lump crab sandwiches for the tourists.

A few steps down the road, I stop to gaze in the window of the Boudin Bakery.

Boudin invented San Francisco Sourdough bread in 1849. There are stacks of crispy golden bread that would make a fine breakfast. There is even a loaf in the shape of a crab.

The crusty crustacean is tempting, but bread for breakfast seems so, traditional. Between the chill in the air and the romantic feel of the wharf I think – Why not go for the real thing? So I turn on my heels and head back towards Fisherman’s Grotto to Guardino’s where I order up a piping hot cup of clam chowder.

The thick, chunky stew is deliciously creamy and loaded with lumps of briny clams. There is a hint of pepper, and I sense of splash of sherry. I stand on the wharf and devour it, a lone seagull my only dining companion.

By land or by sea, breakfast is indeed the most important meal of the day.

© 2008 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

Cupcakes and The Child Within

I’m going to be an uncle again!

That means many reasons to celebrate. It’s some time since I’ve been a new uncle. My nephews Doug and Dave are 21 and 18 respectively. John and Ramiza’s baby will be a much-loved addition to our family, so as they pass through New York returning to their home abroad, we plan an impromptu baby shower, just to make their suitcases a little heavier.

My assignment is dessert, and what better way to celebrate the impending arrival of a little one then to bake a batch of little cakes, or cupcakes? The classic cupcake recipe from the Magnolia Bakery in Greenwich Village is the obvious choice. When John and Ramiza lived in New York, we would often head there for celebrations that required fluffy pastel cupcakes. It wasn’t hard to find a reason!

Admittedly, I’ve never thought much about where this ubiquitous petite celebratory treat first came from. My impulse is usually to eat! But a quick inquiry is almost as eye-popping as a dash of rainbow-colored sprinkles. According to the “Oxford Companion to Food” by Alan Davidson, the name emerged in the 19th century in Britain and North America. The phrase could be similar to “Pound Cake,” which indicated the weight and measurement of ingredients, and might have originally referred to cake recipes made with a one cup measure that produced a single, large cake. Each ingredient was measured by the cup-full. The Food Timeline says there are old cookbooks with recipes for individual confections baked in small cups, teacups or small clay baking pans. The Queen Cake is a recipe that was sometimes prepared as individual cakes. Eventually, our grown-up need for time-management, efficiency and feeding large crowds probably led to the invention of the twelve-portion cupcake baking sheet.

Cupcakes produce a whipping frenzy, and my KitchenAid mixer is set on high speed. It is a little like adult play time. I beat butter, eggs and sugar into frothy mountains. The food coloring swirls into the butter cream icing, creating widening concentric circles of Robin’s egg blue and pale pink color.

The effect is hypnotic, and I am transported to a faraway time and place that is defined by vibrant Play-Doh, bright scraps of construction paper, party balloons and paper mache. It is a time when birthday cupcakes were brought to elementary school in Tupperware to share with classmates. The method of consumption was instinctive – lick off all the frosting first, and then decide if you will eat the cupcake!

Greedily, I lick the spatula, and my tongue is tinted shades of deep blue and shocking pink. Confectioners sugar floats in the air and nonpareils “ping” across the kitchen counter, with only some gripping to the peaks of frosting. The project consumes the morning, and I am completely captivated as grown-up issues fade away, if only for a brief time.

Ramiza’s eyes widen as I bring the Tupperware carrier into the house. We stack the cupcakes high and each of us eagerly waits for the moment when we can snatch our favorite color and take a bite. And the child within, kicks with delight.

©2008 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

Sunday Stew, Slow and Simple

It doesn’t take a particularly logical train of thought to get me started on a new cooking project. But, it is often a complicated path. Here’s a typical chain of events:

• I’m sitting in a hotel in Middlebury, Vermont last weekend drinking coffee and watching Tyler Florence on the Food Network. He’s whipping up his “ultimate” version of coq au vin. He adds an entire bottle of red wine to chicken and pearl onions that is simmering in a glossy-red Dutch oven. I’m intrigued, but it’s only breakfast time.
• On New Year’s Day, I note that I’ve still got a couple of coupons left for that department store whose name begins with an “M.” I check the web site and discover a kick-ass sale of kitchenware by the Doyenne of Domesticity – whose name begins with “M” – including fifty-percent-off a shiny, fire-engine red Dutch oven. Before the New Year is several hours old, I am the proud owner of a Dutch oven, and I’ve saved a bundle. Not a bad way to start off 2008.
• On Thursday, I’m giving serious thought to how I will use that last remaining bottle of delicious Bordeaux from Christmas Day.
• On Saturday morning, I’m lounging in bed. I think I’ve finally licked my chronic sleeping issues. All it took was a rather pricy purchase of a 1-inch thick foam mat that now sits atop my regular mattress. I’m feeling well-rested, and just a little lazy. Since I’m usually thinking about food, the question rolls through my head, “What shall I cook this weekend? Maybe something simple and slow in the Dutch oven? Something easy that cooks on its own?” I wonder where I might research more about braising and stew and I remember “The Art of Simple Food” by Alice Waters, which sits in the kitchen, but I’ve not had a chance to read. Sure enough, there is a section on braising and stews and an inviting recipe for Beef Stew. One week into this journey, it’s beginning to feel like destiny.

• About half of the morning is spent at Whole Foods, shopping for the best ingredients I can find. I think I blow a week’s worth of grocery money, but the chunks of boneless beef chuck look good enough to grace the cover of Saveur magazine. I season the beef with salt and pepper and put it into the refrigerator, ready to hit the ground running on Sunday, creating a classic beef stew.
  
  Sounds simple, right?

Along the way, I’ve hit a slight snag. The truth is, I’m a bit of a novice with Dutch ovens, and the optimal cooking techniques. Braise or stew? Which is it?

“The Elements of Cooking” by Michael Ruhlman offers some basics on braising. He calls it a “combination cooking method” of dry heat, in which meat is seared in very hot fat, followed by moist heat, where the meat is simmered in liquid at a very low temperature, but never a boil. Braising works well with cuts of meat that that contain connective tissue, which breaks down during the cooking process and thickens the sauce. Stew, on the other hand, is primarily the moist heat method, but the meat is cut into smaller pieces, a greater amount of liquid is used, and you don’t always sear the meat, although it will boost the flavor if you do. The Dutch oven is constructed of cast iron, so it conducts heat evenly and the tight-fitting lid keeps steam from escaping so the long, slow cooking method results in tender meat and luscious thick sauce.
There appears to be some controversy over techniques. Harold McGee is on record that the optimal braise starts at a temperature of 200 degrees F and is increased to 250 degrees F after two hours. Other’s suggest higher temperatures.

This is all becoming complicated, so I stick to Alice Waters’ directions. The beef stew recipe looks a bit like a cross between a braise and a stew. She recommends beef chuck because the connective tissue and fat offers more flavor.

First, bacon is browned in a pan. Then, the chunks of beef are browned in the bacon fat.

Aromatic vegetables – onions, carrots, and thyme, savory and parsley – are then browned just slightly before being added to the meat in the Dutch oven. The pan drippings are deglazed with brandy and the Bordeaux. Organic fire-roasted tomatoes, chopped garlic and beef stock are added to the pot along with the wine reduction.

Essentially what I’ve done is layered one flavor on top of another. The mixture is topped with a long strip of orange zest. I particularly like the fact that I can cover the pot and place it untouched and unattended in a 325 degree F oven for three hours.

The method is sheer simplicity, and the aroma is sheer torture. I keep glancing at the clock to see how soon it is until dinner. The house is fragrant with savory meat, rich wine, herbs, garlic and citrus. I’m about to loose my mind, and my appetite is on a rampage.

Time is up, and I open the lid. The odyssey of braising, stews and a lip-stick red Dutch oven in search of a home is complete. Simple, however, is a misnomer.

The mahogany sauce looks like satin, and the onions have practically melted. The beef is succulent and smoky, the carrots tender, and the orange zest adds a sweet, fresh note. The stew … uh, braise … is served atop toasted bread rubbed with garlic. Who needs fussy, complicated cuisine?

The best part is the leftovers. I can almost bet the beef stew will taste even better tomorrow, and I won’t have to cook for several days.

What could be simpler?

©2008 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

A Taste of Honey

My cousin Patti married her honey Paul Crosby in Middlebury, Vermont during the Christmas holidays.

You might think I’m being an incurable romantic by using such a term. It was, indeed, an enchanted winter’s eve wedding, but the description is no exaggeration when it comes to Paul. Among his many interests, this Renaissance man makes cheese, keeps bees and collects his own honey.

We are standing in Patti and Paul’s warm and inviting country kitchen at the day-after-wedding brunch. Paul hands me a jar of honey labeled “Pure Honey by Crosby’s Bees.”

Paul pursues the production of a culinary ingredient that is legendary. In ancient days, honey was considered “the food of the gods.” While we may think of it as a common sweetener, it is technically water, glucose, fructose, pollen and wax, produced by bees from nectar and stored for food in hives. Honey bees are important to the ecosystem. Their process of pollination is responsible for a significant percent of the food that U.S. consumers eat, but the bee population is declining, which has alarmed some scientists.

I sense a story, and begin to pump Paul for details. How did he get interested in bees and honey? “When I was young, I was afraid of bees,” he admits, but now he spends hours tending the hives. He owns two hives that are the dwelling to approximately 40,000 bees each. The hives sit on his wooded property near Fern Lake in Vermont.

Paul is buzzing with facts about bees and honey. “It takes 2 million visits to flowers to produce one teaspoon of honey,” he tells me. Paul collected 70 pounds of honey last year, and my math-deficient brain can’t begin to calculate the number of floral visits that amount of honey required. He tells me the end product could have come from more than 200 different varieties of flowers.

According to Paul, glass packaging is preferred to show off the true color of the product.
He explains that store-bought honey is blended from many sources, but he simply scrapes the residue off a frame that is built into the hive, and strains the honey into a bucket.

We talk about the flavors in home-grown honey. Paul explains that honey will reflect regional flavors depending on what types of vegetation the bees visit. Honey from California might taste of almonds and orange blossoms. Paul describes his honey as characteristic of the flora of Vermont with notes of apples and clover.

Of course, as a baker and chef, I’m curious about the culinary applications. What’s Paul’s favorite recipe using honey and how does one best enjoy the flavors of honey collected at home? “Use it in its natural state,” Paul recommends. “That way, you can savor the flavor.”

He tells me that heat and baking can actually alter the chemistry of honey. In order to best experience the flavor, he suggests using it in salad dressings, honey butter, or tossed with cooked baby carrots.

Back home in New York, I look at the jar of “Pure Honey by Crosby’s Bees” and I’m still thinking about Paul’s evocative description of the flavor of his honey. I’m usually not one for eating straight out of the jar, but I indulge in a first. I get myself a tablespoon and drizzle a sunny-yellow liquid pool into the bowl at the end of the long handle. The honey is a luminescent gold, almost transparent. I pour it onto my tongue. It is smooth and silky -- barely sticky -- with a mellow sweetness that is not at all cloying. There are complex layers of flavors. I taste fresh-cut grass and clover, delicate floral blossoms and the crisp, clean taste of green apples. I lick the spoon. It’s like taking a taste of a warm, breezy Vermont summer afternoon.

It will take you just a few minutes to whip up a batch of Honey Butter, which tastes luscious on nutty whole wheat bread.

Honey Butter

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 tablespoon honey

Place butter and honey in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until just combined.

Pack the honey butter into a crock and refrigerate, or transfer to a sheet of parchment or waxed paper. Roll into a one-inch log and refrigerate.

I think it is fitting to celebrate honey at the start of 2008 and to think of its many practical applications in the kitchen and in life. As Ben Franklin wrote in Poor Richard’s Almanac, “Tart words make no friends: a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a Gallon of Vinegar.”

©2008 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

2007: A Year of Culinary Types

Just one year ago, I wondered what I would possibly write about.

I’d created the Culinary Types blog as a means to pursue a regular writing discipline about something so core to my life – food. Yet as 2007 loomed, I had no formal classes planned, and no culinary travels on the calendar.

What would I possibly write about?

It turned out that the answer to that question was almost as easy as, “What shall I eat?” The options were endless. In fact, I wrote over 100 entries in 2007.

While Culinary Types is about writing, it is far more than words – it is the people at the heart of each story. For without them, food would just be ingredients, or so much organic matter. Each “Culinary Type” adds key ingredients to the recipe that creates this ongoing chronicle: artistry, care, technique, passion, a spirit of adventure and a deeply-rooted personal history that connects them to the food they offer at this table.

There were so many Culinary Types that captivated me in 2007:

There were chefs who left their corporate jobs to pursue their passion for food, like Juan Pablo Chavez, founder of Healthy Meals JPC in New York City, and John MacPherson of the B&B The Foster Harris House in Little Washington, Virginia who with his wife Diane serves up exquisite breakfasts of pure fantasy and the best hospitality on the East Coast.

We dined with home cooks, like my friend Jill from Ottawa who meticulously researched and jointly mastermind the American-Canadian Cooking Project, and inspired a Locally-Grown Canadian Feast, two cross-country culinary collaborations. And, we followed the trials and tribulations of my own kitchen experiments from sushi to tagine.

We met food artisans who care deeply about their craft, like Jon Wright who produces creamy Vermont gouda cheese at Taylor Farm, and the Sprague family who invite the public into their rustic sugar house to learn about the production of pure Vermont maple syrup.

There were epicurean delights, like my birthday celebration dinner at The Inn at Little Washington.

We learned about the science of the kitchen from trend-makers like “The Curious Cook” Harold McGee, while I joined my friend “Lee Sloan,” a grand dame of food and wine, to investigate the cutting-edge phenomena of molecular gastronomy and raw food.

We tasted the creations of skilled bakers, like Tante Kremer’s Hungarian Nut Torte, and sampled a fluffy procession of Retro Cakes, uncovered by the Old Foodie. The names of the original creators may be lost to the annals of time, but every crumb was infused with history, flavor and emotion.

We journeyed with culinary road warriors like my colleague “Splint McCullough,” experiencing first-hand this avowed carnivore’s religious experience with roast beef at the world-renowned Carnegie Deli.

And of course, there were food bloggers – new friends like Lydia of the Perfect Pantry and her wonderful Drop In and Decorate program, and Susan the Food Blogga and her fascination with eating Christmas Cookies! But, a review of 2007 would not be complete without a mention of my delicious, surprise meeting with the brilliant Veronica, proprietor of the blogosphere’s top test kitchen. That was indeed an unexpected culinary treat!

I am submitting my list of 2007 Culinary Types to “One Hot Stove” and Nupur’s "Best of 2007" event. I just recently learned of "One Hot Stove" at Lydia’ Perfect Pantry, and I’m looking forward to discovering more about Indian regional food from Nupur in 2008.

What will I write about in 2008? I’ve only just begun to explore locally-grown foods, and I’m curious about American regional cooking, so there may be some "Low Country" cuisine from the American South in my near future.

I do wonder what I’ll write about in 2008, but I have a feeling the feast has just begun.

Happy New Year!

©2007 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

Visions of Sugar Plums

At the risk of sounding like a culinary Scrooge, there is probably no such thing as a sugar plum. The term is not listed in Larousse Gastronomique, so it’s probably not gastronomically sound. Indeed, there are listings for sugar beet, sugar cane, caster sugar and barley sugar in the Oxford Companion to Food, but alas, no listing for sugar plums. There is a Wikipedia Sugar Plum entry, but it is a suspiciously vague stub, having more to do with the Night before Christmas, and the Nutcracker Ballet.

Perhaps sugar plums are more a state of mind than of sugar consumption, because if the last few days are any indication, I do believe that sugar plums indeed exist.

The delicate top of the miraculous Pear Custard Pie prepared for my brother Ken and sister-in-law Pam’s annual Caroling Party has the effect of a white poinsettia or “angel wings” in the snow. It is so simple and elegant, and offers the sweet nectar of Bartlett pears and a feathery golden custard filling.

The second annual Christmas Pudding, is a mountainous, amber-colored Steamed Date Pudding with Whiskey Sauce that is the grand finale of my Christmas Day Dinner. A weekly showering of Irish whiskey makes it a truly spirited and festive dessert, so potent that my nephew Doug, a fraternity-dweller, even thinks it packs a punch.

A half-cup of whiskey is warmed and then poured over the pudding. Then a flick of the Bic, and blue flames dance merrily about the pudding. After a day of revelry, and serving dinner to nine people, it sure ignites my holiday cheer!

If you’ve never seen an actual Christmas Pudding blazing, click on the clip below – almost live – from my dinner table on Christmas Day. But, don’t look away, because the flame is fleeting, much like the holiday season.

In the words of Tiny Tim, “God bless us, everyone!”

©2007 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved