The Maltese Bacon

From 8 Gold medals to 88 Hot Dogs

Michael Phelps should parlay his career as an Olympic Gold Medalist record setter into one as a competitive eater. The guy eats 12,000 calories a day! Crazy. John Henley from the Guardian tries to eat what Phelps might eat in a day. For breakfast, there is grits (what the Brit writer called 'porridge'),a three egg sandwich,a five-egg omelette, three slices of French toast and three chocolate-chip pancakes. For lunch, there is a pound of pasta and 2 large ham and cheese sandwiches and 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks. For dinner, there is another pound of pasta and a pizza. Yikes!

Tomato Confit

There was a clan of tomatoes in my kitchen that were just starting to wrinkle and discolor, so I turned them into confit, thanks to David Lebovitz. Removing the wrinkly bits, I cut them in half and lay them cut side down. Gave them a healthy drizzle of olive oil (maybe 4-5 Tablespoons for 4 tomatoes), the smallest sprinklng of sugar, whole cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, bay leaves, thyme and rosemary. Roasted them in the oven for 40 minutes at 350 degrees. If you're using cherry tomatoes, it will take less time, maybe 20 minutes. Given this treatment, supermarket cherry tomatoes turn into mouth bursting caviar. Spoon tomatoes with their juice on an english muffin or use it for pasta. The picture makes it look like I used a ton of oil, but the sauce is the sum of the oil and much of the tomato juice.

Delicious Banana Bread & Its Equally Dope Half Vegan Counterpart

I am not sure when a banana bread is called a cake, a loaf, a bread or some combination of the 3. Does anyone know? Nick Malgieri calls this recipe a loaf cake but I can’t help but call it a bread. Calling for a scant  3 tablespoons of butter and 3 egg whites,  it is delicious without being too heavy. 

Perfect for my savory-heavy taste buds that can only take so much of sweet and rich baked goods. Growing up, we would have the occasional tea time with a Vietnamese dessert, which are on the lighter side in the absence of eggs, cream and butter. My mom would go to the bakery and pick up gooey rice balls with split green beans or make mung bean soup sweetened with coconut milk.

The vegan version of this bread is just as good. I made some for my half vegan friend, who is able to eat butter but is constantly being subjected to watch people eat eggy desserts. There are no egg substitutes here, or other weird things. The bananas act as a very moist binder. Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice for it to bubble like white lava, pushing air bubbles into the loaf. Please don’t quote me on this, as I am not a food scientist.  Recipes are after the jump.

Dorie Greenspan's Cheesecake

Translated into the surface of the moon, by way of some caramel that I added on the top. I made it for Joanna's baby shower. I have a found a special pleasure in my new baking adventures. People love sugar and there is something satisfying about fixing them with some. I guess I do too. (I popped the Lactaid like it was  1999.) We played the game "Celebrity" but you had to name a famous baby. So then it became you had to name any famous baby at any moment in time. Someone slipped in "Liza Minnelli" but no one owned up to it. Harshad tried to pawn off"micro mouse" as being the spawn of Mickey & Minnie, but as far as we know, they adopted a Laotian hamster.

John made a refreshing watermelon, mint and nectarine salad with a little lemon squeezed on top. At the last minute, Horaci wanted to try to use his Ferrán Adrià foamer that his mother had given him. There was a mad dash to the deli for some gelatin to give it some ammunition but the gelatin needed a few hours, so that was quickly abandoned...for some teeny white baby shoes.

The cheesecake recipe is after the jump.

What's the 411? Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I'm excited to try the Jacques Torres recipe for chocolate chip cookies which the NY Times published today. Although the idea of refrigerating the cookie dough for 24 - 36 hours sounds awfully punishing.

The article is very timely for me because I made chocolate cookies for the first time ever on Sunday. Can you believe it? When it comes to baking, I've literally been under a rock, playing with dirt and garam masala for years. But I think it's time to turn a new leaf, get right into it and start baking like every self-respecting cook does. So, the chocolate chip cookie recipe I used was via Smitten Kitchen which was via David Lebovitz's Great Book of Chocolate.

Except that of course with my cooking ADD, I didn't adhere to the recipe perfectly. Like somehow I lost the walnuts on the way home from the grocery store. They probably didn't make it out of the checkout counter. Then I added baking powder thinking it was baking soda and then added baking soda on top of that. Also, I accidentally made the cookies into giant crisps. But it was all good. I brought them to an amazing Mexican feast which Tammy had made. Even the cookie haters liked them. The Maldon sea salt I used gave them a little something. And, it turns out Jacques Torres puts baking soda and baking powder in his cookies too, so basically I am a mad scientist genius. Except that of course, I'm not.

Stagflation Special: Rajma (Red Bean Curry)

The headlines have not been good lately. With rising food and gas prices, waves of layoffs and a housing market crisis, we are reminded every day of the fact that we are living in a 'virtual' recession. Couple that with the cost of meat on global warming, The Omnivore's Dilemma phenomenon, and the impracticalities of getting  naturally grown meat on a regular basis, it seems like a lot of people, including me, have been taking a closer look at alternative sources of protein. 

Thank goodness the culinary zeitgeist has evolved considerably since the time of Great Depression in America. There will be no  'hot dog casserole' equivalents born during this time (although it does sound kind of good.) No more weird gloopy macaronis or bread stews to stretch a lot from a little. Of course, the situation now is nothing like the Great Depression, where any food at all was a blessing. But, nowadays we are better equipped to the food situation that we do find ourselves in. We have better knowledge of world food, better recipe resources and access to spices, which are still cheap. So we can still eat well, even if the great empire is crumbling! Cue the humble but versatile bean.

Like, last night I was craving rajma, a red bean curry that is a specialty of Punjab. I had been nibbling on some delicious version of it at the Lower East Side branch of Noodle Bar a few nights ago, and was craving it again. Noodle Bar's recipe has mustard seeds, cumin seeds and a subtly sweet veneer to it. The Madhur Jaffrey recipe I used was more on the cumin and coriander tip. I ate it with some leftover pan fried Indian potatoes, which are pictured floating on top. The potatoes had some burnt onions and roasted cumin seeds on them which made a great condiment for the rajma. Awesome. Madhur says her family eats this once a week and I can certainly see why. 

Punjabi-style Rajma (adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian)

2 cans of kidney beans (or 1 1/2 dried beans soaked overnight according to instructions)
2 1/2 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon garlic
1 tablespoon ginger
1 cup chopped onion
1 1/4 cup chopped tomatoes
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1 chopped small chili
1 teaspoon amchoor or 1 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice (or more to taste)
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

Heat oil in wide, medium pot. Add onion, stir until they are a reddish brown color. Add garlic, ginger and stir a couple times. Add tomato, cumin, coriander, cayenne, chili and stir, letting it reduce for 5 minutes. Add beans (and their liquid if you soaked it or 1 additional cup of water if they are canned) and amchoor. Let stew over lower heat for 10 minutes. Serve with rice, bread or anything else.

Pooja's grandma turned 85 today. When Pooja asked her what she was going to order for her birthday dinner in Bombay, she said "chicken lollipop". For those not in the know, this is a crowd pleasing Indian-Chinese dish made from the meaty part of a chicken wing which has been transformed to look like a lollipop and deep fried. A little spicy and salty, they make a great party food, like buffalo wings.

Some recipes call for the Indian spices (sometimes garam masala)  and Chinese ingredients (mainly chili sauce, soy sauce & MSG) to be added in the batter. Others call for the seasonings to be made in the sauce, as shown in this how to video below, which is from vahrehvah.com. If you're feeling lazy and you you live in New York, you can just get them at Chinese Mirch, in Curry Hill. While you're there, order the unbelievable crispy okra appetizer, which has been dusted with chili powder.

Steady Diet of Nothing

photo used under a Creative Commons License from Victoria Bernal

I’ve been less interested in food these days, what with the election going on. The dramatics involved have proven juicier than a bone-in rib eye steak served over 500 thread count. Here are some links that I have been enjoying lately:

Hendrick Hertzberg weighs in on how different Hillary's speech sounded to him because he had been present at the time:

I’m sure that this speech looked confrontational and intransigent on television in ways that it just didn’t in the hall, inside the bubble. In the hall, you don’t see the speaker in closeup. You see her in the distance, in the midst of a crowd. The effect is communal, not egotistic. There are no replays of selected highlights, no panels of experts. You’re left with a mood, and the mood was calm.

So I felt a certain relief, as did other Obama supporters in the room with whom I spoke. And as the crowd drifted out, I had the clear impression that many in it were letting go of some of their anger, allowing it to soften into disappointment, and beginning to reconcile themselves to reality.

This before he goes into a critical look at the math that she had posited that night:

Shall we do the math, as the saying goes?

If, as Hillary said in her speech, thirty-five million people voted and eighteen million of them voted for her, then seventeen million voted for someone else.

In other words, Hillary got a million more votes than Obama! Think of it—that’s nearly double Gore’s half-million-vote lead over Bush in 2000! And in an electorate only a third the size! The equivalent of a three-million-vote general-election majority!

Then there is an article from the Washington Post on David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist. Axelrod's childhood friend recalls:

how, as 13-year-olds, they set up a card table, first at the Bronx Zoo, then on busy 57th Street, to sell buttons and bumper stickers for Robert Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign. Their politics were established even then, Swidler recalls -- New York liberals with an idealistic bent who thought government should help the weakest members of society.

In a profile on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the New Republic, Michelle Cottle describes how early Pelosi (née D'Alesandro) got started in politics:

During Nancy's youth, the D'Alesandro household revolved around her father's political life. "He set the tune, and we danced to it," says Thomas D'Alesandro III, Nancy's eldest brother, who also served as Baltimore's mayor. That tune was combative, pragmatic, and personal. The D'Alesandro home operated like a field office, with the children serving as auxiliary staff. Constituents streamed through the door starting at 10 a.m., and whoever was manning the front desk--a post at which every child served several hours a week starting at age 13--handled requests ranging from finding a family public housing to bailing someone's husband out of jail...

Also, I loved there is a little tidbit in the article about how her mom kept "pots of stew and pasta sauce simmering at all hours to feed petitioners' which also served to go into the "'favor file' on everyone for whom their father had ever found a job or served a hot meal."

Also a few more links:

7 Ways Hillary Changed Politics (The American Prospect)
An Overview of Clinton's Campaign Journey to Second Place (WSJ)
The Fall of Conservatism (New Yorker)

Woop. Woop.

So, Barack Obama has done it. He gave a beautiful and gracious speech last night. He may not have mentioned the historic moment of officially becoming the first black presidential nominee, but it did feel significant. Something big has just happened. June 3, 2008. 10 pm. Lying on my couch, digesting a grape leaves pita sandwich.

Was it necessary for CNN to have 10 pundits on hand to comment? They looked ridiculous sitting at those two tables. And yammering away the whole time about how Hillary stole his night. Well, yes, if you are talking about her the whole time, you have a hand in it too.

Bat Stew for the Soul (A Food Memory, circa 2000)

photo courtesy of Foufperrault

I must say, eating bat, was less thrilling than eating sardines with their heads still on. For one thing, there was no discernible wing. The chef had politely deboned the meat. I was in Manado, the capital of Northern Sulawesi, an island in Indonesia. The Chinese population there has had an influence on the local cuisine, giving the city's residents a reputation for their ability to eat almost anything, including fried field rat, cat, python and dog, a highlight of celebration dinners. But back to the bat. The meat was stewed so that it was very tender and this being a former stop on the spice trade route, it was stupendously spicy. I couldn’t taste its bat-like properties. 

      My friend Diana and I had just flown into the city, which we were stopping at before we headed to the mythical Togean Islands. In my mind, the Togean Islands' legendary status began years ago when my English friend Cath, who had spent a year backacking through Asia whispered to me “If you go anywhere in Southeast Asia, go to the Togeans.” She had promised beauty, seclusion and supreme diving. I later learned that the Togeans are an archipelago of 56 islands in the bay of Sulawesi.

      When we arrived in Sulawesi, the locals warned us to avoid traveling through the middle part of the island, since there had been a spate of Muslim-Christian riots in the region recently and it was still too dangerous. Putting the American stereotype to the test, we had been completely ignorant of the situation. Our trouble was, we had been planning on getting to the Togeans by traveling through there. Eventually, we came up with a Plan B that involved a terribly long detour - a 10 hour bus ride south, a flight to Manado north, and a boat out to the Togeans to the South.

      Imagine my chagrin when we arrived in Manado and I was told that the dude who usually took people to our destination had simply sold his boat.

    “What do you mean the boat has been sold? Aren’t there other boats?"
    “No, there was just one."
    “And he sold it?"
    “Yes.”

      Cue the bratty Western style nervous breakdown. I nearly took to my bed and then I ate bat. I needed to do something life affirming and therapeutic. Something that said: “You have endured 2 days of bumpy travel for a reason. You are having a ball and eating bat.”  The bat did me good. I was ready to take another 10 hour bus ride west, which would take us to the five hour boat ride south to the Togeans. On the final stretch out to the islands, I sat at the bow of the boat and watched flying fish dart out of the water and glide in the air before they dove back in. They felt like the guardian sea turtles in Finding Nemo, cheering me on to get to my destination.

We ended up on Kadidiri Island where there is a small diving school. The island is covered by jungle but has a very small stretch of beach where 3 hotels were set up. This consists of single unit beach shacks with all meals included at about $5/day. We stayed at the Pondok Lestari hotel run by the sweetest family. In the evenings, our teenage friend would go out on his wooden two man boat and catch a mackerel for his mom to cook up for dinner. 

      During the day, the water was a range of emerald greens, yellows and turquoise. This was the quiet paradise that backpackers spend all their energy trying to find. No roads, buses and big boats. Just a ½ mile of beach and pristine ocean. The only commerce that came through the island was a man with a huge smile, wearing a yellow hard hat. He would paddle around on his teeny boat, mysteriously picking up and distributing rocks. 

      As we were taking the boat out one morning for a dive, I saw a sea snake gliding quickly as lightning on the surface of the water. The ocean was a wonderful crazy world of dolphins, turtles, manatees, sharks, pipe fish, eels, eagle rays, giant jellyfish, sea cucumbers, shrimp, angelfish, tuna, jacks, and thousands of other varieties of sea creatures.

      Life here was simple. Pour a bucket of water on your head in the morning. Breakfast. Take the boat out for a dive. Lunch. Snorkel in the afternoon. Stare at the sunset from the dock. Dinner.  Sit and watch the glowing plankton in the ocean, the stars and the fireflies. Hit your head on the pillow to the sounds of the jungle and the murmur of the ocean. Repeat. Diana cried when we finally had to embark on the boat to leave and I had no bat stew on hand to console me.