Voice-a Verse-a

Keep an eye out for me at my new gig as the Food & Drink Blogger at the Village Voice's Fork in the Road. And, yes, this does mean I won't be Eat-Me-A-Lifeing it for a little while.

Veggie Tales

Now, I know I've done my share of ragging on vegetarians. But I stand apologetic after a lovely gesture from a vegetarian friend. Upon hearing of my sad state of financial despair, she insisted on taking me out for a steak-and-martini dinner. At Freemans, no less, where stuffed game animals make up the decor, some members of which could have been related to her vegetarian pet bunny. At dinner, I tried to order a salad but she would have none of it. I humbly accepted. For the steak-and-martini dinner is a meat eater's Holy Grail, a carnivore's delight, and, of course, a gross ostentation. But do they actually go together? The answer is a resounding "yes!" I had a Plymouth martini, up, with a twist. The steak was rare. The acidity of the drink balanced the fattiness of the meat and complemented the tang of blood. It also made a pretty darned good horseradish chaser. We ate at the bar - is there any other way to enjoy a steak-and-martini dinner? For one night, at least, I got to forget my troubles and live it up the good ole boy way. I was so satisfied by the end of the meal, like a Wall Street fat cat post-bailout, that I had to refrain from slapping the waitress on the ass on my way out.

Bread Maker

What's a food writer to do when she can no longer afford to eat? Or at leas eat in the way in which she has grown accustomed - which, admittedly, has ranged from very well to excessively. She can start by eliminating some of the luxury purchases in her weekly grocery runs, like cheese (I get invited to enough wine & cheeses to get my fix), rotisserie chicken (home baked is just as satisfying), and fancy fish fillets (tilapia, looks like I'm stuck with you). My latest adventure has been of the bread-baking kind. The first loaf was a little crumbly and cakey so I brushed the second loaf with olive oil before baking for a focaccia effect. I wouldn't call it a shining success but it wasn't bad for a first try. My apartment smells great and I have breakfast for the next two weeks. My next project: cheese. Watch out, Betsy and Rachel.

Deep-Fried "O"

Not sure how I missed this last week but apparently the Canadian media was still buzzing (as much as it does, something like a polite hum compared to American or British media's deafening whir) about Obama's visit to the capital, and especially his sampling of the local pastry called a BeaverTail. Now, being Canadian, BeaverTails are not new to me. I grew up enjoying them during summers spent at La Ronde in Montreal (an amusement park now owned by Six Flags). I even dated a boy who worked at BeaverTails. His boss strictly forbade describing the wide, flat pastries as deep-fried dough, but that's exactly what my rebellious young beau would tell customers who dared ask what a BeaverTail was: deep-fried dough. And what's the shame in that? Dough is the foundation of many a delicious food and deep frying has only ever served to make foods more delicious. I used to favor the simple Tail: flavored with just lemon and sugar, like simple crepes on the streets of Paris. But Obama was treated to the now infamous ObamaTail, smothered in whipped cream, a chocolate syrup O (an homage to the President's biracial background?) and a maple syrup O to remind everyone it's Canadian. Sounds like a total of seven hours in my homeland well spent.

Drink Like Me: Euro Trash

The baby-faced bartender at Père Pinaud on the LES tried to discourage me from ordering the well-priced VDP from Ardèche. "You might not like it," he said. I was intrigued. "It comes back a lot. It's not really for American palates." Now, I was pissed. Who the hell was he to tell me how American my palate was? And why is "American palate" still used as a pejorative term? Sure, the vast majority of Americans watch American Idol, eat at Denny's, and will take a Yellow Tail over a funk-filled glass of naturally crafted wine any day, but this was New York. The LES, no less! Where the enlightened live. And drink. So, my American friends and I ordered the Domaine du Mazel's C'est Im-portant. I was worried at first - what if they didn't like it? Not only would we have wasted 40 bucks but we also would be proving the adorable Euro-supremacist bartender right. But the girls oohed and ahed at the candied fruit and earthy notes of the wine. They even indulged me in a conversation about it. It reminded my one friend of her rustic childhood, when her parents would buy beef by the freezer-full directly from the farmer and her mom would make her venison heart sandwiches to take to school. The VDP probably would have paired well with an all-American venison heart sandwich. Take that, cute French bartender.

Guest Blogger Alert

The good folks at Rias Baixas asked me to contribute to their blog recently. I do loves the albariños...

Drink Like Me: Genever Convention

People are always asking me what they should drink. Behold my new series: Drink Like Me. It will be an irregularly recurring entry on how you can, er, drink like me.
Genever Bols hosted a seminar on bitters this past Tuesday at the Clover Club in Brooklyn. And, in case you're wondering, yes: that means that at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday, I was sipping classic cocktails like Bamboos and Martinezes with the city's drinkerati, including Dale DeGroff, David Wondrich, Jim Meehan, and Gina Chersevani. I spent much of my time commiserating with fellow writers Jack Robertiello and Sonya Moore about the poor state of publishing today (I recently lost my US Airways Magazine Drink column and am still pretty bummed about it), but made sure to spend the rest of the afternoon drowning my sorrows. Oh, and I also managed to jot down a note or two about bitters. (Did you know that bitters was originally an ingredient in a martini... back when it was called a Marguerite?) The cocktails themselves were delightfully old school. The recipe for Bols itself dates 1820. Much more malty than English gin, yet floral and spicy (although there isn't a trace of anything juniper-like in it), the Bols is light and subtle, and complex all at once. I'm thinking that this year, the 400th anniversary of New York - or New Amsterdam! - will be the year of genever. Don't you think we could all proost to that?