The Prettiest Bento Box in NYC

admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:19:13 +0000

Sakagura is a restaurant you take people to when you want to impress them with your restaurant-finding skills. The Japanese eatery is located in the basement of a random office building in the East 40s, which you have to get to by descending a flight of exceptionally narrow stairs. But the food and ambiance are totally worth it. Your order: the Jewel Oke Bento. For $20 at lunchtime, you get “assorted appetizers, fried tidbits, five kinds of sashimi, grilled tidbits, mini rice balls and miso soup.” Not a bad deal at all, and what you’ll get is quite possibly the most colorful lunch plate around. A version sampled recently included shredded vegetable tempura, shiso-plum rice balls, grilled eel and duck, omelets, sashimi (tuna, salmon, amberjack, squid with shiso, and scallop), yam with a mirin-like sauce, and soup. When you don’t know what to eat, it offers you a little bit of everything.

Be a Faster Home Cook With These Tips

admin — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 16:56:00 +0000

George Doyle

Want to minimize the minutes you spend in the kitchen slicing and dicing and spend them on more productive activities, like, enjoying that glass of wine you just poured for yourself? Check out the story I wrote for The Daily Meal called How to Be a Faster Home Cook. Some are equipment focused, but others are good tips and tricks I’ve learned along the way. Or if that doesn’t work, there’s always the telephone to call in a delivery order.

$1 Duck Buns in Flushing: The Best 100 Pennies Worth of Grub

admin — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:05:30 +0000

$1 doesn’t buy you a lot in this town, save for some discount dish detergent at the dollar store or a slice of truly crappy pizza (and less slightly crappy pizza at Percy’s Pizza). But in Flushing you can find one heck of a gastronomic delight for only $1: the Peking duck bun at the corner of 40th Road and Main Street. A soft and squishy bun cradles a nub of duck breast, a sliver of crispy skin, and a haystack of scallions. Eat it standing up in front of the stall, or munch on it as you amble across the street towards the New World Mall — just don’t be surprised if you double-back and get another one. And at $1, you sure can afford to.

A New Way to Juice Citrus

admin — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:29:46 +0000

While putzing around in the kitchen the other day, I realized that I didn’t have a citrus juicer or reamer. Normally this doesn’t pose much of an issue, but I was experimenting with a blood orange cocktail and needed a good amount of juice: Squeezing with my hands just wasn’t going to work. So I went through my drawers and discovered an unexpected genius juicer: a handheld ricer. Specifically, my inexpensive IKEA Idealisk potato press. Simply slice the oranges (or lemons, limes, etc.) in half, place them cut-side down in the press, and squeeze down. Voilà, easy juicing.

And should you want to make that blood orange cocktail (which you most certainly do):

Blood Orange Delight

Serves 2 (or 1 if you’re having a hard day)

1/2 cup freshly squeezed blood orange juice
3 ounces Solerno blood orange liqueur
1 ounce Cointreau
4 dashes Angostura bitters

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake until cold, then strain into a rocks glass with a single large ice cube.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi: Go See It Now

admin — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:30:52 +0000

So I’m late to the game on this one, but if you haven’t yet seen Jiro Dreams of Sushi, go see it now. It’s a fascinating look at Sukiyabashi Jiro, the famed sushi restaurant in Tokyo, and its 85-year-old chef, Jiro Ono. But more than an exploration into sushi making, it’s a story of family and of craftsmanship. Unlike so many restaurants today, money or even culinary innovation isn’t what drives Jiro to succeed, but rather the perfection of the art. Go see the film, and make sure you have a reservation at a sushi restaurant to follow — all the sushi porn is going to make you crave some raw fish.

Eat Like You Mean It

admin — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 18:16:10 +0000

After a year and a half of professional eating, it’s time for a diet. And by diet, I mean a diet of oysters, fried chicken, and bacon. Get this breakfast of champions at Fort Defiance.

Don’t Have Chrismukkah Gifts Yet? Buy these books!

admin — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 04:24:23 +0000

Flickr/chotda

If you’re like me, you buy your presents the day before Christmas/Hanukkah because you’re mad lazy. Reasonable. Sometimes, though, it’s because you don’t know what to get. So here’s a neato gift guide for everyone you know and love. It’s a highly subjective gift guide because it’s made up entirely of books by my friends that were published in 2011. Baker extraordinaire Dorie Greenspan does a similar thing and I am blatantly copying her idea. But all of the featured books are amazingly awesome, a testament to my friends, or, as I like to think, my talent in choosing my friends.

For the food blogger friend: The Food52 Cookbook
I used to work for Amanda, and am a huge fan of her site Food52, which curates recipes from super skilled home cooks. This book is a collection of winning recipes from the site (plus one I did for salted almonds, woot woot), and is full of accessible, flavorful recipes.

For the booze-lover: Bitters
Brad is not just my publicist, but also a man who knows his bitter drinks! His book is both a history of bitters plus collection of yummy bitter drink recipes. It’s the bitter truth!

For the beer-lover: Brewed Awakening
Josh is a total beer geek (and I mean that in the best way possible) and this book offers great insight into the origins of the craft beer movement and highlights cool breweries you don’t (yet) know of.

For the healthy eater: You Can Trust a Skinny Cook
Allison and I got our master degrees together, and she’s such a talented cook and culinary instructor. Her book is a collection of delicious recipes that are surprisingly healthy, plus there are tips on how to shed calories without losing flavor. Which, let’s get real, we’re all going to need after holiday bingeing.

For the lonely single person in your life: Serve Yourself
Just kidding, you don’t have to be lonely or single to enjoy WaPo food editor Joe Yonan’s book, which feature recipes for one. Joe and I were tablemates at an event recently and I can tell you from having eaten, like, ten of the sandwiches he brought for sampling, the recipes in the book are spot-on. Your home alone nights just got less lonely.

For the adventurous home cook: Cook This Now
Melissa is rad and seems to produce more content than is humanly possible. The recipes in this book are organized by season and all sound super tasty and really seem to capture Melissa’s personality.

For the passionate home cook: The Kitchen Counter Cooking School
Kat’s book is part manifesto for home cooking, part memoir of teaching self-described terrible cooks how to become more comfortable in the kitchen. Guiding them through a series of lessons, she teaches the pleasures of home cooking.

And now for the non-food books!

For the YA Lover: a combo of Sister Mischief and Past Perfect
Laura Goode’s debut is about a group of friends in suburban Minnesota who have a love of rap and a dislike of authority. It’s funny and moving, not to mention refreshing to find queer YA characters. And Laura puts out some bumping rhymes. Leila Sales’s book is also a love story, but a more traditional one. But it’s set in a reenactment village! How can you go wrong with that! Both these ladies are mad smart and funny wordsmiths.

For the writer friend: The Wilshire Sun
Josh and I were hallmates our freshman year of college and now we’re both writers! His debut novella is lyrical and craftily written, exploring the Hollywood dream but with great humor.

And obviously Four Kitchens is rad for the armchair traveler or restaurant enthusiast in your life.

But seriously, people, these are some super talented who have put out some great books in 2011. I can only wait to see what 2012 will bring. And if we’re friends and I left you off, it’s totally not intentional! I just have a bad memory! Email Me and I’ll add you on!

West Coast Represent!

admin — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 19:29:43 +0000

What’s up West Coast? I’ll be in San Francisco next week to promote Four Kitchens. If you’re in town on Friday October 21 at 6 p.m., come to Omnivore, which is only the coolest culinary bookstore ever. I’ll be doing a reading and q+a. Should be lots of fun! And there will be some post-reading drinking involved. More info here.

Moonshine! Partytime!

admin — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 01:51:11 +0000

What up, kiddos! My cover story for the Voice is out, featuring all the hip kids around the city who are making their own hooch. It was fascinating learning about the burgeoning (and highly illegal) home distilling movement and meeting moonshiners who are defiantly breaking the law in order to produce a corn whiskey simply because they believe in the craft and in the art. Check it out, and then drink some ‘shine! (And don’t worry, you can find legal moonshine in New York, too, like the one sold by Kings County Distillery).

Oh yeah, it’s on Amazon!

admin — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 02:51:51 +0000

Booya! FOUR KITCHENS, my baby, is now in stock on Amazon! Get your copies now before it hits bookstore shelves on the 27th. Wooooooooo! Super exciting!

Besides gearing up for the big day, it’s just been busy with work. I exciting saw moonshine being made (!), which is a for feature story I’m working on. I also reviewed the Dutch, a/k/a the city’s most hyped restaurant. Despite being deafeningly loud, the resto dishes up some tasty and innovative food.

I also wrote a story for Departures called “Supermarket Futures,” which opined on the supermarket of the future and explains why the produce in most stores isn’t up to par and the innovations that are making the shopping experience better. It’s only available with a subscription for now, but next month will be open to all readers.

Now back to the hustle!