Summer-Autumn Overlap at Union Square (Plenty of Seating)

Summer is morphing into autumn extremely slowly this year.  Corn and squash are costarring right now, while choruses of cherry tomatoes sing out from baskets in every corner of the market.  Tourist and New Yorkers alike form an appreciative audience sitting in Uncle Mayor Mike's popular little plaza on the northern edge of the market to enjoy the bounty of this overlapping harvest. Oh, wait...

(See my story today on Moroccan m'smen at Union Square.)

Burger Queen for a Day

On Monday*, I made what was most likely the best burger I've ever made.  What troubles me about this--aside from the fact that from now on, everything  is downhill--is I'm not at all sure why it was that good.
  1. I don't usually buy ground meat from Key Food unless it's for something that's going to be cooked well done.  This time, I had no time, told myself I was being silly in the first place, and bought a 1 pound package of ground chuck, making for burgers at around 1/2 pound each.  Bigger than that is kinda revolting, not to mention hard to handle; smaller can be way too easy to overcook.
  2.  I'd been doing a lot of cooking lately on a nonstick grill pan.  Love it, but it doesn't quite deliver the char you want surrounding that rare, beefy-red interior.  Since I also wanted to fry some onions for topping the burgers, I used a  well-aged cast-iron skillet, which retained a bit of the oniony flavor to pass on to the patties.
  3.   Used a splash of Worcestershire along with salt and pepper, nothing else.  I also remembered to add the crucial dent, using my knuckles, on top, so that patties wouldn't puff up.
  4.  Placed them on the searing hot pan, making no attempt to turn them until they released from the surface.  Too soon, and they will leave their crusty goodness on the pan.  I've done that once too often.
  5.  The cheese, ah yes, my most frequent downfall.  I love cheeseburgers.  I love them so much that I've tried every which way to make them work.  The usual way, that is, throwing on the cheese at the last minute, either resulted in half-melted cheese or overcooked burgers.  I spent a year or two messing around with other methods, like stuffing the cheese inside the burger, a la Minnesota's Juicy Lucy.  It didn't work for me: the cheese either leaked out, making an unholy sticky mess on the pan or I didn't use enough cheese, suffusing the burger with a vaguely cheesy flavor and oleaginous feel.  Too much cheese?  A blistered mouth.
  The solution was so obvious that I'm almost embarrassed to mention it.  A minute or so before the burgers are done, slap the cheese on, the cover with a pot lid or metal bowl. Perfectly melted cheese every time.    I've used aged cheddar, blue, provolone, pepper jack, and quite a few others but I  always come back to Kraft slices.  So sue me.
  6. English muffins? Okay, but a bit coy and brunchy.  Standard-issue burger buns?  Pap.  My answer is the wondrous Big Marty's sesame roll.  Sturdy enough to hold up to burger juice, cheese, and onions, coated with so many sesame seeds you can barely see the bun.  Roll royalty.  Toasted on the inside only, using my toaster, the world's slowest, on the bagel setting.

  What did the trick: One, some or all of the above?  Or, was it, as the ineffable Irma said, a kismetburger?  I won't know until I try again, which should be sometime soon.

*Not this past Monday, or even this past part Monday.  Started writing this about a week ago. Lousy fall cold left me disinterested in food and life in general.

It Doesn't Have to Be Purim!

 And, to quote an old Levy's Rye Bread commercial, "You don't have to be Jewish!"

Celebrate this rainy day--and one of the last old-school bakeries in the neighborhood--with hamentashen from Moishe's on Second Avenue.

The Return of Coney Island Native Bonomo Turkish Taffy

See my NY Daily News story, "Oh, Bonomo!" here.

Eataly: A Fine Grocery

Eataly is in the eye of the beholder: In the past couple of weeks, it's been called an indicator that the recession is ending, a sign of the apocalypse, and a doomed celebrity showcase. Given that I'm neither an economist nor a soothsayer, all I can tell you is this:  Eataly is a damned fine grocery store.  It may be fifty times larger than the Italian groceries that my mother sent me to, but it is a grocery store all the same. (My mother refused to go into one herself because she thought that the Parmesan smelled like baby puke.  I thought it smelled like heaven.)

Yes, Eataly is sprawling and somewhat oddly laid out.  The center of the store is filled with tables--served by a variety of restaurant stalls that I hope to investigate on a further visit--occupied by diners and winers chatting and observing the passing scene.  Charming enough, but stick to the perimeter, where the actual food departments live.  It is sometimes clogged with tourists and gawkers; as with Dean & DeLuca and H&M,  weekends are best avoided.

While there is an unending riot of Italian soft drinks and beer, not to mention the more obvious olive oils, pastas, cheeses, and spumoni (how did I miss that?), a lot of what you'll encounter is just fine foodstuffs.  There's nothing intrinsically Italian--or French, or Moroccan--about a lovely nectarine.  Or oysters, or lamb. Or a crunchy, just out-of-the oven loaf. 

The prices don't seem unreasonable to me, or perhaps I am still startled after paying over five bucks for three onions at my local grocery yesterday.  The seafood prices seemed in line with, say Citarella.  I got a gorgeous mozzarella ball for $3.50. You will notice more strollers than shoppers, which should make your trip to Eataly relatively easy--I was in the cashier line for less than a minute.

Let me know if you find the spumoni!

Eataly
200 Fifth Ave (@24th Strret)

Chock Full o' Memories

I have a sad history with coffee shops, at least as an employee.  My first job, at an independent joint on Kings Highway owned by a fat, pig-eyed man of indeterminate Mediterranean ancestry, lasted something under an hour.  My boss pushed me against a wall while I was donning  my pink polyester uniform in the dank icy refrigerator room in the back.  I managed to escape, but not before tossing several racks of freshly iced doughnuts into a shopping bag as I raced for the door and the B2 bus.  

My next--and last--doughnut-related job was also on the three-hundred year old thoroughfare, but in a far more pleasant and emotionally salubrious place: Chock Full o' Nuts. I worked for a very different kind of boss there: a fifty-something woman with violently dyed black hair, who told me that she had eaten a Chock Full o' Nuts hamburger for lunch every day for the last twenty-five years.  Alas, I would not approach her record.  In fact, I wouldn't even make it until lunchtime.  My astonishing incompetence in calling orders to the kitchen (perhaps I should have joined my high-school debate society, mentored by the future scourge of Manhattan, John Sexton) led to the delivery of six toasted corn muffins to one very surprised old lady.  It was then I decided that my parents were correct, and that high school should remain my sole job for the present.

I didn't hold my short-lived cakery career against Chock Full o' Nuts: I was pleased to see a Chock in Hoboken but, alas, it was a scaled-down Chock Full o' Nuts Cafe.  When I read that a full Chock would be opening on West 23rd Street, I was delighted. 

I didn't venture into the dining area--all I wanted to score were those legendary whole-wheat doughnuts and a date-bread cream cheese sandwich.  The scene was a bit chaotic, which is understandable for a place that will not be officially open until mid-October, but the decor hit every high note in my nostalgic Brooklyn soul: bright yellows, dark wood, and lots of black and white photos of a working class New York. (Not to mention black and white cookies!)

When I opened my mouth to order,  a man behind me requested a cup of coffee.  When the counterman turned to pour it, I sputtered angrily, "Do you just pick people at random to serve?  I was ahead of him!"
 He replied, "That's the owner."  Oh. I wasn't sure if that made matters better or, worse, but when I turned around to meet Joseph Bruno, a big bear of a Brooklyn native whose accent was redolent of home, all I could say was, "I'm so thrilled to be in a Chock Full o' Nuts again!" Bruno thanked me, and we chatted for a bit.  He had often gone to the Chock on Kings Highway, although not during the morning I worked there.  He told the counterman to "take good care of her," and to toss an extra doughnut in the bag, "from me."

The doughnuts--cake, by the way, not yeast--were exceptional, with a crisp outer shell surrounding a light, slightly nutty, interior.  Two for ninety-nine cents.  A great deal, for sure.

Due to the large demand from date-nut sandwich obsessed customers, the place was out of cream cheese, but that's okay:  I couldn't have grinned any more than I did as I walked downtown, knowing that sometimes, even in Manhattan, a place can still come along for us.  Not the tourists, not the hipsters, not the SATC girls, just us.  And that's more than enough for me.

(Sorry about the single crappy picture.  I ate the doughnuts before I remembered to take their portrait.)

Chicken, Ginger(ale)ly

The first time I had Bruce Cost's Fresh Ginger Ginger Ale, which contains actual bits of fresh ginger as well as pure cane sugar, I thought that it might make an interesting glaze. I didn't have that thought quite immediately--at the time, I was sampling the spicy-hot ginger ale partnered with rum and rum peppers.  It did, however, come to me some weeks later, and I decided to give my idea a go on chicken thighs.

Start by grilling your chicken thighs--4 to 6, depending on their size, which should be relatively uniform. If you're doing this outdoors on a charcoal grill, I hate you.  If you're grilling indoors on a grill pan, you might want to check out the method used here, sans the spices.  While the chicken is cooking, dump a bottle of Fresh Ginger Ginger Ale into a medium pot.  Add 2 or 3 chopped seasoning peppers (You may remember my mentioning seasoning peppers a while back.  If your mind wandered at the time, let me remind you that they have the fruit and spice of habaneros with the merest fraction of the heat.).  Drained and chopped Peppadews [yes, it's a brand name] would make a fine substitute.) I used the peppers' ribs and seeds, as well.

I added salt and pepper, brought the lot to a boil, then turned it to a medium simmer to cook down to a syrup.  Tasting it after five minutes, I found that the innocent little peppers had a lot of heat in those ribs and seeds that only needed a little poaching to emerge.  If I left them in the glaze, the result would have been mouth searing, so I scooped them out and set aside to use as a garnish.  Five minutes later, taste again.  Meh.  Something missing.  When what's in your pan (or on your plate) tastes flat, what's usually lacking is acid.  A good squeeze of lemon brought the disparate parts together into a balanced whole.  As the soda cooks down, keep a close eye on it, and stir frequently.  Cook it down to about 1/3 cup and remove from the heat.

When the thighs are 17 seconds away from being done to perfection, brush them generously with the glaze, turning frequently, until the chicken is, well, glazed (or well glazed). Keep turning that chicken!  Keep turning that chicken! (Warning: Not safe for work...)  Remove to a plate and top with the chopped peppers.  Some cilantro would have been nice, too, and I thought I had some, but the some that I thought I had had been eaten down the shore last week.  I'll try it next time, though.

Blankies Optional

In another step toward the complete hipfantilization of this once-sophisticated city, a Pop*Tarts store will be opening in Times Square. [Eater]  Nothing against Pop*Tarts, but everything against giving all those recent and not-so-recent college grads flooding Manhattan yet another reason to stumble through the streets in their jammies.
  What next, a Pedialyte cafe? With free WiFi, of course.

Pancake Lemmings, or, Another Saturday at Clinton Street Bakery

Clinton Street, before nine a.m.  Onto the block they march, driven by their hive mind.  From Brooklyn, from Japan, from Iowa, they gather here, their temple of "in-the-know" New York, which they surely read about in an inflight magazine or  Shecky's New York.  Has this joint started selling postcards yet?

There are at least three hundred other brunch spots within five blocks but, no, only this one will do. They just have to eat there, so they can say they have.  I ate there myself, once or twice, long before the lemmings swarmed in.  I had pancakes.  They were pancakes...they didn't do backflips, read my palm, ride to my table on the back of a disgruntled badger, or do anything  that would warrant waiting in line at all. Particularly with that crowd.

Oh, Yummy Scrummy Summertime

Okay, it's still hot, but at least now we're getting to the good stuff:  white peaches, raspberries, blueberries, and plums are at every farmers market in town.