We moved the Aerogarden from the kitchen to the living room (David and I acquired a very cool shelf last week and there’s more space on the top shelf of the bookcase than there is in the kitchen). All of the herbs are doing pretty well, but it’s more difficult for me to reach now:
My friend, Jeff, recommended that I dry some of the herbs since they’re never all ready at the same time – the thyme was harvested last week and hopefully I’ll be able to use it for my NY Thanksgiving (in two short weeks!) David lifted the back bar up again (against my wishes) because he didn’t want to pick any basil. I suppose I was also too lazy to pick the basil myself so I let him extend the arm, but I might pick the basil (and dill) sometime tomorrow.
Looking for something fun to do this weekend? If you’re in NYC, you can check out the Cook.Eat.Drink.Live Food Festival along with David and another GNN correspondent!
Sponsored by Zagat and the Astor Center, 2009’s festival will feature culinary celebrities, restaurants, tastings, live cooking demonstrations and holiday shopping from November 6-8th in their new space at Chelsea’s The Tunnel/La Venue.
Cook. Eat. Drink. Live. is a lively, interactive holiday themed event that showcases new food products, celebrity chefs, wineries, cocktails, cookbook authors, mixologists, and popular restaurants. In addition to the tastings, guests can do some early holiday shopping with several purveyors and wineries and will have the opportunity to purchase gift certificates to some of New York City’s most popular restaurants.
Tickets are $65.00 for each day and can be purchased online at (www.cookeatdrinklive.com) or by calling 888-695-0888.
Highlights from the 2009 Cook. Eat. Drink. Live. Festival include:
· The Main Stage (Friday 6-8PM, Saturday 2-6PM, Sunday 2-6PM) ) will feature cooking demonstrations, holiday party planning tips, sampling by celebrity chefs and authors all hosted by Tanya Wenman-Steel, editor-in-chief of epicurious.com. The scheduled talent includes Chef Bill Telepan, television personality and author Karen Bussen, Chef Jimmy Bradley and more. Participating authors will follow their demonstrations with a book signing.
· The Astor Stage (Friday 6-8PM, Saturday 2-6PM, Sunday 2-6PM) ) will offer a wide range of informative and fun holiday-themed programs throughout the festival hosted by television personality Ted Allen, wine expert Marnie Old, Orson Salicetti, Apotheke’s Mixologist and more. Participating authors will follow their demonstrations with a book signing.
· Supporting Action Against Hunger A portion of the proceeds from the Cook. Eat. Drink. Live. Festival will go to support the programs offered by Action Against Hunger (http://www.actionagainsthunger.org)
The festival provided me with two free media passes David will be attending events on Saturday, November 7th, and will report back on all of the fun times next week!
The west village has a bunch of great restaurants on the smaller side (the first restaurant that comes to mind is Taim Falafel, where you can sit on a stool and enjoy their amazing falafels and fries with saffron aoili). Another great restaurant where you’re seated elbow to elbow that comes to mind is ‘Ino, located on Bedford Street in the west village. The restaurant is owned by a husband and wife team (the husband, Jason Denton, used to be a manager at Po and know owns other restaurants with Batali, including Otto and Lupa).
I’m lucky enough to work close to the cafe so I can drop in for a relaxing lunch (or a quick dinner after work) – the portions aren’t gigantic and it’s reasonably priced so you don’t feel like you’re breaking the bank when you eat there.
The last time I went to ‘Ino, I ordered the truffled egg toast:
Crusty bread + cheese + truffle oil + egg yolk = absolutely delicious. The dish was a little on the salty side, but delicious nonetheless. The portions are large enough that you can share them, but if you go by yourself, you can definitely sit at the bar and enjoy this piece of toast on your own.
I also ordered 4 small paninis (there’s a deal where you can order 4 different types to sample more since they have a huge variety to choose from):
I can’t recall which paninis I sampled in the picture above, but some of my favorites include the chicken, oven-roasted tomato, asiago and rucola, artichoke, fennel, and fontina, and three cheese – crotonese, cacio, grana and truffle oil.
The restaurant is almost always packed and you might have to wait a while to get a seat, but you can always walk around the area or stop in Blue Ribbon Bakery for some bread and hummus while you wait (which I have been known to do).
As I mentioned in my review of Kind Bars, I’m always putting snacks in my purse/pocket so I can nibble on something throughout the day. I’m not a huge chocolate eater, but every once in a while, I enjoy some good dark chocolate. The group at Sweet Riot have come up with the perfect product for your purse (or backpack) – cacao nibs dipped in dark chocolate and dark chocolate bars with bits of cacao nibs (and raisins):
The nibs are 100% dark cacao and you can get them in three different “strengths” – dipped in 50% dark chocolate, 65% dark chocolate (my personal favorite), or 70% dark chocolate with espresso (a little too strong for me). The tins are on the small side, but they hold about 140 differently sized nibs. The tins also use art from Sweet Rioters (you can see the actual artist name on the back of the tin). The cacao nibs are easily finished in one subway ride (or if you’re my brother, you just pop back the entire tin in your mouth and chew); after you finish the nibs, you can use it to hold little things (I use mine to hold pennies I find on the street).
If you’re not into cacao nibs or they don’t satisfy your craving for chocolate, you can also try the unBars:
When Sweet Riot sent me the sample pack, I could not get enough of these unBars. The purple packaged unBar has 65% dark chocolate with little cacao nibs inside and is more smooth dark chocolate (and less crunchy cacao nibs). The orange packaged unBar has 70% dark chocolate, cacao nibs, AND raisins. I loved the 65% unBars, but wasn’t a huge fan of the 70% unBars because the raisins weren’t evenly distributed. However, if you’re in need of a chocolate fix, ONE of these little squares definitely does it – the chocolate is really tasty and I love the cacao nibs. A little pricey (one of these bars costs about $2.25 at Whole Foods), but they usually last me the entire day and the cacao nibs add a great texture to the chocolate that you can’t find anywhere else.
Gotham Bar and Grill has been around for a full 25 years (quite an accomplishment for a business, especially a restaurant in NYC). Alfred Portale, the chef at Gotham, decided to celebrate by bringing back some of their more popular menu items at the 80’s prices. I went with my friend Arthur for a Sunday night dinner after yoga; we decided to order a few items from the 25th anniversary menu and a few items from the regular menu. We started off with some bread:
The rosemary bread was by far the best bread option, but it wasn’t amazing or very memorable (there were four to choose from).
Our first choice was from the regular menu; the organic chicken and foie gras terrine with a summer bean salad, peach preserves and toasted brioche:
The foie definitely didn’t taste like anything from per se or The French Laundry (and they didn’t refresh the bread, either!) I didn’t like the crunchiness of the terrine; foie gras is supposed to be smooth and decadent, not crunchy and unappetizing! There were too many different tastes and textures in the foie gras to make it enjoyable.
Ravioli:
Probably the best dish of the night (although not memorable because I don’t even remember the filling).
Tuna tartare:
There tuna was a little gummy and the salad on the side was couscous with mandarin orange bits (ugh, you know how I feel about combining fruit with savories…NOT A FAN).
Fish:
The white fish was mild and paired with a very acidic red wine reduction; the fish was too plain to eat without the sauce, but the sauce was so acidic that I winced every time I took a bite.
Lobster pasta (a dish from the 1980 menu):
The pasta was cooked really well, but the sauce was too briny and there weren’t enough chunks of lobster.
Cheesecake:
Arthur ordered the cheesecake and I didn’t really eat any, but he said it was light and liked that the sauce was on the side.
Petit fours:
We did halfsies on the petit fours and none of them were very good (especially not the macarons).
I liked Gotham during Restaurant Week (see my post here) but there seemed to be something off with each of our dishes (and we ordered quite a few). Overall, the dinner ended up costing around $50 per person (I wonder if that’s how much people were spending in the 80’s!) The service was very attentive, but the food wasn’t memorable and the prices were high enough that I wouldn’t return.
