Saturday, June 23, 2012

Greenmarket Finds

 Peaches came back this week! (wow. I just realized how nerdy that sounds...)
But this is my thing. This is what I enjoy.















This week at the Sunnyside Greenmarket:
2 dozen eggs
small loaf of sourdough bread
green beans
kale
1 cucumber
1 quart of strawberries
1 pint of cherries
2 tomatoes
and 3 peaches

all of this was about $25

Thursday, June 21, 2012

In Print

If you live in the NY area and happen to see a copy of Edible Queens
floating around, flip to the back and you will see one of my collages!
Pretty exciting, huh?!



















I feel pretty fancy.





Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Further Exploration: New World Mall


We finally made it back to explore the food court at the New World Mall.
The huge wooden salad bowls filled with stir fried goodness had been on
our minds ever since our first trip.
We started with buns (1 red bean-which almost has a chocolate flavor to it, and radish-
which tastes like a delicious egg roll)















$3 for both, and they were do delicious.  The red bean one was so dense
we could only take a few bites and had to take it home.
Now for the main course, we went to Lao Ma Mala Tang, where we got to choose from
a very large selection of meats and veggies.  It's pay by the pound so you can get
as much as you want.  Because there was only the 2 of us we went kind of easy-
or so we thought.  We chose bacon, beef, 1 crab, shrimp, tofu, lotus root, 2 kinds of mushrooms,
spinach and told them only a little spicy on the sauce.
And this is what we got:















Let me just say that this dish had flavors that I've never experienced before.
Not in a bad way, just kind of shocking to the palate.  A pepper flavor that was almost
cooling, yet tingly and numbing-maybe green peppercorns? And the heat level was,
for me, very spicy. For the fiance' it was perfect- but he loves spicy food.
They really just throw everything in as is. We had to peel the shrimp and the crab,
I bit down on a huge hunk of ginger and the fiance' got a whole clove of garlic.
For $21 we really got our money's worth, we couldn't even finish it!

We threw in the towel and wandered over to Snopo for dessert.  If you happen
to be a regular reader of this blog (Dad and maybe a few others) you may remember
that we visited this dessert mecca the last time we were there.  This time we really went for it
and got their "Snowy Ice" a strange cross between ice cream and shaved ice.

















It's another weird food experience, but so delicious. We got the strawberry flavor
with strawberry jelly- which is just a better quality strawberry jell-o
(you can see the strawberry seeds).  They also have Snowy served "romantic style"-
I still haven't figured out where the romance comes in, but these look really fancy
and they have names like "Princess Strawberry", "Forever Time" and "Precious Time".
I think that we'll go for the romance next time we're there.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Latest Obsessions

*Summer berries are back!
(strawberries, cherries, blueberries, and raspberries)

*Papaya King
( Delicious -and cheap!- hot dogs and tropical juices)

*Rufus Does Gum
(He makes Big Red seem so appealing!)

*The Mysterious Benedict Society
(summer reading)

*Wines from Burgundy
( Started with some entry levels, working my way up.)

*I made this recently
(and it was awesome!)

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

The Magic of Montauk: part 1

I fell in love with Montauk this weekend.
Head over heels.
The lush greenery, the wooden siding on the houses,
the character of the beach, just everything.

Our friends Jay and Jess were renting a house there last week and were
kind enough to invite us out.  It was so relaxing.
 I'm also now obsessed with Channing Daughters wines.















We were able to visit the vineyard and had a tasting with Anthony,
who was the best host ever.  He was excited about the wines, and was thrilled
to see that we were into it. (I totally nerded out when he told us they had a Blaufrankisch
red AND rose, not to mention a Refosco and Lagrein rose!!! Northern Italian varietals!!)
Sorry.
Long story short we ended up joining the wine club, so now we will be receiving 2
bottles every other month!  After the tasting our friends Paul and Janet met up with us
and we meandered over to the sculpture garden for a cheesefest.















After the vineyard we went for a drink at the Crow's Nest, which was right
on the water, and then headed back to the house to make dinner.
We had a local seafood Cioppino with clams, mussels, scallops, shrimp and tilefish,
sides of grilled spring onions and asparagus, massive pieces of garlic bread and
berry shortcakes for dessert. Not to mention the bottles and bottles of wine!




















(above:The fiance paddleboarding
below: pretty clouds))
















Needless to say it was a great evening.
Stay tuned for part 2!