New NYC Ballpark Food Tour '09, Part One

Well, first off, I doubt I'm going to get to Yankee Stadium before this fall is over, so this will probably only be a one-part series.

Went to Citi Field to see the Mets yesterday. I haven't paid much attention to the Mets since, well, 1986, but I did want to see what the new ballfield was all about. The cheap tickets and chance to hang out with some fun coworkers didn't hurt either.

Mostly, though, I wanted to check out the food, chiefly its Shake Shack outpost. The line was pretty long at first pitch, despite there being only about 100 people in the stadium. So we got regular old dogs and beers and headed to our seats. Well, not our seats. We sat in some empty seats closer to the field than our actual seats (not sure if it was due to the team's performance of late, or the U2 concert).

Here's the food rundown. Hot dog: tasty, good bun, everything you'd want it to be. Beer: Miller Lite. Slightly above average owing to the atmosphere. French fries: thicker and less salty than I'd like. But I'm not a big fry person anyway. Dill pickle-flavored sunflower seeds: Wait, what? Did you say "dill pickle-flavored sunflower seeds?" I did! I did say "dill pickle-flavored sunflower seeds!" They were ... interesting. Not available in your area? Sprinkle some pickle juice on a popsicle stick, chew on it for a bit, and spit it out. There you go. Again, though, they really lent something to the ballpark ambiance.

As the game wore on and we assumed the line was growing short, we walked over to the Shake Shack. Hurrah! No line to speak of. So I got myself a vanilla shake even though I didn't think I had the room left in me. It was thick and delicious -- pricey, yes, as I recall, but now I am not exactly sure what it set me back. No more than you'd expect at a stadium, though. I think it was more that the cup was small. I'd be mad if I had counted on it to be my whole meal.
But in the end, I wasn't able to finish it all without succumbing to post-beer heartburn, and so, comfortable in my successful conquest of the park's eateries and in my avoidance of Pepcid, I tossed the near-empty cup in the trash, took a deep breath, and patted my breast. Success.

Archived Food Focuses: my faves, winter '08-'09

-Quaker Muffin Bars. (I love Quakers.)
(EDITOR'S NOTE: They stopped making them since I wrote this! So mad!!)
-Polar vanilla seltzer. It's fantastic.
-Pasta in the old 16-oz. boxes instead of the new, cheap-ass 12-oz. boxes
-My aqua cast iron pot, not new anymore but still heart it
-Medium iced tea, unsweetened, with no lemon ("Yes, I said NO lemon")
-Kosher salt

Breaking the Fast

OK, so there is not really a good excuse for having neglected this so long. But, briefly -- on Dec. 23 I came down with a wicked cold/sinus infection/bronchitis/GI distress/what-have-you. Really not appropriate for a food blog. Basically, too sick to eat or blog. Then my computer crapped out. Then I bought an emergency netbook to tide me over till Windows 7 comes out but its small keyboard is not really conducive to, well, typing. Then I decided my recreational writing time should be spent on my novel. Then things got busy at work and for the past 3 or 4 months my writing chops have been devoted to for-profit writing.

Now the busy season at work is just about over and after about a month of thinking about what I would write to break the fast, so to speak, I decided to just get this all out in one post and then return like nothing ever happened.

So here I am. Back at ya.

The Twelve (Food) Days of Christmas: Day Two

Day Two: Recipe Search
Well, the recipes from cousin Louise are missing. I know they are not totally missing; I think I know where they are but I don't have the energy to dig to the back of my overflowing closet right now to get to them (I'm in the midst of a big cleaning binge right now; don't ask.)

Fortunately most of the Christmas cookie favorites are easy: chocolate chip cookies, some kind of fudge, "peanut butter blossoms" (you know, the cookies with the Hershey's kisses on top? I've also heard them referred to as "titty cookies." If that helps you visualize them.) and the ever-so-1950s "Chinese Chews." These are definitely a grown-up cookie, but not in the same way as the aforementioned peanut butter treats. The main ingredient besides butter is dates. When I was a kid I didn't like these cookies, but the first Christmas without Louise I was determined to replicate her tradition to the letter so I made them anyway. And wouldn't you know ... I loved them! I suppose the dates appeal to the more sophisticated palate that comes with age and experience.

And in 2008, that "sophisticated palate" most certainly wouldn't go around calling these cookies "Chinese Chews." For Pete's sake, dates come from the Middle East. (or California.) But back in the '50s I suppose the name evoked some exotic Oriental kitchen filled with bar cookies sprinkled with confectioner's sugar. A friend asked for the recipe a year or two ago and when I wrote it out I christened them "Chewy Date Bars."

So today, after I couldn't find the recipes (and my mom couldn't find a copy either, probably because she didn't like Chinese Chews when she was a kid and so has no interest in making them herself) I decided to try the Internet. First I looked for "chewy date bars." There's no way anybody out there is calling them "Chinese Chews" in this day and age, I thought. But no luck. So I finally searched, all stealthy-like ("I hope my ISP doesn't think I'm some kind of racist") for "Chinese Chews."

Results 1 - 10 of about 7,240 for "chinese chews".

Lo and behold! There are other people out there looking for these things! Lots of them! And one fellow food blogger even posted a story about her own "hunt" for them, which seems to authenticate my own idea that they are from the Fifties.

And here is a recipe which most closely approximates Louise's, as I remember. It's so simple. The most exotic thing in them are a box of pressed dates. I get mine at Wal-Mart.


EDIT, DEC. 20, 2014: I found Louise's handwritten recipe!
Unfortunately I can't easily add the image right now from my iPad because Google wants to make it difficult for me to do so. (This is why I don't update this blog anymore! Related: Why can't this be more like Wordpress?!)

The Twelve (Food) Days of Christmas: Day One

OK, so I let my absolute favorite food holiday go by with nary a post on this blog. I do have some Thanksgiving-related posts and photos lined up, however, so I will get them up soon. I have been very busy with a writing class I am taking so it feels the time I spend writing is best spent on writing for the class I paid money for instead of this blog. But the class ends soon, and I miss writing about food, so I will be back. In the meantime I bring you twelve days of food-related dispatches from my second favorite food holiday.

The Twelve (Food) Days of Christmas
Day One: Make a Plan, Stan

The plan is for two days of food-related family fun. Christmas Eve we do a dinnertime family gathering at a cousin's house, and on Christmas Day we do a big dinner at my parents' house. in between are stops at one or two other homes to which I plan to bring some food.

This year I am mainly in charge of cookies. I took on the mantle of Official Family Cookie Baker two years ago, when our elderly cousin who had been in charge of cookies longer than I have been alive passed away. Into my hands fell her giant stack of pencil-written cookie recipes (I have plans to turn them into a Christmas cookie recipe scrapbook) and her square Tupperware container with her name written on a piece of tape stuck to the lid. I also think this container, which she used to ferry cookies from her home to wherever our gatherings were, is older than I am.

Anyway ... last year I got myself involved in a cookie swap for which I made something like 12 dozen cookies. I had offered to host it this year, but didn't get around to it, so it didn't happen at all. But it was fantastic to have so many cookies. They lasted clear through Martin Luther King Day. At least. So this year I am planning to make a ton of cookies just so I have plenty at the ready.

In addition to cookies I plan to make some sort of candy-related thing. I was thinking maybe chocolate bark, and when I saw this easy recipe for marbled winter bark in the December issue of Martha Stewart Living I was positive. I already bought chocolate melty things on sale last week.

Probably the main thing I am doing is taking the pressure off. For Thanksgiving I like to make sure I have plenty of side dishes that I enjoy in addition to tasty after-dinner treats (and usually some kind of fun beverage, such as "cranberry spritzers," but I think that if you stick to all desserts or all side dishes, etc. you can be much more relaxed. So I am not making any side dishes. I think. I am much more a turkey girl than a ham girl so I don't actually have any favorite ham-friendly side dishes other than pineapple slices that you cook on top of the ham for a while. (mmmm ... pork-flavored fruit ...)

Anyway, tomorrow I will report more thoroughly on my cookie plans. I am worried that I put the sacred cookie recipes in a "safe place" that is so safe I won't remember where it is.

Food-related report: NYC weekend

OK, so my weekend in NYC really wasn't about food. But there were some food-related tidbits I'd like to share.

It was pretty cool "girls' weekend" -- my mom and I spent the weekend with one of her college roommates and her daughters who are my age, who were all visiting from California. We hadn't seen each other since, like, seventh grade. It was great.

OK, without further ado. Food highlights:

As I said, they were visiting from the West Coast, home of Pinkberry, the pleasantly tart frozen yogurt sensation which is new to the East Coast. As it happens, there is a new Pinkberry shop right in my old neighborhood, which we just happened upon on a walk. (Good thing it wasn't there then! I would have been such a piggy and eaten it every day.)

It was a nice surprise! I'm not much of an ice cream or frozen yogurt person. But this was tasty. I can't wait to try it with Cocoa Krispies on top. (I'm not just saying that. They actually have random breakfast cereals for you to choose as toppings. The strawberries, though, were excellent.)

It was also NYC Marathon weekend. Did you know that New York apples are the official apple of the NYC Marathon? For real. The things those promotion folks come up with.

We had some nice actual meals. A memorable first-night feast in Little Italy, where we caught up over pasta, glasses of wine, and free alcohol-plus-coffee drinks. A delicious large brunch at a surprising diner in Midtown. But probably the most memorable meal was not really a meal at all.

We went to Hooters.

I know, girls going to Hooters is sooo not a big deal. 60-year-old moms going to Hooters might be. And especially the Hooters on West 56th Street in New York. Who knew there was even one there?! We totally wanted to embarrass the moms, but it was actually a completely fun place for everyone. The Giants game was on, and everyone was having a blast. Us included! And, as everybody always says, the wings were great. And wings plus beer are a timeless pairing. Probably the only time our moms feigned embarrassment was when I took a picture of them with the faint image of a Hooters Girl and a poster advertising the 2009 Hooters Calendar in the background so as to set the stage.

I think I could have handled the tight Hooters shirts when I was a bit younger. But the shorts? Oh no, I don't think I could have carried off the shorts. But I definitely recommend the place as a good spot to enjoy a beer, some wings, and a game. (I give Hooters two boobs up!)

Cereal Killer, part two

This was my "Halloween costume":
Actually, I guess it's more of a prop than a costume. But it was fun for me.

Cereal Killer

So this was the first time I ever made Rice Krispies Treats. Now I know why. It was about as much fun as … I don’t know … eating leather. I let loose a few choice words while I was working on them.

Nevertheless, I share my exploits with you, gentle reader, because they ended up quite sickeningly tasty and because they look quite nice once you clean all the goopy mess off your hands and everything else.

Here’s the recipe I used. It’s a simpler and less gross-sounding version of this one that I found on About.com the other day after a co-worker said “they should make candy corn cereal.”

Crispy Halloween Treats

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter
• butter for pan and hands
• 10 cups “crispy rice cereal” (uh, that’s Rice Krispies)
• 9 cups miniature marshmallows
• 2 cups candy corn

Butter a large jelly roll pan. In my case, I used one of the awesome big aluminum pans I always call a cookie sheet but really isn’t that my mom’s friend, a school lunch lady, let us put in with the order when the caf ordered new ones. In a pretty big saucepan melt butter and marshmallows on medium heat; stir them constantly until smooth. In an enormous bowl – I’m not kidding here, you’re going to need a tub or something – mix “crispy rice cereal” and candy corn. Add the disgusting marshmallow mixture to the cereal mixture; stir quickly to combine. Spread the mixture on prepared jelly roll pan and press with your buttered hands if you aren’t too grossed out. Let them sit on the kitchen table until you finish washing the dishes, about one hour, then cut into small squares.

I know! The last time I had that much fun in the kitchen, I was two years old and on my way to the hospital to get stitches in my head from hitting it on a drawer pull. Yeah. That’s more like it.

Food humor, with a side of sacrilege

I saw something on a car today that is even funnier than God Is My Quahog:

Ode to One Pie

There are a lot of things I love about New England: fresh seafood, colorful leaves, ornery folks. But something I especially love is the variety of old-fashioned regional foods. Chief among these is One Pie, and chiefest among the One Pie varieties is the squash. Squash is at once deliciously bizarre sounding and ordinary. At some times of the late summer the squash is so common, and then so abundant in Ziploc freezer bags, that the thought of buying commercially canned squash would be ridiculous. But yet for many New England cooks the One Pie squash is both secret weapon and, I think, uniquely odd thing that we embrace simply because we are known for embracing uniquely odd things.

It’s darn near impossible to find much about One Pie (of West Paris, Maine) on the Internet, but what I do find definitely falls into the “ornery New Englanders” category. Pretty much all I found was a bunch of complaints from Thanksgiving 2007 that the recipe for squash pie on the labels everyone bought was wrong. Seems the recipe is supposed to call for 20 minutes of baking at one temperature and then another spell of baking at a lower temperature. But somehow the labels most cooks ended up with last fall had just the 20-minute bake mentioned. Awful lot of angry cooks. What I don’t understand is, you say you’ve been using One Pie Squash to make yer Thanksgiving pie for yer whole life, and yer mother before ya too. So how come when you read the label and it says to bake it for just 20 minutes you thought that all of a sudden this year it would be different? This observation also flies in the face of the Hardy and Thrifty New Englander stereotype: I would have thought these people would be cooking their squash pie from an old label they tore off a can years ago and saved. I know I have a One Pie label kicking around somewhere around here.

Ah, the labels. Probably the best thing about One Pie is the old-fashioned typography and design of the label. The only other thing I found online about One Pie was a blog entry from some sort of city folk about the label. It even features nearly the same photo I took of my One Pie can: http://brooklynometry.blogspot.com/2007/12/one-pie.html

Only the photo of my can of One Pie is probably the best kind: a freshly emptied can.

Here are some of my favorite recipes featuring One Pie:

SQUASH

Ann’s Pumpkin Cookies

(OK, so these are supposed to be made with the pumpkin. But one time in college we wanted to make them but all we had was squash in the pantry. I actually liked them better with the squash and make them with squash whenever I can.)

Ingredients:

• 1 can of canned squash or pumpkin
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup oil (or applesauce for low-fat version)
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp baking soda, dissolved in 1 tsp. of water
• Optional: nuts, chocolate chips, etc.

Directions: Mix all the ingredients together. Put cookie-sized blobs of mix on a greased cookie sheet and bake in a 375 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. The cookies come out the way they look when they go in. You can also make these cookies with fresh pumpkin or squash but it makes the mix runnier, so adjust accordingly.

PUMPKIN

Ina Garten’s recipe for Soupe au Potiron. It’s a French recipe that she says is usually made with potirons, a kind of French pumpkin. But she recommends using canned pumpkin.

BONUS!

And here is a recipe for something I just tried. It was super easy and turned out fine, although I think it needs a little more flavor: Penne With Pumpkin Cream Sauce from the magazine Everyday With Rachael Ray.

As always, I made it with Romano cheese instead because I didn’t have any fresh Parmesan, with a tiny bit of garlic because I didn’t have any onions, and with a mix of half-and-half and 1 percent milk because I didn’t have any heavy cream. Still, not bad. Probably just needed a little more cheese.