Given half a chance, I’d pour this Spicy Lemon Coconut Sauce all over my eggs, asparagus, cat, and boyfriend.
Don’t mind me, still reliving the weekend (while I drink 24 ounces of green swamp juice, lordy, it was one of those weekends)…. On Sunday my best buds and I pigged out at a good ol’ fashioned crawfish boil hosted by a new supper club called I Was Really Very Hungry (follow them on Tumblr, and you’re gonna want to go ahead and make a date for their next dinner, set amid lovely rooftop growing things with a killer view of the city and jeez just pencil it in already).
I taught a cute hipster girl how to peel crawfish (PS sucking the head is overrated) and ate a bunch of boiled mushrooms and garlic bulbs — oh and those scallion biscuits! and stawberry handpies! ate a lot of those too — which were all better than the crawfish (it was under-seasoned but hey, I don’t demand a perfect bagel and lox in Nola now do I).
No substitute for Jazz Fest but damn we had fun. Can’t wait for our next crawfish boil … Katie’s 30th next month!
Culinary Intelligence: The Art of Eating Healthy (and Really Well)
A new book by food writer Peter Kaminsky.
Epicurious: Culinary intelligence, as you term it, works on the idea of maximizing “flavor per calorie.” Can you explain this theory?
Peter Kaminsky: If you use ingredients that are at their peak of flavor, then you will get satisfaction from them.
If you use tomatoes in February or strawberries in April or squash six months later or commodity beef, they’re not going to have as much full flavor as seasonal, carefully raised ingredients. You won’t get as much satisfaction from them, and you’ll inevitably want to compensate, usually with some combination of sugar, salt, and fat. That’s how you mask—pump up the flavor of—inferior ingredients.
True! But I can really pig out on fresh ingredients, too. See: caprese in August, strawberry shortcake in June.
Serious Eats did a 62-photo slideshow of one of my favorite stores in NYC:
The soul of the Kalustyan’s operation. You may think you’ve seen Indian grocery stores, but until you’ve seen Kalustyan’s, you don’t really know the meaning of holy-crap-that’s-a-lot-of-spices.
It’s a great store no matter what you’re cooking. From about 50 varieties of honey to dozens of gluten-free flours, they stock it all. (When I go to a grocery store in the sticks I just sit there and marvel. So much space and so little selection.)
Our friends Elisabeth, Megan, and Francesco throw what has to be the finest Derby party this side of the Mason-Dixon. It’s all in the details: elevated Southern comfort food (ham and peach sliders, “New Jersey Hot Browns,” addictive spiced pecans), customized julep cups and glass tags in honor of the colorfully-named horses, chic hats and fine linen suits, a rousing round of “My Old Kentucky Home” (thanks to M.’s mint juleps), and a cutthroat bidding auction that pockets the winners a few Benjamins (I’ve never gotten close, but I always pick the winning whiskey).
Thank you, dear friends, for hosting such a cherished tradition. Spring wouldn’t be the same without it.
Shrimp, pea, and rice stew. Soothing and light; delicately flavored with fish sauce and cilantro. (Though no, Oprah, I don’t think it would satisfy a craving for gumbo.)
Blind children studying the hippopotamus.
(Another gem from the American Museum of Natural History Library, dated 1914.)
Reminds me of the parable of the blind men and the elephant….
I am so swamped and yet I have so much I want to show ‘n tell you: dinners at The Modern and Ai Fiori (wow), a good ol’ Nola-style crawfish boil, the annual Derby party, an epic party in Greenpoint featuring the international debut of a play about a lion tamer who has a side business in fulfilling the S&M fantasies of Park Slope yuppies (uh, guess you had to be there) … but like I said, swamped, so until I am home in elastic pants, please accept this exquisitely calming Long Island vacation house as my IOU.
Now this is a neat gift idea:
The Shiitake Mushroom Log will yield a new crop every two months for three years indoors or outside, with little care (it must be soaked for 24 hours when it arrives, and misted occasionally); $29.95 from Williams-Sonoma
Shiitake pizza parties all year round!
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The Great American Cooking Project