Steak, Steak, Steak, Steak....

Ugh.  I know.  It looks like a cholesterol nightmare.  Good thing I'd just been to the doctor the week before, and she gave me a clean bill of health.  I suppose this made my arteries feel a little daring?  Perhaps my cholesterol levels were feeling a bit invincible?  Truth be told, it's neither the fault of my arteries or my cholesterol.  It was utterly and completely the fault of Minetta Tavern.  Delicious bastards.

See, what had happened was, I was minding my own business one night, when a friend and I innocently sauntered up the bar at Minetta, with every intention of ordering and finishing the cote de beouf for two, along with a bottle of red wine, and the forearm-sized piece of bone marrow that came with it.  Unfortunately, we made the mistake of ordering an appetizer.  This was a stupid idea.  A very stupid idea.  No one in their right mind needs an appetizer before they eat two pounds of meat.  Unless that appetizer comes with a two for one coupon for an aortic flush.

Needless to say, we couldn't make it through the whole cote de beouf.  Tender and juicy and melt in your mouth and make you say HELLS YEAH, as it was, we were utterly defeated by it's size and prowess.  But I'm not a girl who easily accepts defeat.  I'm also not a girl who's afraid to carry around a doggie bag while she finishes up her night.

And so it was that there was cote de beouf for breakfast the next day.  That is also how I managed to have ribeye on the brain for quite some time.  So much so, that on a nasty rainy night, I thought I'd try my hand at cooking that luscious, delicious, perfectly marbled goodness myself.  I must say...I was nervous.  And this is not an emotion I'm very familiar with.

But screwing up a $30 piece of meat should make anyone feel like jerk.  Fortunately, there was a cast iron skillet on hand. And cast iron is your friend.  So, I followed all the usual rules: season it, sear it, roast it, rest it.  And my favorite rule: CUT IT....

Perfectly pink goodness.  Mmmmmm.  Is "butter it" a rule?  Because it should be.

Feeling Crabby

Like every good New Yorker, I'm an elitist about my town.  As far as I'm concerned, there is no better city...in the world.  Paris comes close.  Really, really, close.  But Parisians won't deliver me anything I want at 3am.  And they have that whole reservation system that prevents me from deciding, at the last minute, that I want to eat at the hottest restaurant in town, and showing up unannounced at 8pm to sweet talk my way into a table.

But maybe everyone's an elitist about the place they love.  This certainly holds true for a friend of mine who is undeniably in love with Maryland.  I've often wondered what was so great about such a tertiary place.  I guess they have DC.  Is it wrong that I can't think of DC with out thinking of Marion Barry.  Tee hee...damn shame...

But even I had to admit that Maryland rose a few ranks in my elitist mind, after we took a weekend trip to St. Michaels, MD.  Of course, it doesn't hurt that we did a little crab cracking that weekend.

Mmmmm...crab.

But after it took me a solid 5 minutes to crack open my first crab, I had a new appreciation for all those containers of jumbo lump crab meat that I'd previously thought were over-priced.  I'd charge $3 an ounce too if I had to do all that work.  Fortunately, as a native Marylander, my partner in crime was also a nearly professional crab cracker. 

Thankfully, this allowed me to focus my energy on dipping my pre-cracked crabmeat bites in clarified butter.  I know...it's a hard job, but somebody's got to do it.

I don't know if it was the clarified butter, or the pitcher of beer, or the sailboats floating by outside, but I think I felt my little New York heart grow three sizes that day.  Only the coldest heart wouldn't love a place with sunset sailing like this...

Proscuitto Panini

For years several friends and I have said that we'd love to see what would happen if we stuck a pillsbury biscuit in a waffle iron.  Fortunately, several things kept us from realizing this clearly ridiculous fantasy.  Cheif among them: not owning a waffle iron. 

But a friend's new move, and the target gift card burning a hole in my pocket, gave me just the excuse I needed to buy a waffle iron as a housewarming gift.  And a lazy friday afternoon gave us just the excuse we needed to spend the afternoon testing out a few tapas recipes that we'd been thinking about.

But if it's not good to grocery shop on an empty stomach, it's even worse to cook on an empty stomach.  None of the food would ever have made it to the table.  So first, a snack.  A waffle iron pressed, proscuitto filled snack. 

A little spread of mustard on fresh bread...a few slices of proscuitto and manchengo cheese...a little drizzle of olive oil...and pressssssssss......  And 3 minutes later....crispy toasty goodness.

Why we didn't buy a waffle iron years ago, I'll never know.  Actually, I do know.  It's because we'd like to continue to fit into our pants.  I guess we can always buy new pants...

4 Hour BS

Remember that time I said I was starting the 4 hour body?  Well, I did.  And I subsequently fell off the wagon...  Actually, I fell off, and my pant leg got stuck in one of the wheels, and then I was dragged behind the wagon for several yards.  It wasn't pretty.

But alas, spring and summer are moments away (as are all my allergies).  And I don't know about you, but I plan to do some island hopping this summer.  So in an effort to wear as teeny a bikini as possible, I'm on a mission to make sure that everything is appropriately small and tight.  And by "everything", I mean my thighs.  So I'll be trying this 4 hour business again. 

Just as a reminder, the general rules include: no carbs, no sugar, no dairy (except for eggs), and clearly, no fun.  I will say, it makes me get creative with my cooking.  This does not, however, prevent me from want to smack someone everytime I see them eating a cheeseburger.

But I was proud of myself on this one.  This is a truffled white bean puree with sauteed wild mushrooms and zucchini, topped with a 6 minute egg.  Truffle oil will cover a myriad of sins...including the substitution of a white bean puree, when what I really wanted was polenta.

But at least I still get that runny yolk.  One of my mostest favorite culinary things.  It makes me smile everytime...

A Holiday Weekend

I hope your holiday is spent seeing something beautiful and eating something delicious.

Sunday Funday

There are a lot of great brunch places in the city.  And I've eaten my way through plenty them, throwing back mimosas all along the way.  But sometimes, a girl has such specific cravings, that no one restaurant could possibly satisfy them all.  And so, you have to throw your own 6 course brunch party, just to make sure no stone is left unturned.  How do you kick off an eating bonanza like that?  With burrata and oven roasted truffled tomatoes...obviously.

And after such a light first course, the best thing to serve next is clearly bacon "steak".  Bacon "steak" is what happens when you ask your butcher to cut you 1 inch think slices of bacon, and then you slow roast it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.  It's kind of the best thing that happened to me all day that day.  And my apartment didn't smell half bad either.

But bacon "steak" doesn't like to be alone.  So I made a little chimichurri to drizzle on top.  You could drizzle this chichurri on a car tire and it would taste delicious. 



And then, for course 3, I accidentally made one of the best dishes I've had in a very long time.  I shouldn't take full credit, but...I will.  Technically, it was significantly helped by my dad's sage-cornbread dressing, which I make sure to freeze, and keep in reserve at all times.  This sunday, the dressing was surrounded by a dairy-free (because clearly this meal is healthy) oven-roasted mushroom soup.

There was no talking during that course.  Well, that's not completely true.  At first bite, someone did say "Are you serious with this?!"  And then we went back to eating in silence.  Becasuse sometimes, there are no words.  Fortunately, I soon found my words to announce: "The next course is ready". 

I would be disgusted with myself if it weren't so delicious.  And truth be told, we had to put on some music and have a 20 minute dance break before I served this course...just to make a little more stomach space.

And then, because I recently bought an ice cream maker...and because I made the mistake of telling my friends they could each select a "flavor of the week"...and because it was finally the week for my most calorically irresponsible friend to choose...we had cinnamon toast ice cream for dessert.

Hhhhh....I need a nap.  And potentially to do a juice cleanse for 3 days.

Chicken Pot Pie

Tomorrow I start the 4 hour body program.  So I have to say goodbye to carbs for 6 days.  DAMN IT!  But I'm not one for sad goodbyes.  And this seemed like one of the happiest ways I could think of to say goodbye to carbs.  Oh puff pastry...how I'll miss you!  I hope to see you again soon my love. 

Tiny Little Parfaits

I love little individual servings of things.  I think they're so sweet.  They make me feel like saying "Whaaaat?...  You made this for little ole ME?" (that's in a southern accent, by the way).  And so when I was planning a brunch for a friend of mine who was reluctantly leaving the west coast, to head back here to the best coast, that's just how I wanted her to feel.

So what better way to welcome home a friend on a Sunday afternoon, than with yummy food, too much champagne, and this song playing in the background.  I think I made a pretty good case for New York that afternoon.  And it may have even stuck.  That is until it started snowing this morning. Yeah...



Winter Citrus Salad

I had a really stupid idea last week.  I was still feeling a little post-holiday jiggle.  And in an effort to tighten that up, I thought I wanted to do a cleanse.  But what cleanse to do?  The thought of drinking fruit/vegetable juices for 5 days straight makes me want to throw up.  And the thought of the drinking maple syrup/cayenne pepper/lemon juice for 5 days makes me want to cry.  I NEED TO CHEW STUFF!

So I chose the least awful of the awful cleanse options I could think of.  I chose to eat a raw food diet for a week.  Of course this also included no alcohol (read: torture).  But at least I could still go out to dinner with friends and watch them drink.  Cause that's always fun.

So it was, that 3 nights into eating lots of shaved vegetable salads, and way too much avocado, I went to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants with a friend.  It was italian restaurant, known for their handmade fresh pastas.  Needless to say, the moment I sat at the table and saw a truffle oil laden mushroom ravioli sitting on the table next to me, I almost broke out into desperate hives.

But as delusion is the mother of imagined happiness, I convinced myself that ordering the winter citrus salad would be a delicious, and equally satisfying option.  Uh...I could not have been more wrong.  The disappointing thing is that I would have actually ordered that dish if I wasn't on a cleanse.  I love citrus fruit...I love shallot vinaigrette...and I LOVE avocado.  But somehow this dish went horribly wrong in it's execution.  So days later, when I was still feeling hungry and pissy, and thinking about how thoroughly that dinner did not hit the spot, I felt the need to make it at home.  Just to make sure that I wasn't wrong about how delicious it could have been if they had just done it the right way. 

I thought about adding bacon, cause you know...pork fat makes everything better.  But that seemed like cheating.  (Not that I'm above cheating.)  (Also, I think I just put the last of my double-cut bacon in a slow cooker with some lentils.)  Fortunately, even with out the bacon, it was pretty good.  And just what I wanted on a Sunday afternoon to sit right next to my frittata and my mimosa which I was FINALLY allowed to have to celebrate my week of stupid cleansing.