eat me drink me

Corny Squash Soup With Kale Chips

It’s squash and corn season at the farm, and in the last CSA batch I got a three lovely looking acorn and butternut squashes, a couple ears of sweet corn, and a bunch of kale.  As the temperature drops, nothing sounded finer then a rich bowl of soup. So, I combined these three things to make a sweet, salty, and savory brew perfect for the fall.

Ingredients:

• Bundle of kale
• 2 ears of corn Squash: 4 small acorn or 2 small acorn and a butternut, or 2 butternut
• 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• Dash of cinnamon
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Olive oil
• Butter or bacon fat
• Greek yogurt (optional)

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Peel the corn, wash the kale, and cut the squash in half and de-seed.
Spread a thin layer of olive oil on the flesh of the squash and lightly pepper and salt.
Place in the oven for about 40 minutes, or until the flesh yields easily to a fork.

Chop kale into to big chunks, toss with olive oil and sea salt.
Layer kale onto baking sheet; try not to overlap the leaves.
When squash is done place kale in the oven for 15 minutes, then flip over for another 15 minutes.

Scoop squash out of skin and chop up.
Dice onion and brown in soup pot with bacon fat, butter or olive oil.
Once onions are browned, add stock.
Bring to rolling boil.
Add squash to pot.
Simmer for about 15 minutes, then take an immersion blender and puree. You can also do this (carefully) in a blender or food processor.
Add spices to puréed soup.*

Slice the fresh corn off the cob and put kernels in the soup.
Let simmer for about 20 minutes.
Serve with crumpled kale chips on top and optional, a scoop of plain Greek-style yogurt.

*if soup seems thin, make a roux and add to pot.

On Tuesday night I hit up Brooklyn Bowl to see one of my favorite bands, Cibo Matto, which incidentally is a group dedicated to food. Cibo Matto in fact means “crazy food,” and Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori, the Japanese ladies behind the music, incorporate both ideas in their songs. For example, they played Birthday Cake, a funny song about a mom making her kid a really gross confection for his birthday.  They sing, “Extra sugar, extra salt, extra oil and MSG! Shut up and eat! Too bad, no bon appetit! Shut up and eat! You know my love is sweet!” There are other songs comparing love to sugar on a spoon and obsessing about beef jerky.

A Q&A with Hatori in the Village Voice touches on how the duo (with extra memeber here and there including Sean Lennon) started singing about food back in the mid-90s.

“Yuka and I both grew up in Japan and Japan is like that, we just love food. Especially Yuka, I feel like, wow, she is really into food! But me as well. It is almost precious, for both of us. Food and music.” (read the whole thing here)

I wanted to include one of my favorite songs, Artichoke, but couldn’t find a decent version of it so linking you to another fun song (that they also played at the show), Know Your Chicken. I was so glad they decided to tour after years apart. And based on the fun, lively show, it sounded like they still cook well together. My only regret, not getting a T-shirt.

Photo by Brian Everett of EVRT Studio

I know it’s been a while, heck, it’s been over 6 months since I have updated my food blog but I guess that’s how things go sometimes.  Of course I kept meaning to do it, but this article I read in Slate pushed me over the edge–I had to write about the devastating news that pickles might cause cancer.

I know, WTF.  Brian Palmer said this in his piece:

“Doctors have repeatedly attempted to substantiate the connection between pickled vegetables and cancer through clinical studies, with mixed results. But, taken as a whole, there does seem to be an association.”

Does this mean I should now avoid one of my favorite foods? True, pickles tend to be packed with sodium, which doctors have been saying for years that it’s  bad for us, but I have a hard time accepting that an innocent, tart, pickled vegetable could be evil. The most unfortunate part, Palmer suggests homemade pickled goods proved the worst kind, stating that mass produced gherkins don’t actually ferment, hence leaving out the step where microbes eat the vegetables sugar, turning it into alcohol, acids, and some (possible) cancer-causing carcinogens.

Ah! Instead of my life being over I am instead going to share with you my favorite pickles with you, if I’m damned you might as well be too.

Top 5 pickles: Rick’s Picks smokra’, McClure’s spicy pickles, Wheelhouse Pickles, house made pickles at The Vanderbilt and at Buttermilk Channel.

A couple years ago I stumbled on this recipe for “False Mahshi: Layered Swiss Chard, Beets, Rice, and Beef” in the New York Times.  In an article about the Iraqi New Year, Joan Nathan had included this recipe, adapted from Esperanza Basson.  Well, even that seemed a bit labor intensive so I cut it down into a super simple, healthy, and yummy version.

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Welcome to the 3^rd Annual NY Beer Craft Week. As you’ve probably guessed, this seven-day festival focuses on beer, those glorious, malty, hoppy, fizzy concoctions from small breweries all over the country. › Continue reading

On Friday, Patricio Sandoval’s Mercadito (all locations) is launching a program called “Tacos For Strength,” where each month they will feature a non-Mexican cooking chef to create a special taco.  The first taco is going to be done by Andrew Carmellini of Locanda Verde, and is an Italian style with a shrimp meatball, pasta, and a spicy sauce that ties it all together nicely.  A portion of the sales go to support Share Our Strength and their goal to end hunger among children by 2015.  So, not only do you get a tasty, unique taco to munch on, but it’s for a good cause.

Recently there has been an influx of Concord grapes in the market.  For two weeks in a row I have gotten them in my CSA and at first, had no idea what to do with them.  I didn’t want to make jam and they were too difficult to eat on their own, but something about the flavor cried out “baked goods!”  So, I made a pie, two actually.  The one your see here is the red Concord grape, lemon, and apple pie, and I also whipped up a white Concord grape, lemon, pear pie.  The former was way sweeter, but both hit the spot.  I especially like the buttery crumble crust, it really soaks up the sweetness of the fruit.

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If someone makes me a bacon suit, I will love you forever. Or, if you don’t want to break out your needle and thread, how about these other porcine themed vestments?

Bacon Slip-On Shoes

Bacon Makes Everything Better T-shirt

Bacon Tie

Bacon Belt

Bacon, Egg, and Toast Scarf

And for you vegetarians out there, let us not forget the watermelon shoes (still on my wish list).

It’s been a busy couple months of eating it up for the New York Press, especially in Brooklyn with one trek all the way up to 112th Street in Harlem. Here are the latest and greatest published reviews I have done.

Hot Bird in Fort Greene

“Hot Bird is owned by Frank Moe, the proprietor of Rope, Fort Greene’s popular art-student filled bar. Though Rope never hooked me in, Hot Bird is a different story. The bar gets its name from the famous chicken place that used to shell out roasted birds and ribs until it closed in the early 1990s, and while the restaurant doesn’t remain, the bright yellow signs that still deck a few building walls off of Vanderbilt and Atlantic avenues have become iconic ads. One, which towers over the bar’s spacious front yard, only enhances the new bar’s appeal.” (read the rest here)

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I haven’t seen Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World yet, but it’s definitely on my list.  In preparation for the movie, my roommate and I started reading the comics and were pleasantly surprised by how good they are, and how much food makes the scene.  Scott and Ramona eat noodles together, the band meets up at a diner called Sneaky Dee’s, there are burgers after the beach, breakfasts of eggs and bacon, and a drunken tequila night.  I can’t wait to see how the movie compares, or, like many campy action films,  if they neglect the most basic need, eating. › Continue reading