eat me drink me

With all the kale that we have been getting in our CSA, sometimes it’s hard to come up with new things to do with it. I find a simple kale salad is a great, healthy way to use up greens. Plus, it can be done quickly.  One of my favorites is shredded kale tossed with red wine vinegar and mixed with roasted pecans, raw onion, and slivers of a sharp cheddar cheese.

Take one bunch of kale, clean, dry, and cut into thin stipes.  Toss with about a quarter-cup red wine vinegar and let settle for about an hour to three hours. Fill bowls with kale (serves about four to five people) and top with finely sliced onion slices, seven to ten nuts and slivers of cheese. Serve!

For those of you who don’t know, I am now a contributing editor for Tea Magazine. That’s right, it’s a magazine dedicated solely to tea. I love it, though now I have piles and piles of tea. So please, stop over for a cup or 12.

The magazine isn’t online, you have to subscribe, which is a practice I whole-heartedly agree with. Still, I decided to attach a PDF of my big, two-page feature that came out in the last issue, I hope you like it! Also, here are some other pieces I have written about regarding tea.

Tea Magazine: Modern Tea in Tea Magazine

Food Republic: Coffee and Tea, Together at Last

Bites Blog: Celebrate Tea Month With These Eight Unusual Blends

Eat Me Drink Me: Lavender Earl Grey Yogurt

Yeah, I know, this is one cute cookie. When my Belgium friend brought it to me I did what any respectable girl does witha bunny sweet–I bit the ears off. It was immediately worth it given the cookie’s light lemon notes and mellow sugar kiss, which came from the bright frosting. While Paul brought me the goodie, it originally came from  Cookie Road, the bakery-cafe he works at in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Here, owner Aneta Szot hand-paints her delicious sweets with gentle, loving care, making each one unique. I know I felt love when I was given it, and even more while I devoured the adorable treat.

Once again I am excited to say whiskey does more for you than just create a buzz while giving you a tasty beverage. This article by Lifehacker delves into a how to help a sore throat with this wonderful tipple. I like this plan, and, if you just keep drinking it, you probably won’t care that your throat is sore.

On a related note, want to know the best way to fill up a flask when you are funnel-less? JN Urbanski shares her fool proof method in this article she posted on her blog, which also has many pieces relating to food and the economy and is worth a read.

Pi Pie by Cakespy

Here are some of my latest published pieces. I have been writing for Zagat and MSNBC quite a bit. Check them out!

Celebrate Pi Day With Pie: Who knew math could be so tasty? Today is Pi Day, the time when nerds rejoice because the date, 3-14, lines up to the infinite number pi, otherwise known as 3.14159265… And, just as there are thousands of numbers in pi, there are also thousands of types of pie, and thousands of excuses to eat pie…(continue reading)

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Often people ask me where to go for dinner as I have  become the person you go to when going out. Instead of listing off some of my picks willy-nilly, I am going to start posting them in segments.

This one deals with cheap eats and was inspired by my friend Jenny Neal who had me on her WIOX radio show The Economy of…, where we talked about how to eat out on a budget in New York.  I would post it here but can’t seem to get it small enough, so stayed tuned on that front!

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Recently I became a contributing editor for the newly launched Tea: A Magazine (first issue debutes on 3/15). I am beyond excited. One of my jobs for this publication is to review teas simular to how I did for a special MSNBC piece on unusual teas–the best part, I get to try a lot of tea.

This also means people send me samples like Revolution did. Because I am thinking so much about this beverage, it was only natural that some how it would become incorporated into my cooking. Such was the case while I was making yogurt (yes, making yogurt! I got this awesome incubator for it for Christmas). At the same time I was brewing a cup of Revolution’s Earl Grey with lavender tea and on a whim, I threw a tea bag into the pot of milk.

The result is a slightly floral, light brown yogurt that, while it doesn’t taste like a cup of the stuff, has enough hint of black tea to make it unique. For this, the recipe is simple: When you boil the milk for the yogurt drop in three or four tea bags (I am sure this would work with other flavors) and let it seep until you are ready to pour. That’s it!

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.

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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.