Sweetheart and I camped right along the extreme tidal flats up where Maine becomes Canada and the water rises and falls 25 feet with every hi-lo tide. We were in Cobscook Bay, “cobscook” being the Passamaquoddy tribal word for “boiling tides”. Part of the allure of our state park campsite was that at low tide “adventurous campers” (said the park literature) were permitted to go out into the expansive mud flats and get very dirty in the search for heretofore unknown to me softshell clams. Clams so fat and juicy and salty-sweet they can’t even close their shells all the way. We arrived just at low tide and ventured out to secure our dinners, while all the while the incredible fast and furious waters chased us back to land. We pulled a bounty, put them in fresh water to let them filter out their grit while we prepared the fire and tended to our sore fingers. When the coals were jewels, we banked and stoked and roasted the clams over the new open flames. Their salty juices hissed and spit, we melted butter in an enamel coffee cup by setting it at the edge of the fire, and spooned from the jar of cocktail sauce we picked up in Lubec (it was the easternmost cocktail sauce of the United States). Washed all down with dark brown beer it was a joyous supper indeed. And for dessert? The berries we had picked along the hiking trail that morning. It may seem simple to say, but it’s a certain city epiphany: how honest and good it feels to catch, pick, or harvest the food you eat yourself. To provide. When the fruits of your labors are actual fruits, foraged in the open, free in every sense.
Category: Delicious
The Secret’s Out: Fish Sandwich Edition
Everyone who knows me well knows what I’m about to tell you. It’s one of my few deep, dark secrets… not mentioned at the food Co-op, kept under wraps at yoga, quieted up and hushed down until certain forces combine and champagne collides with the morning: I love McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwiches. Like, LOVE. A Filet-O-Fish (formerly #9 on the combo list, now #11- which I have learned in order to avoid the ignominy of actually having to say “I’ll have the Filet-O-Fish, please” in line and have other patrons look at me like I’m gross) is not only the absolute best cure for a hangover, its strange and incredible squareness is at once crispy, salty, greasy, miraculous, and, yes, a little fishy. I have been shamed by this. Now, it seems: NO LONGER! We are not alone. See above. This, dear ones, is the cheese fish sandwich from Laketrout in Williamsburg (Brooklyn). It is an homage to both the classic MacDo’s Filet-O-Fish and the orange-drink Baltimore fish sandwiches of the chef’s youth: a perfectly executed crispy square of fish topped with a sideways square of cellophane cheese and what I can only imagine is the worlds most delectable tartar sauce. Pandemic! WMD! The secret’s out, thank goodness.
This image from the absolutely incredible Fish Sandwich centerfold in New York Magazine’s 2012 cheap eats issue. Read em and weep (for joy).
Lil’ Harvest
Our little garden is chugging along—presiding over the (spotty) new lawn our landlord insisted on planting on the hottest day of the year—and weathering the stifling New York City heat (made even more mouth-breathingly hot by the hundreds of AC butts panting out the back of everyone’s brownstone, pointed at our zucchinis) surprisingly well. We pulled this ‘lil harvest on Sunday- two sweet knobby cukes, one lone, long red basque sweet pepper, two small banana peppers, and a mess of basil. Our eyes are trained on our one reddish tomato (one!), and anticipate its ripeness by the end of the week. Three meals worth of bounty isn’t too much- but it’s pretty darn good.
Open Faced
Under the right circumstances, nothing could be better than a cucumber sandwich. This version: open faced on homemade bread, kewpie mayonnaise, salt and pepper, perfection in simplicity.
Bounty…
Oh the Bounteous Spread! Yellow squash, magda squash, cucumbers, young red onions, spring onions, new turnips, bright pink beets, savoy cabbage, new sweet corn… and Veuve Clicquot. All of nature’s good and honest yield, about to be consumed by Mama’n’Me.
everything but the bubbly came from Amy’s Garden– Mama’s amazing organic CSA (and, yes, of course she also got the flower share).
Early Summer Offerings
Today I took my first cup of cold brew coffee out to the backyard to survey our small domain and water our little container garden and I was positively struck with early summer wonder. First off: the simple joys of homemade cold brew are not to be taken lightly and it is ever-so-much more enjoyable than I thought possible to drink it with a cuppow mason jar top. Right now there is a ton of (fabulous-yet-frustrating) construction going on in the backyard as our awesome landlord Bernie and his yappy yorkie Zeus put up new fencing, plant big lovely boxwoods, lay down a patio, occasionally spar at our window with Nipsey the Cat, and make a big mess everywhere including in the cucumber pots. In the midst of the construction chaos, ground strewn with power tools and trash, our little garden is still thriving. Is this a New York parable? Our Early Girls are putting out their first little green maters, late breaking broccoli is rearing its head, zucchinis are blossoming, nasturtiums are up, all of the little hot peppers are putting forth blossoms (the big one already has two peppers on it!), the first strawberries are almost ready to eat, and all of the herbs are thriving. It’s always the little things that matter most.
Glorious Weekend
In New York, the literal distance between friends- the few blocks separating a single neighborhood- can be the difference between weekly wine dates and once-a-year-in-review catch ups. You live in Cobble Hill? Are you free next September? You live in Clinton Hill? Come over for cocktails this very minute. Le sigh. It can be daunting. BUT- after much karma, zen real estate, and wise choices in love and loft we find ourselves with four very good households of friends all living within a five minute walk of each other. This seems a New York miracle. Yes, Virginia, Brooklyn sometimes feels like Virginia. Ever since I read this post from Oh Happy Day!- a progressive dinner carousing from arrondissment to arrondissment through the streets of Paris- I’ve been dying to try it. A Progressive Dinner, in short, moves from house to house with each stop serving a different course of a meal. A Moveable Feast of Brooklyn intuition. I’m thinking that the whole shebang will probably look and feel like the above picture from Comet in Moominland– which Eben and I both read as children and made mental notes that we wanted our lives to be like this- as he agrees: so far so good. I’ll let you know how it goes. Cheers to good friends and a lovely weekend to you!
ps. I also made these for tonight. They are so absurd and wonderful!
pps. Love and congratulations to Dear Rav, tying il nodo in Tuscany this very night. My heart is full for you.
Moomin image from here, naturally.
Tiny Bubbles
Nothing could make me thirstier than seeing this legitimate last-of-the-old-guard seltzer delivery man parked on our block. Now, after Sandro ruined Sweetheart’s relationship with the legendary Walter Beckerman in the great Brooklyn unreturned bottle dispute of 2006, our hand has been forced and we’ve gone the way of the soda stream. But, in the same way my heart sings when I get my knives sharpened by the knife grinder, there is somewhat of a New York romance with the seltzer man. May he live long and forever deliver bubbles to the outer boroughs.
Aim for the Rainbow
These are the hand drying instructions at one of our all-time favorite restaurants, Grand Sichuan in Bay Ridge. Since the chengdu spicy and aromatic fish is so hot and sichuan pepper tingly, and it is our wont to have water, tea, tsingtao, and coke classic on the table at all times, I’ve seen this a lot. I love it every time. I take the instructions as follows:
Throw an arrow from your wrist at a rainbow while wearing short shorts.
I’m gearing up to do a bunch of projects this weekend (involving paint, gravel, chalk, mulch, and beer) I can’t wait to share!
Mother Mayo
Two things. 1) a store has opened up four blocks from my house that ONLY SELLS MAYONNAISE and 2) Last Sunday they had their grand opening and were giving away deviled eggs AND champagne for free and somehow I didn’t hear about it until today. Mayonnaise something wrong with that.
Empire Mayonnaise makes mayonnaise from scratch on site in their tiny storefront using exotic formulations and flavors- black garlic, white truffle, or preserved lemon here, emu or ostrich eggs in lieu of standard chicken eggs there. My love of mayo is no secret, but this could be dangerous.
Empire Mayonnaise
564 Vanderbilt Ave.
(btw. Dean and Bergen)
images from the source.
Feather By Feather 