Alton Brown’s Ginger Ale

A friend of mine just turned me on to Alton Brown’s recipe for ginger ale. And WOW, is it good… and easy.

I’ve made it 3 times now, and have my variation down, I think. I follow the recipe, with the exception of the following:

I use about twice the amount of fresh ginger, for some extra ZING, and I use the juice from 1 whole medium sized lemon. I also leave the bottle capped for about 5 days, which gives it a little more sparkle.

I’ve been trying to make mine taste more like Reed’s Ginger Beer, which I think is the best I’ve ever had. Find Alton’s recipe here.

The Perfect Burger, NY Times.

The burger has to be the most popular food going right now. And not only because it’s summertime. Everyone is trying to take claim of the title Best Burger, and that’s fine by me. My new favorite burger joint is 67 Burger, in Ft. Greene.

The NY Times is getting in on the action with a list of burgers that I want to try. They even have some recipes by some master chefs. Read the article here.

The Perfect Burger and All Its Parts, By JANE SIGAL. NY Times, 6/30/09

And Saveur is about to hit the shelves with an issue dedicated to this classic American staple.

Since it’s the 4th of July weekend, I’ll be at the park grilling some burgers. How about you? Send me your recommendations for the best burger, or your recipes for the Perfect Burger.

Happy Independence Day!

Artists open restaurant in Soho in 1971

I found this interesting article about a group of artists, including one of my favorites, Gordon Matta-Clark, who opened a restaurant called FOOD in Soho in 1971.
“The restaurant lasted not quite three years in its original incarnation, as the artists who cooked in it and who ran it, more as a utopian enterprise than a business, burned out or moved on. But many of the vaguely countercultural ideas fostered there — fresh and seasonal foods, a geographically catholic menu, a kitchen fully open to the dining room, cooking as a kind of performance — have now become so ingrained in restaurants in New York and other large cities that it is hard to remember a time when such a place would have seemed almost extraterrestrial…

From the beginning, the idea was to establish not only a kind of perpetual dinner party but also a food-based philanthropy that would employ and support struggling artists, the whole endeavor conceived by Matta-Clark as a living, breathing, steaming, pot-clanging artwork.”

When Meals Played the Muse, by Randy Kennedy. NYTimes, 2/21/07

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/dining/21soho.html

Another one of Mom’s Recipes. Fried Chicken.

I haven’t posted in a while, but here’s another classic from Mom’s Kitchen.

It May Be Cheap, but It’s Also Tasty – NY Times article

Okay, so I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted here, and for that I apologize. I want to share an article, by Jane Sigal, that I read in the NY Times today. She writes about the cheaper cuts of meat that you can buy at the supermarket, and shares some recipes that sound fantastic. If anybody tries one of them, drop me a line and let me know how it turns out.

Read the article here.

Mom’s Chili Recipe

I’m a little biased towards this dish, of course, since I did grow up on it. But Mom makes an awesome chili.

French Onion Soup. Warm, Cozy, Delicious.

okay, so a lot of these recipes are experiments for me too, and while the traditional way to do french onion soup, of course, is to broil the cheese on top, I didn’t have any oven-proof bowls. the recipe will still call for it though.

 

Mac and Cheese with Potatoes and Caramelized Onions

I modeled this recipe off of a dish at one of my favorite restaurants in NYC, Cafe Moto, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I don’t know how they make theirs’, but this is how I did mine. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, right?

I served it with a mixed green salad, tossed with my own dijon mustard vinaigrette. 

 

Pasta e Fagioli

Now, for my second attempt, Pasta e Fagioli (or as the Sicilians call it, pasta fa-zhōl).

As with many of my recipes, measurements are probably nowhere near exact. Experiment a little, why don’t ya?

New Year’s Day Black-eyed Peas and Cabbage

Being that it’s the new year, and this is my first post, it’s only appropriate that I post a recipe for my traditional new year’s day dish.

In the south, and there are variations of this legend around the world, you eat black-eyed peas and cabbage on New Year’s Day for good luck.

This year I hosted my 5th annual party to serve the dish, and I think I can say that I’ve just about perfected it. This is the first year I’ve made it with pork, but the vegetarian version is really good too.

Note: a lot of these dishes traditionally call for bacon and bacon fat, and while I use it in some dishes, I often substitute when possible, in consideration of my vegetarian friends (I was a vegetarian for nearly 7 years). I wouldn’t post the results if they weren’t delicious.