The mystery of the rainbow parasol

I was finally able to stop that guy who rides his bike around Williamsburg with the rainbow parasol, merengue music, and the shiny steel cart hitched to the back. Actually, I didn’t stop him… he was waiting at a red light at S. 4th and Driggs. It turns out he sells Dominican chicharrón for $4 [...]

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Androopy’s Visit

Andrew came to town for 4 short nights and one of the first places we went to was Brighton Beach in search of Kazakh food (he’s leaving for KZ in August). We didn’t find anything but Andrew did find this fantastic Uyghur place called Cafe Kashkar at 1141 Brighton Beach Avenue. I posted [...]

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Mamoncillos, Seoul Station, Stogo, and Kamui Den

Friday was my last night with Aida and Carlos so I took them and Erica out to Kamui Den at 186 Avenue A for shabu shabu.  We had planned to eat at 6:30 because I needed to get to bed super early but they didn’t open until 7 so Erica and I went over to [...]

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In summer, the song sings itself.

Brunch at Taco Bite in Brooklyn on Saturday was nutritious.  Erica and I both got the Super Combo Poblano for $7.95.  It came with black beans instead of the refried beans listed in the menu.
We went to Fette Sau in Brooklyn with Courtney, her brother, Erica, and John on Friday and they had pork tails [...]

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water-flavored seahorse and maraschino cherry raviolo

Andrew was over yesterday and we got out the sodium alginate and calcium chloride for another round of spherification experiments.  Almost everything was a disaster — I tried to spherify this Jamaican scotch bonnet hot sauce but it disintegrated as soon as it hit the bath.  Near the end of the session, we gelled some [...]

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Mofongo in curried scallion cream

My friend Kristen took me to Mariscos Veracruzanos in Grand Rapids, Michigan last week.  When we first drove by it looked like an abandoned building. Then we saw there was a sandwich board on the pavement advertising shrimp tamales so we parked and went in.  There were a lot of things on the menu that I didn’t recognize.  [...]

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Potato Kale Soup Cook Off (part 2)

Henry’s was such a disappointment!  I was excited to try something sophisticated and celiac-friendly but I got served something that tasted like stone soup. 
Here is my submission for the potato kale soup contest:
olive oil
1 white onion
1 large black radish (Raphanus niger), peeled and halved
2 small potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 salsify root, peeled and cubed
1 smoked pork [...]

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Cuy

Ever since I saw this painting of the Last Supper that is on display in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo in Cusco, Peru, I’ve been dying to taste cuy, Andean style guinea pig. 

I considered just picking one up at PetSmart but I was worried about what they might have been injected with and I didn’t [...]

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Chạo tôm / prawn mousse on sugar cane

The fresh sugar cane at Joe Randazzo’s wasn’t moldy this week so I bought four sticks of it.  I’ve been wanting to make these grilled shrimp mousse things every day for the past two weeks (ever since we bought The Complete Vietnamese Cookbook at Borders for $7.99).

I didn’t follow the recipe and so the mousse didn’t stick to the sugar [...]

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Cocido Madrileño

I’ve been thinking about how much I miss cocido ever since I left Madrid in May.  They used to serve it at the school I worked at on special occasions.  The stewed meats were arranged in a colorful spectrum — from the opalescent pork belly to the black morcilla.
It was the morcilla, a Spanish blood [...]

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