WHAT DOES FRANK BRUNI LOOK LIKE??

I'm sure you've all wondered at some point what restaurant reviewers look like. Maybe not so much cause it would change your perception of the reviews they write, but more because you wonder if you'll ever spot them while dining at some restaurant. At any rate, I do wonder what Frank Bruni looks like. But my question will be answered soon, when Jeffrey Chodorow (you may remember him as owner of the ill fated Roccos on the TV show, The Restaurant) publishes Frank's pic on his new blog. (A search on Google images failed to produce any satisfactory results).

What the hell am I talking about? Well, if you stay tuned to the NY restaurant gossip scene (via blogs such as Eater and Grub Street. My God what did we do before blogs?) you would certainly have heard of the feud that has exploded between Bruni and Chodorow. Basically Frank Bruni wrote a scathing review of Chodorow's new steak restaurant (which sounds like a ridiculous concept) and gave it zero stars. Chodorow reacted by taking out a full page ad in the NYTimes dining section refuting the ad and pointing out why Bruni is unqualified to be a restaurant critic. There's a particularly good summary of it all here. Why is this amusing to me? Because I find it hilarious that two pompous, arrogant men are duking it out in the media and all over the blogosphere. Chowdorow has been the main agressor. He's started his own blog where he vows to follow Bruni around and give his own review of a restaurant after Bruni has reviewed it. And there are rumors that he's banned Bruni from all his restaurants, promising the first employee to spot Bruni a 2 person vacation to the Bahamas. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA.

Ok, enough of that. You can read about it on your own. On a sadder note, I'm always surprised at how sad it makes me when I've heard that certain businesses have closed. Maybe it's because now that I own my own business, I know how hard it is. But I also understand why a business would close. For example, I was truly heart broken when I found out that Petit 4 in Philadelphia had closed last summer. It was the place where I started in this biz. And while reading Eater, I discovered that two restaurants that I'd visited in NY have now closed. The first was Honmura An, a well known and totally successful resturant. Ruth Reichl gave them 3 stars. But the owner just wanted to return to Japan to run his family's restaurants there. A closing that touched me more was that of the Wild Lily Tea Room. This was such a beautiful, lovely Japanese tea house. When you went in, it was like you'd left the craziness of NY and entertained a quiet, serene space. They even had a mini koi pond inside. After 6 years, the business closed recently. And even though I hadn't been there in years, just knowing that it's not there makes me kinda sad.

Perhaps it's being comfortable and not wanting change. The presence of these places created a feeling of familiarity and their loss reminds me of how quickly things change. I've thought about the what if's of closing my own shop. To be honest, I wouldn't be very sad about it. I think I've gained so much out of having my store. The things I've learned, the friends I've made, the places I've visited. To be honest, I'm still quite young and could really do anything and I'm excited about all the possbilities. The almost two years of struggle have been worth it, just because this was how I met Leah and Tom. I love my industry and I have no plans on leaving it. So when I think about closing my store, the things the makes me saddest is thinking about my customers. I think about the loss that they'll feel if my store closes, because they've lost something comfortable and familiar. And where will they go to get there chocolate? I guess they'll just have to acknowledge it and move on, just like I've done.

A COZY DINNER AT TEN TABLES

I've wanted to go to Ten Tables for a long time now. And now that I think about it, I don't know why it ever took me so long to get down there. It's not far, just in JP. It's not expensive; a meal there costs about the same as at Petit Robert or Eastern Standard. (which admittedly I don't go to all the time, but at least once a month). I think it was the perception of the difficulty of acquiring a reservation, which proved to be false. With Huong in town, I thought it was a good opportunity to try the place out, so last Friday, I called to make a reservation. I've done this a few times now, and normally I get shot down, but the standard protocol is that a machine picks up, you tell them when you want a reservation and they call you back. This time, a person actually picked up. So I made a reservation for Wednesday night at 8pm. Wednesday night is when they have their prix fixe $25 menu. I got to talking to they guy on the phone and it turns out I was talking to the chef. And he saw the caller ID and knew that I was calling from my store. Turns out he's been here before, so that was nice to hear. I don't know why, but it's always kinda redeeming knowing that people from your industry are actually interested in your store.

Ok, so the reservation was made. And about 2 seconds after I hung up, I realized that Wednesday night was the only week of the night I wasn't free. I was teaching yet another class. (I'm averaging about 2 a week these days. Which is great for the income, but it gets repetitive and tiring). Tom was able to change the reservation pretty easily, and we made it for Monday at 7. So the three of us headed down to JP and got a great parking space right in front. I knew the space would be small, but it wasn't as tiny as I had assumed. There really are just 10 tables, with an open kitchen taking up half the space and the dining area taking up the other half. I did take my camera out, ready for some photos for the blog, but the place was so small and intimate I didn't want my flash going off and bothering everyone. So we'll be using our imaginations today.

We were seated at a table right next to the kitchen. It's not the smallest kitchen I've ever seen. And that size kitchen, with a few more staff members, could certainly serve a much larger dining room, but it was nice, having this cozy neighborhood place. There were 2 servers for the entire dining room, which I felt was a good number, and they were pretty decent and friendly, though quite inattentive by the end of the meal. I also enjoyed seeing what was happening in the kitchen. They started us off with generous plates of bread and an amuse bouche- a cold celery soup with grapefruit granite. I got to see them assembling them and I thought they were quite nice, the contrast of sweet citrus and celery.

So we placed our orders. The menu was actually pretty small. They keep things fresh and seasonal. I knew that every night, they have a prix fixe vegetarian menu for $25. You get 4 courses, but they won't tell you what you'll be getting. It's up to the chef. I thought about ordering that, but after viewing the menu and knowing what a picky eater I am, I decided to play it safe and order things that I'd definitely eat. Huong was more adventureous and ordered that. Meawhile, Tom knew he wanted meat. He got a chorizo appetizer and a steak. I got a simple salad and a chicken entree.

The main problem I had at dinner was the pacing of the meal. I felt it was a bit slow and that they allowed way to much time between each course. The restaurant wasn't packed and we could see the chefs working, so they were never truly slammed. That was the main thing I thought they could work on. Meanwhile, we got our appetizers. I enjoyed the simplicity of my salad, with its blood oranges, shavings of reggiano and marcona almonds. Tom liked his chorizo, though would have preferred that it be grilled on all sides, rather than just one. And Huong got a carrot ginger soup, which she also enjoyed.

Watching the chefs works, you could tell that they were able to work in this tight space with a lot of planning and mis en place before service. Many dish components had been made before hand, and just needed to be plated, like the many beet salads I was being made. Oh, and that's what Huong got for a second course. Actually, I would've ordered the beet salad, had it not been served on a bed of blue cheese. (I'm not a fan of stinky cheeses). Huong thought it was allright, she's not a big fan of beets.

There was a bit of a wait before our entrees arrived. And I could tell the chefs weren't really working on anything else, so I didn't particularly understand that, but when they arrived, all three were excellently prepared. Tom thought his steak, though not a very expensive cut of meat, was cooked perfectly. I felt the same way about my chicken and enjoyed the fingerling potatoes and broccoli rabe that it came with. Huong got potato gnocchi served with root veggies and covered with cheese. She enjoyed that a lot, too. Around the time we had our entrees, we watched as one of the waiters departed and only one waiter was left to take care of the dining room. As I said earlier, the dining room wasn't packed, maybe 70% full, but I don't think it was great that there was only one waiter left.

After we finished our entrees, we had to wait a while before we were able to order dessert. There was only one dessert I'd eat, which was a Chocolate Marquise cake. Huong didn't get to pick her dessert, which I felt was a little silly. There was only one dessert on the menu she didn't want, a rice pudding, but of course, that's what she'd end up getting. Tom just got some tea, but he ended up having the rice pudding. Huong and I shared the chocolate cake. But before that, we were presented with little homemade chocolate chips cookies with orange that the chef had just made and little shots of milk on the side. It was a very sweet touch. The chocolate cake arrived it was dense and delicious. We actually couldn't finish it all, since we were so full by this point. But the chef came over and introduced himself. I totally recognized him and we chatted a bit. He's a very nice guy, so I look foward to going back. But after he left, the dinner began to drag. It was approaching 9, our desserts had been sitting untouched before us with the ice cream melting into a little puddle, and yet, the waiter was MIA. Or rather, he was standing 5 feet from us, with his back to us and he talked to the guys in the kitchen. (It wasn't busy in the restaurant by this point).

Finally, Tom had to ask for our check. It ended up being a 2.5 hour dinner, which is longer than it had to be, had the waiter been a bit more attentive. Being next to the kitchen it had gotten quite warm and kinda uncomfortable, and I was ready to stand up. Overall, though, I had a great meal. I loved the casual, warm environment. I loved that there were locals there and that I could see stacks of cookbooks in the kitchen, like Mario Batali's book and the Zuni Cafe cookbook. Even when I went down to the bathroom, there were copies of a mushroom guidebook and Sunday Suppers at Lucques. I will certainly be having dinner here again in the future and welcome anyone who'll be in Boston to join.

ANOTHER VISIT TO CLEAR FLOUR

It's snowing outside. Which means I'm stuck inside at my store and no one is shopping. I mean no one. I've had one customer today. So I'm also deeply bored. These are the days you want to declare a snow day and head home. If I weren't training the new employee today, you'd bet that's exactly what I'd do. But at least I brought lots of snacks to work to keep me entertained. This weekend I spent a lot of time working, but at least I had all of Sunday off to run errands. And have brunch with Leah. We went to Shangri-la in Belmont for dim sum. I hadn't been there in some time, and it was nice to have familiar comfort food. And I also really like their scallion pancakes.

After brunch, I took a nap and then did the typical Sunday stuff: laundry, food shopping and what has now become a weekend ritual, a visit to Clear Flour Bakery. As I said last week, we tried out the staples first, but were now ready to try some more unique bread. I got 2 almond macaroons, plus a loaf of bread stuffed with sundried tomatoes, a demi French and the best thing of all, a black sesame bread stick with herbed butter. We also grabbed a bread schedule. Some stuff they only make on certain days of the week. So that black sesame bread stick is only made on Saturdays and Sundays. I think it's nice, so if you go often, you can keep being surprised. Unfortunately when we got home, we noticed that the girl had forgotten our demi French, which I was planning on serving with a lentil soup I'd made for dinner.

I'd been watching Ina last week when I decided to make her lentil soup with sausage. It turned out pretty well, but while I was making it, I kept feeling it was lacking in something. I ended up tossing in some rosemary, which helped give the soup more body. And the addition of red wine vinegar at the end really did help change the flavor, as did the accompanying grated cheese and olive oil. So don't forget those. I used kielbasa sausage, as she suggested, but Tom pointed out that he likes some heat and an andouille sausage may have worked better. I couldn't agree more. I also like additional heat. Lastly, this recipe is enormous. I halved it and still have a ton of soup left, but that's ok, cause that's what I'm having for lunch today.

WHY I SHOULD STOP GOING TO TABERNA DE HARO

Most of you know that I live right around the corner from Taberna de Haro. It's not my favorite tapas place in Boston, but it's decent eough and if you order carefully, you can avoid most of the pitfalls on the menu. Think simple. Think vegetables. Think meats that don't need to be cooked. (like ham) We don't go very often, and if we do, it's earlier in the evening because you can get a seat quickly. (This place is perenially packed after 7.)

Last night I visited with a few of my female friends. Though it was crowded, we got a seat after a 20 minute wait, which wasn't too bad. However, one thing that I will always say is that no amount of excellent, delicious food can make up for bad service. Excellent service can make up for mediocre, ok, food, but it just doesn't work the other way around. Last night at Taberna de Haro, we got fairly decent food and pretty shoddy service. I won't be going back again.

It's funny, cause I just finished reading Ruth Reichl's book, Garlic and Sapphires, which I highly recommend to anyone who reads the NYTimes dining section. As the head food critic at the NYTimes, she had to come up with different disguise so she wouldn't be recognized when she was visiting different restaurants (you can bet that Frank Bruni does not go through the same trouble. He lives for the attention he gets from restaurant owners and chefs. But I digress.) She writes a lot about how depending on how she was disguised, she would received different levels of service. Now, I work in the food industry and I assess my customers, too. Everyone does, but I also try really hard to treat everyone well. After all, I'm often surprised that people visit my shop at all. Last night, we got horrendous service by a waiter who deemed us unworthy of his attention.

The waiter brought out our mens and water pretty quickly. He reeled off the specials, and when it came to drinks, we didn't order anyway. None of us really drink and two of us were driving. He then went off and we didn't see him again- for the rest of the night. Apparently, he decided it was more worth his while to shower attention on the 4-top and 2-top that came in after us. The 4-top had ordered sangria and I could see him lavishing his time on them, explaining the specials and making suggestions for ordering. The 2-top had ordered a bottle of wine. I even made eye contact with him at one point, but we continued to be ignored, sitting at our table with our menus folded in front of us, just waiting for some to take our order. We waited for 20 minutes until another waitress, who wasn't even in charge of our table, finally took pity on us, and noticed that we were sitting there with an empty table. She took our order. I was fuming at this point. My friends were hungry and had it not been for their presence, I would've walked out a long time ago.

What also made me mad was that this is a small restaurant, and I could see the owner of the restaurant circulating about, serving dishes and contributing to the neglect of our table. Thank goodness for the one waitress who took pity on us. I vaguely felt bad for her, since she was handling our table in addition to her other tables, but service continued to be non-stellar. She was concious of the fact that the kitchen had forgotten one of our dishes, so she rushed to get that order in, but I felt it was unnecessary to give us the dessert menu, while the entrees were still on the table. (Especially since no one was waiting for a table) And to hand us our check as we turned down dessert.

As for the food, it was OK, as usual, because basically stuck with my careful ordering. (The only place we wandered off was with an order of octopus, which I didn't try, but was told was chewy)

So thanks Taberna de Haro, for making us feel unwelcome and unwanted and then rushing us out the door. That'll be the last time I dine with you.

THE MINIMALIST

Every Wednesday the Dining Section of the NYTimes comes out. And every week I read it religiously. One of my favorite writers is Mark Bittman, aka the Minimalist. And even though I always read his column and last week watched a series of his videos (he's actually quite entertaining and funny), I'd never made any of his recipes. But last week, he made chicken stuffed thighs, and since I had all the ingredients to make it (minus the chicken thighs, which we picked up later at the store), I decided it'd be a yummy dish to make for dinner.

First, here's a picture of something fun. It's a pre peeled packet of garlic that Tom bought at the supermarket. They're quite handy since you don't have to do all the work of peeling the garlic and I like that they come in little packets so they don't all go bad so quickly. It is quite wasteful, though, with all the plastic and such, so I'll stick to my regular heads of garlic once we run out.

I had spinach rather than swiss chard, so I decided to skip the step of boiling the spinach since I knew it'd cook rather quickly anyway. So first I sauteed the pinenuts with the minced garlic.

What I should've done was toasted the pinenuts first, because the garlic ended up cooking a lot faster than the pinenuts and I was forced to add in the spinach just to stop the garlic from burning too much. But it cooked down fairly quickly and I took it off the heat to cool. Meanwhile, I set out to pound the chicken thighs. It wasn't too hard, though kinda tedious. And by the time I was done, the spinach mixture had cooled down enough to handle.
Mark Bittman makes this look really easy in his video, but in actuality, rolling up those thighs wasn't the easiest thing. The stuffing would pop out, even though I tried not to overstuff them. And they were slippery, so piercing them with the toothpicks was also kinda hard. I had to end up rerolling at least two of them. But this is what they look like when they're done.Next came the cooking, which was pretty easy. You just sear them on one side for five minutes, flip them over for another few minutes, and then add some liquid and let it cook down. He suggest that you use sherry, but I substituted chicken stock instead.The entire thing came out quite well and I served it with a side of steamed cauliflower. When I reduced the liquid in the pan and spooned it over everything, it tasted even better. So I'd definitely make this recipe again. It wasn't too hard and I can see how you could have a whole variety of stuffings. Plus it looks kinda fancy, even though it's easy to make. And I guess that's what's so great about the recipes by the Minimalist. I'll certainly be trying out a few more in the future.

A DAY OF DINING IN BROOKLINE

It's been a long time since I've reviewed anything. With the cold weather and the business of Valentine's Day, it was hard to motivate and visit new places. It's always easier just to go to the old favorites in the neighborhood. However, this past Saturday was warm and sunny. Warm being in the 30s. So we decided to head out and try a new place. We'd spotted Zenna Noodle Bar in Coolidge Corner the week before and vowed to return and try it out and that's what we did. We were having an early lunch, it was only 11:30 when we arrived, and the place was completely empty (something we had noticed the week earlier). The decor was nice, and fairly modern, but I was a little put off by the Muzak that was blasting from the speakers.

So we were given menus, which was kinda gimicky in its organizaiton. They were going for a theme of the five elements, so salads were listed as "earth", noodles in soup were "water, panfried noodles were "fire". You get the idea. I thought it was unnecessary. The menu is more like a pan-Asian menu, but I found it had a lot of Vietnamese influence. After debating for a while, Tom ordered the Vietnamese Crepe. I think that's what it was. The menu isn't online, so you'll have to bear with me here. At any rate, here it is.We both enjoyed it a lot. It was stuffed with fresh veggies and big pieces of shrimp and it had a pleasant crunch to the outside, while remaining soft on the inside. I thought it could've used more salt, but the flavor was greatly improved by the addition of basil, which it's served with.

Then I ordered what basically amounted to wonton soup, but in this case, the shrimp dumplings didn't contain any pork, so I could actually eat them. After adding two spoonfuls of hot sauce, I thought it was very good. I wasn't the biggest fan of the shrimp dumplings, the texture of the interior was a bit off, but the large fresh shrimp and veggies in the soup made up for it. Tom ordered their signature dish, which was basically a chicken pho. He also enjoyed it. Even though it was much more expensive than what you'd get at a place like Pho Pasteur, it was also filled with nice fresh veggies, so that was a great addition.
Overall we both enjoyed Zenna. By the time we'd left, the place still hadn't filled up. Only 2 tables had arrived, but I think if people start to discover it, they'll find a well priced yummy noodle place in the neighborhood. And to finish, Tom wanted me to show you this paper rose they made with the straw wrapper that came on his Coke.After lunch we decided to visit Clear Flour Bakery. Now, I'd been to Clear Flour before, but it was years ago, when I first arrived in Boston. It's well known for being one of the best bakeries in town, but it's a little hidden, on a side street off of Comm Ave. in Brighton. The actual retail space is tiny. They use most of the space for production (which is quite big) but there was a steady flow of people going in and out. Once we entered the space, we were overwhelmed with all the options. There were so many things we wanted to try, but Tom opted for 2 loaves: one baguette and one sourdough loaf. Tom loves really good bread, so he wanted to see how well Clear Flour made the basics before starting in on any fancy stuff. Meanwhile, I got an almond macaroon. I'm a big fan of the almond macaroon. Crunchy on the outside, but soft and chewy on the inside, the ones at Clear Flour were extra big and super delicious. I only bought one cause I wasn't sure how good it'd be, but I'll be sure to buy extra the next time I'm there. Tom also really enjoyed the bread, and we managed to finish off both loaves in 2 days. It went really well with the Potato Leek soup that I made for dinner

I had gotten leeks in my most recent Boston Organic's order, so using this recipe from Epicurious, I set out to make my soup. First I had to clean the leeks, which took a little while since leeks have so much sand in them. After that, I chopped up my potatoes, and that was pretty much it. I first sauteed the leeks. Take note that the recipe tells you not to brown them. That's where I screwed up. I was being inattentive and before I knew it, the leeks had browned. I immediately poured in chicken stock, but the damage had been done, my soup would now be a brownish color, rather than the classic white. Even the addition of the potatoes wouldn't help much.

I let the soup cook for about 30 minutes, waiting for the potatoes go soft. Then I blended them up with my hand mixer and tried it out. It was bland. Or missing something. Which is where I got a little carried away and added four cloves of garlic. 2 would've been fine, but with the four, the entire thing now tasted like garlic soup. Not always a bad thing but certainly wasn't what I was going for. The good thing was that the soup went wonderfully with the bread. Next time I'll add the garlic at the beginning and hopefully it'll have more flavor.

So that's it! A Saturday of dining in Brookline. Today I'm going to try out a recipe by Mark Bittman, the minimalist. And I'll let you all know how that goes.

ARE YOU AN ALPHA OR A BETA?

The NYTimes had an article today about alpha and beta cooks in the kitchen. I think it's a great article. Clearly, I'm usually the alpha in the kitchen. But I've really tried to tone down my critical tendencies over the years. Yes, there are those that now refuse to cook with me. I once made my sister a lovely heirloom tomato salad, lightly seasoned with an aged balsalmic vinegar and fresh basil and she promptly topped it with garlic croutons. I got annoyed at her for that one. I have a tendency to take command of a cooking situation if I see a lot of chaos. I'm also very protective of my cooking equipment. And most people know to stay out of the kitchen when I'm cooking (more bodies just get in the way). But I really have gotten better. Just ask Katie. When she still lived in Boston we cooked together all the time. We had some misses, but mainly came up with great stuff. I still make cream of broccoli soup all the time. And I really miss having a cooking buddy.

Also, I really love it when people cook for me. Normally, I'm the cook at home, but I truly appreciate it when Tom occasionally cooks for me after I've spent 10 hours at the store. I'm excited cause tonight he's gonna make my favorite turkey osso bucco from Mario Batali's recipe. So the end conclusion is, please don't afraid to cook for me! And if you ever cook with me, I'll try to be patient and nice.

ALL STAR SANDWICH BAR REVISITED

It's been a while since the last time I went to the All Star Sandwich bar; at least 6 months. So yesterday, after visiting the animation exhibit at the Museum of Science, Tom and I headed over with a few friends for some sandwiches. Not surprisingly, it was crowded as usual, but we were able to miss the large crowd that followed us and snagged a table fairly quickly.

Now, the last time we visited All Star, it was still pretty new and they were working out the kinks. Upon our return, we'd noticed that they cut down the menu a lot. Almost in half. Many of those great sandwiches that were there before weren't on the menu anymore, and many of the sandwiches we enjoyed had become daily specials. My usual, the Rachel, could now only be ordered on Mondays. (Po boys can be ordered on Friday) Since we were there on a Sunday, the special was a Monte Cristo. Since nothing else on the menu really thrilled me, I ended up getting that (minus the ham, but with more turkey) and an order of fries. Our orders came up pretty quickly, and I think everyone enjoyed their sandwiches. I liked my fries, which were crispy and well salted, but my sandwich was a huge disappointment. It was really almost tasteless and the bread was soggy. I truly longed for the crunchy, sweet, cheesy, saltiness of the Rachel and was so sad that I couldn't order one. I ended up only finishing half my sandwich and eating fries.

So would I go back to All Star? I suppose if it were a Monday and I could order the Rachel. Otherwise, the staples on their new menu aren't all that thrilling, and you'll still be waiting a long time to get in. Plus parking in the area sucks. So I guess I'll be hoping that they return the Rachel back to it's rightful place on the regular menu, or start looking for another sandwich place.

WHAT'S BECOME OF FOODTV

As many of you know, I spend the majority of the day surfing the net and reading articles at the NYTimes and various blogs while pretending to work. (And really, who doesn't? I know that many of you are procrastinating right now and reading my blog.) Sometimes I do get work done. Like on Mondays. When I pay bills. But I digress. Here I am sitting at work today and visiting one of my favorites sites, Serious Eats, when I found a link to an article written on Michael Ruhlman's blog (which I know about but almost never read. I should read it more) by Anthony Bourdain. He's guest blogging on Ruhlman's blogging and gives his own rundown on the current roster of FoodTV personalities. The post is HILARIOUS. So here it is.

So as many of you have read (in the New York Times, New Yorker and all over) or have observed for yourself, FoodTV programming is in serious decline. They gotten rid of most of the serious professional chefs and replaced them with idiots like Sandra Lee and Rachel Ray. These days, I mainly watch for reruns of the Barefoot Contessa (though they seem to be rerunning the same 10 episodes), Alton Brown, Ace of Cakes (I like the fact that he's running a business) and the occasional Iron Chef America Matchup. There's rarely anything on after 7:30pm that's worth watching. So I think Bourdain summarizes the decline well. If you go on to read the comments section (which is super long, there are like 300 comments and I probably read 10), I think this sums up my current opinion of FoodTV perfectly:

"Maybe it's me, but when I turn on the FOOD NETWORK, I'd kind of like to see some cooking. But it seems that most of their evening shows are about food, but don't always show cooking. Sure, there's Emeril, but how long before he's usurped by Queen Yum-O? The evening shows are more about entertainment (food competitions, etc.) than about actually learning about food (aside from Alton) or cooking. If you want to see actual cooking shows, you gotta watch during the day ... but drat the luck, many of us actually WORK during the day and can't watch. I really miss some of the early days of the network when there were ACTUAL cooks doing ACTUAL cooking on the network, and you could actually LEARN something about food and cooking. Now it's just a spectatator sport ... oh wait, Iron Chef is entirely a spectator sport! The American version isn't too bad, but it does lack the supreme cheesiness of the Japanese version."

WHEN YOU'RE SICK, REACH FOR A COOKIE

As most of you know, I've got a cold. This one seems to be sticking around, though I think I had my worst day yesterday and hopefully am on the mend. Of course Tom's now sick, and he's just on his first day. At any rate, to cheer myself up from this awful cold, I baked myself some cookies last night. And I've now discovered that those Martha Stewart chocolate chip cookies have become my all time favorite cookies to bake. They're easy, I always have all the ingredients on hand, and dammit, they are yummy. I left the butter out a bit too long yesterday, and it became super super soft. But that just made the cookies even crispier than before! So when you're feeling sick, bake yourself up a batch of these cookies and you'll start feeling better right away.

BOSTON RESTAURANT WEEK

That's right people, Boston Winter Restaurant Week is upon us. This year it'll be held March 5-9. Much like last year, many of the top restaurants aren't participating in this restaurant week (they normally participate in the summer one). But here's the list of restaurants anyway. I've already made one dinner reservation for Union. I hope that they'll serve us the individual corn breads in a skillet that Leah's told me so much about. I like using Open Table to make reservations when possible, but just so you all know, if you can't get the reservation at the time and place you want via Open Table, call the restaurant directly. They can be more helpful in guiding you to a better date/time. I'm also aiming for a reservation at Chez Henri, but their reservation lines don't open until 4pm, so I'll keep you posted.

A WEEKEND OF UNHEALTHY EATING

This weekend I totally ruined any improvements in eating habits by having a weekend full of unhealthy meals and snacks. I blame this in part on the cold I currently have. I have just been too tired and unmotivated to cook, despite a fridge full of veggies. The second part would be the Superbowl, which we celebrated by eating more unhealthy snacks.

On Saturday night we started off our weekend of unhealthy eats by visiting O'Leary's, the neighborhood Irish pub. We go to O'Leary's a few times a year, but I've never written about it. (I think it's cause I never take my camera there). I've always liked the very casual, neighborhoody vibe there. It really feels like all the regulars know each other, much more likeable than the Washington Square Tavern. And it's fun to watch a game there if you don't wanna be stuck at home watching it alone. So Tom and I headed over there for a quick dinner before spending the night in Randolph. I always like the O'Leary's bread basket, with its selection of homemade breads and biscuits. And I ordered my usual basket of chicken fingers.

This is like one of the simplest things that a bar could make. Take the chicken fingers out, fry them in oil and serve. Yet places still manage to screw them up. I like the ones at O'Leary's. They're hot and not greasy at all. Tom ordered the seafood platter, which was a bunch of different types of fried seafood.
I think we were both surprised at how well cooked everything was. The scallops were still really juicy on the interior and I think Tom enjoyed the clam strips. I liked the cocktail sauce the most, but the onion rings weren't bad, either.

After spending the evening in Randolph, we decided to get breakfast before heading back into the city. Tom decided to take me to Ihop, which I was fine with because I hadn't been there in at least 4 years. I have always liked their selection of syrups, even though I always use the normal pancake syrup.After perusing the menu, I decided to get a Belgian waffleAnd a side of hash browns.
I enjoyed both of my dishes, but the waffles could've been crispier. Basically they were pretty good, but not as good as the waffles and potatoes that I'd had at the Unicorn? Pegasus? Diner back in Staten Island.

Meanwhile, Tom got a chicken fajita omlette, which actually looked pretty scary to me.And a stack of the whole wheat pancakes. I'd also considered ordering the same pancakes before I got my waffle, but I'm glad I didn't. Even though I liked the flavor and added texture of the nuts and stuff, the texture of the pancake itself wasn't so great. It was actually kinda floppy and sad. However, Tom did like his pancakes and said the fajita omlette was pretty good.
After breakfast, we headed back to Boston, where Tom made me spend the whole day indoors (due to the cold). But that was fine since we needed to start preparing for the Superbowl party at my house. It was just a small gathering. Tom prepared a chicken peanut soup. I made some white bean dip with homemade pita chips. The pita chips were incredibly easy to make, so I may make them again in the future. Leah made pigs in a blanket (she made me ones with chicken hot dogs that were totally yummy) and she brought over onion dip with Pringles, a childhood favorite of mine that I haven't had in years. And Sue Min brought over some mini quiches and samosas, which we never got to.

After half heartedly watching the game and stuffing myself with junk food, I finished off my meal with a fat free Fudgsicle, which I finally found at the super market in Randolph. Too bad I can't find these at Johnnies, it'd make life so much easier. So after this weekend of unhealthy eats, I pledge that this week I'll be making a greater effort to eat better. Right after I finish eating this chicken hot dog in pastry. yum!

MORE BAKING

Yuck. I have another winter cold. Not a bad one, but the ones that make you functional, yet still tired. Thank God for Dayquil. I don't know what I'd do without it. Except that it does make me kinda loopy. For some reason, I keep thinking it's Friday when I know it's Thursday. Perhaps it's just wishful thinking. When I get sick, I either completely lose my appetite and shed a few pounds (the good sick) or I am constantly hungry. (the bad sick). I'm currently hungry. I told you guys that when I get bored, I start baking, which is what I did last night. And due to the hungry-sick, I've already consumed two cookies and it's not even noon yet.

So even though I knew I was coming down with a cold last night, there was nothing to watch on TV. More than that, I knew I'd be at work all day today and I needed to have snacks for my car ride up to Manchester tonight (I'm teaching a class up there) so I willed myself to bake some cookies. I once again turned to my Martha Stewart Baking Handbook (Maybe I'll make my way through this before the end of the year...but I was thinking, at least Katie has someone testing out all the recipes before she gets to them) and I decided to bake the Chocolate Brownie Cookies since I didn't have enough butter for any other recipe and this one only required 6 tablespoons rather than 2 sticks.

So I set about making my cookies, which was pretty easy. And you can see them below.Before I stuck them into the oven, I formed the dough into balls and smooshed them down a little. Unfortunately, they didn't spread all that much, so the first batch turned out to be a little round and fat. I improved the second batch by smooshing them down more, but my fingerprints were stiff left in the cookies after baking.

After tasting the cookies, I decided they weren't the best cookies ever. I mean, they're ok, but they turned out to be a little dry and just weren't as tasty as the Chocolate Chunk Cookies. Plus, since I used high percentage chocolate, they weren't that sweet. I thought this would be offset by the cup of sugar that went into the recipe, but next time, I'll aim for a lower percentage chocolate. Or dip these guys in melted chocolate. At any rate, I'll continue baking my way through this book and will let you know the results of each recipe.

Oh, and as a totally unrelated side note, since I know that only my friends really read this, Tim Gunn is making a guest appearance on Ugly Betty tonight. So don't forget to watch!

TAIWAN CAFE
As I had mentioned in the previous post, Tom and I headed down to Chinatown on Tuesday night. I needed a break from the routine of cooking at home and I was also craving duck. (If you remember from last year, I have duck cravings when it gets cold. But I have it more under control this year.) We were lucky enough to land a parking space really quickly and headed over to Hong Kong Cafe. Unfortunately, as we opened the door, we were told that they were closing. (Apparently they were closing early for some Chinese New Year thing (which I really don't get cause Chinese New Year is on February 18th this year.) So I had to make a quick decision on where to go instead, and we headed over to the often reliable Taiwan Cafe.

It'd been almost a year since I'd been to Taiwan Cafe and my stupid duck craving clouded my judgment. I really should've stuck with the more traditional Taiwanese dishes, but instead, I ordered a Taiwanese soy sauce duck. Tom ordered everything else, and we shared.

The first dish out was the fish cake.I was hoping for some homemade fish cakes, but these guys were just the frozen kind fried up. Not to say that they tasted bad, but I could've made it at home. Also, they were so greasy that the dipping sauce couldn't adhere to the actual fish cake.Next out and the best dish of the night was some bok choy with shitake mushrooms. It was very fresh and simple.Then came my duck. As I said, under normal circumstances I never would've ordered it, but I needed to satisfy my craving! Unfortunately this was not a dish that customers order very often, so i t was clear that the duck had been refrigerated and just microwaved before they served it. So the meet was tough and not very flavorful and really very disappointing. I figured I'd take it home and turn it into duck porridge. Lastly, Tom had ordered a deep fried soft shell crab. It wasn't too bad, but the crab had clearly been frozen. (Soft shell crab season is in the summer after all). The freezing had caused the crabs to acquire this soft, gummy texture, which wasn't helped by the sheer amount of batter that coated it. Overall, dinner at Taiwan Cafe wasn't fantastic. But I've eaten here before and know it can be better. We just didn't do a very good job at ordering. It's kinda like at Victoria's. They have great authentic Chinese food, but if you ever ordered the Chinese American dishes, they taste awful. I'll do a better job ordering next time, but then again, hopefully Hong Kong Cafe will actually be open next time.

Just as a side bar, after we headed back to the car, I noticed that there are a bunch of "Resident Parking from 6pm-8am" signs up that had never been there before. As we headed back home, I noticed that they were all over Chinatown. So just as a warning, it'll be even harder to find parking in Chinatown. Luckily, we didn't get a ticket, but I'll have to be more aware next time.