Events: June 2003 Archives
I enjoy 30-Minute Meals, the Food Network show with Rachael Ray, a lot (I rush home to watch the show when I can - it's on at 6). She's so easy and enthusiastic, and the recipes really are quick and practical. (I like Sara Moulton, too, but on one show, entitled One-Pot Meals, she dirtied a total of about 11 pots and pans making two dishes. That is not my idea of a one-pot meal.) So I was pretty excited when the food editor came over to invite me to a "Meet & Eat" with Rachael Ray at the Food Network studios.
She was exactly as she is on TV, giggly and friendly, but much smaller than I thought she'd be (a common experience for me; I once saw Rosie O'Donnell on the street and even she looked small to me). The food was Rachael's favorites from the show and was great: sausage-stuffed mushroom caps, skewers of ginger beef, chicken wrapped in pancetta with a balsamic reduction. It was a "Christmas in June" theme, to illustrate that you can entertain with quick recipes. I was a big geek and had her sign the cookbook they gave us. She gave us suggestions for where to eat on our upcoming trip to Orlando.
On the cookbook front, I tried Mark Bittman's Pork and Turnips and it was pretty good. Why have I never cooked with turnips? They have such an interesting flavor and are pretty hearty. I think Bittman's book may turn out to be a keeper.
I'll just tell you. Jacques Pepin. Who is so kind, even when he must be exhausted. Who always seems to be teaching. Whose show with his daughter, Claudine, was the first cooking show that my husband would sit down next to me to watch.
It was overcast and rainy, but the lines were still long at the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party that Todd and I went to yesterday. It was out in front of Blue Smoke, and 27th street was blocked off between Park Avenue and Lexington. Live jazz, crowds, smoke and some good barbecue.
The organizers had invited award-winning barbecuers from North Carolina, Illinois, even Nevada. We bought 15 tickets ($1 per ticket with each plate costing $6; the food booths wouldn't take cash) and started at the shortest line, sharing an order of Chipotle Chicken Wings and Potato Salad from Blue Smoke. The sauce was good, smokey and spicy, but the wings were kind of anemic. While we ate that, we stood in a long line in the rain for pork shoulder and baked beans made by Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Que from Alabama. The shredded pork, served on seeded buns, was the softest meat I've ever had, but it needed the sauce for flavor (which it definitely had).
Then I had to run back to the booth for more tickets while Todd stood in another long line so we could try the food from Kreuz Market from Lockhart, Texas. (These lines were such a tease, because they all snaked right up next to the smoke pits where the booth cooked the food you were standing in line to try.) I'm glad we did because the sausage with onions and sliced sweet n sour pickles on Sunshine white bread (I love it when what seems like a basic national packaged food becomes fundamental to a recipe for something fantastic) was the highlight of our day. The rain had stopped, so we squatted on the sidewalk to eat. Biting through the soft bread and then the crunchy skin of the spicy sausage, we listened to jazz with fellow urban dwellers willing to brave the rain for a bit of smoke on a city street.
It was overcast and rainy, but the lines were still long at the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party that Todd and I went to yesterday. It was out in front of Blue Smoke, and 27th street was blocked off between Park Avenue and Lexington. Live jazz, crowds, smoke and some good barbecue.
The organizers had invited award-winning barbecuers from North Carolina, Illinois, even Nevada. We bought 15 tickets ($1 per ticket with each plate costing $6; the food booths wouldn't take cash) and started at the shortest line, sharing an order of Chipotle Chicken Wings and Potato Salad from Blue Smoke. The sauce was good, smokey and spicy, but the wings were kind of anemic. While we ate that, we stood in a long line in the rain for pork shoulder and baked beans made by Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Que from Alabama. The shredded pork, served on seeded buns, was the softest meat I've ever had, but it needed the sauce for flavor (which it definitely had).
Then I had to run back to the booth for more tickets while Todd stood in another long line so we could try the food from Kreuz Market from Lockhart, Texas. (These lines were such a tease, because they all snaked right up next to the smoke pits where the booth cooked the food you were standing in line to try.) I'm glad we did because the sausage with onions and sliced sweet n sour pickles on Sunshine white bread (I love it when what seems like a basic national packaged food becomes fundamental to a recipe for something fantastic) was the highlight of our day. The rain had stopped, so we squatted on the sidewalk to eat. Biting through the soft bread and then the crunchy skin of the spicy sausage, we listened to jazz with fellow urban dwellers willing to brave the rain for a bit of smoke on a city street.
