Before I introduce this week’s “Poll of the Week”, I have great news to share with everyone.
Little Scarlet’s recipe for Oatmeal Raisin Cookies has been selected for today’s Top 9 on Foodbuzz! This is a pretty big deal for Little Scarlet, as the Top 9 is selected every day from “the best of 2,367 posts from the Foodbuzz Community, as chosen by [Foodbuzz] editors and users.” Head over to Foodbuzz and check it out!
Between this exciting news and being able to successfully exchange my incinerated pie pan, I’ve been dreaming about all the great things I could make - if I had a kitchen equipped with neat gadgets! This week’s “Poll of the Week” asks if you could add one fun (& useful!) kitchen gadget to your arsenal, which would it be?
Personally, I feel torn between all of them, so please let me know why you picked the one you did!
Monday, August 31, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Permanent Brunch, 6th St & 1st Ave
Permanent Brunch
$$
***
212.533.3315
95 First Avenue
http://www.permanentbrunch.com/
Brunch is usually an excuse to eat sweet breakfast foods like pancakes and waffles long into the afternoon, while indulging in day-time drinking with Mimosas and Bloody Marys. Women recount last week’s gossip to their friends, and there's often more than one tired-looking boy with a girl in yesterday's party dress. Brunch places are on every corner in New York, so there’s a fierce competition for customers, but Permanent Brunch really strikes a chord with New York's brunch-goers.
Most of the guys I know have never been to brunch without their families or girlfriends, but they all rave about “this all-day brunch place in the East Village with a bacon menu – a menu of just bacon!!” Permanent Brunch (PB) just opened a few weeks ago, and while they aren’t offering their full menu yet, what they have so far is terrific!
Most brunches are breakfast foods eaten during lunch time, but PB takes the breakfast/lunch elements of “br-unch” literally, serving up a delicious blend of breakfast favorites with lunch-time ingredients. The menu items here are almost entirely on the savory side - waffles are topped with chicken, mushrooms, and pearl onions, and a syrup-less french toast is stuffed with salty ham and cheese.
Scott and I showed up around 12h30 and a long line had already formed, but a table for two opened up in about five minutes. It took quite a bit longer before we got our food, or maybe it just seemed that way since I was so hungry. Either way, I've never spent so much time ogling my neighbors’ plates! In addition to the Pan-Roasted Chicken & Waffle and the Ham & Cheese Stuffed French Toast, we had a side of duck-fat fingerling potatoes, a biscuit with PB-made jam and butter, and two of the five bacons from PB’s Artisanal Bacon Bar.
The chicken’s crispy skin gives way to juicy meat, and the waffle serves as a great vessel for the mushroom’s woodsy sauce. An order of french toast sandwiches smoked ham and an earthy, aged cheese between thick slices of egg-battered bread. Both are their own delicious, salty heaven, but if you're looking for the sweet breakfast versions, you're going to be disappointed.
The fingerling potatoes are good, but sadly lacking in delicious duck-fat flavor - they could easily have been fried in butter and I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. The biscuit and jam are great, though. Today’s jam is a thick-cut orange marmalade, and the biscuit takes on two very different flavors, depending on whether you add butter or marmalade.
Of the two bacons, New Braunfel’s Smokehouse peppered bacon was my favorite. Its thick rashers are crispy and chewy, with a nice smoky flavor and peppery after-taste. The Hungarian Smoked Kolozvari bacon tastes like kielbasa and instantly brought back memories of the Hungarian hard-boiled eggs and beet horseradish my family serves with kielbasa every Easter.
Permanent Brunch has a great concept going for it, and I’m excited for their full menu to be available. If they would just add pie to the menu, I’d have a new weekend tradition!
**Update: CLOSED. Permanent Brunch reopens as “Steak Shoppe”, May 2010**
$$
***
212.533.3315
95 First Avenue
http://www.permanentbrunch.com/
Brunch is usually an excuse to eat sweet breakfast foods like pancakes and waffles long into the afternoon, while indulging in day-time drinking with Mimosas and Bloody Marys. Women recount last week’s gossip to their friends, and there's often more than one tired-looking boy with a girl in yesterday's party dress. Brunch places are on every corner in New York, so there’s a fierce competition for customers, but Permanent Brunch really strikes a chord with New York's brunch-goers.
Most of the guys I know have never been to brunch without their families or girlfriends, but they all rave about “this all-day brunch place in the East Village with a bacon menu – a menu of just bacon!!” Permanent Brunch (PB) just opened a few weeks ago, and while they aren’t offering their full menu yet, what they have so far is terrific!
Most brunches are breakfast foods eaten during lunch time, but PB takes the breakfast/lunch elements of “br-unch” literally, serving up a delicious blend of breakfast favorites with lunch-time ingredients. The menu items here are almost entirely on the savory side - waffles are topped with chicken, mushrooms, and pearl onions, and a syrup-less french toast is stuffed with salty ham and cheese.
Scott and I showed up around 12h30 and a long line had already formed, but a table for two opened up in about five minutes. It took quite a bit longer before we got our food, or maybe it just seemed that way since I was so hungry. Either way, I've never spent so much time ogling my neighbors’ plates! In addition to the Pan-Roasted Chicken & Waffle and the Ham & Cheese Stuffed French Toast, we had a side of duck-fat fingerling potatoes, a biscuit with PB-made jam and butter, and two of the five bacons from PB’s Artisanal Bacon Bar.
The chicken’s crispy skin gives way to juicy meat, and the waffle serves as a great vessel for the mushroom’s woodsy sauce. An order of french toast sandwiches smoked ham and an earthy, aged cheese between thick slices of egg-battered bread. Both are their own delicious, salty heaven, but if you're looking for the sweet breakfast versions, you're going to be disappointed.
The fingerling potatoes are good, but sadly lacking in delicious duck-fat flavor - they could easily have been fried in butter and I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. The biscuit and jam are great, though. Today’s jam is a thick-cut orange marmalade, and the biscuit takes on two very different flavors, depending on whether you add butter or marmalade.
Of the two bacons, New Braunfel’s Smokehouse peppered bacon was my favorite. Its thick rashers are crispy and chewy, with a nice smoky flavor and peppery after-taste. The Hungarian Smoked Kolozvari bacon tastes like kielbasa and instantly brought back memories of the Hungarian hard-boiled eggs and beet horseradish my family serves with kielbasa every Easter.
Permanent Brunch has a great concept going for it, and I’m excited for their full menu to be available. If they would just add pie to the menu, I’d have a new weekend tradition!
**Update: CLOSED. Permanent Brunch reopens as “Steak Shoppe”, May 2010**
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
After my disastrously failed attempt to make key lime pie, I've been craving something sweet for the past few days - but what to make? Obviously I can't make a pie since my pie pan is in a million pieces, but there are cakes, cookies, breads.... In the end, I decided to make oatmeal raisin cookies - although I made about a dozen cookies without raisins, since Scott doesn't like them.
This recipe is very easy to make, and lends itself well to variations. For example, this recipe doesn't call for any nuts, but adding ½ cup chopped walnuts along with the raisins would be a great addition. I like to soak the raisins for 15-30 minutes before adding them to the dough - it makes the cookies moister, and the raisins less prone to drying out. If you wanted a more adult (and less “traditional”) version, I'd recommend soaking the raisins in dark rum!
Directions:
¾ cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 large egg at room temperature
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ cups old-fashioned rolled oats
¾ cup (4 ounces) raisins
This recipe is very easy to make, and lends itself well to variations. For example, this recipe doesn't call for any nuts, but adding ½ cup chopped walnuts along with the raisins would be a great addition. I like to soak the raisins for 15-30 minutes before adding them to the dough - it makes the cookies moister, and the raisins less prone to drying out. If you wanted a more adult (and less “traditional”) version, I'd recommend soaking the raisins in dark rum!
Directions:
¾ cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 large egg at room temperature
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ cups old-fashioned rolled oats
¾ cup (4 ounces) raisins
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. In another bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer until soft and creamy. Then beat in both sugars, followed by the egg and vanilla.
- With the mixer on the lowest speed, slowly incorporate the dry mixture. Then add the oats in three portions. Mix in the raisins by hand.*
- Coat baking sheet with a light layer of non-stick spray (e.g., PAM) and place the dough on the sheet (about 1 tbsp dough per cookie), about 2 inches apart. Bake for about 10 minutes, and then pay close attention for another 2-4 minutes - take cookies out when they are a golden-brown color, or longer if you want them crispier.
- Remove cookies from tray and cool on a cooling rack. Once completely cooled, cookies can be kept in an airtight container for a little over a week.
*if using walnuts, add them along with the raisins and mix by hand
Monday, August 24, 2009
Café St. Bart’s, 50th St & Park Ave
Café St. Bart’s
$$$
**
212.593.3333
109 E. 50th St
http://www.insideparknyc.com/
The first time I went to Café St. Bart’s, adjacent to St. Bartholomew’s Church, was almost four years ago. I felt so grown up, having lunch outside on Park Avenue with my father and one of his business colleagues for my first professional informational interview. The meeting went well, but years later what I remember most is that Café St. Bart’s served the most amazing steak au poivre, with perfect french fries.
This past weekend, Scott suggested Café St. Bart’s for lunch and I was so excited to go back a second time! I tried to find their phone number to see if we needed reservations (you don’t) or if there is a dress code (there isn’t), but it turns out “Café St. Bart’s” doesn’t technically exist anymore - it’s now “Inside Park at St. Bart’s”, with seating available on their outdoor terrace.
The menu looks amazing, full of sandwiches, pizettes, and main courses that make the most of seasonal ingredients. My second visit was good, but didn’t quite live up to the first. Scott and I shared an order of Black Lentil and Bacon Soup, which reminded me of being 7 years old and watching Robin Hood on a rainy day, eating Campbell’s soup - nice for a trip down memory lane, but disappointing from such a lauded restaurant. My Cuban sandwich was almost fantastic - capers and shaved carrots nestled between layers of roasted pork, ham, and Swiss cheese... notice anything missing? The Cuban sandwich had no pickle! Just a pickle spear on the side, the same as you’d get with a grilled cheese. I enjoyed my pork-on-pork sandwich, but a Cuban really needs the briny, sourness of a pickle to counteract the fatty sweetness of the pork and ham. Needless to say, I was disappointed.
Scott’s tempura-fried brook trout sandwich, though, looked beautiful and tasted fantastic. A brioche bun holds two, big trout fillets dipped in tempura batter and lightly fried, with arugula, caramelized onions, and chili mayonnaise. It came with a lovely heirloom tomato salad - Cherokee purples, red cherry, and yellow grape tomatoes are mixed with basil, radishes, and chives for a salad that smells like it came straight from the farm.
I’d still go back, butCafé St. Bart’s Inside Park at St. Bart’s doesn’t hold that same place in my little-girl version of being a “grown up”.
$$$
**
212.593.3333
109 E. 50th St
http://www.insideparknyc.com/
The first time I went to Café St. Bart’s, adjacent to St. Bartholomew’s Church, was almost four years ago. I felt so grown up, having lunch outside on Park Avenue with my father and one of his business colleagues for my first professional informational interview. The meeting went well, but years later what I remember most is that Café St. Bart’s served the most amazing steak au poivre, with perfect french fries.
This past weekend, Scott suggested Café St. Bart’s for lunch and I was so excited to go back a second time! I tried to find their phone number to see if we needed reservations (you don’t) or if there is a dress code (there isn’t), but it turns out “Café St. Bart’s” doesn’t technically exist anymore - it’s now “Inside Park at St. Bart’s”, with seating available on their outdoor terrace.
The menu looks amazing, full of sandwiches, pizettes, and main courses that make the most of seasonal ingredients. My second visit was good, but didn’t quite live up to the first. Scott and I shared an order of Black Lentil and Bacon Soup, which reminded me of being 7 years old and watching Robin Hood on a rainy day, eating Campbell’s soup - nice for a trip down memory lane, but disappointing from such a lauded restaurant. My Cuban sandwich was almost fantastic - capers and shaved carrots nestled between layers of roasted pork, ham, and Swiss cheese... notice anything missing? The Cuban sandwich had no pickle! Just a pickle spear on the side, the same as you’d get with a grilled cheese. I enjoyed my pork-on-pork sandwich, but a Cuban really needs the briny, sourness of a pickle to counteract the fatty sweetness of the pork and ham. Needless to say, I was disappointed.
Scott’s tempura-fried brook trout sandwich, though, looked beautiful and tasted fantastic. A brioche bun holds two, big trout fillets dipped in tempura batter and lightly fried, with arugula, caramelized onions, and chili mayonnaise. It came with a lovely heirloom tomato salad - Cherokee purples, red cherry, and yellow grape tomatoes are mixed with basil, radishes, and chives for a salad that smells like it came straight from the farm.
I’d still go back, but
Poll of the Week - 8.24.2009
Scott always says that if he could only eat one food every day for the rest of his life, it would be pasta. I’ve always felt like this is kind of cheating because you can do so much with “pasta” that it’s not really like choosing just one food - it’s kind of like saying “meat” or “vegetables”. Cheating, right? It’s not a bad idea, though - I mean, my last two posts have been pasta recipes, so maybe he’s on the right track.
For this week’s “Poll of the Week”, I want to hear your thoughts on the subject: what’s your favorite kind of pasta?
And actually, since this topic is kind of broad, this week, we’re going to take the poll one step further - please write in and tell me about your favorite way to eat the pasta you selected! If you have a particular recipe you’d like to see Little Scarlet run, let me know - I’d love to give it a try.
For this week’s “Poll of the Week”, I want to hear your thoughts on the subject: what’s your favorite kind of pasta?
And actually, since this topic is kind of broad, this week, we’re going to take the poll one step further - please write in and tell me about your favorite way to eat the pasta you selected! If you have a particular recipe you’d like to see Little Scarlet run, let me know - I’d love to give it a try.
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