The curious case of an unparalleled fruit

The Grapefruit has a spectacularly complex personality.  It is unapologetic in its imperfect, enigmatic state of flavor.  It is simultaneously sweet, sour and bitter – yet its taste remains disarmingly balanced and curiously pleasant.  It is neither small nor big, its skin neither thick nor thin, smooth nor bumpy.  Underneath its sunset-gradient peel of pinks, oranges, and yellows is a punchy, vibrant, uniform hue of ruby-pink.  It is even consumed in a uniquely ritualistic fashion, both functionally and aesthetically – sliced along its equator, glittering triangles exposed, dislodged and consumed – one small wedge after another, before the pink walls are scraped down and the flimsy shell is pressed together to release the last remaining stream of tart juice onto the serrated spoon (which was, of course, created expressly for said occasion).   Somewhere in the history of evolution, the Grapefruit emerged as a fine, respectable, sophisticated member of the citrus family, and is surely the envy of many a one-note fruit.

Photo: ehow.com

To Judgey:

Yeah, that’s right– I bought a whole pumpkin pie.  And yeah, I live alone– so yeah, it’s for myself.  And you know what else? It tastes really good and I don’t have to share it.

I’m drowning…throw me a freakin’ strawberry pancake and it better be fluffy

I don’t have a picture for this one…you’ll see that this wasn’t exactly a kodak moment…and actually, it’s not really about strawberry pancakes per se…

The plan was to maximize my last full day at home – starting with a legitimate breakfast in the actual morning hours – no waking up at 10 and lingering over coffee for 2 hours and missing my window to have a distinctly morning meal, like oh…i don’t know, maybe fluffy strawberry pancakes? When we were little, Uhmma used to make us pancakes from mixes (Korean “haht-cake” mix or Bisquick if she was in the mood to pay extra at the black market) – so she was surprised and excited when I told her that I’d be whipping up a batch from scratch.

Things started going downhill the night before, when I got into one of my hyper-sensitive moods and I ended up picking a fight with Uhmma over a harmless comment.  I went to bed feeling like an 8-year old again, frustrated by my immature reaction to our tiff – tears, lump in throat, sniffling and all.  I told myself I’d feel better when I woke up in the morning – something Uhmma always used to say to us when we were little.  Morning came and I opened my eyes, taking a few moments to let my mood register  (do you do that? wake up and try to figure out what mood you’re in based on the last few things you were thinking about before you drifted off to sleep?)…unfortunately, my crappy mood hadn’t left me.  I felt sluggish, annoyed, and un-perky.  My last day at home was off to an unpromising start.

But I was determined to stick to the plan – so I started googling recipes for “fluffy pancakes with egg whites,” knowing that this was an often used technique to get ultra-light and fluffy results.  I found a Mark Bittman recipe, and being a fan, started gathering ingredients and heating up the grill.  Halfway through the recipe I noticed that there was no leavening agent listed, which struck me as odd, but I figured the egg whites were meant to provide all the lift that was needed.  I tested a baby droplet on the grill, and it seemed to fluff up nicely.  So as I began ladling the batter onto the grill, I called out to Uhmma that we’d soon be ready to eat.  I started to notice that my pancakes were barely puffing up, and when I flipped them over it was clear that we would be eating flat grilled disks for breakfast.  I was thoroughly annoyed and wanting to start over, but it seemed too late – Uhmma was already setting up the tray with sliced watermelon in a crystal dish (like we had discussed the day before, pre-tiff) and diluting honey with a bit of water, to stand in for syrup.  The table on the deck was all set up, and I unceremoniously brought over the platter of miserable looking non-pancakes.  Uhmma, in typical glass-half-full fashion, insisted that they looked great.

I barely answered.  I was pissed.  The morning was ruined.  I cut into my double stack (which, in its flat state was not even close to the height of a normal pancake), took a bite and my irritation just snowballed.  They were shit.  They were like the rubber soles of an old shoe, starting to peel away from the leather, all flappy and gross.  I started whining about how “these aren’t even pancakes, the whole point was to show you that good pancakes aren’t even made from mixes, let’s throw these out and I’ll make a new batch,” but Uhmma kept insisting that they were fine for her (she may have even said that she likes flat pancakes– typical Uhmma).  Her response annoyed me, and I kept going off.  I had to remake them.  I had to perfect these god damn pancakes.  I started to unravel and before I knew it, I was crying all over my pancakes about everything– the tiff, going back home to reality, plodding along in my seemingly endless journey of “self-discovery.”  It was all too much to handle at 9am, and by default, the stupid pancakes had become my desperate attempt to keep it together for chrissake.  I mean, if I couldn’t make decent pancakes, what the hell was left?

As always, a simple meltdown was all that was really needed for me to start making full eye contact with Uhmma again, sans bitchy comments.  After a good 6-7 minutes of tears and hiccups and poorly constructed explanations for the past 12 hours of attitude, I calmy told Uhmma that I really needed to just make a new batch – that please let’s just throw these out.  The thing about Uhmma is that she just knows – she knows what she needs to do and say, and how to do and say it, to make things right for the other person.  So with no judgment, and with the ease and grace of a fairytale heroine, she said “okay.”

I made a new batch from a recipe off of Chowhound, which included folding in whipped egg whites in addition to a teaspoon of baking soda.  They puffed up perfectly and grilled up golden, but as we sat down again at the table and I took a bite, I didn’t really taste them.  I’m sure they were good, and Uhmma said she got it now that she saw this second batch, but I just sat there and chewed, unaffected.  We finished breakfast and the conversation lightened, and ultimately I was able to shake it off and make it a good day.  But at that moment I realized how insanely vulnerable I still get when I’m not in control of the things in my life.  I felt exposed and embarrassed in front of someone whose affection and respect mean more to me than anyone else. I thought I had moved on to being a cool cat, but that morning I was just baby-Carol with a bad attitude.

The answer is in the cookie

I may be in love with Thomas Keller.  And I say that without ever having eaten at French Laundry or Per Se.  In fact, my first encounter with the wonder that is Mr. Keller was entirely conceptual, when Adam Sandler was making a sandwich in the movie Spanglish.  He sliced it in half and a river of egg yolk gushed out between 2 slices of rustic bread and enveloped bacon, lettuce and tomato in a puddle of marigold glory.  After Googling “Spanglish sandwich,” I discovered that this mind-blowing concoction was the genius of Thomas Keller, and that since, that sandwich has been dubbed (arguably) “The World’s Greatest Sandwich.”

But I digress.  This post is about a cookie.  Now, I’m not going to trivialize all of this “I love TK” talk with esoteric foodie babble and over-inflated claims of superior taste and texture.  In fact, I can easily say that I’ve had better cookies.  But, what I love about this one, this reinterpretation of the classic Nutter Butter, is that it is represents the ideal answer to that oftentimes regretful question: what do you want to be when you grow up?

You look at this cookie and you know Thomas Keller the Kid loved his junk food.  And you know he still does because he feels the need to recreate them, as if some alternate is going to do anything other than just taste like another (albeit more “quality”) version of a perfectly delicious original.  But, it does manage to do something more – it transports, it reminds, it makes people feel warm and fuzzy and childish and indulgent – and under the prestigious halo of the Thomas Keller brand, it even manages to put “Nabisco” and “luxury” into the same thought.

It’s a creative soul who loves something, anything, to the point where (s)he wants to express that passion in some alternate form that will validate the feeling even further.  The lucky ones figure out how to do it and make a living out of it – and this is what I imagine Thomas Keller has done with his whimsical reinterpretations of humble, nostalgic sweets (Nutter Butter, Oreo, Ho-ho).  So TK gets to do a little happy dance for being a Kitchen Wizard, and the rest of us get to say, “ooh, remember Nutter Butter? They were soooo good, I want to try this because I loved Nutter Butter and this is called Nutter Butter except it’s by TK not Nabisco so it’s probably better.”

Maybe I’m getting overly-sentimental about all of this because I’m at a crossroads in my life (like all the other 20-something-year-old’s out there) where I’m trying to figure out just what the hell I should be doing that will get me as close as possible to the answer I used to give to that question when I was a kid… whatever that answer was.  Meanwhile, Thomas Keller gets to say that he perfects cookies, one-up’s corporate biscuit giants, creates and casts sandwiches in Hollywood movies, chills in Napa and gets people to pay him large sums of money to surrender themselves to his culinary vision.  Lucky son of a bitch.

ugly/pretty/gross/yummy

As you can see, I couldn’t not take a picture of this.  Laziness and hunger almost took over, but one bite in and I came to my senses.  I have to say, though, that I’m a bit conflicted with the looks of this one.  On one hand, I can’t deny its beauty – the amazing ruby-pink starbursts with chocolate brown edges, all laminated in thick, glossy amber honey.  Makes me want to go run out and buy brown suede boots and a rosy cashmere scarf for fall.  On the other hand, there’s something a little gross about a fig up close – all the little seeds embedded in the ripe flesh, everything all mushy and pink – frankly, it makes me all too aware of the fact that fruit = edible ovary…or, as Jeffrey Steingarten says, “an ovary we eat for dessert.”  Incidentally, a fig isn’t even a fruit, it’s actually a flower – but whatever, bottom line– the fig can look a bit gross.

In this case, I’ll conclude that it was more lovely than not.  The snack toast you see above, as I’ll call it, was my answer to an early afternoon hunger pang.  I spread a thin layer of peanut butter over a slice of whole grain toast, topped it with some fig medallions and drizzled over some honey.  I wasn’t sure about combining figs with peanut butter, but figs have a creamy, mellow sweetness to them that is almost akin to a banana, which I frequently partner with peanut butter..and with the honey, it was divine.  I just love the imperfect pattern of irregular circles, the jeweled tones, the nutty whole grains, just the wholesomeness of all the ingredients.  It was a chic little snack… it was like PB&J 2.0.

‘Tis the season

No, I’m not about to be that annoying person who starts talking about Christmas in August – and I say that because this past weekend I saw Christmas decorations in Costco and this morning the Rockettes performed “Christmas in August” on the Today Show.  Don’t get me started on that nonsense.

Nope, this is about the Season of Tomatoes, which is in currently in full swing.  Ever since I had the Pappa al Pomodoro I wrote about in my previous post, I’ve been haunted by this deliriously delectable vegetable (sorry, I know it’s technically a fruit but it’s a veggie in my book).  In any case, I picked up a lovely box of heirlooms at the Union Square Greenmarket the other day, and spent a good hour marveling over them.  The colors were straight out of a Crayola 64 Crayon Set…Burnt Sienna, Brick Red, Dandelion, Blue Violet mixed with Fern Green.  The forms could have read from some children’s First Book of Shapes… lumpy, bumpy, round, oval, oblong.  Altogether and in short – marvelous.

For a light summer dinner, I sliced up a few of these beauties and tossed them with pesto-flecked spaghetti, fruity olive oil and a salty dusting of Parmigiano-Reggiano.  The pesto was actually home-made — a few days prior I had decided to put my new food processor to work by pulverizing some leftover basil and mint I had in the fridge.  I didn’t have any pine nuts or walnuts on hand, but I did have some sunflower seeds so I tossed those in as a substitute.  An alternative recipe, I know, but in the end you really can’t go wrong with garlic + fresh herbs.  And what I learned that evening is that you definitely can’t go wrong when you add in some sweet summer tomatoes…

Tomato, simply

There are a few foods I recall disliking immensely when I was young, only to have gradually and unexpectedly come to love over the years. The tomato is one of them. As a child, I simply couldn’t stomach the slimy, pulpy insides.  And the taste was just too “of-the-garden,” making me very aware of the fact that I was eating a Plant. There was no quicker way to ruin a burger than by adding a slice of tomato, and my mother’s insistence that it would add a lovely freshness to the sandwich only strengthened my desire to keep my meat patty naked and undisturbed.

Today, I love the tomato for its rich, sweet, yet pleasantly tart flavor. Its garden-fresh taste is a welcome addition.. its juiciness a palate-cleanser to richer foods. It is the symbol of a ripe summer, and a few days ago it was heroically featured in a delicious soup at Morandi.

Pappa al Pomodoro was the soup special that day, and it came chilled in a shallow dish. It was light in mouthfeel and intense in taste, with classic flavors of garlic, basil and balsamic vinegar. The soup had a slightly chunky texture that I later found out was bread– as Pappa al Pomodoro is made with stale bread that soaks up the juices of the tomato and thickens the soup. The result is surprisingly light, however, so much so that I mistook the tiny bread crumbs for celery or onion bits. It was a pure dish that honored only a few ingredients – seemingly humble yet sophisticated under the spotlight.

I ate the soup slowly, alternating with sips of a crisp Soave, and occasionally with some bites of crusty white bread dipped in fruity olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt. It was a lovely, simple summer meal, and as I sat there enjoying practically-unadulterated Tomato, I felt very grown-up indeed.

Pre Pete

At The Smith waiting for C and J before the Pete Yorn show, sipping on a Cucumber Loco made by a bartender who looks like the late great River Phoenix.

Ingredients:
tequila
cointreau
oj
lime
muddled cukes

Slightly cloying but refreshing nonetheless.

Rain. New York City, 7/26/09.

In an outrageously out-of-character moment, I loved the rain so much today.  It came down violently and thunderously at around 6pm, and covered the streets in dimpled sheets of glass.  It pounded against the top of my AC unit and swept across my window, loosening specks of black grime that left gray dribbles sliding across the pane.  Across the street at the Chelsea Hotel, someone was taking full advantage, sweeping the grit off her balcony and unleashing a wall of water that poured through the iron-wrought railing and flowed onto the sidewalk.  Lightening illuminated the sky even with the sun still peeking out through the clouds above, and the thunder would crack and resolve into a rolling rumble that seemed to ripple the streams of water that flowed over the streets.  The sky was a marbled hue of slate, navy, dusty cerulean and dove gray.  It was intense and unforgiving and consuming and so thoroughly cleansing, it was like someone gave New York City a good hard shake of the shoulders.

Covet

Impossibly cool twist on a white shirt from Alexander Wang Fall ‘09.  Saw this in the current issue of Vogue just now and died for a second.

Love love love everything about it – the interplay of classic/sexy/cool, the straight “collar”-band across the chest, the exposed, cut-out placket.  Love that a beautiful slender arm can make a boyish shirt look so damn good on a female.  Wouldn’t mind if the sleeve was a smidge narrower, but it may just be the way that the dress has shifted as she walks.

The White Shirt has been a favorite of mine since I was a wee little girl.  I am on a perpetual mission to find them, all sorts – and this one is definitely on my list.  Must. Have.