I can't believe that I haven't posted a blog in so long...it's not like I haven't been baking up a storm...I certainly have. Last weekend I made almond cookies, thumbprint cookies, and my mom's famous chocolate chip cookies (which is hilarious, because she just uses the recipe on the back of the Nestle chocolate chip bag, but for some reason her cookies always taste better than everyone else's...she says it's because she uses real butter...but there's something else to it.)
When I was a kid my grandma, who we all called Gammi, lived with my mom and dad and I. She loved Christmas. She was pretty much the best person in the world. She loved people unconditionally and always helped anyone who needed it (lucky for me I got surrounded by a family full of people like that). She passed away when I was 14, and it's really weird to think that I've been alive almost as long without her around then with her around. Since she died Christmas hasn't really had the same feelings around it. I didn't think it would until I had my own children, but I have to say, living here in NY, well, Christmas really feels great again. Everyone seems happier and more giving. It snowed a little and everything is lit up. Everywhere you go is so crowded that you know people are flocking here to feel that wonderful feeling of Christmas in New York (and to shop).
I'm eating too much and the pants that fit last week didn't really want to go on today...but man, this is Christmas in New York...and who am I to judge me?

I guess I better soak up all this over-eating now, cause my New Year's resolution is to be vegan.

My new toaster

Moving to NY has been a challenge in a lot of ways, not the least of which has been space. I thought our apartment in LA was small, but this is tiny. I gave up on having a lot of appliances because we just don't have the space. I had given up on having a toaster too, but was about to break down and buy my own when I got one as a birthday gift from Al's parents.
I love it. You never realize how much you use something until you haven't had it for a long time.
All those mornings without the possibility of toast are over.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
You know how sometimes things are so good that you can't stop eating them, and after a while you wish you had never made them because they just keep calling your name...and even if you made them to give away or take to your future mom-in-law's house for Thanksgiving you just sit there and keep eating them? That's what these cookies are to me. The night I made them I ate 5 of them. The next day two more, and about 10 more over the course of Thanksgiving.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (or more, if you're me)
  

DIRECTIONS

1. Combine pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil, and egg. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon, and salt. Dissolve the baking soda with the milk and stir in. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well.
2. Add vanilla, chocolate chips and nuts.
3. Drop by spoonful on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for approximately 10 minutes or until lightly brown and firm.

Airplane FoodWhen Al and I went to LA last weekend for Jon and Corrinne's wedding we flew on Virgin America. It was a pretty great flying experience. Personal tv. Nice seats. You can buy your food from your seat and all that good stuff. I am normally opposed to buying airline food...okay, I'm always opposed to it. You want me to pay how much for something you should be giving me? No thanks. I will buy my food in the airport.
On the way home we got the row of seats with the broken tvs. I'm surprised that Al's little heart didn't break, but he kept it together and got us some free food out of it. Good man.
For airline food it was pretty delicious. Of course you can bribe me with a toblerone bar and I'll say just about anything. Al fell asleep after we ate. I stole his toblerone. Should have been quicker man.

Behold this beautiful sandwich. It was delicious. The best thing is that any deli you go to around here is pretty much guarenteed to be good. I didn't feel like I had enough good sandwiches in my life in CA, but here they are everywhere. I don't think I've had a bad sandwich.
We got this at the bodega around the corner, on Lafayette. Not the one close to the laundry mat, because that place sucks. I've never had a sandwich there, but they did neglect to give me my change one day when I bought a soda there. When I asked for it, the guy behind the counter didn't speak english, but I'm pretty sure that "give me my damn change" is universal.

What I really want to do here in NY is eat the bad for me sandwiches. I mean, if you are into the whole carb thing, all sandwiches are bad for you, but I believe in the healthy sandwich...and yet I find myself pulled toward the rubens and the pastramis of the sandwich world.

TasteSpotting
Gone are the days when I had countless hours to explore all of my favorite food blogs, read the posts, marvel at the beauty of their culinary creation. Now I just skim. Most days I just hit up TasteSpotting for a few quick seconds of lovely looking food. Remember when I cooked? Remember when I blogged? Remember when I read the blogs of others? Oh, the good old days.

Granny Cart
When I frist moved to NY, I didn't know what a granny cart was, nor did I know how badly I would need one. I feel like it would be impossible to live here without one of these bad-boys. I couldn't get all my laundry to the mat at once, I couldn't get my superfluous food purchases back home...basically I would be lost.

Welcome to my kitchen.
Al took a surprise picture of me cooking. There it is in all its glory.
I know. Impressive.

Today we went to the Fairway Market in Redhook. Even though getting there required a subway and a bus ride, it was totally worth it. It's pretty much the best grocery store ever. The prices are great, and they have everything. I would do all my shopping there, but I'm not sure how I would maneuver my granny cart on the bus. If Al wasn't there and we didn't have to get home for the start of the Pats/Colts game, I think I could have stayed there all day.
One of the best parts is that it is right on the water, and right across the water is the Statue of Liberty. It's the closest I have ever been to the lady, and it was a pretty great view. I don't have a strong desire to actually go out to see her up close, or climb stairs, cause really I already climb enough stairs, so I'm good.

Food Blogs
I like to think that some food blogs are there for the fun reading, and some are there for the pictures...the amazing pictures and recipes that make me drool on my keyboard.
I stumbled upon a new one today: Use Real Butter.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! I skipped a holiday. And not just any holiday....my favorite holiday. What have I done? I wrote about Thanksgiving before I even mentioned Halloween. Shame on me.
I have to go straight home today and make something with pumpkin.
My friend Jamie's mom used to make these little biscuit cups filled with what I can only describe as sloppy joe mix. Then she would cut a slice of American cheese into a circle and cut out a little jack-o-lantern face in the cheese and put it on top of the stuffed biscuit cup. It was the best.
I tried to re-create this Halloween magic by making this for my family one year. I'm still not quite sure what went wrong...or if sloppy joe mix, cheap cheese, and buttery biscuit dough were never meant to be mixed, but I'm pretty sure I gave my brother dissentary.
He kind of looked like the poor pumpkin on the right:

And I am the pumpkin on the left, laughing..."ha ha, I poisoned my brother."

I subscribe to some food magazines, and I love them. I especially love when I get the Thanksgiving issue. I would even say it is almost better than the Christmas issue. I've never been that much of a Thanksgiving person, but there is just something about all those recipes for stuffing, cornbread and pies that is just so homey and comforting.
I haven't actually made sure of this yet, but I'm assuming that this year we will spend Thanksgiving with Al's family and I'm pretty excited. I mean, I will miss my cousin's fruit and marshmallow salad that I get when I go to Idaho for Thanksgiving, and I will surely miss all the wonderful food that my sister-in-law whips up when I go to her house for Thansksgiving (causing me to overeat to the point where I undo the pants at the table), but I'm looking forward to spending my first full holiday with my future in-laws.
Here is a link to Epicuriuos, where they list some of the fantastic Thanksgiving recipes from this month's Bon Appetit.

Tortilla Soup
All good things come from Oprah.
Al's going to hit me in the face for typing that. He hates Oprah. Not so much because of who she is as a person, but because of her legions of sheep-like followers...I like her. I think it might secretly hurt him inside when I buy an Oprah magazine, but they're just so good. I mean, the articles are 10x better than in any other woman's magazine, and the recipes...well, let's just say I've never seen a bad recipe come out of an Oprah magazine.
This recipe is from the October 2007 issue.

Tortilla Soup
1 dried ancho chili
1/2 cup boiling water
2 Tbsp olive oil
3 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
2 stalks celery, cut into 1/2-inch slices
3 garlic cloves, peeled and quartered
2 tsp ground cumin
6 cups chicken broth
2 cans (14.5 oz) chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves
6 corn tortillas
vegetable oil, for frying

1. place chili in a small, heatproof bowl; pour boiling water over and let soak 30 min. Drain; remove stem and seeds. Slice into 1/2-inch thick strips and set aside
2. In a heavy dutch oven or soup pan, heat olive oil over med high heat. Add chicken; season with salt and pepper. Brown on both sides, about 10 min total. Add onion, carrots, and celery. Continue to cook about 8 min, stirring often. Add garlic and cumin and cook and additional 2 min. Add broth, reserved chili, tomatoes and cilantro and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 15 min. With your hands, tear 3 tortillas into 2-inch strips and add to the soup. Continue to simmer about 15 min.
3. With a slotted spoon, remove chicken to a cutting board; take soup off heat. With an immersion blender, puree soup until smooth (or take your life in your own hands and do this in small batches in the blender...if you put the lid on tight the heat will cause some sort of pressure reaction and the lid with come flying off, leaving you scalded and scarred for life). With two forks, shred chicken; return to soup. Season soup to taste with salt and pepper.
4. Now you can either slice up the rest of those tortillas and deep fry them to make a tasty garnish, or you can be lazy and use some ready-made tortilla chips.

This soup is delicious and spicy. If you have a cold, this will burn it out of you. If you have an ulcer...this is a bad plan.

Just when you thought I would never blog again...
Its been shenanigans, and I don't mean the kitchen kind. I had birthday fun and then more mouth trouble, not to mention getting busy with wedding planning stuff. I want to blog...really, I do.

Why my teeth hate me, and other life updates:

Last year, right before my 25th birthday, my teeth decided to rebel. I had an infection that caused half of my face to puff up and I had to be on antibiotics (therefore totally sober) on my birthday. Not only did I look hot with a super-sweet swollen face, but I didn't feel that great either.
This year, because I'm a sucker for tradition, my teeth have once again decided that the place for them is not in my mouth. (you can't see me, but I'm shaking my fist at the sky) I had oral surgery on Friday and have spent the last few days hopped up on Vicodin and knowing the mental fog that only painkillers can bring. My birthday is on Saturday. Hopefully I will be done with antibiotics by then.
I threatened that I wanted them to just pull the teeth and give me dentures, but then my grandma said that since she got dentures, her sense of taste has been impaired. WHAT??? No sense of taste? I might as well not go on living. Seriously. What kind of sad, cruel world would it be with no sense of taste?

On a happier note, my friend Karen is flying in from LA to visit me for my birthday!!!!
Yeah Friends!

Onto the topic of my upcoming nuptials. I am hard pressed to find a place that I both like and can afford. The whole wedding industry is a scam and all the engaged people in the world are it's blissfully unaware pawns. A lot of the places that are affordable just aren't that great...and let me tell you, I would rather not do it at all then do it in a New Jersey banquet hall with red carpet and gold accents everywhere that looks like the mafia is just using the place as a cover for something...although, isn't the wedding industry profitable enough? You better be selling crack by the pound if you are using a price-gouging establishment like a banquet hall as a cover. I mean, $150 per person for dry chicken breast and dinner rolls is a pretty freakin high profit margin.
Al thinks I'm a snob...but I didn't just go on a shopping spree at French Connection UK, so there! Whose the snob now?

Our (almost) Neighborhood Italian Deli
If you can consider 2 stops on the G train (which never comes) still in our neighborhood, then yes, G. Esposito and Sons Pork Store is in our neighborhood. I mean, I could walk there...and I can remember walking home from there, but why miss all the fun of that mysterious G train? Will it come? When will it come? When it comes, will it stop? It's really a fun game.
Next time anyone, and I mean anyone...even a vegetarian, comes to visit us, I am taking them to this place. It's amazing. It's in the part of Brooklyn where everyone is Italian and has an accent. They make their own mozzarella fresh every day, and they have every kind of cured meat you can think of.
I wasn't in a particularly meaty mood when we went, but I did purchase some meat sauce, which I served with some home-made ravioli that we also bought there. It was the best sauce and the best ravioli...well, that's I've ever tried to pass off as something I made, and that's really saying something.
After we bought some stuff there we went next door to the Italian Deli and shared a cannoli...and thus continues my journey into being Italian. Yep, gotta prepare to slap on that new last name.

The West Indian Parade
On Monday Al and I hit up what I just discovered is the biggest parade/festival in New York. With the promise of Jamaican food, we headed to Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn and down Eastern Parkway. It was craziness. It was just how I pictured Carnival in Brazil, with scantily-clad dancers, loud music, and delicious food.

In the picture of me above, I am eating some awesome fried cheese bread, which I can't remember the name of, but which they usually serve with shark in it as a sandwich. I just wanted some delicious cheesy bread.
I love you fried banana...not so much with cheese in you, but I love you none the less.

Catching Up
Much to the chagrin of Al, we haven't had internet for a few weeks. Last Friday, yours truly stayed home from work and waiting for the DSL man.
Once again there is happiness in this apartment. And I can finally post all these dang food pictures.














The above picture is of this wonderful chicken I made for dinner one night. I made it with one of those Indian bottled sauces from Whole Foods. I would tell you what sauce, but I forget.

I made baked apples for desert, only to discover that Al isn't such a big fan of the baked apple. I think his exact words were, "yeah, baked apples don't do me a whole lot of good if they don't have crust, or at least some sort of crumb topping." See what happens when you try to be a little healthy around here? Not that it was exactly lo-cal with the amount of brown sugar I put on it.

Isn't the saying that necessity is the mother of invention? Well, that's how I remember it.
One time Al said "just taking a stab in the dark" instead of "shot in the dark" and when I called him on it, he just leaned in really close, and in a threatening tone said, "lady, I carry knives, not guns." Point being, sometimes there really is nothing to make, and I gotta eat, so I'm forced to make something up...like this wonderful side dish. I had a green pepper, some sun-dried tomatoes, garlic and a can of potatoes. Saute up those veggies, add those potatoes, and throw on a little crushed red pepper, and you've got a pretty tasty concoction. It's dishes like this that earned me the nickname "Macgyver of the kitchen."

And it's cupcakes like the ones above that earned me the nickname EVIL. They are moist and good, and I made Nutella frosting for them. I started off with a basic buttercream frosting, but then cut back on the sugar a little and whipped in 1/4 jar of Nutella. It was delicious. I ate, well, I ate a few, but let's not talk about it.

Beaver and Steve
Click here for the full comic strip. It is hilarious. I saw this over at SeriousEats and just had to re-post it.

I just found out that there is a Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. I love green tea ice cream, so this is the best news I have ever gotten.

Bad Service

I know that a lot of people who are or were servers, or people who have friends that are servers are very sensitive about tipping. Even if they receive poor or mediocre service, they feel the need to tip generously because, admittedly, it is hard to be on your feet for that long and being a server can suck sometimes. You do make minimum wage, and you do depend on your tips to live...but here's the thing, I'm don't want to be the one who pays you to suck at your job. If the kitchen is slow, then tell me that. If they are backed up and I should expect to wait an hour or more for my meal, then let me know. Be nice. Be attentive. I can see how busy you are, how many tables you have, and if you are working hard or if you are standing around talking to the other servers.

Never...under any circumstances... add gratuity to my bill. Okay, if I'm at the Olive Garden with a party of 10, then add it, but if I'm at a nice restaurant in NY with a party of 5, you better not try to tell me how much you deserve. If you do an outstanding job, I will leave more than 20%, but if you are lazy, unattentive, or just basically suck, I will give you what I think you deserve.

Last night some people from work and I went to La Palette. When we finally got our food, after what seemed like an eternity, it was decent, but certainly not good enough to justify the kind of wait we endured. Problems like this can often be remedied by the server, who, if they have a good attitude, explain the situation, or take something off my bill for being so patient, can convince me to give the restaurant another try. We had to ask our server where our food was multiple times. She never apologized for the wait. Then she proceeded to add a 20% gratuity to our bill, before tax!!! So she taxed us on the tip too!

Needless to say, after waiting 45 minutes for our food, we weren't about to leave her a 20% tip. We left what we felt was fair, only to have her confront one of my co-workers about not leaving enough money.