Carbohydrate Couple

This Friday, my wife Betsy and I are going to the greater Utica, NY area. She is in a 15K run called the Boilermaker, which takes place in and around Utica. We will be "camping" in our new old van and cooking over fire on Friday and Saturday evening at a campground near a mountain stream. Conveniences include fire ring, water spigot, picnic table, and shower nearby at $15 a night.

I'm not much for tents or sleeping on the ground. So van sleeping has proved to make camping seem all the more palatable. I bought two 1/2-inch thick exercise pads (24x72 and resilient) and a queen size foam mattress pad to top those off. This sleeping concoction will sit in the rear of the van, seats removed, over the carpeted (and fairly padded) floor. All that is left to find is a good mosquito net, because open windows is a must.

For dinner on Friday, before we settle in, we'll head to the local market to buy some meat for barbecuing. On Saturday, my wife wants to stick by the tradition of having pasta before a long run. I wouldn't disagree, I love pasta. She suggested fried and I was in love all over again.

Rewind. It's 1974, Hither Hills State Park, near Montauk, NY. The family is on a bluff overlooking the Atlantic. There are picnic tables, and a fire box (cement block with iron grate). Grandpa is boiling water and heating sauce over the coals. This was barbecue -pasta and meat sauce. After, came the perc coffee on the old coals, at nightfall, while kids chilled by sunburn and ocean breezes sat wrapped in blankets sticky with beach sand.

Fast forward. Wait. I don't think we'll go that far. We'll make pasta at home and cart it up in the cooler. We'll bring the cast iron skillet, xv olive oil, the pecorino. Start up the fire and fry pasta in the cool air of a mountain woods' evening. Yep. My grandparents are long gone, but they would be proud.

Chicken And Rice, Halal Cart Style

In a time pinch, I grab the 5 dollar chicken and rice at the Halal cart outside of work. Today, I had an extra 5 minutes, so I went to 60th street, towards Columbus Ave. I saw another Halal cart and thought enough to give it a try. The first question asked after I ordered the chicken and rice was, "Plain rice or spicy rice?" Spicy rice, of course. The rice was darker and the meat was whiter than at the other cart. Hot sauce please, also thicker and darker.

This Halal cart chicken and rice was superficially the same meal as the cart outside of our building, but in taste and texture, another meal altogether. First, the rice was a basmati type, light and long -not the firm, short grain rice of the nearby cart. The rice was also white, not tinted warm and light red, but had been colored by the collection of spices added. It had hints of ginger, cumin and cardamom and was fire hot. The whole dish was less salty too, and without the reddish coloring on the meat. The light, loose rice and small chunks of chicken were harder to pick up with the plastic fork, causing me to eat much slower than I normally would (eating while working has led me to be a rapid eater, shame on me). The heat led my nose to run, fabulously hot was this 60th street cart.

Now I have it in my mind to try to get to try all the carts within 5 minutes. I'm glad that these Halal carts are not being trucked out of the same depot with the same ingredients and recipes. I've not been cooking much lately, in a cooking funk I suppose. I need some new inspiration, I need to have some new meals out.

Kiwi Salad

Wow, Kiwis are cheap -often four for a dollar. I love the tartness and the crunch of the tiny seeds. All the Kiwis I've been getting lately are from Italy, a top producer of Kiwifruit. Although they are grown in every hemisphere, Kiwi are native to regions of China.

I threw together a salad of mixed greens with a slight amount of lemon and olive oil. Then I cut up some Parmigiano-Reggiano and tossed that on top. Then sliced some kiwi and tossed that on too. I was pleased.

Mignon Parmigiana

I have an Italian American mother who doesn't like much -but tomato sauce, pasta (family says macaroni for all shapes) cheese, and meat. So, no surprise I tend to cook this way. But after leaving home, you start eating other people's food and growing your taste. Unlike Ma, and whatever Batali says about real Italians liking mushy broccoli, I like broccoli sauteed firm with garlic and drizzled with a good olive oil, salt and pepper. I chose bread instead of pasta cause it was hot enough in the apartment without a steam engine going. Fairway in Red Hook (across from my wife's studio on Van Brunt) was having a crazy deal on fresh mozzarella (3.99/lb). I bought three -froze two. A can of LaValle san marzanos I had stored from some crazy deal they had on those a few months ago. Basil -garden. Fairway again, they had a deal on filet mignon (4.99/lb) in one of those wet-age bags that I do not prefer -but still a deal for this meal. I cut it up and froze some. Sliced the rest 3/8ths thick, covered it in breadcrumbs and fried it up in xv olive oil, lightly browned. Then into the dish with the sauce and cheese. Its very hard for me to cook for one, which I'm doing all summer. Fortunately I'm learning that leftovers are good. My mom always told us we needed to finish the pot(that meant the rest of the pasta) insisting we'd be hungry and this left an indelible urge to eat everything.

Dip the steak in egg. Then cover in bread crumbs.

Fry it up in the pan.

Have the sauce ready to go. This one has mushrooms.

In a dish layer the steak, sauce, and cheese. Throw some basil on top and yummy.