I'm back! Lot's of food tales to tell.

After being preoccupied by a work event for several weeks, delayed by my healing finger, and overcoming all-around laziness, I am back to tell you about my recent adventures in food.

Going all the way back to the end of March was the Second Annual Village Voice Choice Eats event. I went with other members of TNTE club. Basically, this event was packed to the gills with dozens upon dozens of well-reviews NYC restaurants (many of them new and trendy places) offering up sample bites from their menus. Our $35 tickets got us in to sample the wares. It was really fun and I loved trying so many things, but I wonder how well these chafing dish bites really represent the quality of the food. I am guessing the format actually hinders the quality, but it does give one a good sense of flavor and style. My favorite thing was not from a chafing dish. It was a bourbon cupcake from Peaches Market. Don't you love that name? While I didn't really taste much bourbon, I loved the bite-size unfrosted cupcake that was topped with little crunchy bits that may have been peanuts but I'm not sure. I went back for seconds at the end of the night, but they had long run out of them.

Along with the food was dozens of beer, wine, liquor, and beverage vendors offering up generous pours of their inebriators. My favorite sample of the night was from Allagash brewery in Maine. They were pouring their White beer. It was very nice and I now have a four-pack in the fridge. Not sure if I'll do this event next year or not. It was very crowded and it's difficult to eat, hold a drink, and walk around in the crowded aisles. I would do this again, but I'm not clamoring for it.

Easter weekend is the next memorable food thing I can remember. Steve made Challah bread French toast that I topped with fresh berries and syrup. Challah bread really does make the best French toast and the key to getting crispier toast rather than soggy bread is to dry it out in the oven a little bit before battering it. Yum! We followed this with a small ham with a homemade glaze of pineapple juice & chunks, and brown sugar. Turned out very well.

On April 16, Steve and I went to a special screening of Beer Wars. BW is a documentary about the craft brew movement and how craft brewers are competing - or not - with the big guys like Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and Coors. At only 90 minutes long, the filmmakers couldn't include every independent brewery out there, so the focus was on Dogfish Head (in Delaware of all places), Stone (representing the SD!), New Belgium (Fat Tire), Boston Brewery (Sam Adams), and a one-woman operation called Moon Shot. I liked the behind-the-scenes of the beer industry and some of the facts about consumers, practices, and the amount of money going into promotion of beers was astonishing. But it was an extremely biased and one-sided picture of the "beer wars." It's a classic David versus Goliath story. And you do pull for the little guys while watching the film. When it was over and we were walking to the subway, Steve said, "I feel dirty for ever drinking an Anheuser-Busch beer." I like craft beers and independent breweries - Shiner being my absolute favorite, of course - so that's what I will continue to buy and drink. But I'll admit that once in a blue moon, an ice-cold Budweiser is all I want. It's the junk food of beer - familiar and easy to drink. Right now, our fridge is stocked with independent brews - Green Flash, Shiner, Allagash, Stone, and Sam. Supporting the indepentent brewers is the same as supporting local and independent businesses in any industry. Whether it's your local bookstore rather than Barnes & Noble or Amazon, the mom & pop hardware store instead of Home Depot, farmers markets and butcher shops rather than Kroger.

Anyway, the screening was followed by a somewhat awkward live panel discussion with the filmmaker, some of the key players from the film, and hosted by Ben Stein. It was interesting but I started to get a little sleepy. The live panel was in LA but the feed was sent to theaters around the country that were participating in this one time screening. I really liked seeing a live event that way. Before the movie started, instead of the usual movie theater ads, trivia question and facts, they had custom Beer Wars "ads" and "beertoids" and quizzes. That was very clever and we liked it.

Last Saturday, it was chicken enchiladas. I got the Cook's Illustrated Best Light Recipes cookbook recently, and I've made two things from it so far. The enchiladas and chicken Piccata. The Piccata was a surprise for Steve as it is one of his favorite dishes. Both turned out really well and it's hard to believe they were light versions of classic dishes. They tasted great. The enchiladas were lightened by using low-fat cheese - and less of it - and all breast meat instead of thighs. To compare the "classic" version to the light version, the cookbook included a comparison box:

Serving size 2 enchiladas
Classic
Calories: 580
Cholesterol: 110 mg
Fat: 34 g
Saturated fat: 18 g

Light
Calories: 350
Cholesterol: 65 mg
Fat: 10 g
Saturated fat: 4.5 g

I can't wait for us to get a grill because this book is full of great grilling recipes and ideas. My recent issue of Bon Appetit also has a recipe for grilled romaine lettuce wedges that I'm dying to try.

So the grill. Yes, we have shopped and know what we want - an $80 charcoal Weber - but we are waiting for our landlord to finish our roof deck before we buy it. It's killing me to have to wait.

This weekend is going to be warm. I'm so not thrilled. But to help us stay cool, I made some lime Italian ice this afternoon. Italian ice is so simple I feel stupid for never making it before I found a recipe for it.

Italian Ice
adapted from Desserts by the Yard's Lemon Italian Ice

Serves 6

2 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons zest
1 cup fresh juice (strained or not)
6 6-ounce Dixie paper cups or ramekins

1. Combine sugar and water in saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.
2. Stir in zest and juice and pour into cups or ramekins. Freeze until solid.

Ta-dah. That is so easy.

I like lime for this recipe but any citrus would work - orange, lemon, lime, sweet grapefruit - or combination of those. I'd like to try a lemon-lime or a lime with tequila and a hint of Serrano pepper. I strained the juice today, but I've used unstrained juice before and it turns out fine as well. All the pulp will float to the top of the cup but it doesn't do anything to affect the taste or enjoyment.

Well, I think I got you all caught up. Hopefully, I won't be gone for so long. Keep eating out there!

NYC food events

In the coming months, I hope to be able to report on several special food events going on here in the gastronomic city.

First, and the only one which I am already committed to attending, is the Village Voice Second Annual Choice Eats event on March 31. This event features tastes from over 50 restaurants from all boroughs (although I don't see any representatives from SI or the Bronx on the restaurant list yet) that the two VV restaurant critic have hand picked as some of the best of the new eateries and "best kept secrets." A ticket to the event gets you tastes from all the restaurants and beer/wine. Pretty sweet deal for only $35.

I'm attending Choice Eats with the usual crowd, which I shall henceforth call, "The Not Timid Eaters Club," or TNTE. In addition to myself, charter members include Donna, Susan K., Susan C., Reka, and Elizabeth. I'm sure we'll have new members join us from time to time - Laura L., Steve, Adrienne, and more. The more the merrier!

Second, I really want to go to Craft on Tuesday and Friday nights. Craft, which you may or may not know, is chef Tom Colicchio's flagship restaurant. In case you don't know who in the world Tom Colicchio is, in addition to being a top chef, he has risen to mainstream awareness via his role as a head judge on Bravo's Top Chef television show. I ate at Craft once in the pre-Top Chef days, but not since. Well, I hope to change that by indulging in a Tuesday night with Tom. Every other Tuesday night, the private dining room at Craft is designated Tom: Tuesday Dinner. For a steep $150 a person, a prix fixe menu of fresh, seasonal food is prepared by Tom himself. There are no choices, you get what he has fresh ingredients for and feels like making that night. This would be a sincere splurge for me to go to but I'd really like to do it once.

But on Friday nights, it's a different story. Craft's private dining room turns into Damon: Frugal Friday. Damon Wise is Colicchio's executive chef. For no more than $10 a plate, the menu offers small, tapas-style dishes that fall into nine categories - snacks, salads, pizzas, food in a jar, meat on a stick, small plates, offal, cheese, and dessert. Reportedly, wine and beer is well selected and priced in line with the low-cost menu. No reservations are accepted for Friday night, so it's a first-come first served situation, which in NYC, can often result in a very long wait time for a table. They open at 5:30 and don't close until midnight. Damon: Frugal Friday is much more my budget and I really love tasting many things rather than having to order just one entree and be stuck with it. Will have to meet Steve after work one Friday night and give this a try. I must credit the February 16 issue of New York Magazine for bringing Frugal Friday to my attention and for some of the information included in this paragraph.

In that same issue, in fact the same article, the Tuesday night dinner at Beer Table is also reviewed. Beer Table is more local - here in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. The Tuesday dinner at BT is also a prix fixe, three course menu for $25. An additional $15 for beer pairings, which NYM says is "highly recommended." Chef there is Julie Farias, and based on NYM's write-up, I'd call her food refined homey. If your food is being paired with beer, it's gotta be some version of homey, right? And it's gotta be good. Sounds like another place that is well-worth a Tuesday night visit.

Who knows, maybe Tuesday night will become the new hot night of the week for eating out. Steve and I have been eating out (or ordering in) on Friday or Saturday nights, but perhaps a switch is in order, so to speak. Also want to try the established Brooklyn fine dining restaurant, The Grocery, which is just down Smith Street a bit.