One-up mushroom cookie anyone?

Saw this on a children's lit blog, and thought it ought to be shared here, too.

Have a need for some Mario Bros. mushroom shaped cookies? Look no further than Snack or Die Video Game Cookies. Really.

Or maybe you're needing instructions on how to make a Super Mario Bros. 2 Phanto Sugar Cookie. Or a PacMan cookie. Or a Super Monkey Ball cupcake. They are all there. With good step-by-step pictures to guide you along.

Heavy lunch, light dinner

I met Steve for lunch yesterday. He works in the Flatiron building, and we stuck to the neighborhood - we went right across the street. Despite working in the vicinity five years ago, I had never even noticed Eisenberg's. And no wonder. It's a hole-in-the-wall place no more than 20 feet wide and four times that deep. Narrow and skinny. However, the food is not skinny food. As the hard-working countermen's t-shirts say, "Eisneberg Sandwiches, raising the cholesterol of New York since 1929." I don't think much has changed since 1929. The wooden counter and back bar look authentic. So do the round red-topped counter stools. Some small tables are squeezed in the back but you don't get the show if you sit back there. We had a good time watching that show - the countermen are never still as they bark out orders and fill orders for the counter and tables. I didn't see any written tickets except for take-out orders. We were sitting in front of the grill station where one man worked the omelet pans, grill, and flat top, in addition to serving up soups (lots of Matzo ball today) and fries.

Steve had a pastrami on rye and I had a cheeseburger deluxe. The pastrami smelled delicious and tasted great. The cheeseburger was just ordinary so next time I'll get something from the long sandwich list. The woman next to me had egg salad with bacon that looked wonderful. I was also amazed that there were no checks here. The counterman told us to just tell the cashier what we had and he'd ring us up. The honor system seems alive and well at Eisenberg's. A real throw back.

So since lunch was heavy, we ate light for dinner. I planned to have warm olives, salad, and the Tarte d'Alsace from Trader Joe's for dinner, but it turns out the only thing we wanted was the olives. Those are a favorite of ours. We ate almost all of them up with a demi-loaf of warm French bread. And that was dinner.

Warm Olives
2 cups mixed unpitted olives, drained (although I usually just use a jar of Kalamata)
1/2 cup E.V.O.
3 cloves minimum of garlic, minced (I used five last night because a couple cloves were scrawny)
Orange zest (I usually use one whole orange)
Lemon zest (I usually use one whole lemon, but you can add as much or as little as you'd like of both zests)
6-8 sprigs fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, parsley, or oregano), divided
sea salt and fresh ground pepper
1/2 -1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Combine all ingredients (but leave out a few herb sprigs). Place in a baking dish and bake 20-25 minutes, stirring once or twice. Remove from oven and let sit several hours to meld flavors. Or just dive right in like we do. Cooling, schmooling. Remove charred herbs or stems and replace with fresh sprigs. Reheat just before serving or serve at room temp with bread and goat cheese.

Getting Caught Up

After a week off, I'm getting caught up with blogs. This one in particular caught my taste buds. I think I'll have to try it but counter the fat, cholesterol, and sodium massacre with grilled chicken and leafy green salad the rest of the week.

Laura over at Pinot and Prose has also thrown down a baking request seeing how she doesn't bake. I'm happy to bake anything if it gets me a seat at the table for her next Bacon Fest.

The Mardi Gras season is also coming to a close next week, and I have yet to make my annual King Cake. Must do that this weekend. I think it will be a cream cheese filled cake this time. Luckily, the tiny plastic baby that I hide in the cake didn't get lost in the move. Don't know what I'd do without that pink, plastic, bald baby. Will post recipe and photos when I do. My NYC friends are invited over when the cake is ready. It will be much more than Steve and I can eat.

Maine report

Not much to say about food this week. We've been eating a few noodle-based casseroles, and skipped the lobster this trip.

A couple days ago, we went to Yummie's, a mega candy store. According to Steve's mom, Yummie's has 10,000 pounds of candy on display for sale every day. I liked Yummie's for the retro candies they carry - Charleston Chews, Clark Bars, MallowCups, Chuckles, Dots, Bit-O-Honey, Valomilk, and plenty more. It's quite a store.

Yesterday, we were out and I spied one of the most intresting combo restaurants I've ever seen - Pedro O'Hara's - a Mexican and Irish food restaurant. Hmmmm. Can I get that margarita Irish?

Dining on the Fly

Yesterday, Steve and I flew to Maine via JFK on Jet Blue. Neither of us have ever flown JB, and overall, had a fine time. No JB horror stories of being stuck on the tarmac for hours.

After an hour long subway and Air Train ride to get to the airport, we arrived at the bright, white, shiny, and spacious terminal five. Check in was a breeze - I love travelling on weekdays - and we zipped through security. Well, I zipped, Steve had to zag a bit because he left his 4 ounce toothpaste in his carry on so he had to dig that out and throw it away.

After security we suddenly found our selves in a huge, cavernous room that was all about food. After noting the stepped laptop station where users can sit on cushy square pillows, plug in, and utilize the free WiFi, we focused on finding some lunch. The terminal has four sit-down table service restaurants - sushi, Italian, Mexican, and American - and a large food court and market. The food court has the usual fare - pizza & pasta, sandwiches, quick Asian, and burgers - but it tended toward the upscale/trendy side and not the cheap-o mall side. Most of it was made-to-order. There was also a full hot bar that had entrees and sides steaming in chafing dishes. And a large, fresh salad bar. Chips and drinks were "healthy" varieties with lots of whole grains, kettle baked, and Newman's Own products. Not a Frito or Dorito bag in sight. Travel friendly whole fresh fruit - apples, oranges, and bananas - were also available.

We settled on paninis from the Boar's Head counter. Steve had something called "The Godfather" that had about three kinds of Italian meats on it, cheese, roasted red peppers, and pesto. I had a simple ham and provolone with pesto panini. Both were huge and could easily have been split with sides. I also got a perfectly portioned side of red potato salad and a banana.

I was very pleased with the food options. Since airlines aren't feeding passengers anymore, it's good to see that the airports and vendors have quickly jumped on the opportunity to offer more meal choices and higher quality food to travellers.

We also investigated the touch screen food ordering system that is at the gates. Rows of stools and computer screens are set up at bar height and you can click through menu choices. You pay by swiping a credit card and the food is delivered to you. Very interesting.

These touch screens are also how one orders from all the food court vendors. Each vendor has two screens set up under the "order here" sign. Your order is made and then you take your receipt, which the person who made your food gives you and then you go to the central cashier to pay. While I thought the ordering process was interesting, there was clearly not enough people making sandwiches at the Boar's Head counter because we had quite a wait until our paninis were ready.

We also noticed that alcoholic beverages are heavily promoted. The food court had beer and it could be ordered from the touch screen terminals at the gates. Once we were on the plane, JB also has mixers for sale. I could have had a mojito or a cosmo or a margarita if I had wanted one.

If you get to go through terminal five, take a minute to look around at the food. It ain't too bad and pricing is about what you'd expect for the airport.

An Argument Against Airline "Cuisine"

Pulled this link off of Chocolate & Zucchini's twitter feed.

How awful.

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.