Category: #Food

  • ODDS and ENDS (Early Edition): What I Will Eat on The 4th, What My Dog Thinks on The 4th, and This is What I will Watch on The 4th

    ODDS and ENDS (Early Edition): What I Will Eat on The 4th, What My Dog Thinks on The 4th, and This is What I will Watch on The 4th

    (This land is your land, this land is my land…)

    Yes! The 4th of July is here tomorrow, and me and the family will be hanging out with friends. We’ll eat all the holiday staples; chips, dip, burgers and hotdogs. But this year, I’m telling you, we need to add an item to the Independence Day menu. And that my friends, is a Chopped Cheese sandwich. A New York deli staple since I’ve been here, and if you don’t know what it is, you need to know.

    And when it comes to the 4th of July, my dog thinks that this is the day that the world is coming to an end.

    It’s JAWS and it will always be JAWS.

  • The Age of Dinner Parties

    The Age of Dinner Parties

    The other day, the kid was asking me and the wife lots of questions of what our life was like before she was born. It’s a fair and very good question, or more accurately, questions that she was asking us. The wife and I were together for nine years before the kid was born, so we had a good amount of time of being a couple before we became a family.

    As I reminisced about our past life, it dawned on me that we had a very unique period of about two years, where we host other couples at our place for dinner parties. And on the flip of that, we were invited over to several couples dinner parties. It was a very specific time of us and all of our friends, as we were entering our thirties, beginning to be established in careers, all in committed relationships, but we weren’t married yet and didn’t have kids. I mean, as soon as people started getting married, kids weren’t far behind, and then some started moving out of the City.

    I still have a Spotify playlist for one of our dinner parties from long ago.

    It was a fun time. Usually we hosted on a Saturday night. The wife, at the time the girlfriend, would come up with the menu and I would shop for it over the week. We’d do some prep on Friday night, and most of that would be the making of the desert. The wife was the chef and I the assistant. My strength was in cutting veggies, and making drinks. The wife did the heavy lifting for the rest of the food. We made a really good team in the kitchen, and by the time the other couple arrived, I only had the entertain for maybe 30 minutes and then we were eating.

    The other side that I miss was the conversation. Most of the time, it always started off the same way. When the guests would arrive, we’d talk about what trains they took to get to our place, and transit in general. Next we’d sit for the meal, and the conversation would move to food; either on cooking or places we’d eaten at recently. By the time desert came around, people had a drink or two, then things got really fun. People would tell stories, or experiences they had, or a friendly debate would occur. It was the moment when we started really getting to know people, who they were, and how they worked.

    I remember that after one particular fun and engaging dinner party, me and the wife high-fived after the guests left because we were so excited and proud of ourselves for hosting such a good evening.

    But things changed, and having an adult evening over at someone’s place, only adults, is a pretty rare thing now. I’m not complaining, because it was a moment of our lives that existed for a very specific time, and place.

    Just hadn’t thought about it in a while.

  • ODDS and ENDS (Phoning It In Edition): The Most Powerful People in the World, Midnight Ice Cream, and D-Day

    ODDS and ENDS (Phoning It In Edition): The Most Powerful People in the World, Midnight Ice Cream, and D-Day

    (Feet Don’t Fail Me Now…)

    The most powerful people in the world are nothing more than spoiled, rotten, and little bratty children. So Sad.

    Ice cream, eaten late at night, without anyone knowing, tastes the best. It’s a scientific fact. Look it up.

    Today is the 81st Anniversary of D-Day.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Lists Lists Lists, Dog Toys, and Lunch

    ODDS and ENDS: Lists Lists Lists, Dog Toys, and Lunch

    (All the things that come to you…)

    (Personally, I disagree with this A.I. created image as it did not incorporate Rodney Dangerfield.)

    It’s that time of year. The time when I get in into my head that over the kid’s Summer Vacation, I am going to get a crap ton of projects accomplished. There is so much work to do on this apartment that I am excited! No! I am THRILLED! Thrilled at the opportunity to get started and make this place feel like a home. Not that it doesn’t feel like a home – But I want it to be a home that smells like fresh paint! And to do this, I need LISTS! Ton’s of them! Some on my phone, some on my computer, some in my head, some in my wife’s head. I want to make a list of my LISTS! This is the only way I can keep track, and validate how I have spent my time this Summer! Ung! This is the season of the LIST! All Hail the List!

    We have had our dog for little over five years now. Besides the occasional peeing on the carpet, the dog has worked out fine. And as a good family who loves their dog, we buy her chew toys, usually around Christmas time, but also randomly throughout the year. As of this moment, the dog has nine chew toys, but really, she has a favorite three that she takes with her. They are her safety blanket. She sleeps with them, will bring them to us when she wants to play, or thinks we’re having a bad day. Like a kid, she’ll leave them in the middle of the floor, and become jealous when we try to pick them up. Oh, and they all smell awful. The odor is so completely vexing that smell the toy before you can place it’s location. Yet, not matter how awful the smell, we cannot throw them out. No, that would destroy the dog’s will to live. We’re not that cruel.

    Ah, lunch; the middle child of meals. Not as important as breakfast, not as flashy as dinner. Lunch, the meal that has to be gotten through – at least that’s how I thought of it when I was working outside of home. I ate often at my desk, scarfing down food because I had something that I needed to work on. Sure there was a business lunch from time to time, or meeting up with a friend, but those were rare. No, working lunch wasn’t full of enjoyment. Even now, in stay-at-home land, lunch is usually leftovers. (Though, my leftovers are pretty good – humble brag here on my cooking.) See, I can make a big breakfast for my family, as well as a big dinner; but when it comes to lunch, I feel the need to produce something to eat as fast as possible. Part of the reason is that I feel like there is something else I need to do, so I can’t put that much time and effort into this meal. Not that this sentiment is true, but it’s how it feels. Maybe lunch is more like Rodney Dangerfield.

  • Visiting a Farmer’s Market

    We’ve been going a little stir-crazy in the City of late. Due to an awful illness that ran through the family over consecutive weekends, school soccer matches, and unbreakable playdate commitments, we haven’t left New York City in close to two months. We were all getting the itch to leave the confines of the Five Boroughs. Finally, this past weekend, we put our collective foot down, and decided that this Sunday, we were getting in the car and driving out of town.

    So, we went to the Farmer’s Market in downtown Beacon, NY.

    I like visiting Beacon, for many reasons. First of all, it’s just far enough away from the City to make the drive feel like you are getting out. The town is beautiful along the Hudson River, and about twenty years ago, when I first visited the place with my soon to be wife, we both thought that this would be a great place to live. (Until we found out that homes there go for like $500k to million. And that was back in 2008!) Though living there really isn’t an option anymore, it is a place that we still enjoy visiting. Oh, and they have a rather cool disc golf course in town.

    I should have taken pictures, but I didn’t think of it.

    There is a very simple pleasure of going to one of these farmer’s markets. We’ve done the ones in Tarrytown, and Cold Springs, not to mention the big one in Union Square, as well as a smaller one in Harlem. I’m never sure what I am expecting when we go to these, but I have it in my head that I will find something that will inspire me to cook a huge meal. And that sometimes happens, but the wife is way better at looking at produce, and then thinking up all the things she will be able to make.

    What ends up happening is that the kid buys some little piece of jewelry, and I buy mushrooms, while the wife goes and finds stuff for us to eat, like risotto balls, and homemade doughnuts.

    It took us about an hour to dive up there. We walked around and shopped for an hour, and then took an hour to drive back to the City. We take the lazy way home, driving down 9D, which takes along the Hudson the whole way, but also cuts through forests, and goes up and down the steeper hills of the valley.

    This was the day trip that we all needed. We weren’t gone too long, and we didn’t go too far way. Just enough to feel like we got away for a bit.