the underbelly

Today I ate out of a food truck. Two food trucks actually. But I wasn’t getting chicken and rice. I wasn’t getting a kati roll or a hot dog. I wasn’t even getting roasted chestnuts. I was eating food prepared by some very talented chefs.

Why?

Because NBC New York set up four of New York’s top chefs with four food trucks and four secret locations and times. Then they handed out virtual golden tickets. And a lucky few got to pimp their lunch hours. (Is that reference too old? Then call me retro and while you’re at it get jiggy with it.)

First up was Paul Liebrandt of Corton.

This was his truck.

This was his menu. Cod croquettes with homemade potato chips.

This was him with his cones of food. It was a bit early – 11am and keep in mind yesterday was the Superbowl or as I like to call it the Beer Extravaganza so it felt earlier – and I was not at my perkiest. He made fun of me because I was a bit overwhelmed and a tad in awe (he’s a bit of a big deal) and called me shy. So I blushed and giggled and took a cone.

Here’s a cone closeup. The croquettes were crunchy and bursting with fishy saltiness. They reminded me a bit of baccala. The chips were delicate and crispy, like thin potato petals.

Here is a closeup of Chef Liebrandt. Can you see why I giggled a bit?

After a bit of digesting it was off to another secret location to see the great Alain Ducasse whose resume is far too long to put into one sentence. Suffice it to say, the man can cook.

Chef Ducasse’s truck. It quite crowded. People who walked by without golden e-tickets glared at us with both jealousy and annoyance because New Yorkers do not like it when people are eating lunch in their paths of progress.

Here is Chef Ducasse dishing out his food looking like the professional that he is.

Here he is making a funny face.

Here is proof of how crowded it was. I could not get a clear shot of the menu as there was never a break in the line. But I will summarize. He was serving a tarte flambée, choucroute and a meringue for dessert.

Mmmm choucroute. Delicious boudin blanc, a spicy sausage and thick slices of ham all on top of scrumptiously tangy sauerkraut.

Meringue, I found out, is not very photogenic. It mostly just looks like a baguette. But it was very sweet and melted in your mouth (not in your hand – the retro referencer strikes again!).

All in all a good lunch hour, I’d say.

The other day I had lunch in a dungeon. This is not where I sat:

Neither was this:

They were just decor. For now. I don’t know what happened in them after I left.

Why was I in a dungeon? For a book release party for Whip Smart by Melissa Febos which is a memoir about her time as a Dominatrix in New York. Coincidentally her Domme alias was Justine (my name). So that’s been a fun read. But anyway. While wandering around the Chinese torture room as speculating on the mural of the heavily pierced, leather-clad babes leaning against a giant…johnson….in a toxic wasteland (serious art, people) we munched on a light lunch and sipped Moscato D’Asti.

What do you eat in a dungeon?

Veggie sushi of course.

And cheese. Because cheese is appropriate at any occasion in any venue.

The worst torture device of all?

AHHH an ugly couch!!! The pain!!!

Best Cellars is not one to throw money at its employees. They use their money wisely by buying delicious yet economically sound bottles to sell to loyal customers. But when we throw a party we throw it right. With two giant bottles of bubbly:

You can’t tell. But that thing is huge. It’s about the size of my leg. And while I have short legs for a person of 5′ 6”, that is still an impressive size. It fits the equivalent of 12 bottles of wine.

Oh, and you’ll have to forgive the photography. I have been playing with my new camera and teaching myself Adobe Photoshop so things may look a little…well…self indulgent some times. Bear with me.

Our fearless leader, Alex, easing the slightly larger than average cork out of bottle number two (it only took us a bit over an hour to take care of bottle number one).

He managed to open it up with only the slightest hiss of release from the bottle.

Also, being a giant, Alex was able to pour the bottle all by himself. Ta da! Yes, we poured it into a pitcher. It looked like beer.

The cups we used didn’t help. But us Best Cellars kids aren’t pretentious. We’re happy to drink our Champagne out of plastic cups. Actually, we’re happy to drink most things out of plastic cups.

When people think of Sonoma County they think wine country. They think rolling hills of Pinot Noir and a sophisticated country people who sip Chardonnay while staring off into the sunset as a red-tailed hawk screeches across the rosy sky. And, in some ways, they’d be right. But at it’s heart Sonoma County is still a rural, country county where people drive rusted out trucks, wear cowboy hats and boots and buy their meat at stores decorated with the heads of the animals whose meat they are selling. Like Bud’s:

Bud’s is a butcher in Pengrove. To get to it you have to go down about five different dirt roads following signs that you begin to doubt as you head further into the middle of nowhere. But then there is it!

Bud’s has every meat you could reasonably desire (meaning no rattle snake, no bear, no endangered wild cat). But there are homemade sausages (see above, she’s cutting links), amazing looking cuts of beef (including Wagyu), elk, boar, ostrich (including ostrich fan, which I had never seen before), and more, as well as the usual pork and chicken and other fowl.

Awesome looking bloody elk chops. But we were there to buy venison for a chili I had planned. How to make venison chili? Take a recipe for beef chili and then just keep it cooking for about six times as long. It was delicious but not very photogenic – hence no post. But while we were there we also picked up some wild boar chops for dinner that night as well as a venison sausage….like a summer sausage I guess…kind of similar to ring bologna, which I dream of nightly now that I am back in New York and it is out of reach. But anyway back to the boar chops:

I used a recipe from The Silver Spoon for pork chops, because they’re roughly the same save for a bit of a difference in terms of fat content. But this recipe involved lots of butter so I wasn’t worried. I also marinated the chops ahead of time in some olive oil, sage and lemon juice.

The best part of the dish was the crispy bits of fried sage. But the meat was a tasty component as well, especially when doused with a bit of the lightly browned butter. Ah, meat. So good, particularly  when purchased from a place that reveres it as much as Bud’s. If you ever find yourself in Pengrove, which I will admit is unlikely, stop on by and grab some venison jerky, some sausage, and a big hung of ostrich fan for the road.

Yesterday I saw this in my local California (I’m home for the holidays) grocery store:

I don’t….get….it. Is it for people who want to keep their energy up but don’t like coffee and really want people to know that they’re still huge douche bags? Or is it just aimed at naked girls wearing bands of denim as “skirts” bending over? What’s your target demographic Playboy energy drink?! Answer me!

Did I buy it?

No.

Do I regret it?

Yes.

Will I buy it tomorrow despite my utter embarrassment?

Indeed.

Walking on the street the other day, I believe it was 18th street, I saw this fridge:

It’s tiny and baby blue and inside there are built in wine racks. Some people pine for tiny kittens and fawn over puppies. I coo at baby retro fridges.

While the family was here for Thanksgiving we decided to brave the Museum of Natural History on Thanksgiving Eve. This was a daring feat due to the fact that the balloons were being blown up right around the corner meaning that there were children galore on the Upper West Side.

But before we entered the museum and learned all sorts of fun dino-facts we had a spot of lunch at the UWS Shake Shack, which happened to be where all the children were lunching as well. But the shack has you covered for that. Here’s my meal:

There’s the famed Shack Burger, which for me still can’t compare with the In-N-Out burger of my teen years but is still crispy and delicious. There’s the order of fries, which as always are crinkle up, not my favorite cut but they serve their purpose. And there’s…wait…that’s not a soda…that’s not water…that’s….wine! Yup. That’s how you deal with a burger shack full of screaming babies: You order a bottle of rose. Thank you Danny Meyer. Good thinking.

The other day I ate live octopus.

Ok.

Not really alive. But freshly killed so that the little pieces continued to move long after being hacked up. They tried to crawl off the plate. They stuck to the plate. If you managed to get them into your mouth they stuck to your mouth. I had to attack them with my wolf-like jaws in order to fully incapacitate them. But they were tasty. Actually they were kind of tasteless – but in a really pleasing way.

Imagine this image squirming and undulating:

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. I’d do it for lunch today.

Where did I get said live cephalopod? Why, Flushing, Queens of course. What was the name of the restaurant? I forget. And I can’t find it. So for now we’ll call it ghost restaurant. If I went back I’m sure all that would be there would be an empty lot and an old Korean man would tell me that a restaurant hasn’t been there for yeeeeaaarsss. And then he would disappear into the ether.

Yesterday someone searched the words “i ate steak tartare and i am nervous” and found their way to my little site. I just want say, hey guy, it’s gonna be okay. Steak tartare is a beautiful thing. It wants to be loved and enjoyed, not feared. Don’t be nervous, little man. Be happy. Then get some more toast points and whip up another batch.

There are many things in life I fear: heights, cockroaches, flying, sharks, gum, centipedes. No food was ever on that list. As a young child I regularly ate raw hamburger meat off the counter. I am not proud to say that I sampled many a cat food. I ate ants off a Los Angeles sidewalk (I was three at the time and curious). I’ve eaten cheap sushi, cafeteria food, fast food, pizza that sat in a fraternity basement for hours. And I have never gotten food poisoning. Well…had never gotten food poisoning. While on assignment for a certain weekly New York publication I was dining at an Upper East Side establishment (I won’t say where on this blog but if you really want to know leave a comment and I will email you) where I ordered the tuna tartare. The first bite I had I thought, that doesn’t taste right. So, having no fear of food, I took another bite. Nope, I thought, definitely doesn’t taste right. Is it the weird avocado accompaniment? I asked myself and took another bite. No, I answered. That is most definitely not fresh fish. And then I finally stopped eating it. 

Cut to the next morning at the gym when i am collapsed on a mat, feeling like my stomach is trying to rip itself from my body. I spent the rest of the day either in bed or vomiting or on the floor when the bed seemed too far to return to. Damn you, Tuna, I thought. Well at least I’ll get some work done…oh wait! My work entirely revolves around writing about food or booze, the two things that caused my stomach to attempt to jump out the window. So I laid there and watched reruns of Dharma and Greg (the stark differences between them are just so hilarious! She’s a free spirit and he’s  a conservative! Pure creative genius!) and sleeping. The next day I woke up and had a deadline to meet. I wrote about food, but without any joy. I let my blog readings pile up. I tried to eat a pretzel and failed. 

The next day faired a little better. I was able to eat a pretzel. 

Two weeks later I have obviously recovered physically but mentally I’m not sure if I’ll ever be the same fearless eater. Sushi still holds no appeal for me and I love sushi like I love, well….sushi. There’s not many things that top my love of sushi. Street carts make me slightly nervous now. I am also hesitant to order steak tartare. And I love steak tartare more than I love sushi – it’s one of those not many things that tops that love. There is hope for the future, though. I was able to order and enjoy a rare burger (post coming) the other day. Don’t worry, my friends. One day I will eat recklessly again. Or I’ll die from salmonella. Either or.