Author Archives: Shannon

A Carbohydrate Fantasia in Three Movements

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bergen bagel

Bergen Bagel, mi amor...

My obsession with carbs is not a new development. In eighth grade health class* we had a homework assignment that involved reading an account of what a fictional someone had eaten in a day and identifying what was wrong with that person’s diet. The person who ate chocolate cake for breakfast or the person who ate fried food at every meal was a no-brainer, but I recall looking at the one who ate pancakes for breakfast, a potato for lunch and pasta for dinner and thinking, “What’s wrong with that?”

Nothing is more enabling for the carb-obsessed than marathon training. It is the perfect cover while snarfing down great quantities of noodles, which is exactly what I have been doing, probably more than is strictly necessary. What is necessary is a carb-heavy diet the day before the marathon (it helps you finish faster and in less pain—I swear I am not making this up), which has led to my elaborate fantasies of what exactly I am going to eat for each meal this Saturday before I run the New York marathon on Sunday. And as I was constructing this ideal New York carb triptych, I realized that I haven’t written much about two of the three places I had in mind, which seems utterly unjust, an oversight that I should rectify.

I. New Yorkers tend to be very opinionated about their bagels, but for me, there’s really not much of a contest when it comes to where I’ll be eating breakfast on Saturday. Bergen Bagels are everything bagels should be: dense, chewy, flavorful, slathered with cream cheese, and without a chip on their shoulders about being toasted. Not that long ago, Bergen Bagel opened a third location just a couple blocks from my house, and, no joke, I consider this one of the highlights of the past year.

II. For lunch, I think I’ll mosey over to Manhattan Continue reading →

Doogh the Right Thing: Persian Delicacies at the Pars Grill

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ghormeh sabzi

That rather impressive garnish is an entire pickled lime.

When my co-worker Kamal went to his native Iran this past summer for the first time in several years, I asked him what he was looking forward to the most. He could have fed me some sentimental line about seeing how the country had changed, or something like that. Instead, he paused, and with a dreamy look in his eye, said, “Probably the pastries.” Kamal’s honesty and love of food are just two of the things I like about him.

Another thing I like is that he was so determined to score some good Persian food this week that he decided to take me and a couple of other people from the office to the Pars Grill in Chelsea and teach us a thing or two about the cuisine of his homeland. I’m not sure what I was anticipating from Persian food, but I had some notion that it would be akin to what I think of as generic Middle Eastern fare, with most vegetarian food running in the hummus and falafel vein. But I was dead wrong; it was really unlike anything I’d eaten before.

dooghTo drink, I ordered a savory yogurt beverage called doogh, which, admittedly, is sort of an unfortunate name, but which couldn’t have been more delicious. It was thick and rich and icy and flavored with dill and mint and probably lots of other things that were beyond my powers of identification. Seriously, it was probably the best drink to pass my lips since that crazy coconut shake in Canada, and I still find myself daydreaming about that thing months later. It was so good that it made me feel a little drunk even though there was no alcohol involved.

kashk-e bademjanBut it’s not like the food was anything to sneeze at, either. Early highlights included some delicious bread (similar to pita bread, but crisper) and an eggplant appetizer called kashk-e bademjan, which had the consistency of babaganouj but was spiced completely differently and garnished with ground pistachio. Even my devoutly eggplant-hating coworker Devin had to concede that it was pretty good.

As for main courses, it’s true that the menu catered mainly to meat eaters. The massive size of the grilled meat slabs that everyone else ordered spurred multiple conversations about The Flintstones. Continue reading →

My Very First MOOC: Adventures in Harvard’s Cyber Kitchen

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the professors

The Professors: This is what would happen if you took Heidi Klum, crossed her with a chemical biologist and then made her stand next to a mathematician who is fond of fleece.

Some believe they herald a new dawn of equality in learning and some think they are the ruin of the American educational system, but regardless of how you feel about MOOCs (Massive Open Online Classes), there are more of them being offered with every passing semester. The idea is that anyone can audit a digital course from a prestigious university (for free, provided one doesn’t want academic credit for it), which is how I ended up attending my first Harvard class, Science and Cooking, while eating leftover pad thai in my pajamas.

One of the allegations against MOOCs is that they can’t possibly be rigorous enough to mirror an actual university class (see: pajamas, leftover pad thai), and I admit that the first few pitches in Science and Cooking seemed like big, slow-moving softballs. There were some fun facts about the invention of the pressure cooker and the modern oven. There was Ferran Adria jumping around and talking about spherification of yogurt like it was a religious experience. There was a music video about El Bulli (Adria’s famous restaurant) featuring a compilation of pretty food pictures edited together at a breakneck pace and set to music that would not have been out of place in a Hans-Zimmer-composed uber-dramatic film soundtrack. This was going to be a piece of cake.

And then I arrived at Lecture #2, in which the actual professors (a German chemical biologist and a mathematician who always looks like he just woke up from a nap) took the reins of the class back from the celebrity chefs. We started to calculate how many molecules were in a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Wait, what’s Avogadro’s number again? Am I really supposed to already know that water is a byproduct of the formation of triglycerides? How the hell am I supposed to know what protein is found in an egg and what its shape is like? And can I even solve logarithms without first locating the graphic calculator that I haven’t turned on since I was seventeen? Continue reading →

Brace Your Sweet Tooth. It’s Festival Time.

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Sugar-Sweets-Poster-webHear ye, hear ye, worshippers of the sucrose! Get thyselves to Havemeyer Street, because it’s time for the Fourth Annual Sugar Sweets Festival this Sunday! It’s the bake sale to end all bake sales, and proceeds will benefit the City Reliquary, a fun and funky museum in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

It just so happens that this year Pitchknives will be represented at the festival in the flesh! Get there earlier enough and you can snap up the sweet treats that we’ll be whipping up on site. Fans of the site will know that we consider ourselves more the cooking and gardening type rather than skilled bakers, but have no fear gentle readers: we’ve come up with the perfect way to circumvent this obstacle. We’ve cooked up a sweet version of Jason’s famous masala peanuts, and we’ll be unveiling them in all their sugary glory this Sunday.

So come on down to hipster-town, eat our peanuts, watch some fun baking competitions and nab some treats from some of the hottest bakers in Brooklyn. Entry is free, so what’s not to like? You can find more details right here.

The Dessert Cure: Down in the Dumps Pudding

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novel-cure-coverLately, I’ve been hearing a lot about The Novel Cure by Susan Elderkin and Ella Berthoud, a book of literary “prescriptions” to alleviate whatever ails you. I know this sounds a little impulse-buy-at-the front-table-of –Barnes-&-Noble-ish, but two facts caught my attention: 1) the authors do not limit themselves to the illnesses of the mind that you might expect, but also bridge the gap between physical discomfort and psychological panacea (they suggest Shantaram for constipation, for instance), and 2) the book is indexed both by illness and book, for handier use as an actual reference.  I really am going to try their suggestion for “Dinner Parties, Fear of.”

Why don’t we already have something similar for food? There are homeopathic guides, of course, but I’m thinking more of something that would tell me the perfect dish to cure my headache or the muscle strain in Jason’s shoulder. For instance, preparing and eating bibimbop will rid you of hangnails. Actually, that’s not true, but I’m not saying that I want to write this book; I just want to have it at my disposal.

In fact, the only recipe that I could think of that wears its medicinal target baldly on its sleeve is the Down in the Dumps Pudding that my mother used to bake at the end of summer vacation to usher in the first day of school. Though I grew up in the Midwest, this is a very British use of the word pudding–more of a cake, if you ask me. It’s a molten chocolate number that should be eaten hot, so make sure that you’re adequately depressed to take on the whole pan or have some friends around to help you polish it off. Either way, you should feel better by the time it’s gone.

Down in the Dumps Pudding Continue reading →

I’ll See Your Rice and Raise You a Lentil: Shannon’s Easy Mujaddara

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mujaddara

Did you know that dishes that combine a grain and a legume (like peanut butter sandwiches or, um, mujaddara) offer your body a complete set of proteins?

Whenever we go to Jason’s parents’ house for a holiday, I can rest assured that lurking somewhere in the refrigerator will be a container of mujaddara for us to “snack on.” The quotation marks are necessary, because the container is approximately the size of a bathtub. I chalk up the mammoth proportions to two factors: 1) Bob, Jason’s dad, is immensely fond of the Bosnian guy who owns a restaurant near his company’s offices, and 2) we are a clan that can polish off a vast quantity of the rice and lentil dish with alarming speed.

As delicious as the Richmond holiday version is, it’s not always within easy reach when a mujaddara craving hits, so I recently went hunting for a recipe. There are approximately a zillion floating around the internet (and yes, I’m about to add one more). Because I loathe soggy rice and was concerned about my own ability to time things correctly, I combined a couple versions that called for the rice and lentils to be prepared separately. Even though that probably makes it less traditional, the final product turned out quite well—aromatic and subtle and earthy, a warmly comforting end to a chilly fall day.

Shannon’s Easy Mujaddara

  • 1 cup lentils (any variety will work, but the baby ones are nice)
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 cups water, vegetable stock, white wine, or a combination of these
  • 2 cinnamon sticks
  • 1 tablespoon cumin
  • ½ teaspoon allspice
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 cup rice
  • 3 small or 2 medium onions, sliced Continue reading →

Fourteen Centuries of Pretzels

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dirndl and pretzel

I admit that this is just a stock photo. But I covet both the pretzel and the dirndl.

Oktoberfest is drawing nigh (more quickly, actually, than October itself—the Munich festival begins next weekend), and though the most celebrated element of the festival is beer, I thought it might be worth delving into the history of another essential feature of both German and American festivities. “The crossbow competition?” you may ask. “The pork knuckles? The traditional hat sporting tufts of goat hair?” These are all good guesses. But in fact, I wish to focus your attention on the story of the pretzel.

Almost every fact in the pretzel’s twisted past (yes, I know–sorry) is up for debate. Though pretzels probably have their roots in the hard-baked biscuits that the Roman army carried into battle, the first of the familiar salted, knotted variety probably emerged on the European scene sometime in the 7th century, perhaps in conjunction with an egg-less Lent. The history, however, has become a little muddled, not least because Flemish painters saw pretzels as so fundamental that they painted them into depictions of the Last Supper. Confusing though this anachronistic tendency may be, I sort of appreciate their thinking: “If I like pretzels, who am I to deprive Jesus of a little nosh?”

Even the origins of the name are open to debate, with one camp (let’s call them the jewelry camp) saying that it comes from a Latin word for “bracelet” and another (let’s call them the pretzel fetishists) saying that it comes from the Latin word for “reward.” Continue reading →

School Lunch Contest! You Could Win!

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school lunchWhat’s that smell in the air? Is the crispness of fall? Or is it the trays of rectangular government-issue pizza being loaded into industrial ovens?  Few arenas of school life are as rife with drama as the cafeteria, and no one does his or her time there without coming out with a few war stories. Like the time I gagged on a hamburger, puked on myself and then plowed into a very elderly and startled-looking first grade teacher. Or the time Dave found a slimy brown mutant apple hiding inside his apple, turning all of us off fresh fruit for weeks. Or the time Maureen thought she had lost her tooth in a can of Vienna sausages and then thrown it away. (She hadn’t.)

We’re asking you to share with us your most hilarious or harrowing stories from the front lines of the lunchroom. Tales from any grade level or perspective (yes, teachers, that means you) are welcome. We’ll pick our favorites and share them on the blog next week. In addition to fame and accolades, one lucky grand prize winner will receive a special treat in the mail from us.

Submit your stories to submissions@pitchknives.com before the deadline of midnight on Saturday, September 14. Hoist high your brown bag, and let the lunch meat fly!

Fried Green Tomatoes and a Food Film Puzzle

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fried green tomatoes

I never met a fried vegetable I didn't like.

Last weekend, during a visit to my parents’ house, my mom fried up some green tomatoes from my dad’s garden that Jason and I scarfed down like they were going out of style. In addition to being tart and crispy and delicious (her secret: use seasoned fish fry for the breading instead of humdrum cornmeal), the tomatoes reminded us of the movie of the same name, particularly the awesome scene in which Kathy Bates wraps herself in Saran Wrap.

But Fried Green Tomatoes was hardly the first or last film to feature a food item in the title. Have you been following Llalan’s beer and movie guidelines? If so, you’ll be able to identify the movies that contain the following quotes. Ten of the titles include something edible; the other two feature beverages.
  1. kathy bates“In telling the story of my father’s life, it’s impossible to separate fact from fiction, the man from the myth. The best I can do is to tell it the way he told me.”
  2. “You realize we’re all going to go to college as virgins. They probably have special dorms for people like us.”
  3. “Seems like the government’s got more interest in a dead man than a live one.”
  4. “Thanks for the compliment, but I know how I look. This is the way I look when I’m sober. It’s enough to make a person drink, wouldn’t you say?”
  5. “No, I can’t. My wife can always tell. She can smell it on my sweater.”
  6. “Apart from you, they’re the most stupid creatures on this planet. They don’t plot, they don’t scheme, and they are not organized.”
  7. “Isaac started the whole thing. He’s a boy preacher who came to this town three years ago. At nine-years-old back then, he had a charming way that appealed to all the kids and teens like us to follow him with his own teachings of the bible and of the Old Testament. But me and Sarah thought he was just plain weird.”
  8. “Centipede, I do not know whether to kill you or kiss you.”
  9. “There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening.”
  10. “This is not gonna work, Little Chef! I’m gonna lose it if we do this any more. We gotta, we gotta figure out something else. Something that doesn’t involve any biting, or nipping, or running up and down my body with your little rat feet.”
  11. “Think of your children pledging allegiance to the maple leaf. Mayonnaise on everything. Winter 11 months of the year. Anne Murray – all day, every day.”
  12. “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door… And that’s all. I ask for the movement to continue. Because it’s not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power… it’s about the “us’s” out there. Not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us’s. Without hope, the us’s give up – I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living.”
When you’re ready to see the answers, click away… Continue reading →

It’s Raining Vegetables. Make a Casserole.

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vegetable casserole

All layered up and ready to go in the oven.

August is my favorite month for fresh, local veggies. It’s the time when all the fruit (as in seed-bearing) vegetables like tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant and chili peppers hit the table.  But with everything ripening at once, this time of year can leave both gardeners and cooks feeling like they’re drowning in vegetables. Farmer Dwight (of cabbage fame) has been sending me frequent updates about the massive tomato yields that are currently covering every flat surface in his kitchen. Garrison Keillor used to joke that it’s unwise to leave your car windows down at the end of summer lest you discover a squash in the driver’s seat when you come back, deposited by some overwhelmed gardener.

And this week I found myself trying to exhaust our ample CSA shipment before an impending trip out of town. How many vegetables can you fit in a single dish? To find out, I devised this casserole. It’s true that I had to break my own rule about turning on the oven in hot weather, but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

It’s Raining Vegetables Casserole

  • 2 eggplants, sliced
  • 6 plum (or other smallish variety) tomatoes, diced
  • Handful of fresh basil, chopped
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 4 to 8 garlic cloves, sliced
  • 1 chili pepper, diced
  • 2 zucchini, cut into half moons
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 6 oz. muenster or mozzarella cheese, sliced
  • Parmesan cheese to taste Continue reading →