Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights

What a great film that was, right?

...

So I made some delicious food this past week, and also ate some delicious good prepared by other people.

How pretty is that? Cherry tomatoes and edible flowers and oil and vinegar and salt and pepper.

A delicious roast beet, green bean and onion salad. Yum!

And a delicious asparagus, scallion and goat cheese tart. Delish. 

Then I went to a Cuban place in Corona and had delicious Estrella beer and roast pork and rice and beans and sweet plantains...oh and the best espresso I've ever had...unfortunately, no pic.

That was so good I was ready for the good lord to take me. 

Also unpictured, the appetizers...I was too busy eating. There was croquettes (Cuban style...they were like potato croquettes, but only texture wise) they were great. Everything was, really. Independent of my love of this style of food. Also some tostones, some fried yuca, and my favorite, some mind melting chorizo. 

Man alive. What a week.

Dudes with donut attitudes

I went to the sayville farmers market this past Saturday. It was no downingtown farmers market, but there was one stall that is a treasure. 

Edible flowers! 

 

Delicious goat cheese. Looks like a bog, but was delicious:

(That's another edible flower)

And an elephant ear from a bakery next to the immortal Jilly's:

I went to a bar rescue stress test in jersey city Saturday. No pictures, as they were forbidden. But they had delicious empanadas there and terrible, terrible drinks. Watch it October 26th for some top notch complaining. 

The one picture I was able to take was of a 33 year old man turned into a child at the sight of a mister softee truck:

I got big plans for more food soon. Update to follow!

Hello Old Friend

It's been since May since I blogged???? Woweee wow wow. Where does the time go???

I guess I didn't cook enough. 

I went to a Mets game and ate in the Acela club. 

My friend and his brother got to watch batting practice because his brother was honored before the game as one of the top 10 teachers in all the city. What doe this have to do with food? Nothing...but my friend Chris got to meet the immortal John Glaser and profess his love of cheap seats. He had just come from cataract surgery:

The other big news is that it was my father's birthday in June and my mother's birthday just this past week. 

So for my father's birthday we shot the moon and went to a lovely place in Pennsylvania called the Kimberton Inn. It was a chance to wear dress pants and a blazer with the following pattern:

The food was stupendous...let's take a look, shall we? (All photo credits to my sister, since I can't take food pictures worth a damn)

 

Ooh, what lovely shrimp cocktail! I came close to summoning Beetlejuice by saying his name twice, but decided against saying it a third time and having a shrimp hand attack my mother.

Ooh, what lovely duck confit!

I couldn't wait for my sister to take a pic, I had to dive right in too my scallops. They made heaven a place on earth.

Some creme brûlée, macallan 12, and the remnants of my espresso. 

It was all great. 

Next was my mothers birthday. I wanted to cook...so I did. I also was able to go to the farmers market while I was visiting to pick up some goodies. I was seriously excited. I love the goddam downingtown farmers market so damned much. Holy moly is it the best!

I went with my mother, who got these beautiful flowers:

I also got a lot of food. I need one of those panorama settings:

I got pickles and pickled turnips, and bread, rosemary, kale, beets with their greens, eggs, cherry and pistachio goat cheese, chive goat cheese, heirloom tomatoes, white potatoes, blueberries and apricots.

Out of these

 

Came this beauty:

It all disappeared later that day.

We had the goat cheese before dinner as well as some shrimp.

The piece de of the resistance was rack of lamb, which I prepared according to my fathers recipe. That golden brown is Dijon mustard, olive oil, a head of crushed garlic and the market rosemary.

I made garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus, roasted beets and beet greens...it was greeeeaaaaaaat!

I did it, I really did it! I made a delicious dinner for my mother!

The head the tail the whole damn thing

Well, this is gonna be a mish mosh post. I forget to take pictures, but whatevs.

 My leg is still effed in terms of stamina, so I'm not a cooking machine. So I made the cooking come to me, as you'll see a little later. 

I got a little rice cooker/steamer to enable my laziness. Cooking is millet with vegetable stock and tofu. Steaming is broccoli and cauliflower. 

I add this:

And the awful food pic that results??

I think I bought that from oriental trading company in high school and left it in the mens room.

I also made delicious salad.

That's broccoli and tomato and really good cucumber and avocado and baby arugala mix topped with sriracha and tahini.

And then I went to the mets game! First if the season. Lots of hot prep.

The shirt that gets me lots of compliments from overweight men. A beloved 29th birthday gift from Lindsay Zamora that I'll treasure for life.

Would you buy a bobblehead from this man?!?!?

So, with the rice cooker, I rediscovered beans. I lived off them for awhile, but like any OCD freak, I eat in phases. So I had to quit them to rediscover how much I love them. 

This shit (pardon my French) is where it's at:

That's rice with turmeric, pinto beans, steamed red peppers, and avocado. Nothing else. No accessories needed. Put me on a dessert or desert island, and I'll live happily with my volleyball.

Til next time.

P.S. 

Oh and the mets lost, of course.

Easter

My updating has been like my cooking. Sporadic. I need to write and post before I forget about Easter. 

It was a beautiful day. I went to lovely Southold Long Island, to my friend's brother's wife's family's summer home. That's a lot of apostrophes. 

It was great. Lots of good food, lots of people. 

 

As you can see from this turkey....not all the food was good. After this picture, the turkey stood up and sang "Mammy" and "My Old Kentucky Home". But seriously, shoe polish is a great marinade.

If that bird tastes as good as it looks.....

And for the coo duh grats, some delicious pizza rustica from mrs Pesqueira

That's the stuff. Mmm mmm mmm. 

The house is right by a beach, so I took a nice picture of people:

And here's a picture of my legs:

More soon!

Just in time for Easter

It's been a long time since I've posted. I think the longest of all the posting gaps. It's because I went back to work, and I've been working through my leg healing, and it's been goddamn exhausting, pardon my French. 

I didn't really cook, until recently, and it's not so much cooking as preparing. Delicious home cooking from the Pesqueira's was shoveled in my mouth and then I passed out for a month. Every step of recovery, I master, then the rug gets pulled out and I start a whole new ordeal. 

Crutches. They build character.

No crutches. Builds character. 

I eat nutri bullet smoothies for breakfast. I make sandwiches for lunch. Here's some:

That's whole wheat bread, and tomato, and green peppers, zucchini, avocado, cheddar cheese, and sriracha.

That's whole wheat roll, 3 pepper Monterey Jack cheese, cucumber, red and green pepper, avocado and sriracha.

That's a salad, all the crap above with spinach and tahini. 

 

And that awful picture is some dinner I made with a rice cooker/steamer I got. It's...rice and tofu, cooked together in vegetable stock, with broccoli and asparagus steamed on top, mixed with franks sweet chili sauce and sriracha. Quite good for how easy it is.

More soon!

No leg updates. Just food.

I love corned beef and cabbage. I never ate it growing up. I'm trying to make up for it as an adult. I had some as an early celebration of st. Patrick's day. Which I've never celebrated. 

This was made in a slow cooker by Mrs. Pesqueira. (Bad pics alert)

There's also potatoes and carrots. This was really good, especially with mustard.

I've had groceries picked up for me, which I will be eternally grateful for. But I found out about peapod searching around on the Internet, about 5 years too late it seems. It's pretty great, I used it for the first time this week. It went off without a hitch. I ordered a lot of fruits and vegetables, which I was nervous about, because I didn't want to be stuck with old or moldy stuff. It was all fresh.

So, here's a salad with spring mix and cucumber and broccoli and radish and green pepper. I used the flash this time just because. And as a result this salad looks like it should be hanging out with Fiona Apple and a bunch of models in a sleazy hotel room. Ya know. Like the music video for Criminal. Remember the 90's?

And finally, a friend from the IRS found out that I had never had oxtail before. And I've wanted to. So they went to Faye's in amityville, and sent me over some. It was great. I love plantains and rice and beans, and the oxtail was marrow city. It was very similar to the lamb neck I made way back when. Super lip smacking savory marrow flavor and tender meat.

 

Yum yum yum.