Annie's New York Eats

Back, and Better Than Ever.

Was it the afternoon spent watching Julie & Julia, and the reminder of how much fun and excitement a blog can provide--the immediacy, the interactivity, the opportunity to curse and swear and tell your most intimate secrets and still have a chance to fix it all up when you get that book publishing deal?

Or was it the highly intelligent people, many of whom we have never met personally, who mentioned that they enjoyed reading this blog and wouldn't it be nice if we started writing it again?

Or perhaps it was the anticipated treat of explaining, YET AGAIN, that we refer to ourself as "we" because it is the editorial "we", a time-honored contrivance which writers from Charles Dickens to Cleveland Amory, and, uh, not many people recently, have used--none of them for the reason we do, which is that we would like to convince ourself that we hold the majority view on each and every topic?

Whatever the reason, we are up and writing this blog again. 

Let's catch up, briefly.

We last wrote in December of 2008, when we were involved in a flaming war and now we just have a headache and a dim feeling of self-hatred. Can we all just forget that ever happened? Some people like The French Laundry and some people feel that it should never be criticized and some people, that's us, feel that every sacred cow deserves a hot foot once in a while--if you can picture the mixed metaphor, and you might not want to try.

It was also at that point that we concluded our Master's in Social Work studies. This being a lousy time in which to get a job, we took several quick courses in grant writing, and then did some volunteer work. 

Eventually it became clear that we would need to live part of the week in Manhattan if we wanted to get into any income-generating projects, and so we now rent a tiny studio in the Chelsea neighborhood. It is barely big enough for the one of us. 

When in town, which we are for two or three nights per week, we eat out or order in, and sit in an Ikea chair which cost only $22 and thoroughly numbs our butt.

At home at The Old Newman Place in Kingston, we cook up a storm. (Sometimes we act a little more to the point and cook up a meal, too.) 

Our beautiful daughter T. is with us on weekends and enjoys our efforts, especially when they can be covered in tomato sauce. (You might remember that the BD is 19 and moderately mentally retarded).

Pal Odillio is still around and tending our garden, what hasn't been lost to the Late Blight. 

BFF La Skolnique hangs out in groovy Santa Cruz, CA, and we will be spending three weeks with her next month--one in San Francisco, where, as you know, we left our heart last year; one week at Calistoga, which is in the Napa Valley and where La Skol wants to take a therapeutic mud bath; and one week in Santa Snooze itself. 

"Woodstock West", as it is never called, is also famous for having a store which sells chocolate-covered bacon.

This leads us to another bit of news: we have been diagnosed with diabetes, in addition to being what is known medically as Fat As A Cow. And indeed, there are individuals of the bovine persuasion hereabouts who could actually take a long look at us and, with a delicate whisk of the tail, turn on us as if muttering "P.U.!" and walk some distance. Not many, but there are some...so we are now counting carbs.

This is dangerous because, as our friend Cindy mentioned today, when you finally break and have yourself a nice loaf or two of bread and maybe a few bags of Milano cookies, your body chemistry will punish you by releasing all the fat on which you have been gorging yourself straight into your rear end. And won't the cows laugh at you then!

Diabetes and carb-counting are not terrible for us right now because we don't have to do the meds or the finger-sticking yet--but our doctor might tell us different when we see him next week. 

We also do not drink. 

But our good friend Paul has been told to basically cut all enjoyment from his life and diet, just because of this selfsame diabetes, and we dread the day that we might have to do the same. All we can say is, it has not come yet.

We are still chums with JC, that classy gent, and we have made (or re-made, life on Facebook being what it is) other friends to whom we hope to introduce you. Our young roommate Amy is out of the house, so there will be no more copy about her. Our cat, Fuzzy, abides--generally in our "In" box, and to the exclusion of any actual paperwork.

One last point: 

We liked Julie & Julia, although we wouldn't recommend it to anyone who dislikes chick flicks, gets impatient with historical drama, or does not understand why people enjoy eating and wouldn't it be easier if we could just take a pill three times a day. 

As to the current controversies, in which every food blogger who is not Julie Powell is going around saying that the movie would have been better off without her or that she isn't Julia Child or some other non sequitor, we would only like to interject that no, Julie isn't Julia--but she is Julie Powell, a talented writer whose blog and book did happen to be about more than trying to become a famous foodie. 

Julie gave an unforgettable picture of the indignity of life in the "pink collar" ghetto, which isn't any more attractive now that its denizens are called "Assistants" instead of "Secretaries". Why are young females treated badly by their male superiors? Julie Powell doesn't have the answer to that one, but she does open the question to discussion, and I hope she comes back to it soon.

 And let's also stop pointing out that the elderly Mrs. Child disapproved of Julie's blog, which she might or might not have read. Two points: A) Of course she didn't like the cursing, but Julie writes that way and so that's the way it is, and B) Mrs. Child was very, very old and somewhat unwell and quite lonely without her Paul, and her opinion of the exuberant, talented Julie might have been different a decade or two previous. 

And even if it would have been the same, so what? Julia's achievement stands alone. So does Julie's. Seems there's enough at this feast without adding the sour grapes.

Two Days in Kingston--for Zach Brooks (and You)

Zach Brooks, the imresario of Midtown Lunch, is one of my favorite people who I don't really know.  I feel as if I know him, sure, but the fact is I really couldn't pick him out of a police line-up if I had to.

Since we haven't met, I guess I shouldn't be insulted that he did not come to me personally with a request for dining tips in the Hudson Valley. He's staying right here in Kingston yet, and he never even thought of asking. What am I, chopped liver?

Anyway, in answer to Zach and almost anyone else who finds himself in the Hudson Valley any time this summer, here's a quick rundown of what's available.

(It goes unsaid that the best place in Kingston is my kitchen, but you have to email first.)

The meat case at Fleischer's

First of all, Fleischer's Meat Market has wonderful cuts of beef, pork, chicken and sometimes duck or goat; that's if you're going to have a kitchen or grill in which to play around. If you don't have that, get some prepared foods--I tried a pastrami just last week which brought me right back to my Long Island girlhood and the days when a cold slice of brisket could be redolent with spices even before you slapped it on a piece of rye bred and slathered on the mustard. Fleischer's has wonderful sausages, and there are subtle ground meat mixtures like "Bork" and lean beef with bacon ground right in which could bring the Buddha back to omnivorism--not to be offensive. You can find such staunch HV brands as Ronnybrook milk and dairy and Sprout Farm cheeses at Fleischer's as well.

Around the corner from Fleischer's you'll find the Saturday Farmer's Market (a nice way to pass the time while you're in town, but most of the vendors appear the following day at the Rhinebeck market, which is bigger and somehow merrier--in my opinion, anyway) and Lucy's Tacos. Lucy's are a local mini-chain, with another branch in Red Hook; fine, well-cooked meats and vegetables in these tacos, and colorful cowboy-kitsch decorations if you want to set a spell while chowing down.

(We don't actually talk like that in Kingston.)

There is also Eng's restaurant on Broadway in Kingston ,where aficionados of American-Cantonese fare routinely fall in love; it's the kind of place where folks heading to Florida for the winter stop and get a few gallons of chow mein to freeze and eat when the fruits of paradise pall.

And there are Stewart's convenience shoppes all over the place on both sides of the Hudson; they have the best ice cream in the immediate vicinity, plus a sort of peaceful atmosphere and zillions (literally zillions) of ice-cold drinks at very low prices.

Again, if you are staying someplace with a real kitchen, stop over at Adams' Fairacre Farms to assemble the nicest produce, fish, odd bits of offal (I've bought sweetbreads, oxtail and lamb shanks here, and many times thought about buying a whole, sculptural, frozen head of pig; it reminds one uncomfortably of the novel 1984 and also of the possibilities of head cheese). The breads and baked goods are fine here as well, but try to stay away from the canned goods and sodas; they are fearfully overpriced, and the local Hannaford's will do you much better on those.

That's it for Kingston. Woodstock, a somewhat famous Ulster County town from another era, is only a few miles away, but I wouldn't suggest you go there on a holiday weekend unless you want to write a very bitter essay about what the burnt-out end of the Summer of Love can come too. It all amounts to hippies and goats, and I don't know if you'd enjoy that.

So this would be the time to take yourself across the river. People say "across the river" around here like you'd have to cross in pontoons. Actually it's a very short bridge across the Hudson and it costs only $1 in toll, which you pay when you're headed East.

In Red Hook you will find a fine little coffee shop called Taste Bud's, which we love for its chocolates, frozen treats, fancy pastries and "Tripple Chippers" which are enormous bar-shaped chocolate chip cookies. (Bud makes a vegan version of these, which always seem to be the first to sell out). Cold desserts and drinks, too. Bud generally has a booth at the Duchess County Fairgrounds, where you'll find a music-and-carnival setup called "The Great American Picnic" this weekend.

The Fairgrounds are between Red Hook and Rhinebeck. (If you find yourself singing "From Red Hook to Rhinebeck, from Memphis to St. Joe, wherever the four winds blow" you will only be doing what I do all the time). 

About half a mile down Route 9 from the Fairgrounds you will find yourself surrounded by quaint shops, women in designer sports outfits, and men wearing baggy khaki cargo shorts like it's some kind of law. Yes, you're in Rhinebeck, and the only thing to do about it is to park your car until that feeling passes.

Or better still, get out of the car and walk a little. There are plenty of good things here, foodwise and otherwise.

Just to get you in the right geographical state of mind, you are now about ten miles north of The Cullinary, which some people call The Culinary Institute of America. I'm not sure if or when it will be open, but, when it is open, you can go and look at the incredibly lovely grounds, buy beautiful soups, sandwiches, and pastries from the Apple Pie Cafe, and catch up on your foodie reading at the Craig Claiborne bookstore. It's a fun half-a-day, especially if you want to see the balcony from which The Chairman welcomed the contestants in the first episode of The Next Iron Chef.

Oh, Okay. Well, I liked it, anyway.

Between Rhinebeck and the CIA are Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelts' homes, Springdale and Val-Kill. Unless you absolutely hate history, do stop by. These landmarks are pretty much the model of their kind, and you don't have to be a Democrat (or even American) to be moved by what you'll see here.

Okay, back to food. In Rhinebeck there are several small and medium-sized restaurants where, if you can get a reservation, you are going to want to eat. There's The Calico, best for sandwiches and pastries; Le Petit Bistro for old-school French. The Beekman Inn's resto is nowhere near as good as it was when Larry Forgione used to wear the toque, so you might want to just take a look and keep walking.

There's Samuel's, for candy and, in season, hot chocolate; Pete's Diner, inexpensive and filling. And there is Rhinebeck Village Pizza, as excellent a pizza as you will find anywhere outside of Connecticut and maybe Arizona.

Then there are Gigi Trattoria and, across the street, Terrapin. My favorite between the two is Gigi, because the service is nicer and because Mario Batali once prepared beef cheeks for me and my daughter there, but the food at Terrapin is so good that even staff who have been fired feel they have to go back to eat there.

The place for sushi is Osaka, a lovable neighborhood joint on Garden Street. When there, order an Annie roll. It is an enormous hand roll filled with cucumber under spicy tuna with tempura crunchies. It's named after me. And if you order it, the beautiful Jessica, finest hostess in the Hudson Valley, will giggle and ask you if you know me.

I think that's about it. Zach and any other visitors, I hope you enjoy yourself at Kingston. But don't bother stopping by my house (it's on Andrew St., just behind the High School. The fact is, I'll actually be staying in Manhattan this weekend. And if the Union Square Greenmarket is closed on the 4th, won't I feel like a fool?

The (Food) Porn is Here, and It's Mellow

I didn't know if you were feeling a bit bored between Monday "Next Food Network Star" postings, but, in case you were, here is a pictorial account of 24 hours in the life of an NYC/Hudson Valley Foodie.

This is my friend JC, who doesn't read this blog. He's a busy man. But he did join me for a sushi dinner last night at a joint in his neighborhood, the tony Upper East Side of Manhattan. It was called "Wasabi Lobby" but don't hold that against it.

We both love sushi. He has a problem with creamy and possibly tangy things. I have a problem with absolutely nothing. We usually order from the All You Can Eat menu at Yuka, another sushi joint pretty much across the street, but decided to switch to somplace classier because we are, though few appreciate it, extremely classy people.

These are some of the things we ate.

What ho, C!

In the back are fried sweet potato rolls. The middle left rolls are JC's, a vegetable roll topped, as they do nowadays, with spicy tuna. It's delicious but so messy to eat! 

Right middle is spicy tuna, not too creamy, not too chili-ey--perfect to my taste. In the forefront is a "Spicy Hamachi" handroll. This was quite delicate; the spice didn't overpower the buttery fish. Just in back of that is spicy samon. What can I tell you; I really like spicy things.

This is chirashi-zushi, which, as JC astutely commented, is pretty much just sashimi on a bowl of rice. Very true, but who could sell it with that name? 

Usually I extract all garnish from a chirashi-zushi, pour soy sauce over and then get my head down and eat, loudly, for about an hour. Last night's conversation was so interesting (and I found I was so used to sharing with JC) that I kept putting bits of fish on JC's plate, and he kept gobbling them down. 

We probably could have gotten a funny photo out of me flipping the fish into his open mouth, like a woman feeding a seal in a Thurber cartoon, but, alas, I feel JC may be too dignified for this.

These are the gardens surrounding Roth Hall, the administrative building at the Culinary Institute of America.

Next day I went down to Poughkeepsie to visit Rhonda and Regina for lunch. These poor, starved women are of the yogurt-and-carrot sticks school, so I cleverly told them I had a stomach virus and couldn't eat anything. Then I went home to Kingston by way of The Culinary Institute of America, the nation's foremost cooking school and one of the loveliest campuses in the Northeast.

Some people call it CIA, some people call it The Cullinary, and the difference usually goes like:

"What joy! We've finally enrolled young Brentwood in the CIA!"

or

"My uncle worked as a porter at The Cullinary. He broke his hip slipping in a puddle of duck fat and they completely screwed him on his Worker's Comp."

I'm not taking an official stance here. It's just something I think about whenever I come up to the campus.

Which, no kidding, is seriously gorgeous:

These are the stepped gardens near the Colavita Building, sloping down to the Conrad Hilton Library. I'm actually not making those names up.

As always, I stopped in at the bookstore, which is the best foodie bookstore in New York; concentrating on books by and about CIA grads, there's some very important talent represented here. I finally committed to Alton Brown's first book, I'm Just Here for the Food. (AB did not attend the CIA, but they've got respect for talented outsiders too).

Then I went to the Apple Pie Cafe, the most affordable of the dining choices and the one which is most often open when I'm in the neighborhood. Like all of the campus restaurants, the Cafe is staffed, stocked and managed by students, with the result that the clean, hyper-managed look of the homey little cafe will prepare you for food which is decent and slightly corporate. You'll actually get something a lot more interesting.

This was a classic vichysoisse, topped with frizzled leek. (The tasty tendrils were actually all through the soup, making a nice crunchy contrast to the soup's creamy texture; an admirable execution--although there was a certain over-smoothness which I associate with cornstarch. Or too much potato? or too little cream?) It was pretty much a B- production. But you could tell some thought had gone into it.

My main course was a lot better--a simple and classic French ham sandwich, made this time with a wonderful baguette, smooth sweet butter, and prosciutto so good I practically rushed the counter to ask where it came from. (I had an  idea that The Cullinary was actually keeping a stock of small, well-scrubbed pigs upon whom to experiment in Butchery and Charcuterie class.Well? Hudson Valley farmers have kept swine for hundreds of years!)

All fantasy was extinguished by the commercial-quality pickle, sad and limp enough to get tossed out of any Bridal Suite in the land.

Wot's all this, Annie? Well, it's three tiny desserts for sale at the CIA, and we brought them home carefully shielded from the sun and with the air conditioner blasting ultra-chill in the car. Then we got them into our fridge--and then, only then, did we feel secure about futzing around with them and getting the right camera angles and so on.

The dessert on the rigth is called a Strawberry Shortcake. As our teenage roommate said, "It really is a Short Cake!" and yes, in the horizontally-challenged sense, it is. Strawberry on the bottom, tiny pink macaron cookie on the top.

The middle dessert is called "Mocha Panna Cotta". On top are "bubbles" made of dark chocolate mousse; the three stripes on the bottom are not a design on the tiny glass serving jar, but three layers of biscuit with, we're guessing, chocolate (or perhaps espresso?) ganache in between.

The dessert on the left is a vanilla panna cotta with a square of, I think, passion-fruit pate on top, plus little sugar balls. The clear plastic thing is called a pipette and, according to the sales literature, it contains a "shot of ponzu". I would like to be able to explain this further, but you can't always get what you want.

Then I started taking pictures of the cat. Then I had some ripe brie with a handful of roasted-but-unsalted pistachios. Now I'm going to et at least one of those little desserts and read more Alton.

To all a good night!

The Cost of Food

Today, the revered Ed Levine posted this in his blog:

The values of the people making or growing my food inform my perception of the value of their end product. And that's my bottom line.

He made this statement as part of a larger discussion about the appropriate cost of food. Is $350 before tax, beverage and tip a reasonable amount to pay for dinner at the legendary sushi bar Masa? Is it okay to pay outsize prices for mediocre food at a restaurant like Cipriani's where you're really going there to be seen and not to enjoy very special food?

I interpret Ed's statement to mean that deliciously fresh (or rare--not in the steak sense) raw materials, combined with the skill and imagination of a gifted chef (and possibly the salubrious intent of the restauranteur and the waitstaff) should earn top dollar.

I wish I could agree with him, but I don't. To me, the values worth paying for in a restaurant meal or food for my own kitchen are:

Does it (or will it, when prepared) taste good? And can I be sure of that? (At this moment in my career as an eater, I don't know if I could actually identify bad Curry Goat. Someday, perhaps.)

Is it going to fill my tummy, give me energy, and delight my tastebuds? (Honestly, I'm pretty broke, so I won't spend money on food that only does one of these).

Will it please my senses? (Like the yellow of an heirloom tomato against the green of a well-made pesto. Or the lightly-browned crust of a perfectly toasted Pop Tart.)

(You heard me. Strawberry for choice.)

Is it, on the whole, good for me? I don't mean it has to be wheat bran. Only that it won't make me sick, thus ruining whatever plan I had for the evening, the rest of the day, or however long it takes me to get over salmonella poisoning.

I am not one of the world's fugu eaters; I do not like my meal spiced with risk. And by the way, this means that sometimes I pay more for my food, because I'm paying for it to be professionally cleaned or served from a relatively clean kitchen.

Tony Bourdain, please leave me in pathologically hygienic Singapore on your next trip to the Far East.

And one more very important value: will I be able to blog about it? Is it photogenic? Will it make good food porn? this blog is a business to me. I try to write about things which will attract readers. Sometimes a good foodie adventure is worth the money, when it brings eyeballs to this page and clicks to my Google ads.

Of course, I also have my indulgences.

Every few weeks I buy 8 ounces or so of salmon roe, also known as the big orange caviar which are served in sushi. I eat it with sushi rice, yes, but I also mix it into salad and top cold soup with it. When I'm very tired and rushed I spoon two tablespoons of the roe over one tablespoon of Greek yogurt, eat in in tiny bites, and rise sated.  I actually have a miniature cafe au lait bowl which holds about a quarter of a cup and a tiny mother-of-pearl spoon--the latter not for show, but because a metal spoon makes caviar taste awful.

True, salmon caviar costs about $2 per ounce and that's expensive for anything. But to me the expense is worth it.

When duck eggs are season--which is nowhere near often enough, since, for reasons I don't understand, ducks actually have to be in the mood, whilst chicken hardly even knew they're doing anything--I buy a half dozen of them every week, usually at 50 cents per egg, from Quattro Farms, which I am proud to tell you is also Mario Batali's egg supplier of choice. 

A duck egg tastes much richer and more flavorful than any hen's egg, even Quattro's. There is  greater proportion of yolk to white in a duck egg, and the yolk cooks up firmer and rounder, if you're making a whole-yolk preparation.

It's also more difficult to overcook the yolk of a duck egg, although the white seems to get done much more quickly than a hen's egg white.

For all of these reasons, duck eggs are well worth their expense to me.

Sometimes half-a-pound of fresh tuna is worth the six dollars it costs at my local reliable fishmonger's, because I need a quick, clean protein hit of a tuna tartare over a bowl of sushi rice more than I need to do laundry. My strength and health are important, because I need to be strong in my classes, with my daughter, in my internship, all the time. I need to sleep more peacefully and rise more refreshed, and good (if expensive) nutrition can do that for you.

Good food very frequently costs more, when it suits my values. So no, I don't actually appreciate (or even care about) the values of the person who harvests or prepares it for me.

Then again, Ed eats in restaurants much more than I do. I'll have to look at this question again when I can do things like that.

Staff o' Life

This here bread is Silver Bell Lithuanian Bread. It is a dense, fine-grained rye bread with a crust as thick and dark as the last five chapters of Little Dorrit.

I should have photographed it next to something to demonstrate how large it is. My enormous cat, who weighs 15 pounds, would be dwarfed by this quartern-loaf.

Silver Bell is the name of the bakery; Lithuanian Bread is the name of the type of bread. Like, in certain neighborhoods, we're sure you could just walk in to the store and when you get to the counter you could ask for "half-a-loaf-a Lithuanian Bread" and they would know just what you meant and what to give you. In other neighborhoods, you'd get laughed out of the store.

We won't tell you where we bought this. There is a farm store (sort of like an indoor farm stand) in our town which has the best local foods available, terrible national brands (and prices thereon), and wonderful, irreplaceable things like smoked paprika and light miso which you wouldn't think you could find anywhere north of the East Village.

This store has a very philosophical spirit of merchandising. When something new comes in, something for which there is no room on the shelves, they toss it into a food cart and steer it into the middle of the traffic flow. Either the cart is emptied or it's driven into the canned peaches. This is market research at its most elemental.

I was walking past the cart and thought nothing of it until a smell reached out to me--a smell of home, a smell of comfort, a smell of really really good rye bread like Mom used to get from Wall's Bakery in Hewlett. A soft voice seemed to croon, "Take me home with you and cover me with butter."

(My friend JC claims he gets this kind of thing all the time, but it was new to me.)

I did as the bread asked (yes, iIknow, normal) and the taste and texture were exquisite.

The interior of the bread was flavorful and chewy without reminding me of commercial insulation (as so many rye breads do).

The crust...the crust propelled me back in time to our family's Sunday dinner table, circa 1969. Mom has done something clever again, like giving Dad a single parched drumstick from a distinctly non-kosher chicken amid a plateful of frozen green beans. (I got the wing). In between the whining, the groaning, the stomach-grumbling and the noises my brother made when he ate, I grab a piece of rye bread (which, mysteriously, Mom allows on the table in defiance of her limited-calorie regime) and the butter dish (ditto, ditto). I lavishly butter the piece of bread and stuff in into my mouth, crust first.

MMMM....it's delicious and, more than that, it tastes like nothing else ever quite does. I love Pepperidge Farm white bread as toast, I adore sweetish Parker House rolls, but tough, chewy, crusty rye bread is like nothing else ever.

It leaves our house between Sundays. I'm not sure where it goes, or why my mother even buys it.

But Dad worships good bread (his father was a skilled Kosher baker) and perhaps this is evidence of some long-ago compromise. There won't be bread on the table every day, for this would mortify my poor mother's eating disorder. And she wouldn't eat it herself...bread is only virtuous when it's a sandwich brown-bagged for lunch. But there would be bread on Sundays, and even the plump youngest child would be able to have two slices of it, buttered. (More than that, and the wrath of Mom descended.)

Maybe I eat it because it reminds me of that long-ago pleasure in a life with not enough of them. Maybe it just tastes good. Anyway, you can find it at

East Village Deli-Meat Market
(Silver Bell Lithuanian bread)
139 Second Avenue
Manhattan, NY
Tel. (212) 228-5590

And no, that isn't where I bought it.

Family Restaurants Are Not In It For Your Health

My daughter Tracy knows good food when she tastes it; she just doesn't always want good food.

Sometimes--frequently--she wants FUN food.

Food that gets dipped into things. Fried food. Food on buns. Food with your choice of toppings. Food wrapped in dough. Food that makes grownups say things like 'Sure you can eat all that, sonny?' when it comes to the table. Food in baskets.

I mean, in fact, food available at that segment of the restaurant world called "casual", "family" or "chain". And you know the names: tgiFridays, Applebees, Ruby Tuesday's, Red Lobster, Olive Garden. (Tony Bourdain refers to these places as "TJ McFunsters.")

Families are very fond of these restaurants. They are a step up from McDonald's and they have flashy, over-illustrated menus and you can color on the placemats.

It used to be you couldn't walk into one of these places without being smacked on the head with a fake lobster trap, whilst the hostess cracked gum and handed out Clawde the Lobster hats and the waitstaff, attired in full oilskins as found on the Gorton's of Gloucester box, sloped off miserably to present frozen daiquiris in huge brandy glasses, adorned with plastic lobsters wearing Mardi Gras beads. Small children screamed, some in ecstasy, some in the throes of a lifelong Shellfish Trauma. "Happy Birthday" was viciously shrieked by bands of roving busboys, who liked nothing better than frightening incontinent old people. Animatronic moose heads were the order of the day.

At least...that's how it used to be. Because, I don't know if you've seen this, but those memorabilia-drenched funhouses where everything could and most often was served with extra cheese, are now becoming minimalist.

Okay, it's not like Mies van der Rohe is going to pop into the place, screaming with joy; they are still family-oriented chain restaurants and everything has to be washable. But they've taken the snow shoes and the movie posters and the Elvis junk off the walls, and what remains is mellow, comfortable, and visually quiet.

The menu is quiet too. Plenty of heart-healthy dishes. Lots of unfried green stuff. Hamburgers, yes, but rarely with more than three other ingredients, including the bun.

Last night we went into the local Red Lobster and everything was so quiet and classy you practically expected Eric Ripert to come out of the kitchen with Michael Ruhlman taking notes for a new memoir with recipes.

The Lobster (the decor seemed to imply), was merely a national temple to fish. Pristine fillets came into the kitchen, were lightly broiled with a squeeze of lemon, and came out at the serving hatch with perhaps a sprig of parsley. No more was necessary.

And yet...and yet...there were also crab cakes, with more bread than crab and probably more xanthum gum than either; those addictive cheddar chive biscuits, all microwave warm and chemically salty, platters of breaded everything with two or three mayo-based sauces, towering chocolate and cream desserts...

Yes, there was more choice than there had been before. But I don't think the availability of this "new" chain cuisine is going to solve our national obesity crisis. Portions are as rudely enormous as ever, especially portions of cheap starch. Plenty of things are fried when nature never intended them to be so. And the luxury conventions of tomato sauce, melted cheese, gravy and cream sauces spilling over the rim of the dish to signify "plenty" are meaningless when they only serve to camouflage grade Z meat, and fish which has been frozen since Bush the First left office.

My point is, this seems to be just another fake-out in service of the food police. And it's not really doing anyone any good at all.

Even Tracy would prefer that we stay home and eat an honest hamburger.

"The Next Iron Chef" and the Culinary Institute of America

I hope you understand the concept of "Iron Chef".

No? Well, the series originated on Japanese television. A fictional Chairman had devoted vast amounts of money and, presumable, the lives of several scenic designers to the building of "Kitchen Stadium," a huge sound stage surrounded by bleachers and a judge's booth.

On the playing field itself were two hyper-well-equipped professional kitchens. Each week, a challenger--an actual chef from an actual restaurant--"challenged" one of the four or five Iron Chefs to a cook-off involving a mystery ingredient which neither contestant knew about beforehand. The judges ate and rated the resultant dishes.

HINT: nobody won for pancakes, tuna roll or Mallomars. Inventive new recipes--which chefs of common sense might never prepare again--were key.

This show was massively popular in Japan and upon its importation to America. The combination of over-dramatics, interesting food lore and actual competition (winning wasn't everything, but no one wants to lose by more that a few points) proved addictive, and before long "Iron Chef America" debuted on the Food Network.

In this new version, the Chairman is younger and Asian-American (and very cute, although we preferred him with his head shaved). The actual narration ("play-by-play") is done by Alton Brown and Kevin Brauch, the judges are people like Ed Levine and Jeffrey Steingarten (not to mention Nina and Tim Zagat, Ted Allen, and a scary big chick who says things like "I have DIVERTICULITIS" and "possibly LACTOSE-INTOLERANT" which make me hate her), and the Iron Chefs are Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, Masaharu Morimoto, and Cat Cora.

So you get, let's say, someone like Wylie Dufresne or David Chang or Gabrielle Hamilton, some chef who's really experienced, widely admired and known as a creative force, and they pick Mario or Bobby or whoever to compete with (it seems most people want to go head-to-head with Mario, but all the Chefs get their play), and the Secret Ingredient is, let's say, Eggs or Rice or Kidneys or even Chocolate (and only one of the courses can be dessert, but one of them HAS to be dessert). 

And then, as they say, "the heat is on!"

This program has been so very popular that it could not but be spun-off-upon.

Comes now "The Next Iron Chef", and I can't wait to see it. Several well-known chef contestants (most of whom have been winning challengers on "Iron Chef America") will go through all the food-comp paces over the course of several weeks.

Food will be prepared and the judges, among them Michael Ruhlman, will emit sound-bytes between food bites. Eventually, a new Iron Chef will be chosen.

The program is set, and was taped in, a "sacred place" to foodies--the Hudson Valley's own Culinary Institute of America, which is less than ten miles away from where I live in Kingston, New York.

Around here we refer to it as "the Cullinary", although it does depend to which class you belong. You should say "I had the best meal last night at Calico in Rhinebeck; did you know the chef was a CIA graduate?", but you must say "My uncle is a porter at the Cullinary". (I've heard that they aren't very good employers, either, but I don't have any proof; it might be hearsay.)

If you are ever offered a chance to come and see the CIA on a tour of the scenic Hudson Valley, please do; it is lovely and your snack at the Apple Pie Bakery Cafe will probably be the best food you eat during your stay. (Take a few sandwiches for the road, as well).

Sorry for so few pictures in this post; for a scenic place, CIA has remarkable few pics available for reproduction. Here are two Hudson Valley favorite food suppliers. I hope both are mentioned in the course of the program.

Meat case at Fleisher's Butcher Shop in Rhinebeck

Ronnybrook Dairy products--a New York favorite

With the Daughter

"Annie," absolutely no one ever says to me, "Exactly what kind of food do you enjoy with your beautiful daughter?" And, because I think people really want to know but are too shy to ask, I'll tell you.

Tracy, as I have mentioned before, is an extremely healthy 17-year-old girl who is moderately mentally retarded. She is the delight of her father, stepmother and myself, as well as a favorite with most people who meet her.

Tracy loves to eat, but almost more than that she loves to cook, and she loves to cook at my house. We watched Iron Chef together a few weeks ago and she asked me what a sous chef was. I told her that a sous chef was the assistant to the chef. She thought about it for a while and then asked me if I loved my sous chef, which was her. I assured her I did.

In the picture above, Tracy is standing next to a signboard naming different types of garlic for sale at the Saugerties Garlic Festival, which took place last weekend. I thought I knew a lot about food and I've been a longtime fan of garlic, but even I had never heard of most of these varieties. Anyway, apparently they all sold out in the course of the Festival, which was was jammed tighter than the "F" train at rush hour and didn't smell quite so good.

As is usual for festivals around here, there were too many booths selling powdery things, reeking of msg, to be mixed with sour cream and set out for guests--or just kept in your pantry until they kill the mice. Tracy would also like you to know that there was some stinkin' bad (her words) ice cream and a truly disgusting port-o-potty. Hey, I always go before we leave.

Anyway, to quote my father, it shouldn't be a total loss; we stopped on the way home at Adam's Fairacre Farm in Kingston and picked up, among other things, a pound and a half of chicken feet for our famous chicken soup. Then we went home and constructed our soup. Tracy is an indispensible part of this, because she can remove the meat from the skin and bone of a poached chicken faster and more neatly than anyone, including me. So soup, chicken, and chicken salad was most of what we ate during the weekend. And I treated her to a cup of Friendly's vanilla soft-serve, which was, Tracy assured me, the very opposite of stinkin' bad.