Photo Friday: Meat and Cheese
My good friend S asked last night, “Do you eat anything but pizza?”
She lives in Los Angeles. When I would go out to visit her, the trips were filled with In-N-Out Burger, swiss cheese pancakes, and mai tais. Sure there were stops at the Beverly Hills Cheese Shop, slices of the $100 pound cake, and plenty of hard cider. I don’t know if we ever had pizza.
Anyway, I’m still so full from Tavern Time last night at the Notty Pine I can barely think about food, much less write about it. So I’m going back to the photostream and sharing a few key pictures.
Keeping track of what is going where these days is proving challenging. Especially since now I’m managing the Yelp Albany Instagram account. My own IG is languishing as a result, but that’s the breaks. Some of these may have appeared there (but in square form), some may have been posted to Yelp reviews, but others are totally brand new.
Appologies in advance for any redundancy. Let’s start with something pretty.
Crimes Against Iced Coffee
Spring is here, and it’s glorious. For now the chill is still working its way from deep out of our bones. After a few more days of sitting in the sun, everything should be back to normal. And then we can start complaining that it’s a little bit too warm.
I’ve already said goodbye to my boots and shoes and have started to wear my sandals. But it will take warmer weather to bring the shorts out of my closet. One thing that will not change is the presence of my Filtron. It’s my cold brew coffee bucket, and I’ve been drinking cold brew coffee the whole winter through.
That’s not to say I’ve been drinking it iced. That’s crazy. Over the winter, I just keep the coffee concentrate on hand. Then when I stumble downstairs, I pour a slug of the cold brew into a pint glass, and top it off with tap water. Sixteen ounces of strong, tasty coffee are ready in an instant.
As the weather starts to warm up, I’ll just add ice to the equation. There is a problem with getting accustomed to drinking decent iced coffee. It makes most of the stuff you buy from coffee shops almost undrinkable. And some of the crimes perpetrated by people who should know better are unthinkable.
Beer Bars
Last week we played a little game. I asked you to write down five classic Albany institutions, and then I sent you to The Weekly Yelp to see how close your answers were to mine.
Hopefully, by now you’ve all subscribed to get The Weekly, or you were already getting it based on the fact that you have a Yelp account and live in the the Capital Region. Although I understand those in Saratoga Springs may have been left out of the email blast. I’m working on that.
Anyhow, if you aren’t getting it, I’ll share the free subscription link in just a few moments.
This week, I’d like to try the same game, but with a different question. This time it’s not limited to Albany. In fact, the answers should really be spread out over the entire Capital Region, which makes it even harder. Mostly, because we’ve got a lot of great beer bars.
Which would be your top five? Write them down before you click through, so that we can compare. Ok. Ready? Go.
Go With the Flow
Now that Passover is completed, I’ve already had bread, pasta, cookies, pizza, cereal, beer and whiskey. Amazingly, I think it may have been the beer I missed most. Sometimes I don’t even know who I am anymore.
For Friday night’s potluck, I brought a full batch of chana masala, which seemed to have been the surprise hit. It always kills me how popular this dish is, since beyond chopping an onion, it’s mostly just about bringing the pot to a boil and reducing it to a simmer.
Actually, this was the first batch I made in the pressure cooker, but I was overcautious and as a result it took me just as much time to make it with my new device as it would have to make it the conventional way. Part of that may have been the pressure of the potluck. It’s a long story that I don’t want to bore you with today.
What I do want to bore you with today is a recent observation that may go a long way to explain why Capital Region restaurants are the way they are.
Funday: Lack of Bread Make Me Crazy
Passover is almost done. What the heck am I going to do with all this leftover matzoh? Every year it’s the same thing. We are given an impossible choice. One either over buys and is left with a surplus of pain-bread or under buys and is left with the dregs of the matzoh supply for the last couple days of the “holiday.”
Not all matzoh is created equal. Some is terrible. And others are really really terrible.
But soon my pain is going to be over, and I can resume my usual whining about food matters beyond bread. Man, I could go for a slice of pizza, or a beer, or even a piece of toast.
Anyway, Passover doesn’t stop the press releases from coming. So today I’m going to share those with you. Maybe tomorrow you can help hook me up with some bread. Actually, I have a pizza date on Sunday, which is going to keep me from the Grown Up Egg Hunt. But man, that sounds like a lot of fun. I hear some of the eggs may even have Yelp schwag in ‘em. But if you don’t get there early, you might miss out. There’s an attendance cap. You’ve been warned.
Now, onto the press releases.
Goat Neck
Sometimes I think I’m the laziest cook.
Take last night’s dinner for example. It’s Passover, so bread is out. So are a few other grains. But my family is okay with rice and beans, although that’s not the case for everyone. Regardless, I decided it would be nice to make Indian.
Well, I had a batch of chana masala sitting in the freezer, I had some brown basmati rice in the pantry, and I thought it would be lovely to turn those goat necks in my refrigerator into a lovely curry.
The Weekly
Today’s a big day. But before we go into that, here’s a pop quiz. Write your answers down on a scrap of paper if you can. Yes, I really want you to play along.
Quickly, without consulting the Internet, name five notable old-school Albany institutions that are still around today. This is an old town, so old-school means older than the 1980s. And that’s city of Albany, and not Albany County or Capital Region.
Got ’em? Okay, now hold on to that list. Let’s compare.
The Babe Wars: Food vs. Science
I love science. Forget all the amazing technology that we completely take for granted on a daily basis, and how it borders on magic. We have non-addictive pain medication like Advil that can take something small like a throbbing headache and make it go away. The improved quality of life this brings is virtually immeasurable.
Vaccines, electric lights, hot water heaters, indoor plumbing, the sewing machine, air conditioning, and more all owe a debt to the intellectual rigors of science.
I love food. Tell me what pleasures are greater than a ripe strawberry picked at its peak, garnet red through to its core, and bursting with sunshine. Or a perfectly ripe peach that is so packed with sweet juice that it’s impossible to eat without covering your chin and forearms in its sticky glory. Just yesterday we were talking about tender spring peas so delicate that even a picky child delights in eating them, pod and all.
Fragrant basil, hot garlic, fiery peppers, earthy mushrooms, and crisp radishes are just a small fraction of nature’s bounty. It’s nothing short of amazing that you can make bread with little more than wheat and water (of course, salt, sugar, and fat can all help to make it better).
Food and science are inextricably linked. However there is also an ideological divide that’s raging right now, and I have to say, I’m on both sides.
Squashed
Don’t get me wrong, my kids totally eat vegetables. Both love sweet peas in the pod. When the pods are young and in season, the children will gobble them up whole. Off-season I’ll saute the pods whole in a pan, and the whole batch is easily devoured.
Little Miss Fussy has a newfound love for heirloom carrots. She loves their fanciful colors. Seriously, who can resist purple carrots with a yellow core when they are sliced into sticks?
Young Master Fussy cannot abide the crunch of raw carrots, but he loves them soft after being roasted and caramelized in the oven. I can sneak cabbage and onions into his favorite fried rice preparation. And he’ll gladly eat a bowl of frozen sweet peas (gently warmed in simmering water) when the fresh ones aren’t in season.
They’ll both eat broccoli in moderation. Celery was recently discovered to be delicious filled with peanut butter. Pan fried French string beans get finished without complaint. Corn may not officially count as a vegetable, but that goes over well on the cob (in season) or sauteed with bacon or pancetta (from bags of frozen corn during the winter).
Still, I’d like to see a bit more diversity in their vegetable consumption, so I tried the following.
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