Stories

A few months ago I had an amazing dinner among friends at Vino's, a local family-run Italian restaurant in Fairfield, CT. We enjoyed all their best Italian dishes and their desserts accompanied by live music. One dessert stood out in particular, the almond cake. My friend demanded that I make one soon.

I took it upon myself to bake one that captured the best of an almond cake: a soft yet textural interior, buttery color, crisp exterior, and most importantly a noticeable fragrance and flavor of almonds. It turned out that baking the cake was far from the hardest part of this recipe. The biggest feat was finding almond paste in my area. I visited every grocery store and supermarket and could not find a can or tube of it. Luckily I was reminded of the Italian market. How could have I neglected to look there first?

Almond paste has a sort of grainy texture due to all the ground almonds. But to further play on that texture, this cake combines cornmeal with flour. The cornmeal lends a homey quality and along with the butter and egg yolks, a beautiful pale straw color.

Yesterday I sat through two and a half of the most excruciating hours of my life. Sat through, twisted my torso through, felt like throwing up through. But I stayed there riveted, horrified, sickened and saddened beyond belief.

I was at a movie, "Twelve Years a Slave." A movie that should, in my humble yet convinced opinion, be required viewing for every American over the age of fifteen. It is based on the true story of a black man, a father, a husband, a violinist, a cultured, educated, middle class citizen of Saratoga Springs New York in the 1840's who is kidnapped, brought to the south and sold into slavery. It is the story of what he witnessed, endured, and survived for twelve years before being rescued and reunited with his family.

The movie, directed by Steve McQueen, gives it to us full strength, undiluted. The camera lens takes us into the open, oozing, purple wall of the wound. Close up and into the bubbling beads of fresh blood made by the long taut leather lashing out, slashing, ripping red rivers into chocolate skin.

It's a story of a despicable part of our history and needs to be told correctly for many reasons. And it is torturous to sit through.

Last year I traveled quite a lot and had memorable meals in Houston, Providence, Block Island, Bristol (Rhode Island), and Los Angeles.  When it comes to food, America seems on fire.  Locavore is the new black.  Eating seasonally keeps us connected with nature and ourselves.  "Flavor profile" is now used in ordinary conversation. It's all good.

One of my favorite eating moments last year was, in the scheme of things, a small one, but it made a lasting impression on me.  At Jose Andres' Bazaar, I had his Rojo Canary Island Potatoes.  They are simply prepared.  Small potatoes are boiled in heavily salted water until the water boils away and the potatoes are coated in salt.  Served with a cilantro-parsley dip, they are simple, elegant, and delicious.

What made the dish so memorable was that I could duplicate it at home with excellent results.  Andres goes to great lengths to import his potatoes from the Canary Islands.  I stay closer to home and buy mine at the Palisades and Santa Monica Farmers' Markets.  I discovered that any small-sized potato will do.  To the eye the little salt dusted potatoes look very unimpressive, which makes a first-time eater's response all that more fun to watch.  Their eyes go wide when they taste the salty-sweetness of the potato and they marvel that something so ordinary looking could have such an extraordinary flavor.

I watched Mark Bittman’s video Pasta With Anchovies and Arugula.

He’s very simpatico and easy to follow and his recipes are usually simple and good. This one is another take on aglio-olio, the iconic Roman dish of spaghetti in garlic and oil.

You can do a lot of things with this dish, adding almost anything you feel like or have around in the fridge, but you have to be careful not to get too creative and ruin what is a classic way to sauce spaghetti. Don’t, for example, throw in that leftover lox from last Sunday’s brunch. That won’t work.

Anyway, I went to the farmer’s market on Saturday – the one across from Lincoln Center – to pick up some farmer-fresh arugula to use in the dish – and every single farmer was sold out of it.arugula It seems everyone on the Upper West Side saw the Mark Bittman video and wanted to make the dish on the same night. Such is the power of the New York Times.