Mashed Heaven

Because I live alone, it's not all that often that people are cooking for me. And by cooking for me, I mean people who are not ringing my doorbell at some ridiculous hour with a plastic container of takeout. That's not the same as "cooking."

I was on dog-and-15-year-old-sister patrol last night, which meant zipping to Westchester after pilates (don't I sound like a wealthy houswife, minus the wealth?) for makeshift dinner with my little girls. My dad had asked me if I wanted any food left out in exchange for my services. My only caveat was no white flour or sugar.

And so, in two sealed pyrex containers I found my fate: roast chicken (good, but someone had already stolen most of the skin, which, in my estimation, is really the only part worth eating) and my personal favorite, mashed potatoes.

I know so many people who say things like "I make the best mashed potatoes in the world," or, "my mom makes the best mashed potatoes in the world," or "the instant mashed from my high school cafeteria are the best mashed potatoes in the world" (in my hometown, one in ten students received most of their daily nutrients from insta-mash). But my dad actually makes the best mashed potatoes in the world.

In a flavor competition, I have no doubt that we'd reach an impasse. I rarely use skim milk if I'm doing potatoes for a crowd and my secret ingredient--nutmeg, there, I said it, you dragged it out of me--always inspires a bunch of oohs and ahhs from the crowd. Long ago, I learned the secret of good mash lies in the temperature of the added ingredients. Warm milk and butter will incorporate better into mashed potatoes than straight-out-of-the-container leche.

The other rule to live by when making mashed is what kind of potato to use. Mashed potatoes taste best when they come from a high-starch, unwaxy potato. Fingerlings, purple potatoes, new potatoes, and pretty much any other pretty little potato will not do. I prefer Yukon Gold potatoes when I cook because they yield a buttery yellow color reminiscent of the key ingrediant. Russets, a more traditional option, hold up fine, too, and are usually easier to find and less expensive (though not by much; potatoes are never really expensive). But the reason my mashed are always good and never sublime (and to my two lovely guests who came over for pork and mashed two weeks ago, that was an unfortnate mistake owing to an attempt to draw salt out of my potatoes, which I'd bastardized, and so they turned out watery and not very good, not a reflection of my true mashing abilities) is because I do not own an egg-beater or hand blender and am far too lazy to dirty a kitchen aid to puree my potatoes.

I let them cook until they are especially fork-tender, yes. And I always put those gym workouts to the test with vigorous and serious dedication of masher to potato. But if you rely only on human ability and put the toys aside, well, sometimes you get lumps.

The thing is, I know my dad uses an egg-beater. I've seen it. That's why his potatoes are always 100 percent lump-free. I also know he's not stingy when it comes to butter and--let's face it--with potatoes, butter is the only condiment that'll do.

In any case, they were reliably delicious. I forewarned my sister that there had better be mashed potatoes waiting for me when I got home, or I'd be one unhappy camper. I know how 15 goes; food disappears before it has left the grocery bags.

She was kind, though, and left a family-of-four sized portion for yours truly. It took willpower to prevent myself from going back for thirds.

Quick Fix

I was running around like a crazy person yesterday, trying to do all the things I hadn't done while out in Arizona.  I didn't have time to do a whole elaborate dinner for myself, so I improvised with things I found at the market.  I had about ten minutes to spare at the vegetable stand, where I bought things that inspired me: a carton of persimmons, a Texas scallion (looks like a cross between an onion and a scallion, with a large white bulb at the end), a few kirby cucumbers, a jalapeno, a red pepper, Boston lettuce, and some cilantro.  Large shrimp at the fish market actually lived up to their name, so I took home a quarter pound, plenty of shrimp for one person to stretch over the course of two days.  

I assembled the framework for my dinner in the afternoon.  It took less than 20 minutes, proof that even the most time-pressed career person can get a home-cooked meal on the table.  I poached the shrimp in boiling water until they turned pink (roughly five minutes).  In the meantime, I chopped my purchased veggies, with the exception of the lettuce and with the addition of some celery I found hanging out in my vegetable compartment. 

Cooked shrimp was drained and cut into thirds.  I added it to the container housing my chopped vegetables.  Next, some canned pineapple--minus the juice--two heaping tablespoons of light sour cream (more than enough, trust me), one tablespoon of sriracha, some kosher salt and, of course, fresh ground pepper.  When I came home from the gym later at night, I picked some lettuce leaves and rolled the creamy mixture up into it, using the lettuce like a wrap.  Actually, iceberg would have worked a little better, but I really hate the watery taste of iceberg lettuce, with one notable exception: as lining for a good old traditional BLT. 

Really, the greatest thing about doing something like this for dinner (apart from the convenience factor) is that it's the easiest possible way to integrate a wide variety of vegetables into one's dinner.  And really, you could sub in or out any fruit or veg.  Grapefruit could have easily replaced the persimmon.  Red cabbage could have provided color instead of red pepper (I grew up surrounded by pepper-haters).  Shredded carrot would have offered a beta-carotene kick.  

So there you have it: dinner for one very busy individual, done quickly and healthily.  And did I mention that the final product was creamy, spicy, crunchy, and completely delicious?  Or maybe that goes without saying. 

Texas Hold 'Em

For what feels like a lifetime, I've been flying from west to east at the end of any given trip, losing daylight.  That's what happens when you fly east; the hours slip away right before your eyes, the sun setting over the horizon as you watch clouds turn gold and then pink in a higher level of atmosphere.  There's this sad little moment before landing when the city you call home presents itself, a matrix of lights beneath plane wings and the gravity of home hits.  Here you are.  Wherever you were was yesterday.  Now you are home.  

I spent a lot of time in airports growing up and I remember those dark flights home on Sunday evenings, wishing for a plane delay or cancellation, some finite extension of my trip.  I'm not sure that feeling ever really goes away.  No matter how much we long for home, doesn't a part of us always want the sunset to last a little bit longer, before we hit the final time zone of our destination?

It wasn't dark yet when I landed in Texas yesterday afternoon.  I had the best kind of layover, the kind that merely requires the collecting of one's things and the immediate departure from another gate.  My gate of arrival was C2 and my new gate of departure was C20, a miracle in Dallas-Fort Worth, where terminals can fall in four quadrants and require a light rail to get to.  

But I had a short walk in front of me, about seven minutes total from where I landed from Phoenix to where I would depart to New York.  In that seven minutes or so, I passed the following eateries: 

2 McDonald's

1 Taco Bell

1 Wendy's

1 Chili's

1 TGI Friday's

2 Pizza Huts

3 Starbucks

1 Texas rib joint

1 Blimpie

4 Magazine/Candy stores

Of these fine establishments, exactly two sold fresh fruit (well, I'm not sure how fresh, but anyway) and very few offered the kind of food I'm used to eating: unprocessed.  I made my first ever stop to a Blimpie, figuring I could get a sandwich on whole-wheat, and I did, but I'm pretty sure the bread was just white bread dyed brown.  

Texas is home to eight of the most overweight cities in the country and Houston is the second most obese city in the nation.  People drive everywhere and even in the airport a person can't get from destination point A to point B without encountering a million saturated fat temptations.  New Yorkers may have scoffed when a bill was passed last year requiring all fast food restaurants to post their calorie counts next to their selections, but it seems to me that a state like Texas, where the options range from pizza to burgers, would benefit from such legislation.  At least that way people would have no one to blame but themselves when they put on weight from a 1,200 calorie lunch. 

When I finished my disgusting sandwich, it was time to go home, and even though I was sad about that darkness creeping up as the plane headed east, the ultimate reminder that my trip had ended, I wouldn't have wanted to spend much more time in Texas.  When the lights of New York appeared beneath our plane, I was swallowed by the elusive sense of relief one seldom feels when home is near.  

Cactus Isn't Only Decorative

It's edible. And delicious.

I learned this on a lunch time trip to Maya Mexican Restaurant in Prescott, the true definition of a local hole-in-the-wall. Tiny and locally owned and run, Maya makes "authentic" New York Mexican food seem like a Taco Bellian experience.

Tucked in a back booth, we ordered guacamole to accompany our complimentary chips and salsa. The guac was thick and full of fresh and ripe avocado. A horchata--rice milk on ice with sugar and nutmeg--washed down the spicy salsa.

One house specialty included an eggplant and cactus burrito, a foreign delicacy for this New Yorker. Ribbons of tangy cactus provided bite next to pureed eggplant, all of which arrived rolled in a flour tortilla, swimming in red enchilada sauce, and adjacent to a heaping portion of refried beans and yellow rice.

The bill for three was an incredible 30 dollars, despite our add-ons (horchata, guacamole, Mexican hot chocolate, an additional shredded beef taco), though we had to travel elsewhere to find the optimal afternoon dessert, a certified Mexican Coca-Cola. If you know where to look, you can find 12 ounce glass bottles of Coke, imported from Mexico. Mexican Coke contains no corn syrup, a hold out to sodas of the past. They use actual sugar, something we Americans see very little of in commercial drinks. But the sodas, like so much else of our meal, felt authentic and a tad hedonistic, especially for those of us who have sworn off white sugar and flour in favor of a healthier existence.

But never mind. You can't win them all.

*

Maya Mexican Restaurant
512 Montezuma Street
Prescott, AZ 86303
928.776.8903

Cowboy Country

Prescott, Arizona, two hours noth of Phoenix, bears no relation to the desert cities. When you're leaving the Phoenix valley, the cacti grow tall and green scrub vegetation spreads out over the desert. But the climb in elevation, rising to a mile when you hit Prescott, changes the topography of the land. Tall cacti are replaced by prickly pear and snow-capped mountains. Keep driving north and the land more closely resembles Colorado, with colossal pine trees rising from clay soil.

Prescott is one of the original western mining cities and still capitalizes on history and old architecture. Downtown, near the straight-out-of-Back to the Future court house, the so-called Whiskey Row dominates the town. Old saloons have been renovated into new saloons. Candy shops selling hand-churned ice-cream and popcorn replace boutique coffee joints or delis.

In the heart of this western square lies the ancient and tourist-attracting Palace Restaurant and Saloon. It was once a hotel and brothel, replete with a long bar and a host of heavy gamblers ready to dedicate their fortunes to the dealing of the cards. Wyatt Earp and his brother, Virgil, spent a good deal of time at the Palace before retreating south to Tombstone. The space is reportedly haunted by its past and has the authentic bullet holes to prove it.

Like any good slice of American history, the Palace stores its treasures in glass cases so onlookers can admire postcards, coins, and slick silver guns from the Wild West. They also serve western steakhouse fare to a market of eager tourists.

I ordered a thick corn chowder to start, which came adorned with thin and smoky ribbons of fresh bacon. The soup was roux-thick and most certainly not the kind of cuisine that keeps you thin or healthy. My friends ordered a 'calamari steak,' double-wide planes of calamari deep fried and served with a pineapple salsa. I couldn't bring myself to eat calamari that was both genetically altered to resemble a steak and also clearly not even close to native.

But I could bring myself to order a rib eye, and the 12 ounce steak came with decent skin-on mashed potatoes and boring steamed zucchini. I should have taken my other option, ranch beans, slow cooked beans resembling the refried variety and fortified with fresh corn.

My steak was thinner than I expected, but still marbled and tasty. In the west, the meat is good enough to stand alone without the sauces or silly fanciness we rely on back east. That's no real surprise, given the wide swaths of land dedicated to free-grazing cattle, likely some of the happiest cows in the world.

The Palace would benefit by giving up the shtick and focusing on food alone, but that's probably an unlikely expectation. In the end, theyb serve a good (if kitschy) steak.

*

The Palace Restaurant and Saloon
120 South Montezuma Street
Prescott, AZ 86303
928.541.1996

Raising Arizona

After confusion, connections, and an overall bad travel day, I finally arrived in Phoenix, where thermometers boasted a bright and dry 60 degrees. It was one in the afternoon, Arizona time, which translated to three on my body's clock. Also, I'd been up since 5:30. Translation: I needed something to eat.

We ended up at a nearby Tempe restaurant called Z Tejas, where we could enjoy the sunshine. Food, as to be expected, fell into the category of Tex-Mex (my friends have promised to show me the best AZ has to offer while I'm here, which, in their estimation, comes down to beef and burritos), fine by me.

Cornbread arrived in its own small cast-iron skillet and full of actual pieces of corn. Fresh corn tortilla chips came with three salsas, a salsa verde and two red salsas, one of which hit high notes on the heat scale.

As for my meal, I ate a small salad with tomatoes, red peppers, lettuce, and a fiery mango dressing. Tomatoes were the kind of red easterners only see in August and September. I also had a small piece of pepper-crusted rare tuna, served in a wasabi sauce. The sauce was grand and sinus-clearing, though the tuna itself was just okay. It occurred to me later that only idiots order fish in landlocked states.

The meal's highlight, the true western experience, came in the form of tried and true tequila. My margarita arrived on the rocks and adorned with a rim of kosher salt. There was no Rose's Lime Juice in this cocktail, and it wasn't weighed down by any sugary sweet margarita mix, either. What I got, instead, was the vegetal hot tequila, interrupted only by the clean kick of citrus. Outside, in the sun, I couldn't have asked for anything better.

*

Z Tejas
20 West 6th Street
Tempe, AZ 85281
480.377.1170

Not All Solo Diners Are Food Critics

And I'm the case in point.  I was stuck on the island between appointments yesterday afternoon and decided to have a bite to eat in Gramercy, one of my old stomping grounds.  Even though Haru's been open for some years now, I'd never stopped in before.  Somehow, I'd been distracted by the other neighborhood attractions: Gramercy Tavern, Craftbar, The BLT Fishshack, Big Daddy's Diner, etc.  But no matter.  Fish was in order and fish it was. 

Haru wasn't particularly full, even though it was 2pm on a Friday, prime time for midday business eaters.  Maybe it was the neighborhood.  My two servers, one male and one female, cane quickly and enthusiastically.  No sooner had I ordered a cup of green tea did a vibrant jade mug appear before me, denser and more wheatgrass-green than any tea I've ever seen.  

Seaweed salad came nestled in a cup of radicchio and flanked by long strands of carrot and jicama.  Yuzu juice added a final, welcome touch to a hard-to-hurt classic.  I love the texture of seaweed salad, the brininess, the weight of it in my mouth.  I don't like how it gets stuck in my teeth and think it should be mandatory for Japanese restaurants to serve the dish with toothpicks. 

For a light lunch, I had a tuna ceviche, citrus marinated tuna with grape tomatoes, cubed apples, onion, and rich avocado.  The tuna itself was meaty and substantial and the bright vinegary sauce offered a nice contrast to crunchy fruits and vegetables, not to be outdone by the traditional (and exceptionally creamy) avocado.  I could have eaten two of these, the perfect dish for tuna lovers who need to be reminded that simple preparation often makes the most sense.  

Perhaps it was because I dined alone, or perhaps the economy has waged a war on tip percentages, but regardless, my server seemed even more accommodating after he had collected my check (20 percent, in case you were wondering).  I found the alacrity both amusing and confusing.  I guess I'm not used to such striking hospitality.  

*

Haru Sushi

280 Park Avenue South

New York, NY 10017

212.490.9680

Air Travel

My flight for Phoenix leaves at 7:55 tomorrow morning.  Fortunately, I live just five minutes from the airport.  But I know myself well enough to know that I won't be waking up any earlier than I have to, which means no breakfast before I reach the dreaded airport. 

Normally, this wouldn't be much of a problem, but I started thinking yesterday about the limiting culinary options available in airports, about the new and asinine policies created by wayward airlines: six bucks for a sub-par sandwich en-route, unless you happen to be part of the first-class elite. 

What does a person who is trying not to eat white flour, processed foods, or refined sugar do when stuck at an airport and faced with a day's worth of travel?

My old fallback plan used to include Dunkin' Donuts and American cheese, neither of which I'm keen on putting in my body these days.  I'm thinking I'll be lucky to find a piece of fruit that hasn't been mauled in the shipping process. 

Seriously.  This is the great American crisis.  Go to Italy and you'll find airports stocked with fresh pasta and veggies.  Even London, the holy grail of mayonnaise and butter, puts more effort into their commuter cuisine than we roly poly Americans do.  We have unhealthy diets, made worse by the constant and unrelenting availability of unhealthy options at places where we have no choice but to partake.  Nutritionists always say that it is a choice, that when you're in an unhealthy restaurant you can still choose the healthiest option.  But let's be honest: ordering a wilted salad at Burger King will not fill you up and it will not make you a healthier human.  

We are a fat and dying country, afflicted with diseases of the poor even as we count ourselves among the very richest nations.  We are addicted to sugar and flour, coerced by saturated fats and processed meats.  The slow food movement is no longer nascent, born in the 1970s when Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse, but middle America still has no option when immediacy wins out.  

I know this.  I live in New York.  No one ever has enough "time."  I can't tell you how many people tell me that they would cook for themselves, but they don't have enough time.  They would eat more vegetables, but they don't have "time" to prepare them.  They order take-out because it's so "time" efficient.  It might be the greatest American myth, that to eat well one needs to be unemployed or a stay-at-home parent.  

People in airports are a captive audience: they will eat what you give them.  If there were fruit stands, or produce stands, or a man selling fresh sushi (and I mean fresh sushi, and not those disgusting pre-packaged California rolls they sell at the grocery store) instead of--or at least in addition to--the Sbarro's and McDonald's of the world, people would eat better.  They just would.  I love French Fries as much as the next girl, but if I were in an airport with fresh plums, I'd eat them instead.  I just would.  It's a combination of making good choices and having good options available.  

As for tomorrow, who knows what the future holds.  I'll be lucky to find a decent banana for breakfast, something to carry me over until the captivity of the plane and the bad/expensive sandwiches that will almost certainly follow.  Maybe someday we'll take food more seriously, like the Italians do.  Fresh pasta for breakfast is something I can stand behind.  

Amateur Night

*Disclaimer: I do not hate people from Long Island or New Jersey.  

In the restaurant industry, the busiest night is also the most frustrating one.  Saturday nights in the city go by the insider moniker "B and T," a reference to the non-city-dwellers who migrate in for their once-in-a-while dining experiences.  B and T, like Bridge and Tunnel, the way by which Long Islanders and New Jerseans reach our island.  It isn't that we're geographically biased, per se; it's more like years and years of uphill battles have made us cynical.  Saturday nights are not teeming with foodies looking to explore uncharted territory.  Saturday nights are rollicking and ridiculous and filled with people with riotously high expectations that can never adequately be met.  We call it amateur night. 

But if you think Saturday nights are bad, with their butterflied well-done filet mignons, you should check out the other most amateur dining night of the year, the dreaded Valentine's Day.  Every romantic relationship in the city goes public on the 14th, flaunting love with dollars/truffles/glasses of Bordeaux.  Like Saturday night eaters, the people who dine out on Valentine's Day are not run-of-the-mill New Yorkers accustomed to a night on the town.  No, these people prefer to go out on special occasions.  They don't experiment with foods that scare them.  They go out with the obvious intention of making a good impression on their dates, which means treating service staff like the indentured variety.  

I've always hated working on Valentine's Day.  It's not like I have somewhere better to be or anything.  I just happen to know that there isn't any money in it.  Tippers are parsimonious.  Googly-eyed lovers couldn't care less about the impact made on someone else's income.  Not that it's better to be a diner.  No.  New York becomes land of the prix fixe, a hundred bucks for dinner anywhere, a spit-in-the-eye insult to those of us who are voluntarily single. 

So imagine the possibilities if the two most un-dinerlike situations were to converge, say Valentine's Day on a Saturday night.  Mayhem, riots in the streets, the cast of the Sopranos whipping out AmEx black cards on white-tableclothed Italian joints on Mulberry.  Ok, maybe not, but it wouldn't be pretty, sort of the apex of what it means to be an unwitting eater in New York.  

And the moment is upon us.  

It's like anticipating the apocalypse.  How many people will complain about offal offered on their delicate V-Day menus?  How many 10 to 15 percent tips will servers drag home at the end of the night?  How many guests will ask to see a manager because their steak is undercooked?  How many entrees will head back to the pass, uneaten?  How many tables will refuse to turn, despite the wait, because of the long and loving stare they've locked into?  

I get goosebumps just thinking about it.  

So for all you singles out there wary about braving the foam-at-the-mouth masses on this upcoming holiday, fear not.  My advice is simple: Delivery.  When was the last time you had the opportunity to watch Saturday Night Live when it actually aired?  Don't you have a bunch of Netflix movies to catch up on?  Don't you want to hit the sack early and have a nice, long Sunday to yourself?

As for this blogger, I'm headed to Phoenix, where the masses surely will not follow.  For all the New York lovers out there, good night and good luck.  It's a battlefield out there.  

More Tricks Of The Trade

My cousin told me that for our second lesson in culinary greatness she wanted to cook something "Asian."  This presented a few problems.  One: her stovetop doesn't get hot enough, which means that searing anything, or browning anything, or caramelizing anything by heat is nearly impossible.  It literally took over 30 minutes to boil water the last time I was over.  This means that the trademark high-heat dishes that we all associate with "Asia" would be difficult to replicate.  The second problem?  My cousin doesn't eat pork.  And pork is what every kitchen maven wants to get her hands on when it comes to dabbling with soy sauce. 

Ah, well.  You can't win them all.  I decided to take her to a very large grocery store to find inspiring ingredients. 

Me: This is Savoy cabbage.  We're going to cook with it.

Her: It looks like lettuce.

And so on.  

Perhaps because we were in New Jersey there was no fresh ginger.  There were no scallions and I walked around the store about a hundred times before I located sesame oil.  Sometime amid those rotations, my cousin informed me that she wanted to make a soup.  She bought canned chicken stock.  I bought cilantro.  

Back home, I had a few ideas.  Lettuce wraps with ground turkey, snap peas, and red peppers.  Sauteed sweet and sour cabbage.  "Clear" soup with broccoli, snap peas, cilantro, rice noodles, baby corn, and water chestnuts.  I had bought my cousin a steam basket.  She had never seen a steam basket before.  I told her that a steam basket made cooking fresh vegetables very easy.  She looked at me like I had three heads. 

I steamed fresh broccoli and snap peas, putting them aside to use later in the soup.  I made a soup base of sauteed onion and garlic and then added the stock, some soy sauce, some honey, some ground ginger, and a little bit of sesame oil.  I let the soup come to a boil and then left it alone. 

I told my cousin to brown the turkey with salt, pepper, ground ginger, and red pepper flakes.  We put the finished product aside and did the same with sliced peppers and snap peas, adding soy sauce, more honey, and some apple cider vinegar.  I took the cooked veggies off the heat and combined them in a separate saucepan with the turkey, mixing the whole lot together.  My cousin's finace wouldn't be home for a while and I planned to re-heat the turkey at the last minute.  

Finally, when said fiance was en-route, I browned (or attempted to brown) garlic and onions on a not-hot-enough stove in a blend of sesame and olive oils.  To that, I added one head of sliced Savoy cabbage, cooked until soft.  Next up, two heaping tablespoons of soy sauce, two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, one tablespoon of honey, and a handful of red pepper flakes.  I covered the skillet for a few minutes to let the sauce reduce.  

The problem in our final execution had to do with timing.  I thought the man of the house would be home earlier than he was, so I added the steamed vegetables and rice noodles to the soup too far in advance.  What happened, then, was that the broccoli and snap peas turned soft and lost their vibrant green and the noodles began to absorb too much broth.  

Ditto for the turkey, which sat too long in a covered saucepan.  Lost was the crunch of lightly-sauteed vegetables, although the flavors turned out just fine.  

The cabbage came out fine, though it lacked the brown lacquer achieved by a hotter flame.  Not that it mattered.  Both my cousin and her hubby-to-be refused to eat it.  I should have just told them it was lettuce.