New Year's Feasting, Japanese Style

It was a full year ago when I reported this November-December 2011 Edible Manhattan article on osechi-ryori, the traditional Japanese New Year's foods that evoke memories of family, home and tradition for those who grew up in Japan or in an osechi-observant household.

Here's the gorgeous three-tiered box that chef Hideki Yasuoka of the Nippon Club in Manhattan prepared for the lucky members who pre-ordered boxes last year. The smaller ayu, or sweetfish, in the box at the fore are simmered for four hours in a soy and saké mixture until they will practically dissolve in your mouth, and each component contains symbolic meaning, usually pertaining to longevity, good fortune, fertility--all the things peoples' wish upon each other for the New Year.

Since I grew up eating these foods, I love them and wish I could eat them every New Year. Yet many Japanese have no real interest in these traditional foods. One year, I searched for the best osechi boxes in New York City to serve to two young relatives who were visiting from Japan. They turned up their noses at the boxes, and were much more interested in steaks and burgers.

My reporting took me to Katagiri, the Manhattan Japanese grocery store, where I talked to shoppers stocking up for their New Year's celebrations.

  

These New Year's decorations of plastic rice cakes and good luck Daruma dolls would be the equivalent of putting a fake Christmas tree up in your home. 

Thanks to the site Discover Nikkei, which re-posted my article here  and discussed it on Facebook, I've received some interesting feedback on the story. Nina Kahori Fallenbaum, food editor at Hyphen , introduced me to this amazing-looking place in San Francisco, Peko-Peko, which is offering this luxury osechi bento. 

I'm in Vancouver, B.C., now, where a quick search for osechi didn't turn up anything. If any of you know where I can find a good osechi box hereabouts, let me know!

Latke-palooza Returns to Brooklyn

Tonight, the humble latke became the crispy blank canvas upon which a over a dozen New York City chefs let their imaginations play. It was Great Performances and Edible Brooklyn's third annual latke festival, so massive and crushingly well-attended it took up two floors of the cavernous opera house at BAM.

The winner was chef Jason Weiner's (Almond) super-crispy latke with house-smoked bluefish and yogurt sauce. The traditional Hanukkah food was at home with the smoked fish, and the yogurt accompaniment provided the perfect light touch to offset the oil and saltiness of the pancake and fish.

Weiner's entry didn't play it safe like Veselka's very traditional (satisfyingly so) sour cream and applesauce entry, nor did it go to the opposite extreme like this contender from Mae Mae Cafe: rye latke with cabbage flan, corned beef, Swiss cheese fondue and a dill pickle. Judge Michael Arad, the architect and designer of the 9/11 Memorial, dismissed it as "a Reuben not a latke."  Another taster, though commented appreciatively, "It's so Jewish; it even comes with a dill pickle."

I took a shine to this picturesque gem from Julian Medina of Toloache, shredded potatoes fried very crispy and salty with a spicy jalapeno sauce. And also to this demure entry, People's Choice Award winner Bill Telepan's (Telepan) celery root and potato latke.

And finally, for dessert, Ron Ben-Israel (Ron Ben-Israel Cakes) served up a delicious potato and parsnip latke brulee with cranberry sauce. Eat your hearts out, latke lovers!

Feeding the Growing Numbers of NYC Hungry at Thanksgiving

Some West Villagers may know Earl, the gray-bearded African-American man who wears a baseball cap and can often be spotted sitting in his wheelchair on Eighth Avenue in front of Jane Street garden’s chain-link fence. He’s the guy who shakes his large Styrofoam cup filled with coins (and the occasional one- or five-dollar bill) as he hums softly.

Earl used to be a toll booth worker at the Lincoln Tunnel. He’s also diabetic. Although he lives in New Jersey, he’s adopted this particular spot on Eighth Avenue as his own. He’s been pulling double shifts lately, he told me, for two reasons. One, he wants to get out while it’s still warm enough to do so, and, two, he’s trying to collect enough money to buy a Thanksgiving turkey. His biggest donation of all time, he says, came when another black man, a neighborhood resident he’s friendly with, came by one day and dropped a fifty-dollar bill in his cup.

At The Church of the Village
Photo by Martine Mallary

There are about 1.5 million New Yorkers who, like Earl, struggle to put food on the table, according to the food rescue agency City Harvest. That’s up by half a million since 2009, when I wrote this article about one New York City chef who is a regular donor to City Harvest. According to a post today on DNAinfo, the heavy increase in demand for emergency food assistance  (City Harvest puts the growth at 25 percent since 2008) coupled with budget cutbacks has led to the closing of some food pantries and rescue agencies. Others have been unable to feed all the hungry who come to them.

Daisy's Emergency Pantry goods
Photo by Martine Mallary

Here in the West Village, the Church of the Village on Seventh Avenue and West 13^th Street just finished a $2 million renovation and the addition of a commercial-grade kitchen to better serve its clients. During the renovation, says Pastor Sara Giron-Ortiz, the church launched Daisy’s Food Pantry, which hands out bags of groceries to the needy every Tuesday from 1 to 3 p.m.  through its Hope for our Neighbors in Need program. Last week, says the pastor, the pantry served over 170 individuals and families.

The need is great, the resources shrinking.
Photo by Martine Mallery

The Church of the Village will sponsor a Thanksgiving community meal Saturday, November 27^th in the Baruch House public housing development at 12 Avenue D. Those wishing to volunteer or donate a turkey or ham may contact Pastor Giron-Ortiz at pastorsara@churchofthevillage.org. The church’s Web site also accepts Paypal donations.

The church, led by Bishop Alfred Johnson, is the result of a 2005 merger of three United Methodist churches in the Village, Washington Square, Metropolitan-Duane, and Church of All Nations, and is housed in the former Metropolitan-Duane United Methodist Church.

If you’d like to volunteer in your neighborhood to help feed the hungry, take a look at The New York City Coalition Again Hunger’s Volunteer Matching Center. Another source of information is Time Out New York, which offers this guide to all kinds of Thanksgiving volunteering. Not enough time? Besides City Harvest, here are a few more organizations that provide dinners for the needy: Food Bank for New York City, Greenwich Village’s St. Joseph’s Soup Kitchen, and Chelsea’s Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen.

Scenes from Occupy Wall Street

Just a week ago, this was the scene at Occupy Wall Street in Lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park.. A block away, the financial world went about its business as usual. The park itself was a sleepy collection of tents and people milling about or chatting with each other. The encampment had the feel of an alternative adult sleep-away camp, with posters for the day's meeting agenda ("This week's Occupy: Edmonton"), a makeshift kitchen, composting area, and various interest groups. There were ninety-nine percenters, student loan agitators and anti-war advocates, all peacefully co-existing in this United Nations of protest groups. There was an unmanned booth for empathy and meditation training at one end of the square. On the other, a Lego artist had created the scene in miniature in "Occupy Lego Land." 

Yesterday, on my way to the 9/11 Memorial entrance on Thames Street, I walked by after police and security forces cleared out the park. Television trucks with giant sattelite antennae lined Liberty Street but, there was nothing to film except for a folk singer and a few die-hard protestors.

Here are a few scenes of  Zuccotti Park shortly before the tent city was taken down.

Dolce Vizio Brings Customizable Tiramisu to the West Village

A few months ago, the former Christopher Street Deli site on the corner of Christopher and Hudson Streets took on a brand new identity when a sleek, red-trimmed storefront opened. Dolce Vizio Tiramisù specializes in one thing: tiramisu, the Italian dessert of mascarpone custard, espresso-soaked ladyfingers and cocoa powder.

The two entrepreneurs behind Dolce Vizio are Alessandro  Radici, 27, and Nadia Tade, 25, natives of Bergamo, Italy who met as business students and fellow competitive skiers at Bocconi University in Milan. The concept of an all-tiramisu shop came to the couple after a visit to the Roman café, Pompi, known for its classic tiramisu and variations on the dish.

For their venture, Radici and Tade teamed up with Michelin-starred chef Fabrizio Ferrari, who cooks at a Bergamo restaurant owned by Radici’s family.  Ferrari develops different-flavored tiramisu recipes for the shop based on suggestions from Tade and Radici, and between occasional onsite visits and frequent Skype sessions, says Tade, “he is mentoring us” from afar. The shop’s name combines the words for “vice,” and “sweet,” explains Tade, because Dolce Vizio trades in “something you don’t really need in your life but is a nice indulgence that makes your life happier and sweeter.” She notes that the neighborhood has extended a warm welcome to her and Radici, overjoyed that it is neither another Marc Jacobs boutique nor a chain store.

When Radici was accepted at Columbia University’s business school, Tade quit her job as a financial risk consultant for Deloitte Milan so the duo could move to New York together and settle in Columbia graduate student housing. They worked with the city’s New Business Acceleration Team, which helped expedite their way through Gotham's bureaucratic thicket. Radici loves the fact that New York is a “global city” filled with so many foreigners that he doesn’t feel like one himself, and that the U.S. “is a much more business friendly place” than his homeland.  At Columbia's business school, which is less theoretical and more practical than comparable schools in Italy, Radici adds that he can study entrepreneurship while he practices it in the West Village.

The store offers $7 ready-to-eat single portions of tiramisu in six flavors, including the most popular varieties of classic, orange-espresso, and nutella. $5 or $8 single-serving-size cups feature lady fingers soaked in either chocolate, citrus or coffee sauces, with a choice of two toppings. Think of it as the more sophisticated, Italian, take on the ubiquitous frozen yogurt shop.  There is also a cake-size option that will feed 9 to 12 people for $39. A variety of coffees and teas and a simple dining area round out the take-out or eat-in experience.

“We still don’t have any expansion plans yet,” says Radici.“We are fine turning this store; we want to make it perfect.”

Dolce Vizio Tiramisù,

131 Christopher Street (Hudson Street)

Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Saturday, 10 a.m. to 12 a.m.

Sunday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

www.dolceviziotiramisu.com

(646) 669-7432    

Tasting Table Expands Its Reach

Last night afforded me a glimpse into one configuration of the new food media landscape. The event was the cocktail party launch of Tasting Table's new test kitchen and dining room, a sleek brick-walled, fabulously outfitted loft space on the second floor of a non-descript Broome Street building

Guaranteed to evoke kitchen envy in all New Yorkers, the Eric Cheong and Loren Daye-designed space signals the eating and drinking e-mail list's entry into the big time. Plans include major content generation, master classes, recipe development, partnerships with large-name business (Williams-Sonoma, MasterCard and Jenn-Air, which supplied the appliances for the new space), and the beefing up of big city bureaus. They're moves that make MTV founder Bob Pittman's investment in the site look as canny as his Daily Candy buy and sell.

The site is no Yelp or (the recently purchased) Zagat, explains Kai Mathey TT's director of communications, because it relies on the judgement of seasoned critics. It's no Urban Daddy, because its not about being first to broadcast the latest arrivals on the scene. In fact, in content and scope, it sounds a lot like the old fashioned magazine. The difference, of course, it that the old three to six months' lead times are gone, and as with online news, the cycle is 24-hour and non-stop.

TT has brought on as its executive chef Brendan McHale, formerly of Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar and Barbara Lynch's The Butcher Shop in Boston, who is excited about a series of "artisan access" dinner he's designing that include cheesemonger Anne Saxelby and the purveyors of heirloom grains Anson Mills.

The pace of TT's growth and the scope of its plans are dizzying, although the source of my vertigo could have been the influence of  mixologist Franky Marshall's (The Clover Club) dreamy Royal Sparkler (a pretty concoction of St. Germain vodka, champagne, simple syrup, lime, English cucumber and raspberry), and McHale's addictive pork belly croquettes.

These are big plans backed by big money, but I hope there is still room for the quality independents in the field, such as the meticulously curated Cravings, where yours truly is a contributor.

Chef Kevin Adey's Carrot-Top Pesto

Chef Kevin Adey's carrot salad dressed with carrot-top pesto

Not too long ago, I wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal on resourceful New York-area chefs who practice “top-to-tail” vegetable cooking. They love their farmer’s market produce, in other words, and don’t want to waste a scrap of it.

My inspiration for the article was chef Kevin Adey of the Bushwick restaurant Northeast Kingdom. Farmer Ben Flanner of Brooklyn Grange, the rooftop organic farm in Long Island City, Queens, tipped me off to Adey’s carrot top pesto, an ingenious way to use every part of Brooklyn Grange’s lovely specimens. So I hopped on the L train and took the trip to Bushwick, where Adey gave me a demo of his dish.

The chef had just received a sack full of carrots from Brooklyn Grange in the wee hours of that morning, so they were super fresh. Because the rooftop placement of Brooklyn Grange means a fairly shallow soil bed, its carrots, while packed with flavor, are petite, each no more than five inches or so in length. 

Pesto building blocks

 The first thing I noticed was how much salt Adey tossed into the stockpot full of boil water for blanching the carrots. Aggressive salting is one of the traits that separates the home from the restaurant cook, Adey acknowledged as he tossed in carrots that ranged in color from golden to orange to persimmon colored into the pot. “You don’t want to cook them, just to set the flavor,” he explained.

Adey and his raw ingredients

 Next, he blanched the carrot tops in the same pot, then shocked them in cold water to set their bright green color and squeezed the water out. (Freshness is key in using carrot tops; other chefs told me they don’t use them because they tend to turn bitter fairly quickly.) Adey loves using cashews instead of pine nuts or walnuts in his pesto, he said, for their great flavor and mouth feel.

Processing....

 Adey then piled all the ingredients in his Robot Coupe and whizzed them. He uses basil as a foil to the slightly more bitter carrot tops, and notes that a pesto “has to have chunk.” That means don’t overdo the olive oil, so that instead of coating pasta or vegetables like gluey paste, your pesto will coat them, jewel like. 

Note chunkiness of pesto!

Finally, it was just a matter of quickly plating the gorgeous carrots and some greens, also from Brooklyn Grange, and drizzling them with the thinned-out pesto. The result was an explosion of flavor and crispiness, with the fieriness of the garlic and the unctuousness of the olive oil offset by the sweet and bitter accents of the basil and carrot tops and the umami of the grated Parmesan.

Carrot Top Pesto

2 ounces roasted cashews

1-1/2 ounces grated Parmesan cheese

1 ounce garlic cloves

2-1/2 ounces extra-virgin olive oil

3 ounces clean carrot tops (blanched and shocked)

3 ounces basil leaves

salt

fresh black pepper

In bowl of a food processor, place the cashews, garlic, carrot tops, and basil. Start to process, and drizzle in oil, continuing to process until desired texture is reached. Stir in Parmesan, and season generously with pepper and salt to taste.

To use as a dressing for a blanched green market carrot salad, thin pesto with olive oil and drizzle over salad. Or use to dress cooked pasta.

Yield: 1 pint, enough for 8 people