Sunday, October 31, 2004
Favorite Turkish Restaurants
I’ll stick my neck out here. Ali Baba, a Turkish restaurant at 212 E. 34th St., near Third Ave. (212-683-9206) has the best lahmajun in the city. I suppose I haven’t stuck it out that far. There aren’t that many Turkish restaurants that make lahmajun, although it is a totally standard dish, a street food in Istanbul, a flatbread with a spiced minced lamb and onion topping. The recipe varies. It’s often called Turkish pizza. I eat it whenever it is on a menu at a Turkish restaurant, and I try to get to any Turkish place I hear about, which is many. And so I can say, with reasonable assurance and authority, that the thin and beautifully seasoned lahmajun at this midtown Manhattan restaurant – where all the other food is excellent -- is the best I’ve had. I even took a few home, refrigerated them, and ate them two days later. Even then were the best.
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Thursday, October 28, 2004
Mozzarella Madness
Do I miss being on the radio? I am asked this daily. In general, the answer is no. However, last Saturday I went berserk over a story in the New York Times, and I did indeed wish I had the radio platform to do my venting. It seems that the New York City health department is insisting that freshly made mozzarella be kept at a temperature below 41 degrees. In other words, they want the cheese refrigerated as soon as it is made. This ruins the cheese. You can use it only for cooking, if that. You certainly would not want to eat it for its own handmade, beautiful self.
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Wednesday, October 27, 2004
On Pizza Patrol
On the Lower East Side
I never did get to Una Pizza Napoletana when it was in Point Pleasant, on the New Jersey shore. I heard about it from my radio listeners, but the deal was too shaky for a two-hour drive from Brooklyn, and for my temperament. Anthony Mangieri, the pizza maker, was open only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. There were, I was told, long waits for the pizza, since Anthony shaped, topped and baked every pie himself. And he closed when he ran out of dough, which could be in the middle of the afternoon on a busy weekend. Anthony must have been inspired by Totonno’s in Coney Island, where, in the days when Totonno himself was alive, you never knew if you were going to get a pizza or not until you got there. As I said, the deal was a little too tenuous to chance a two hour drive.
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Monday, October 18, 2004
Quick-cooked Steak Strips
Scanning my unpublished recipe files for something to share, I came across this – thin slices of steak, marinated the way they might in Calcutta, where meat like this is a street food. If you put a premium on tenderness, it pays to use a high-quality cut of beef when making fast-cooked dishes like this, including stir-fried dishes. Lesser quality beef will turn out dry and chewy. [more]
Friday, October 15, 2004
Virtual Seliano
Make sure to check the “Recent Entries” list to the right. If you haven’t been on the site for a few days, I may have posted something new that you missed. I am trying to keep up the diary more regularly than I have, and new entries bury the old. But it’s all here on the site – if you click on the blue word “Archives” above you’ll get access to everything that has ever been on the site. [more]
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Improvised Lentil Soup, Carole Walter Honored
Months before I left my radio show behind, I went through the exercise of adding up all of my expenses to see exactly how much I needed to live. Could I live without working at all? (I seem lately to have so many friends who do.) When I told my friend Ann Amendolara Nurse, my Italian mamma, what I had done, Ann said, “I’m not worried about you. You make good pasta e fagioli.” That was her way of saying, “You know how to be poor.” [more]
Thursday, October 7, 2004
This and That
Thank you all
Since I left WOR in late August, I have been so inundated with well-wishing email at Mavensmail@aol.com that I could not keep up, and have regrettably lost hundreds of your notes to internet space. I was trying to respond to everyone, but there were more than 800 notes. It just wasn’t possible. Frankly, I am trying to gather an email mailing list. There used to be a way to do that on this website, but there is no longer (long story) and my webmaster and I are investigating new possibilities. In the meantime, if you were one of those well-wishers I didn’t respond to personally, please forgive me and just send me an email with your name, so I can include you on the list. I promise not to sell your name or use the list in any way except to contact you personally.
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Saturday, October 2, 2004
Risotto alla Salernitana
One of the several things I am doing while not on the radio is teaching. Last week, I had a class at A La Carte, the school in Lynbrook, and I am repeating it this week, October 6, Wednesday. Sorry, the class is full. The second section was arranged to accommodate some spillover from the first class. And if there is interest, I would be happy to repeat the class again. Call A La Carte at (516) 599-2922 if you are interested. We can set up yet another date. What I am doing is, so to speak, bringing Tenuta Seliano to Lynbrook. I’m showing slides, telling stories about, and demonstrating a few recipes from the program I do in Italy with Cecilia Baratta -- la baronessa Bellelli– on her water buffalo farm. Although some of the recipes I teach in Italy were published in Naples at Table, my cookbook, there are many now that we have had added from Cecilia’s personal repertoire. [more]
