Back to Blogging, and Brunching

Homemade Brunch

I have to thank you, readers -- it is because of you that even after three months of neglect, I refuse to abandon this blog. Over the past months, many of you have expressed that while you remain loyal to my work over at foodnetwork.com, you miss "my" blog, and I have to agree. Thanks for keeping up with my writing and for encouraging me not to give up this outlet where I can write about whatever I want in my own voice. Even if I'm busy with the work I get paid for, I'm going to do my best to keep posting here on a more regular basis.

Mise en Place going temporarily idle doesn't mean I haven't been cooking! I've made some great meals recently for friends, family, book club. I got a new wok which led to a couple weeks of only Asian food -- it is amazing! Our little kitchen is getting a pretty good workout.

Last Sunday, I was very lucky to have my whole family in town for Mother's Day. My sister Hilary and I decided to make brunch for Mom -- so much better than joining the crowds for crappy prix-fixe restaurant menus.

We hit Whole Foods on Saturday before the parents got to New York and bought everything we needed, then woke up semi-early (after a wonderful dinner at Recette the night before) to cook.

The Baker

Hilary made some raspberry-walnut-cream cheese muffins that she found in Cooking Light. I was out of flour and we got whole-wheat at Whole Foods, because that's what I normally keep around at home. I promised to take the blame if the muffins turned out badly with whole-wheat flour. Fortunately, they were delicious: Moist and nutty with great bites of fruit.

Raspberry-Walnut Muffins

Having looked at Mother's Day content for the past month or so at work, I was inspired to make one of Food Network's crustless quiches. I wanted the brunch to be relaxed and wasn't about to cook eggs to order, so this seemed like a good dish for my small crowd. I even bought a pie pan for the occasion. Sprinkling the bottom of the pan with grated parmesan or bread crumbs makes an ingenious mock-crust that keeps it from sticking. I didn't use any of the specific fillings provided by FN, instead choosing my own combo of broccoli, garlic, a little cheese (parmesan and sharp cheddar) and a shake of cayenne for kick.

Crustless Quiche...just out of the oven

So far, this brunch was vegetarian, so I picked up some turkey bacon (although I think only Zack would have truly missed the meat!) In culinary school (where bacon is plentiful), I learned never to make bacon in a skillet ever again. Who needs hot grease splattering everywhere? Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and lay out the strips, then cook them in a 400 degree oven until crispy (about 10-15 minutes). This method yields perfectly flat, crispy slices every time. It worked just as well for turkey bacon.

Fruit Salad

I also made a fresh fruit salad with mango, pineapple, strawberries and mint. Since I'm not much of a baker, variations on fruit salad are my go-to dessert. The mint really perks it up and makes ordinary fruit into something a little more exciting. I squeeze a little lemon juice over it, but no other embellishment needed.

The parents arrived around noon and we all dug into the brunch spread. It seemed to go over well, with everyone going for second pieces of quiche and extra muffins. (Hilary made the extra batter into a mini-loaf, which I'm saving in my freezer!)

As much as I love restaurants, cooking for family is even better. I think every Mom appreciates being cooked for by her kids. This one did!

Ode to Mardi Gras and the Saints!

Unless you literally live under a rock, you've probably heard that the New Orleans Saints won their first-ever Super Bowl last weekend. What you may not know? I was there!

We came home from Miami and Zack immediately DVR'd every minute of Super Bowl coverage, so it's been on non-stop, allowing us to bask in the glory. Although my football knowledge has increased immensely in the past year and a half (since I've had a certain roommate...), I'm still less intrigued by the play-by-play breakdowns of the game and most excited about the parade and interviews with Drew Brees and his wife and baby. Still, watching that Tracy Porter interception over and over again never gets old.

Anyway...this tangent IS actually going somewhere food-related. New Orleans has obviously been insane since the Saints returned to town, and to top off all of that excitement, today is Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Food is a huge part of New Orleans culture, so we had to make something to celebrate.

Thankfully, Zack's parents sent us a "Who Dat" care package full of Zatarain's mixes. We invited a few friends over for a big pot of jambalaya. I made it from scratch once in culinary school (Louisiana day in American Regional), but many New Orleans faithfuls agree that jambalaya is just one of those things that is just as good (or even better) using a boxed mix.

I decided to go semi-traditional and use chicken breast and andouille chicken sausage as my proteins. I pre-cooked the meats and set them aside, then boiled water with a little vegetable oil and dumped in the rice, spice mix, and meat. I added a little extra seasoning, just salt and pepper. You let that simmer for 25 minutes covered. Open the lid, and I had some seriously authentic-looking (and tasting) jambalaya.

I'm tempted to break out my recipe from school—all I remember is the large number of spices involved—and do a taste test of that vs. Zatarain's. We had no complaints!

The Ultimate Power Lunch

That's Andrea, looking very cold outside of Del Posto!

One of my New Year's resolutions is to cook more and eat out less. New York is so expensive that even at casual neighborhood restaurants, our bill ends up surprisingly large. But there are so many amazing places to try in the city...what's a foodie to do when attempting to be frugal?

The answer? Do lunch! Some of the best (and priciest) restaurants in town have amazing lunch deals that allow you to sample their menus at a fraction of the dinner cost. Last week, Andrea and I dressed up a little and headed for a "ladies who lunch" date at Del Posto. (For the record, Eleven Madison Park, Jean-Georges, and Perry Street have similar deals that we hope to hit up in the future!)

Del Posto is Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich's Italian fine dining spot, which happens to be located just across from the Chelsea Market building (home to Food Network). Recently, Batali and co. instated a prix-fixe lunch menu steal: 3 courses for $29. Sure, this is not cheap for an everyday lunch, but I had been to Del Posto for dinner before with Zack and his grandparents, so I knew that this caliber of food for under $30 was highway robbery! I've paid almost as much for a salad at Gia Pronto.

Del Posto is spacious and classic; there's dark wood, warm colors, and a 2nd floor wrap-around balcony overlooking the main dining room, making it feel a bit like a (very fancy) cruise ship. We knew we were dining in style when they presented those little stools for our purses to sit on. It's more formal than Babbo, more formal than Batali's Osteria Mozza (where we just had a fantastic meal in LA), but not in a stuffy way—it's still an Italian restaurant, after all.

After reading a review of the lunch deal, I knew to come hungry. With all the little extras the chefs send out, it's actually a lot more than three courses. The first extra course to arrive on our table was a selection of three one-bite amuse bouches: a demitasse of straciatella soup (a perfect first bite on that frigid afternoon), a tiny risotto ball, and a little pastry puff filled with mortadella. Each was full of flavor and got us very excited about what was to come.


Next up: what has been deemed The Best Bread Basket in New York. Had we been unaware of the raves that this bread has received, we may have restrained ourselves to make room for the next courses. But we had to do it justice and at least try each kind. The grissini—Italian for breadsticks—were truly the best I've ever had, crispy on the outside but still a little chewy within, with an amazing olive oil flavor. The focaccia is also a revelation, light and herby and not loaded with oil like many versions are.


The bread is served with whipped butter and whipped lardo, which Andrea avoided because she doesn't eat pork. All of the breads are sublime on their own, but I tried a little lardo on the olive bread and it was quite delicious, infused with rosemary and decadence.


Once we'd nibbled on each bread offering, our appetizers arrived. We shared the lobster salad and the roasted autumn vegetables with robiola sformato and toasted hazelnuts. The salad offered a very generous serving of lobster meat (huge, meaty chunks of tail and claw) tossed with a wonderful agrodolce sauce and broccoli rabe. There was a little dab of olive sauce artistically placed on the rim of the plate, which I didn't really get. I tried some of it with the lobster and I didn't think it added much to an already perfect dish.

The vegetable plate looked like an artist's canvas, we almost didn't want to mess with it. There wasn't a duplicate of anything on the plate: one perfect carrot, a wedge of butternut squash, a baby potato, a tiny little turnip, a surprising bite of apple. The cheese and hazelnuts added lovely richness and crunch. A vegetable plate is usually a throw-away order, but not here.

The three-course menu allows you to order an antipasti, a primi OR a secondi, then a dessert. At a Mario Batali restaurant, there's no way you can forgo the primis, which are primarily pastas. On our trip to LA, our table of seven ordered almost every pasta on the menu at Osteria Mozza, and each one was entirely unique from the next and just as fabulous. There were a few pastas on the Del Posto menu that sounded similar to dishes at Mozza, so I steered away from those to try something new.

Andrea ordered the orechiette with lamb neck sausage, cherry peppers, and broccoli rabe. The broccoli and peppers were pureed into a pesto-like sauce that had the most delicious spicy flavor. Orechiette is one of my favorite pasta shapes (Andrea's too!) because it holds sauce just so perfectly. Every bite has an ideal ratio.


I selected stracchiotte, a pasta I'd never heard of, with frutti di mare and marinara. The waiter explained that stracchiotte were little shells, and these were made with squid ink (hence why each little shell looks like it's painted half black). The whole dish tasted of the sea, and the incredibly fresh marinara finished with a little kick. The shrimp, scallops, and calamari were optimally tender.


We had to leave a little pasta on our plates to make room for desserts. Del Posto's pastry chef, Brooks Headley, used to work at my favorite restaurant in the whole world: Komi in DC. I remembered his delicate sweets fondly (a chocolate ganache with olive oil ice cream stands out in my memory) and was very excited that he'd resurfaced in New York.

Remembering that outstanding olive oil gelato, I ordered a chocolate ricotta tortino that came with it. The presentation was one of the best I've ever seen, with a tiny slice cut from the miniature cake, which is rolled in Sicilian pistachios. Although I couldn't finish the rich, ubelieveably moist cake, there was not a drop of olive oil gelato left on my plate!

Andrea knew she wanted the chestnut cake with warm plums and roasted chestnuts the minute she saw it on the dessert menu. It was a great winter dessert, and the yogurt gelato alongside was almost as good as the olive oil.


Along with our plated desserts, the waiter presented a jewel-box of little sweets. The actual box was really interesting: it was a grater with a drawer underneath that pulled out to reveal more goodies! There were chocolate-covered lollipops of olive oil gelato (more!), little lemon tarts with "grapefruit caviar", teeny tiny bomboloni (donuts), bitter chocolate truffles, and candied grapefruit with caramel. We were stuffed, but how could we not try them?


With that, our wonderful Del Posto lunch came to a close. For once, we were shocked in a good way when we got our check. We had lingered for over two hours and savored every bite of this $30 feast. Now it was time for a long walk!

At present, there are no four-star NYTimes or three-star Michelin Italian restaurants in New York. I've read that with recent renovations and changes to the menu (including this new lunch), Batali and Bastianich aim to achieve these goals at Del Posto. Hopefully the mysterious folks at Michelin and the new Times critic, Sam Sifton, will pay a visit soon—in this critic's opinion, Del Posto deserves those stars!

Del Posto currently has 2 Michelin stars (out of 3)
and 3 stars from the New York Times (out of 4)