Catching Up, With Cake

I’ve been living at the center of the tornado that is student life for the past few months, and this blog has been silent because I haven’t managed to write anything that totally self-obsessed. Anything that isn't focused, that is, on questions about the nature of the self, the nature of our idea of the self, or the nature of what selves can do and how we should treat them, as asked and answered by David Hume, G.E. Anscombe, Sydney Shoemaker, Christine Korsgaard, and plenty of others. I've taken occasional breaks for thinking about Aristotle’s account of bravery. I then try to exemplify that virtue when I return to self-consciousness.

It’s unfortunate that I haven’t been posting, because this student life does not include a diet of instant ramen and dinner-cereal. Far from it. This is Berkeley, after all, and there’s no reason, excuse, or even feasible method for avoiding noteworthy food. And I’ve been experimenting with new things a fair amount – baking, braising, and freezing all sorts of substances. I’m going to try to catch up on the documentation over winter break, and of course I’ll be making countless new dishes to force on all the people who plan to come to town for the holidays.

But before I return to term papering, here’s a recipe to start off with. It’s one of a number of birthday desserts that I’ve made this semester, and the second one to include alcohol as a key ingredient. I find that people appreciate this on their birthdays. It was inspired by this year’s Anchor Steam Christmas Ale, a rich and spicy beer that could count as a dessert on its own. Upon my first sip, I immediately pronounced that it tasted exactly like cake, and promised to make it into one. Most things, after all, are improved by transformation into cake form.

Chocolate Birthday Beer Cake

1 box Trader Joe’s chocolate cake mix

Whatever else it lists on the back of the box, minus the water

Anchor Steam Christmas Ale

2 tsp cinnamon

Follow the directions on the box, but replace the water with an equal quantity of beer, and add the cinnamon. I didn’t frost it, because I didn’t have time to make frosting, and because I like cake better than frosting – especially this cake. But it would be excellent with some whipped cream. Or plain cream.

Subject Matters

I’m so sorry, blog. I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you. I’ve been thinking about you, and I’ve been thinking about food – and making it – quite a lot. But my camera is broken, and since I forgot to spend a few years as a financial consultant before signing up for grad school, I can’t afford to fix it. And somehow, slapping together some philosophical writing and a recipe without at least providing a nice picture doesn’t seem adequate.

But I thought about you the other day, when Stephen Yablo gave a talk on “A Semantic Conception of the Truthmakers.” His argument had something to do with the relevance of “subject matter” to the truth of sentences, which was supposed to capture our intuitions about when statements can be technically incorrect but “get something right.” To get to these subject matters, we have to subtract part of the content of the sentence from the rest of it, which can be illustrated by very complicated diagrams segmenting logical space in various ways. Or, Yablo mentioned, it can be illustrated by a simple analogy, like the explanation: “A gratin is a quiche that’s not baked in a crust.” You take the idea of a quiche, then you take away the crust, and what you get is an understanding of a gratin. Similarly, with statements, you take everything the sentence purports to say, then you subtract the bits you don’t think are essential to what’s being talked about, and you get the subject matter.

The problem with this is that there’s really nothing accurate about that explanation of a gratin. A quiche that’s not baked in a crust is a crustless quiche. It’s made with eggs, milk, and any number of fillings. A gratin involves no eggs; it’s generally made with a béchamel sauce using cream, butter, flour, and cheese. Perhaps a better example would be an explanation of a frittata: a quiche without so much milk.

This got me thinking about savory bread pudding, because I made some recently and had to explain it to people who had never heard of such a thing (and probably didn’t yet understand why you’d want to eat it). I think the best argument is a comparison to Thanksgiving stuffing: savory bread pudding is like that, but with milk and eggs instead of stock. The result is a very rich and delicious main course.

Here’s the recipe. You can add and subtract fillings you please, as long as we’re still talking about bread, eggs, and milk.

Fennel and Chard Bread Pudding

1 bulb of fennel, halved, cored, and thinly slice
1 large bunch rainbow chard, chopped
1 onion, sliced
3 ounces cheddar cheese, grated
Handful of parmesan shavings
3 ½ cups crusty bread cubes, toasted in the oven until crispy
2 ½ cups milk
3 eggs
Salt and pepper, to taste

Sautee fennel and onions until soft and wimpy, and slightly caramelized. Then add chard to pan in handfuls, adding when sufficiently reduced in volume. Toss vegetables with bread cubes and cheese, put into well-buttered and suitably sized casserole dish. Whisk eggs and milk together, season with salt and pepper, and pour over (I’m actually completely unsure of how much liquid ingredients I used; the mixture should come almost to the top of the bread, but not quite. Bake at 375F for 40 minutes, or until set. Sprinkle top with parmesan for the last few minutes of baking.

A New Plan, Gilbert Ryle, and Posole

Ok, here’s the new plan.

Each Wednesday, I turn in a few pages that attempt to make sense of some article or chapter on a philosophical topic of some kind. Most Wednesdays, others who have also just completed this task gather at my house for dinner. Both the discussion and the food aim to be sensible but innovative, and both are reliably satisfying.

So I’m going to start using these Wednesdays as the material for (I hope) weekly posts. Either I’ll put up the paper I wrote, or some discussion of the topic. Or discussion of some other topic, if I feel like it. And I’ll include recipes for the dishes that we deemed successful at dinner. Or other recipes, if I feel like it. None of this is set in stone.

Here we go. We have some catching up to do.

In "Knowing How and Knowing That," Gilbert Ryle elaborates a view of intelligence as a "skill," and intelligent action as "the exercise of a skill." He admits that an act itself has no distinctive marking of intelligence, since two acts could be indistinguishable though one is performed intelligently and the other is not. But this is because a skill is not a particular event itself, so would be incorrect to talk about it in the ways we talk about events, as being seen or unseen. To possess a skill is to have a particular kind of disposition, and possession of a disposition does not consist in actually being in a certain state, but in the truth of certain statements about what state one would be in if various conditions arose.

But what more can we say about intelligence, other than that we can't think about it in terms of a single isolated instance? Ryle seems to acknowledge the importance of distinguishing intelligent capacities from mere habits, but he fails to give a satisfying explanation of what it is that sets intelligent dispositions apart.

Whenever Ryle sets out to give an account of which counterfactual statements must be satisfied by an individual in order for his disposition to be intelligent, his analysis falls short in a specific way: the criteria that he enumerates are themselves intelligent capacities, so we come no closer to an understanding of the property of intelligence itself. Ryle is adamant that observation of action is sufficient for justifying attributions of intelligence: a chess player demonstrates his competence in chess with the moves he makes on the board, and nothing further is required. But what is it about his demonstration of those moves that makes chess-playing a matter of intelligence? Here and elsewhere in the chapter, Ryle refers obliquely to strategy: the chess player’s competence is shown in “the moves he avoids or vetoes," and the intelligent arguer has to “innovate,” be "on guard," and "exploit opportunities." A mountain climber must be “ready" to cope with any obstacles that come his way. But avoidance, exploitation, readiness, and innovation are all understood as processes that require intelligence, and we're interested in understanding that very concept, not just paraphrasing it. We still want to know, what is it about all of these activities that makes them intelligent ones?

It's striking that Ryle seems to blatantly ignore the somewhat obvious element shared by all of his criteria. Sure, he makes it clear that the player’s moving the chess pieces demonstrates that he knows how to move them – that he knows the rules for the types of moves allowed for each piece. But there is another kind of rule, or at least a feature of chess, that the player has to know to count as knowing how to play, which Ryle essentially leaves out: the player must know how to win the game. He must not just make legal moves, but make ones that will help him achieve his main aim of capturing the king. This omission is the source of the insufficiency of Ryle’s explication of the criteria for intelligence. It is fine to elaborate the specific ways in which an adept mountain climber or marksman would exercise his skill in order to reach his goal, but the key factor that separates these and all intelligent actions from mere habits and other simpler dispositions is that the agent has a goal. To act intelligently, the agent must antecedently grasp what it is to be successful in his endeavor, or what it is to win. Ryle is right to point out that since intelligence is a disposition, we must talk about it in modal language, using "could" and "would" statements. But to accurately capture intelligence, we must also recognize that the relevance of those "would" statements is determined by normative "should" statements. Intelligence must be explained in terms of successes and mistakes, in relation to a goal. Why does this seem to slip past in Ryle's discussion?

The end. Time for some Mexican stew.

Nopalito Posole

1 onion, diced
1 15 oz. can of hominy
1 qt. vegetable stock
1 cup tomatoes, diced
1.5 cups canned nopalitos, drained and rinsed
1 dried New Mexican chili
juice of 1 lime
handful chopped cilantro

Garnishes: diced avocado, crumbled cotija cheese, extra cilantro and lime

Sautee onions until translucent. Add next five ingredients, plus more water to cover if necessary. Bring to a boil, then simmer at least 30 minutes until stewy. Add cilantro and lime, and serve with extra garnishes.

Foraging

If you like getting stuff for free, Berkeley is a great place to live. That statement will strike many as strange and dubitable; let me explain. Yes, the cost of living in the Bay Area is one of the highest in the country. Rent is ever-increasing, water bills are staggering, and parking tickets should make up a significant percentage of the budget of anyone silly enough to have a car. But at least those costs are slightly offset by the incredible opportunities for foraging!

I now laugh at my former New York-resident self, selecting a plastic package containing three sprigs of rosemary from a frosty supermarket shelf, shuffling up to the check out line to hand over $2.99 for permission to take it home and cook with it. With an average of about three large rosemary bushes per block, no one in their right mind would ever think of paying for it here. Same goes for fennel fronds and lavender.

A few weeks ago I wanted to find a use for the nasturtiums that also grow everywhere of their own volition, including the entirely untended flower beds in front of my house. I used to eat them as a kid because nothing was more exciting that the idea of flowers you could eat, but I knew that I would enjoy their strong peppery taste much more now. I found some recipes for nasturtium butter spreads, but decided instead to incorporate them into mayonnaise, since I wanted to try making it with my new blender stick.

The blender stick method worked much better than my previous food processor attempts, though my hand did get a little tired holding down the power button for so long (woe is me and my electrical kitchen devices). It produced a very thick mayonnaise, probably thanks to the fact that I was forced to be patient about adding the oil since the stick took up most of the opening of the jar, and because I used two egg yolks instead of one whole egg. The chopped nasturtium confetti contrasted beautifully with the creamy white, and added an interesting sharpness to the flavor.

The mayonnaise went perfectly with all of the components of my mother's Shrimp Boil Birthday Dinner: we smeared it on boiled red potatoes, corn, shrimp, and soft herbed bread. It's an impressive jar to bring to a party, being both visually pleasing and somewhat conceptually unusual. You'll seem very gourmet, even though the key ingredient was plucked off a sidewalk. Don't worry, I washed it first.

Nasturtium Mayonnaise

2 egg yolks

2 tbps lemon juice

pinch of salt

3/4 cup oil (I used 1/4 cup canola oil and 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil this time)

3-5 nasturtium flowers, finely chopped

Place first three ingredients in a jar with a mouth wide enough to fit the head of the blender stick. Blend until well combined. Then, while blending continuously, start drizzling in the oil, literally drop by drop at first, waiting to add more until everything is fully incorporated. After the first 1/4 cup or so you can start adding more in each go. The mixture will get thicker as you go on. When all the oil has been added, stir in the nasturtium. Refrigerate.

Avocado Is Enough

Berkeley has a great philosophy program and everything, with well-respected faculty, and what seems to be a nice student community. But my presence here could be construed as somewhat overdetermined. Good quality avocados, while not necessary to my happiness (I coped without them for the better part of five years) are damn near sufficient for it.

My mother often served them for dinner, one half per person, the center where the pit had been filled with balsamic vinaigrette. For a long time that was virtually the only way I ate them, until Katherine showed me that they can be delicious with just a sprinkling of salt, if balsamic vinaigrette seems like too much of an effort. I discovered the avocado and cheese sandwich at some point in college; it seemed like it couldn't get much better than the subtle spectrum of textures of the creamy avocado, firm cheese, and toasted bread.

But the other day I found I was able to improve on this classic recipe, using another ingredient far more commonplace in California than other places I've lived: Tapatio hot sauce. It's quite potent stuff, and just a few dashes to stain a piece of whole wheat toast where enough to provide a good amount of heat. The sweet-and-sour spice brought out the fruitiness of the avocado, and reminded me again of some of the many reasons I'm happy to be here.

I encourage everyone to get their hands on a ripe avocado today, and try it out. I usually use a mild cheddar, swiss, or fontina, but it would be interesting to experiment with sharper cheeses. I don't melt the cheese because I like how the different types of firmness of the cheese and avocado compliment each other, but I toast the bread, usually a regular sandwich bread with a fine crumb, so that it adds a bit of crunch. This time I drizzled it with Tapatio, but mustard also works well. I layer the cheese on first, then slices of avocado, and often a sprinkling of course-ground black pepper.

Even in California, Deli Wine Is Only Suitable for Granita

The fact that you can buy wine and liquor at just about any store in California is pretty exciting, but it does not mean that you should just buy it at any store. This we found out the hard way on Friday night, coming back from the Best of the East Bay party at Jack London square. After we’d had enough of the party (and the fog started rolling in), we wanted to end the night with a bottle of wine at our apartment. So we stopped off at Bing’s on San Pablo, and picked up a bottle of something called Crane Lake Riesling. I have no idea what motivated the choice since I didn’t do the selecting, but it was not a success. In fact it was entirely undrinkable. The lesson here: if you make wine choices in the interest of budget, be sure to always have a reliable Trader Joe’s brand on hand.

In any case, we were left with a mostly full bottle of this headache-flavored syrup, and in our kitchen all things that get opened must be put to use. I deemed it too powerfully sweet for a savory application like coq au vin blanc, so instead I decided to repurpose it as a dessert. A recipe for white wine granita with rosemary and lemon was easily adapted to what I had on hand: basil and lime. I also scaled back the sugar since the wine was so sweet to begin with….and added more wine. It needed to go.

Because it requires attention at intervals spread over a considerable about of time, granita is an excellent cooking project when you have something else to occupy you in the house for most of the day. For example, a 550-page book on perception and objectivity. The somewhat crucial step is catching it when the first ice crystals start to form and scraping them into smaller ones. I was in the middle of a gripping section on Primitive Agency when this happened, so I got to it a little late. The crystal shards that I ended up with might have been a little bigger than desired, but they got fluffier and fluffier as I continued scraping, every half hour to hour.

The resulting granita was much more edible than the wine was drinkable. It was a beautiful pale jade color from the basil, and the herbal flavor and citric acidity did a good job covering up the obnoxious wine. I’m sure it would be absolutely amazing with a high quality wine, but if I had one of those, it wouldn’t get anywhere near my freezer.

Bad Wine Granita

1/3 of a cup of sugar (or less, depending on the sweetness of the wine)
250 mL water
200 mL white wine
4 large basil leaves, roughly chopped or torn
Juice of half a lime

Bring water to a boil with sugar and basil leaves; stir until sugar is dissolved, then turn off the heat and let cool, covered. When cooled, mix liquid with wine and lime juice (I discarded the basil leaves, but pressed as much liquid as I could out of them with a wooden spoon). Pour into a shallow container and put in the freezer. When the first ice crystals start to form, use a fork to break them into smaller bits and stir them into the liquid. This may happen one to two hours after placing in the freezer, depending on the dimensions of the dish. Repeat scraping process every hour to half hour afterwards, creating a light, fluffy texture.

Karadeniz Romano Beans

One of the best ways to satiate an appetite after several hours of climbing Istanbul’s steep hills is to step into a lokanta. At these cozy, informal restaurants, similar to traiteurs in France, the establishment’s offerings are all laid out behind the counter, which is great for the traveler who is less familiar with the names and contents of Turkish dishes than she’d like to be. You can point to and inquire about the various stews, pilafs, and salads and know much more about what you eventually request to have heaped on your plate than you would if you had ordered blindly from a menu.

The food at lokantas is usually simple and traditional, the kind of thing that benefits from being prepared ahead. But when the simplest food is prepared with good ingredients and small, painstakingly made batches, it can impress just as much as a fancy restaurant.

One lunch I had at a lokanta specializing in Karadeniz cuisine (from regions along the coast of the Black Sea) was particularly memorable. I had ordered a stewed romano bean dish that looked hearty and satisfying, but I discovered after one bite that it had much more to recommend it than its nutritional value. There was some subtle ingeniousness to its flavor, soft yet slightly tangy, the herbs and spices blending into a single coherent background, making it difficult to identify and single component.

When I saw some romano beans at the Beehive Farmer’s Market down the street from my new apartment, I decided to try to recreate the dish, even though I knew it would require a lot of experimentation to get elusive the seasoning right. My first attempt included rosemary, garlic, and onion for aromatics, and a splash of balsamic vinegar for some depth and a balance to the sweetness of the tomatoes. It was good, but nowhere near revelatory. I left most of my spice collection in New York, and cooking with the more limited supplies I’ve gathered here is like switching from a grand piano to a 49-key Casio keyboard. But I believed I could still do better, and the next day I reheated it with some fresh sage, more fresh rosemary, ground sumac, and dried thyme.

Day two’s version was better, and in fact very good. A slice of Acme’s herb slab stood in place of the shopping bag of fresh, fluffy foccacia that came with each table at the original Karadeniz lokanta. Below is the recipe for an approximation of the final version, but if you’re on your way to Istanbul, let me know and I’ll have Katherine take you to get the real thing.

Note: Even more than expected, this is definitely a dish that improves as it sits in the fridge. The last helping, consumed on day three, was by far the best, and a rival to what I had in Istanbul.

Karadeniz Romano Beans

Slightly less than 1 lb romano beans (I happened to have grabbed 4/5 lb)
1 8 oz. can diced tomatoes
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Half a medium yellow onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
6 inch rosemary sprig, chopped
2 large sage leaves, chopped
½ teaspoon sumac
½ cup water
Salt and pepper, to taste

Trim ends of romano beans and cut into halves or thirds, depending on size. In a deep saucepan or Dutch oven (one of which I am now the proud owner, or at least borrower!), saute onion in olive oil for a few minutes until softened and slightly browned. Add salt and pepper, rosemary, garlic, sage, and sumac, cook a minute more. Deglaze with balsamic vinegar, then add tomatoes and bring to a boil. Add beans and water (add more water if the mixture doesn’t cover the beans, then reduce to a simmer and cover. Cook for 50 minutes, until beans are very tender. Let cool in the pot for 15 minutes or so, allowing the stew to thicken.

A Call for Cream

Food and travel both tend to lead to cultural analysis, and I have a question to pose to my homeland now that I’m back: What’s with the lack of proper appreciation for cream?

There is a paucity of knowledge in this country of the various textures, viscosities, and acidities that cream can take on when its fat content and temperature are allowed to roam freely. I blame a combination of the ready availability of Reddi-wip (that’s right, I googled the spelling), an aversion to the idea of fat, and a fanatical fear of bacteria. If you couldn’t get whipped cream in a can, maybe laziness would lead to the discovery that those strawberries will taste great swimming in a pool of liquid cream. Better yet, double cream. But I have a horrible feeling that people around here don’t really know what double cream is.

Squeamishness about pasteurization and fear of fat form the biggest obstacle, the latter inhibiting motivation to try new creamy things, and the former providing an excuse not to. Clotted cream, the ultimate does of milk fat, is very difficult to find in America, and also impossible to make at home, since it has to be made from unpasteurized milk. The milk is heated just below boiling and then left to sit, allowing the cream content to rise to the top. The resulting silky substance is skimmed off for spreading on scones and cakes. They make a similar product in Turkey, called kaymak, which is served in a pool of honey and eaten with toast. Not something you need to have heaps of at every meal, but certainly part of a complete breakfast or special teatime snack.

Then there’s fromage frais and crème fraiche. Crème fraiche is starting to show up more here (Trader Joe’s makes it), and it’s essentially the same thing as sour cream, though I think it has a better texture (maybe it has fewer unpronounceable viscosifying chemicals in it). But fromage frais remains elusive, which is a shame, because it’s a perfect tangy accompaniment to stewed fruits, tarts, or fresh berries. Greek yogurt or softened cream cheese would probably work in many of the same contexts, but there’s still something specific about fromage frais.

Maybe there are completely acceptable substitutes for all of these creamy concoctions, but with a centuries-old tradition of dairy science experimentation, why limit ourselves?

To cleanse the palate, I’ll end with some photos of the impressive produce at the Fatih Mosque street market.

Bar Snacks

New York may have the ultimate bar culture, but other cities certainly outdo it in the bar snack category. Of course, I’m always grateful for a bowl of free pretzels or peanuts, and I should stress that when I say “bar snacks” I mean the free stuff – not the “bar food” that you pay for. New York is teeming with places that offer delectable grass-fed beef sliders, house-made cornichons, and all kinds of artisanal cheese plates, usually for a price that seems unfairly proportioned to their size. But for someone who’s interested in something to bridge the gap between another round and dinner, New York’s bars could take a cue from Balkon in Istanbul.

Balkon is a charming bar in the Tünel area off the main pedestrian street, Istiklar. A tiny elevator on the ground floor takes patrons up to a shady, shabby chic bar and seating area, and another flight of stairs leads to the blindingly reflective rooftop area with a recessed bar and a stunning view of the entire city.
The small plate that arrived with our menus stunned me almost as much as the landscape. I expected the usual, something as old as the bar itself but chock full of preservatives to ensure that it looked the same as it did on day one, but instead, they handed us a plate of fresh plums and cherries! Nothing could go better with a blazing sun and gleaming city than a glass of white wine and some fresh Turkish produce. I’m glad the people of Balkon figured that out.

It seems like the brilliance of fruity summer bar snacks exists in San Francisco as well. My sister recently told me about a venue in Noe Valley whose backyard is filled with overgrown blackberry bushes. For the next few months, that means unlimited bar snacking for everyone.

Mulberries

American summers are full of berries: strawberries in shortcakes, blueberries in pies, raspberries in tartlets. But now that I’m back in the States, I’m finding it impossible to track down an incredible berry that I saw on almost every corner in Istanbul: the mulberry.

Mulberries aren’t entirely unknown in this country, but they’re probably a C-list ingredient recognized mostly from their roles in “Pop Goes the Weasel” and specialty store jams. I don’t think I had much of an idea of what a fresh mulberry looked like until I saw them in Turkey, and was extremely surprised to find out that they come in white. Though there are darker varieties, the white ones were common in Istanbul, and have a delightfully maggoty look. Their taste was very mild, similar to figs, and I’m sure their delicate softness makes them very difficult to transport. Which is unfortunate, because I would like very much to buy some white mulberries and convince my German roommates that maggots are used all the time in American cuisine.

It just goes to show you that you shouldn’t pass up food in unfamiliar colors, or you might miss out on some tasty experiences. I was skeptical that the bright green figs I bought could be in any way ripe, but it turned out that they contained delicious ruby insides, and were very refreshing after hiking to a beach on one of the Princes’ Islands.

Though the summer fruit here in the Bay Area leaves nothing to be desired, I still slightly miss the novelty of Istanbul’s produce, and the fun of asking for it in Turkish. Mulberry is “dut,” and you never get to say anything as amusing in an American market.

Istanbul's Surprise

I just got back from Istanbul, where I spent six days trying to sample all the food I’d heard about and had to try, plus all the food I’d never heard of before, plus all the food I knew and loved and had to try at its point of origin. Of course, in only six days, I came nowhere close to succeeding. I’m going to have to go back.

I don’t have any photos at this point, because I’ve been taking pictures on actual film (yes, you can still buy it at a few select locations) that will have to be developed when I get back to America. I’m going to hold off on posting about the more visually impressive food-related experiences until then: the market near the Fatih mosque that seemed to go on forever, the glitz of the Spice Bazaar, the strange albino blackberries that turned out to be mulberries, the fresh fruit that served as bar snacks with at a rooftop bar with a view spanning two continents – all of these would benefit from photographic proof. So for now I’ll talk about one of the things that surprised me most about Istanbul: the bread.

My first night in the city, we went out for meze, or “Turkish tapas,” as it was explained to me. Being intimately familiar with every menu of Lebanese maza in the 11201 zip code, I expected to be able to predict everything that would arrive at our table. We chose a few items (aubergine puree, sardines, hummus, cucumber yogurt) and I asked Katherine if she thought that would be enough – they were going to bring us unlimited pita anyway, right? Wrong. At least, not quite, she said. In Istanbul, they eat meze with slices of white bread. There is pide, but it’s mostly used as a base for boat-shaped pizza-like things topped with roasted vegetables or ground meat, or for döner wraps. I didn’t fully believe it until the bread basket got to the table, but it’s true: Istanbul, to my surprise, is teeming with leavened bread.

This meal opened my eyes to the fact that Turkish food, at least in Istanbul, has significant Balkan and Eastern European influences in addition to its Middle Eastern ones. A few days later, I had lunch at a lokanta specializing in Black Sea cuisine, which served flavorful fava beans stewed in the pod, and also provided each table with a gargantuan plastic bag of fluffy, foccacia-ish bread. I quickly discovered that bakeries and street carts sell sesame rolls in a variety of shapes (including the ubiquitous simit, a large circular twist), along with fairly decent brioche, and we even found some delicious challah at a particularly nice place in Kurtulus.

Not long ago I was buying a bag of pitas every two or three days. I expected a trip to Turkey to increase that average, but I haven’t had a single one since I left America. But with a simit vendor on every street corner, I didn’t have a chance to miss them.

Summer of Seafood

It’s been upwards of 90 degrees outside for the last few days (although a woman I work with insists that it’s “a thousand”) and at times I’ve thought that unless I plunge myself into the ocean immediately, I won’t be able to go on. There isn’t a very accessible ocean around here, but seafood is pretty easy to get to, so instead I’ve been plunging myself into that.

First, there was the Swedish Midsummer Festival. The lawns at Battery City Park filled with blond heads wreathed with flowers, sipping champagne and flowery Swedish spirits, dolloping pickled herring onto crackers, and enjoying the view of the water (though unfortunately it wasn’t the kind of water you can jump into). The food vendors had all sorts of specialties – meatballs, cured salmon, new potato salads – but the lines were unfathomably long, and our stomachs dictated that we choose the shortest one, which meant we were getting korv: hot dogs. The hot dogs were served plain or topped with skagen, a shrimp salad with mayonnaise and dill, and as a waited impatiently in line, I realized that I’d much rather have a skagen sandwich than a hot dog with skagen on top of it. I requested this, a little nervously, when I finally reached the front of the line, and they very obligingly made my special order. The cool, creamy salad was the perfect end to a sweltering day.

The next afternoon I headed out into the sun again, to check out something that had been on my to-do list for several months. The food vendors at the Red Hook ballfields have gotten a lot of press lately, and their set up has changed since the Health Department forced them to give up their tents and move into trucks. But the food and the atmosphere seem to have remained intact: the shady sidewalk on Bay Street feels like an escape from the rest of the city, and the cooks are still turning out authentic Latin American food, at a pace that suits them. The shrimp ceviche was perfectly sweet and tangy, with a nice heat from the green hot sauce that they add just before serving. I was also excited to try pupusas, a Salvadoran dish of fried maize flour cakes filled with cheese and vegetables or meat. The pupusas platter was an unbelievable deal: one pork pupusa, one cheese and loroco flower pupusa, a pile of chicharones (fried cubes of fatty pork), and a side of bright purple cabbage slaw, all for only seven dollars. The pupusas were the best part; the mild cheese and soft dough were a decadent combination.

Two servings of shrimp in less than 24 hours seemed like impressive seafood consumption, but I was about to get much, much closer to the fruits of the sea. When I arrived at Talei’s apartment that night, everything seemed fairly normal: spotless as usual, some friendly faces standing around, an open bottle of wine. Except that the sink was full of live crabs. They clawed vaguely at the sides of the sink and at each other, possibly trying to reach the ones neatly stacked on a platter to ask them why they were so…pink. Talei bravely took on the task of transferring the live ones to the pot, but after lifting one of them out of the sink to find that it was gripping the detached claw of a different crab, she declared that they “had personalities” and she didn’t want to kill any more herself. I volunteered to kill one crab, testing out how I felt about my recent decision not to become a vegetarian. In the end, most of the food preparation was done expertly by Paul, who had more seafood experience than the rest of us.

After an informative demonstration by Hien on How to Eat Blue Crab, the twelve of us started grabbing specimens from the two enormous heaps in the middle of the table and cracking into them ourselves. Crab juice, crab guts, and flecks of crab shell flew everywhere. It was hard to get at the meat, but what I did manage to pry out was delicious: subtly sweet and seasoned by the broth it was boiled in. The orange eggs were easier to find; they had the texture of hard-boiled egg yolk, but with a slightly bitter aftertaste. I don’t know how long we stood around the table, our hands dripping with clam juice, prying open crab after crab. We went through at least three large platters before getting tired of it. And then moved on to oysters.

This seafood-filled weekend was a reminder of the advantages of sticking to coasts, never straying too far from the ocean.

National Picnic Day

Happy National Picnic Day! Have you had a picnic yet today? You’ve got half an hour left. I celebrated by eating lunch on the fire escape, feasting my eyes on the view of the BQE onramp (and, to be fair, the distant top of the Statue of Liberty).

I should have gotten to this post sooner, to offer advice for those already planning picnics and to inspire the rest to get up from the computer, go outside, and eat something. But I think what they always say about Earth Day applies here too; therefore, “Every Day Is Picnic Day,” especially at this time of year. Take a look at these pictures and recipes from picnics past, and pack one for tomorrow. There’s no chance of rain.

Gado gado: peanutty potato salad.

Chips and dips are always a good idea.

Flowery cookies to eat amidst flowers.

Does a snack count as a picnic? These spiced cashews were a good accompaniment to reading in Carroll Gardens Park. Combine chili powder, cayenne pepper, dried rosemary, and salt and grind with a mortar and pestle. Spray roasted cashews with cooking spray and stir with spice mix.

Sometimes picnics are best without recipes. A few carefully selected ingredients made a good spread on Governor’s Island. Crunchy vegetable + cheese + bread/crackers + fruit is usually a good combination. And if it’s not enough, there’s always the Dippin Dot vending machine.

Bagels, the Bread of New York

Seems like I keep coming back to breakfast these days. Back to basics. Back to bagels.

You see, with my departure from this city inching closer every day, it’s reaching the point where I try to cram in as much as possible of the stuff I’m going to miss the most. It’s not that there aren’t delicious bagels in my future – everyone in Berkeley knows that you can rely on Noah’s Bagels, and I’m a huge fan of the avocado, sprouts, and cream cheese sandwich from Lox, Stock and Bagel, not to mention the epic BLT at Manhattan Bagel. But these constructions fulfill a completely different purpose from the authentic New York bagel. Here, the essence of the bagel is its simplicity, its ubiquity, its combination of convenience and quality.

People do become loyal to their favorite shops, but this largely depends on neighborhood. Bagels aren’t destination purchases; it would be ridiculous to use any form of transportation other than walking to procure one (driving a car, needless to say, would be unheard of). When I moved from the Village, I worried how I would survive without Bagel Bob’s on University Place, but then I discovered Bergen Bagels right down the street in Prospect Heights. I worried about leaving that bagel source behind too, but it turns out Montague Bagels is almost as reliable. And the staff get to know their customers, reinforcing cozy the neighborhood feeling. The server at Bagel Bob’s must have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of NYU students each day, but he still remembered that I would probably order a plain bagel with plain cream cheese. I can’t say why my boring predictability would be memorable in any way.

Yes, you can find sub-par bagels in this city, but it’s more difficult than finding decent ones. So I wasn’t at all nervous trying out a new bagel place near where I work in Midtown. But Daniel’s Bagels on Third Avenue seemed to be particularly reputable, as it makes the bagels on the premises. They seem to make a lot of other appetizing baked goods as well – something called “Israeli rugelach” that looked like a chocolate-streaked croissant, and a poppy seed strudel with a full inch and a half of poppy seed filling inside.

I’ve moved on from my days of plain orders, and now it’s always a tough choice between pumpernickel, 7-grain, and occasionally cinnamon-raisin. But Daniel’s had "whole wheat everything," a somewhat rare variety, so I order that, toasted with butter. Supplemented by some carrots, yogurt, and an apricot, it was a satisfying lunch, and a nice excuse to get out of the office and sit in the sun for a few minutes.

Again, I’m not worried that I’ll be unhappy with the bagels in California, and to tell the truth, bagels have been more of a substitute while I’ve been in New York – something to comfort me when the distance of Parisian baguettes and Cheeseboard rolls seemed too much to bear. But as such, they’ve become symbolic of this city, and all the things I’ll miss most.

Another reason I might have bagels on my mind: this mountain of bagels I stumbled upon at Figment, an arts festival held on Governor’s Island every summer. It was guarded by a team of aerobics-outfitted women shouting feminist slogans.

Never Had a Crumpet?

It can seem strange that something as basic as breakfast should vary so much across cultures. But the French are boggled by bagels, and Americans would never go for salad before noon, though Israelis happily start the day with a bowl of cucumbers, watermelon, and feta. When the food itself is the same, the way it's served often isn't: my Slovenian homestay family found it extremely bizarre that I liked cold milk on my cereal, as opposed to room temperature.

Even countries that share a native tongue can surprise each other. When my cousin foisted a plate of crumpets on my roommates, they looked suspicious, but accepted, and later told me to "thank her for the...strumpets?" I actually have a hard time comprehending why most Americans have never had a crumpet. The English muffin made it over, so what happened to its pock-marked cousin? I worry that somewhere along the line, an influential American made a fateful mistake: he tried a crumpet without toasting it, spat out the mealy crumbs in disgust, and vowed never to allow the things to be imported to U.S. soil.

You see, crumpets transform magically in the toaster. At room temperature, their texture is, frankly, intolerable, but after a few minutes in the glow of the electric coils their edges crisp up, encasing tender, piping hot insides. They have a tangy taste that goes perfectly with tart jam or slightly salty butter. Anything you spread on top will inevitably seep into the many holes on their surfaces, turning them into something closer to a glaze-soaked tea cake than a boring breakfast toast.

One more thing: after a lot of thought, I've come to the conclusion that crumpets would not, in fact, be improved by the American tradition of putting peanut butter on everything. Their subtle sourdough taste would be completely overpowered by something so rich. But to the English people smirking right now: just wait and see what I can do with Hobnobs.

Lebanese Festival

When I showed up at Henry and Remsen for the Our Lady of Lebanon church festival, things were just starting up. While volunteers were still busy constructing tents and taping down tablecloths, the grills were already hot, the food tables laden, and the music blaring. These people know how to prioritize.

A long buffet offered all kinds of meat and vegetable options: lamb and chicken kebabs, kibbeh (ground meat and spices) pressed into a huge casserole, dolmas, flaky savory pies, grilled corn, and all the side salads you'd expect. We got a sampler platter with lamb, muhadarra, tabloule, green beans, and fatoush, then lined up for some sajj bread.

The sajj cooking stations were metal domes heated from inside by coals or some other kind of roaring fire, and standing next to them in 90-degree weather tested your true desire for some sajj. The volunteer cooks made it look irresistible, though, laying thin discs of dough onto the hot metal and slathering them with different appetizing fillings from meat sauce to cheese to zaatar paste. When the underside was crispy and slightly blackened, they’d fold them in half and serve them straight off the stove: a Middle Eastern quesadilla. A friend got one of the meat-filled versions, and I asked for a plain piece, just to try it out.

We sat down at one of the long tables and started in on our food, pausing only when some people had to stuff a tablecloth underneath it. Though the platter was more expensive and less generous than most of the Middle Eastern restaurants in the area, it did have a noticeable homemade quality that set it apart. The dressing on the fatoush salad had the buttery sweetness that emerges from the right proportions of lemon and olive oil, and the muhadarra, a mix of lentils, rice, and sautéed onions, was extremely flavorful, much better than many versions I’ve had at restaurants, which tend to be a bit dry. The saaj was different from baked pita, chewier and less bready (which is why the sajj at Fatoush made such good breakfast tacos).

I was too full to reap all the benefits of the dessert table, but I sampled a few bites of a Lebanese pudding flavored with almond and cinnamon and sprinkled with coconut flakes. I wish I could have tried the namoura (also called basbousa), a semolina cake soaked in sweet syrup that I discovered earlier this year at my birthday dinner at Waterfalls, but I might try to make it for an upcoming birthday to make up for this missed opportunity.

I passed by the festival later in the afternoon while doing errands, and it was still going strong. By then the bouncy houses were fully inflated and filled with children, and there was still plenty of food and drinks to occupy their parents for many more hours. I could sense a dance party coming on, since I’m sure everyone was drawn to the event, as I was, by the flyer’s promise of a “DJ ALL THREE DAYS.” I didn’t wait around to find out, but I think the block partied late into the evening.

Fifth Avenue Fair

By far, the best part of summer is being outside most of the time, and an important sub-part of that is eating and drinking outside. If, like many urban dwellers, you don’t have a backyard, it can be slightly more difficult to arrange these kinds of activities. Some countries make it easy, and the summer I spent in Paris was full of night-picnicking on the steps of Sacre Coeur or on the lawn of the Champ de Mars with a slab of Comté, a few baguettes, and several bottles of wine.

But this Puritan nation of ours is less accommodating (in more areas than this), and we have to be more surreptitious here. Except on those lovely days when the city fences off a length of an avenue for the most delightful of summer events: the street fair.

The 5^th Avenue Fair, which happened a few weekends ago, includes many of the less exciting aspects of those generic street fairs that pop up on blocks of the Village every weekend between May and October, but it goes far beyond Mozzarepas and fake silk scarves. All the local restaurants make an appearance, and there’s a lot of good food to choose from. We started out at the Bierkraft stand, which was selling gigantic pulled pork sandwiches and watermelon beer. The beer tasted like a yeasty Jolly Rancher, which was actually very refreshing in the heat.

I had considerable trouble deciding between the many Greek and South American food carts, but was very happy with the hummus wrap I settled on, a sun-dried tomato tortilla filled with hummus, kalamata olives, tomatoes, and feta. We then met up with a few more friends, who were coming from brunch and didn’t need more food, but had a different excellent idea: margaritas.

Naturally, I had already identified the cheapest margarita stand, so we all lined up there. As we each successively took a first sip from our to-go cup, the same reaction passed over each of our faces, an expression of the thought, “Oh, this is much stronger than I had expected.” We continued down 5^th Avenue, sipping our sour tequila, slowly fading into a sun-soaked daze. It was a beautiful day, and one of those prized opportunities to walk around in a slightly heightened state in a crowd of several thousand happy Brooklynites of all ages, shapes, and colors.

Stay tuned for more summer food festivals: The Lebanese, Greek, and Swedish Midsummer Festivals are all coming up.

Waffleschmarrn

Dinner at Die Blaue Gans the other night was more than satisfying: a spicy cheese spread and a tower of potatoes, sauerkraut, and blood sausage were a rich start to a filling main course of pan-fried trout with cauliflower and pine nuts in a buttery white wine sauce. I was nonetheless coaxed into ordering dessert, partially out of peer pressure, but also because “Schwartzwälder Torte” looked fun to pronounce. But when the desserts arrived at the table and everyone saw what was placed in front of Chase, we all instantly wished we had been savvy enough to say “Kaiserschmarrn.”

It wasn’t that the presentation was that spectacular. It looked like, and was, a heap of mangled and nearly-burnt pancakes. But the scent of butter and sugar rising from it set off whatever sensory receptors are responsible for telling the brain “There is something nearby that should be eaten immediately.” I don’t remember if I asked permission before extending my fork; all I remember is the decadent taste of butter saturation and chewy caramelized edges.

“Kaiserschmarrn” is a dessert version of the original “Schmarrn,” a shredded omelet, but the same word can be used to mean “rubbish.” It’s clear, to me at least, that this traditional Austrian dish is the product of incompetence in the kitchen: the delicious result of being unable to flip an omelet or a pancake without destroying it, followed by the chef's giving up and calling it something else. So as I surreptitiously devoured Chase’s dessert, I started thinking about how to make it myself.

But while I pondered whether it would be best to use a cast-iron skillet or non-stick pan, another experiment occurred to me, one that would use up the leftovers from a previous weekend brunch that were now sitting in the freezer. “Waffleschmarrn” seemed like it would have potential – the many edges would allow for even more caramelization.

It was experimental cooking, played entirely by ear. I melted two tablespoons of butter in a frying pan, and zapped two frozen waffles in the microwave for a minute or so, sprinkling them with lemon juice when they came out to make sure they stayed soft. I tore them into irregular chunks and threw them into the melted butter, then added a tablespoon or two of powdered sugar and turned the heat up to high. After a few minutes the edges were crisping up and the sugar was caramelizing nicely in places. I piled all of it onto a plate and spooned some blueberries (also thawed in the microwave) over the top.

I would say the experiment worked. Next time I might brown the butter a bit more and add sugar to the pan before the waffles to get a deeper caramel going, but it was still a very tasty dessert. When you think about it, it’s nothing more than a butter-soaked heap of rag-like breakfast pastry bits, but when you can describe something using the words “butter-soaked” and “heap,” it's clearly not the time or place for skepticism.