Nova Clutch

Tocqueville

I don't think I like restaurant week. I thought I did. I was wrong. You get the worst of the best restaurants, a prix fixe in a place where you feel you shouldn't be presenting the culinary equivalent of a coupon. And they tend to give you coupon-worthy food. And you end up spending $50 on lunch. Even though you're saving a lot of money, you would save more if you hadn't embarked on restaurant week in the first place. Lesson learned.

Our experience with Tocqueville was slightly marred by the fact that the person we were meeting was waiting for us at the Gramercy Tavern. Unfortunately, I wish we were the wrong ones, and that we were supposed to be at the Gramercy Tavern instead of at Tocqueville.

While Michael was calling to see where our missing guest was, I sat at the table, drinking overly iced water. No menu, no bread. For 15 minutes. In which time I was able to observe the skittishness of the head waitress and her telling the other waiters what to do, whilst standing too close to an unfortunate woman trying to eat her lunch.

We were easily the youngest people in there, by about 10 years, and the two of us sat there at our table for four, nestled amongst business men and society ladies. Michael longed to be a society lady, and I wondered why there weren’t any business women.

We ordered exactly the same thing from the Restaurant Week menu, apart from I had a glass of delicate and refreshingly naughty (it was 12pm) glass of Grüner Veltliner which Michael drank most of. We started with charred cuttlefish, which I think we ordered because we rarely see cuttlefish as an option and it reminds us of Sri Lanka, where it’s common. And not as fancy as at Tocqueville. But this cuttlefish, which arrived very, very quickly, was ontop of a mound of goo – as Michael called it – which overpowered the whole dish. It was actually crème fraîche, and it was cloying. The dish had a good spicyness and delicate charred peppers, but really, all you could notice was the goo.

fringe benefits

click on the image to read the text

Tricker's

have been coveting these for quite a while now, but never seem to have $550 handy, ...........maybe next month when i also purchase the jacket below.
They are made by an old school company called R.E. Tricker, from Northampton UK, which coincidentally is the town i grew up in. I used to walk passed the Tricker's factory as a kid all the time & think "look at those shoes, they are for the golden oldies" well I'm a golden oldie now & I want them bad.

photograph courtesy of Midland Ship

chops

a chop is a block (usually marble) with your name carved on it, used in some asian countries for official business. a special red ink is used, and it's particularly thick and gooey. it's very satisfying stamping a chop, as the marble has such a weight to it and the sound it makes is very official.

we got two chops made this year; one for otis and one for the birth of a friend's baby, evander. the gifts were a little late as the store calls in a 70 year old chinese man from flushing to cut the marble by hand. and he obviously doesn't move that quickly.

here is the one we got carved for otis. we designed it so that it read his initials "OK" one way and when you turn it 90° it looks like a little character. The texture the ink makes on the paper is really beautiful.

blood orange marmalade

michael has thankfully adopted my country's wonderful tradition of tea and toast. there's nothing better on a cold morning with the paper (i woefully am bereft of the guardian here in new york, well at least in paper form). when we're not slathering on lashings of marmite, we're partial to some marmalade on our toast.

i had forgotten exactly the way to do it (a food stylist, Victoria Granoff told me an easy way to make it and it's so simple I didn't write it down and now I can't remember it) and it didn't come out quite like it used to. I had to give it a go anyway, as it's blood orange season and I have to preserve the goodness! Martin says that I need to go to Sicily during December to have a blood orange tasting menu. I think he's right.

Anyway, here's the luscious blood orange marmalade, will post Victoria's recipe if i miraculously remember it/someone finds it somewhere.

Giant Step: Soil & Pimp Sessions

I went to see Gilles Peterson at the Hiro Ballroom last week with Michael, Gina and Michele. Stef was suffering from a rather serious bout of man flu, so he had to miss it. And oh, what a night he missed. We saw Tita Lima whose album I thought was not bad, but on stage seemed like some NYU student that got lost on the way from Washington Square Park. You barely noticed her and she had no stage presence.

The Soil & Pimp Sessions however blew our minds. None of us has ever seen anything like them. As Gilles so eloquently put it, they're a bunch of mentalists (see here for "mentalist" reference). They're a jazz band, but they play with such fervor, such unbelievable energy, it's like a Japanese punk rock band picked up some brass instruments and a keyboard by accident. My favorite part was "the agitator" which means a guy that stands on stage and gets the crowd involved and into it. And sometimes he uses a megaphone. I think it is described better in the video that Michele took (she's still getting used to it, so a lot of it is filmed on its side. But you'll get the idea).

Also playing was Taylor McFerrin with whom Gina was particularly enamored. We're going to see him next week at the Canal Room which is owned by our neighbor, Marc.

And speaking of live music, my friend Terje put me on to this itunes plugin which is going to change my life, and probably yours too. It searches through your music library and then tells you which of the artists in your library are playing in your home city in the next few months. So expect reports back from Mr Scruff, Taylor McFerrin, Datarock and RJD2. But not from Pat Benatar, I'll just save that for karaoke.

Pyrenex

Am definitely going to pay an arm & a leg for one of these jackets.
They are made by a French company who's specialty is duvets (the truth)

photograph courtesy of Midland Ship

cindy's birthday card

we're not making cindy's birthday present this year, and i'm not saying what we're getting her because she doesn't have it yet. but we sent her this card that michael whipped up yesterday. the picture isn't the best, but it says 'cindy' and 'bday' in overlapped stencil type that he sprayed on. we're hoping she'll like it.

in vino

I went out with Sarit and Michele on Friday night to In Vino. Getting there first and sitting at the bar (they wouldn’t let me sit at a table on my own, even though it was 6pm and there was no one else in there) I bonded with the barmen on our joint love of Planeta. Planeta is a stellar producer of wines and olive oils in Sicily. They produce a few different grapes from different areas in Sicily. I really intend on going to this vineyard this year. It’s truly unbelievable.

The bartender told me that Planeta produced olive oils, which I didn't know, and he very nicely offered to let me try some that he had bought personally, as In Vino doesn't serve it. It is luscious; green but light and very fresh. I don't know of any stores that sell it, but I will seek it out, even if I have to buy a case.

coconut ice cream

i love ice cream, i love making ice cream and i love eating it. i love everything about it. and i continue to eat it while the snow is falling and it's so foggy outside that i can no longer see the empire state building. so while my rice pudding was bubbling on the stove i made some (more) ice cream. i made a custard with the coconut milk and added the zest of a lime and some of the juice to cut the thickness of the coconut. the flavor was divine but the texture was ever so slightly chalky, i might try some coco lopez instead next time.