Sweet November

While most New Yorkers are basking in the surprisingly warm season, I can’t help but wish for the classic cold weather to finally come around.  I’m anxious to finally get a feel for the east coast climate change while I’m sure the novelty will wear off as soon as it dips below 15 degrees.  For now, I’ll silently do  my ritual dance to the snow storm gods.

The leaves on the tree outside our bedroom window is finally beginning to change colors and day by day, leaf by leaf, winter is slowly approaching.  Of course, our tree is a bit of a late-bloomer and all the other trees around the city have already made this transition.

It’s so refreshing to witness the seasons change right before our eyes.  And what a magical feeling each time a cold gust of wind blows a flurry of yellow and orange leaves around me as I fight my way through the concrete jungle.

The Green Farmers Market in Union Square is another indicator of season’s changing.  Gourds, turnips, sprouts and apples mark the fall harvest as they sprawl out on tables and wooden crates.  At least twice a week, I take a lovely afternoon stroll through the maze of booths and tents just to peruse the local products.

I’ve learned more about produce now that I live in the Big Apple than I ever did in Los Angeles.  I’m amazed to see how brussel sprouts look before they’re packaged into vacuum sealed containers and the countless varieties of tomatoes, radishes and potatoes.  I was even amused to see a bushel of Peruvian potatoes, our arch nemesis from our South American adventure.

And lastly, our autumn in NY is heavily saturated with mornings, afternoons and late night sessions in front of our computer working diligently to develop Culinary Musings.  The fruits of our labor has been acknowledged with not one, but THREE featured “Daily Top 9″ on Foodbuzz.com!

Salt-Crusted Striped Bass

Blackened Tilapia w/ Corn Salsa

Mini Pumpkin Cheescake w/ Ginger Snap Crust

In addition, I am now officially a “Featured Publisher” for Foodbuzz.com which monetizes Culinary Musings for each visit.  Show your tremendous support and come by as often as you can!  And we are also building a fan base, slowly but surely.  With so many wonderful food blogs, writers and talented photographers it’s sometimes a bit daunting to compare our progress.  We have to keep reminding ourselves that it’s been less than a month that we’ve gotten our feet wet.  Rome wasn’t built in a day… petit a petit, l’oiseau fait son nid.

Lastly, we just celebrated a wonderful Thanksgiving with family in Colonia, NJ.  Many of us contributed to the extravagant feast from Maggie’s cranberry chutney and turkey to Cathy’s creamed pearl onions.  Pierre and I prepared our share in Maggie’s kitchen with our little kitchen helper, Robbie.  We made truffled potato puree, pancetta stuffing, and candied yams from us two.  There were plenty of desserts to go around which I almost had little room in my tummy for the pumpkin cheesecake, tiramisu, lemon meringue, pumpkin pie, and cupcakes.

It was really great to sit around the dinner table and acknowledge all that we are thankful for.

Of course no one was thankful that Dan Medium aka Dan, my sister’s husband, came down with bronchitis that day.  See what happens when you party too hard in Atlantic City the night before Thanksgiving ????  By the end of dinner everyone was pretty much incapacitated.  Dan, because of his bronchitis and everyone else from the tryptophan.  Pierre, the human garbage disposal, couldn’t bring himself to eat another bite of tiramisu and anchored himself down onto the recliner in defeat. On the train back home into the city, I congratulated him on surviving his first all-American Thanksgiving.

More About Life

Besides the current obsession, here’s what we’ve managed to squeeze into our schedule:

For Halloween this year, we decided to dress up as Ghostbusters, complete with our proton packs and ecto goggles made by yours truly

Okay, now for the non-photoshopped/photo booth version…

It was a mellow evening for us since Pierre was still recovering from a cold and cough that I gave him (ooooops!).  But we still had a lot of fun walking around Manhattan and Brooklyn dressed like this.

In other events, my sister and I went to the Yankee Ticker Tape Parade, despite the 30-something degree weather.  It was way too crowded and all I ever saw were people’s backs.  However, I did find a whole lot of amusement with the streams of toilet paper and trash bags of shredded office documents flying out of the skyscrapers!

Pierre and I couldn’t resist the beautiful weather two weekends ago so we went to the Zoo at Central Park.  Our favorite exhibit?  This cute kitten:

I have tons more to share but it’s break time!  Next post I’ll share all our wonderful autumn photos

The Forgotten Blog

Oh my poor, poor blog…  It’s been neglected since we started on our new and exciting project, the current object of our affection.  But fret not, I will still update this blog since this one is all about keeping friends and family updated with all our adventures (not just food related)!

Although lately, it does seem like our only obsession has been fine-tuning Culinary Musings.  This reminds me of the time when I first moved in – all we did for one whole month was buy new furniture, redecorate and repaint.  And designing a professional blog is pretty much as daunting, if not more.  We’ve spent our weekends sequestered inside our tiny apartment and it’s been a such a valuable learning experience for the both of us.

Pierre has been learning every detail of web design and has been the driving force behind the entire look of Culinary Musings.  I am so amazed at his talent and ability to learn and apply so quickly.  In the course of a few weeks, the site has undergone many facelifts and sometimes even surgical removal of some of my silly html bloopers.  I’ve think we’re finally happy with the overall new design of the blog but the details are a work in progress.  We’d love to hear any of your feedback, good or bad.  This will only help us grow!

On the frontline, I have been diligently producing content after content.  As most of you know, I have no previous experience with recipe-writing so it’s been quite a challenge to actually jot down every move I make in the kitchen.  I’ve also been dedicating a lot of time to promote the new blog by becoming a member of one of the largest online food properties, Foodbuzz.com!  It’s a social networking site for all foodies, from chefs to wanna-be chefs (like myself) to food photographers and anyone else who shares the passion.  If you’d like to have a look around, the site info (including all bloggers and their content) are available for anyone to view.  The recipe database is open to all which is really great because you don’t even need to sign-up.  I am currently applying to be a Featured Publisher for Foodbuzz which will help bring a lot of traffic to my own site which in turn can be profitable for us.  I’ll keep you posted on the news!  I also started writing restaurant reviews on Yelp to hone my skills and drive more traffic to our site.  Look for my reviews on Yelp, it’s only continuing to grow!

As for progress, it has only been two weeks since I’ve been a part of the Foodbuzz community and I’ve already been rated as the “Top Foodie” in NYC and one of the top foodies overall! Yippee!!!  As for the actual Culinary Musings progress, since it’s debut last month, we have seen visitors not only from the U.S. but Canada, Great Britain, FRANCE!!!, South Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Germany, China, Oman, Sweden, Ireland, Brazil, PHILIPPINES!!!, Hong Kong, India, Colombia, Hungary, Ukraine, Trinidad and Tobago, Australia, Indonesia and Netherlands.  Yes, I had to list them all because we both find it so exciting that people from around the world are actually reading our site!  Culinary Musings has gone international – WOO HOO!!!  We’ve had over 300 unique visitors, not including those who now return on a daily basis.  We now have a little over 100 readers a day which is still a tiny amount but we’ve only been up and running for a month!

It thrills us to be able to share these news with all of you because it has been our labor of love.  We really would love to hear back from all of you  so we can continually improve Culinary Musings so feel free to email me or simply leave a comment.

Thanks everyone for your support!

 

Picture of the Day: October

October 1, 2009

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October 30, 2009

October 31, 2009

French Basque Country: St. Jean de Luz & The Coastline

To finish off my French Basque entries… words need not describe the majestic scenery (that and I’m too lazy to write!).

St. Jean de Luz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The walk along the coastline with views of Spain in the distance…

Long Time No Post!

I’ve been busy with several projects, one of which has finally been launched.  Pierre and I have been working diligently on designing a new and different blog that I’ll hopefully parlay into a different venture.  It’s something that we’re both passionate about and we’re having a great time exploring the possibilities.  We obviously love food, cooking and photography… so why not fuse those together?  After a recent dinner with a photographer friend from LA, who truly helped shed some light on this matter (literally), we began our project.  Our apartment is now equipped with a very miniature photography studio, some simple lighting techniques and plenty of inspiration.  It has been our labor of love and we’re proud to share with all of you: dhaleb.com

The French Basque Country: Bidarray & St-Jean-Pied-de-Port

After a one-hour scenic drive through the lush region of the Basque country we arrived at the serene setting of Ostapé to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Pierre’s parents.  Upon our arrival, we were chauffeured in a golf cart and whisked off to the magnificent restaurant by celebrity chef, Alain Ducasse.  Ostapé is situated hillside overlooking Basque villas and vineyards nostalgic of our wine-tasting excursion in Santa Barbara (minus the Basque villas).  It was such a delightful and intimate celebration with the family. 

 

After a leisurely decadent lunch, we explored the charming village of St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port (I spent the entire day mumbling this name to achieve a seamless pronounciation).  An enjoyable way to walk off our 5,000-calorie diet complete with stunning views of the countryside…

… cobblestone streets lined with boutiques and cafes…

…and geranium-filled windows…

Nous avons passé une charmante journeé avec la famille!  Merci encore pour tout

Paella for Date Night

I don’t usually blog during the weekend but this is special and we both feel it deserves immediate attention. Paella. And my newly invented dessert.

But first let me rewind. <<

Last night I met Pierre at his work for an evening rendezvous at the MoMA. I really enjoy this museum because it has a little bit of everything from classic paintings by Picasso, Van Gogh, Mondrian, Gaugin and Pollock just to name a few. In addition, you also get your dose of pop art from Warhol and Lichtenstein along with an ever-changing installation of modern art. And last but not least is our favorite – photography.

 

 

 

Recently our relationship has experienced a huge paradigm shift. There was a time not long ago when Pierre and I were addicted to Yelp in search of the best rated restaurants, eateries and cafés. Dining out an average of 3-4 times a week in Manhattan costs a pretty penny. Or two. It’s usually an average of $30 per person plus wine and cocktails which can leave you with a $100 tab.

The first half of this year was a bit hectic. We were in Paris for his job in March, several visits from our French families in April and May, then the birth of my adorable nephew. On Memorial weekend we left for over two weeks to trek our way through Peru. A few days after our return, we had friends visiting us in Paris for a couple of weeks. So it wasn’t until mid-summer when our life finally began to slow down a bit. I began my culinary experiments religiously and we evolved into homebodies. We were indulging in 3-hour amateur gourmet dinners and loving the 2-buck Chuck wines from Trader Joe’s. Soon, we found it difficult to find value in the quality of professionally prepared dishes as opposed to our home-cooked meals.

So this brings us to the paradigm shift. Even on our date nights we much rather enjoy dinner at home. And waiting for us in the kitchen was my very first paella. Inspired by our recent trip to Spain and a paella made by Pierre’s mother, I finally decided to conquer this intimidating dish. I may have many, many blonde moments but I also have my fair share of genious ones and last night’s dinner was it.

The paella was so amazingly delicious that we both woke up this morning craving the leftovers in our fridge. I researched a few websites to gain some knowledge on the basic components of paella. I found this really helpful page that discussed the “five pillars of paella” and it equipped me perfectly for my first crack at this classic spanish dish. This is my very own recipe that I’d like to share with anyone who is interested in preparing this dish. I have no business claiming my paella recipe as “authentic” but it’s pretty gosh darn close.

Step 1: Sofrito – This is the base of your paella and it can be made well in advance. It’s basically a sautée of vegetables that will add tremendous flavor to the dish.

Sofrito Ingredients:

1 – cubanelle pepper (optional; we just had it on hand so I threw it in)
1 – small red onion
3 – stalks of green onions
5 – cloves of garlic (or 8… we love garlic!)
5 – roma tomatoes
olive oil
salt & pepper

1. Blanch the tomatoes for a few minutes. This makes it easier to peel them.
2. After peeling the tomatoes, cut them in quarters and remove the seeds and core.
3. Dice the pepper, garlic and onions.
4. Heat olive oil in a paella pan or a very large skillet on medium heat.
5. Sautée the green and red onions along with the bell pepper. Add a little salt to flavor and sautée until the veggies are wilted.
6. Add the garlic and sautée for another 3 minutes.
7. Add the tomatoes and sautée until the juices evaporate and all the veggies are mushy.
8. Transfer sofrito in a container and set aside.
9. Save the pan and the remaining oil!

Step 2: The Yummies (Meat & Seafood)

Ingredients:

3 – pieces of boneless chicken (I prefer dark meat so I used the thighs)
3/4 lb. – shrimp (peeled and deveined)
1 – dozen mussels
2 – links of morcilla (we’ve learned that most people are not so keen on this Spanish sausage but it truly adds a unique flavor. You can substitute it with a Spanish chorizo if you’d like)

1. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. I added a little pimente d’espelette to make it a little Basque
2. Cook the chicken thoroughly on the same skillet as the sofrito. Feel free to add more olive oil as needed.
3. Set cooked chicken aside in a bowl.
4. Cook the shrimp until it’s opaque. It’s okay to slightly under cook them as you will add it to the final step and it will cook for a few more minutes.
5. Set aside the shrimp in the same bowl as the chicken.
6. Cook the morcilla links in the skillet (about 5 minutes)
7. Set aside morcilla.
8. Place the mussels in a saucepan and cover with lid. Turn it to medium heat and cook the mussels until the shells open up (about 10 minutes).
9. Set aside mussels in a separate container and keep the juice from the mussels in the pan.

Step 3: Savory Broth – This will flavor your rice as it simmers.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups – chicken broth
1 cup – white wine
2 – bay leaves
A pinch of saffron threads
Water and the reserved mussel juice

1. Add all ingredients to the saucepan and simmer. Add 1/2-1 cup of water to dilute a little.

Keep this broth hot.

Step 4: Paella Finale

Ingredients:

2 – cups uncooked arborio rice or bomba (do not use long grain rice as it will not retain the flavors of your dish)
1 – red bell pepper (sliced in slivers)
1 – cup frozen peas
2 – teaspoons of paella seasoning (we bought ours from D’España but you can also use sweet paprika or just omit entirely)

1. In the same skillet that you’ve been using, sauté the bell peppers on medium heat and add afew dashes of the paella seasoning or sweet paprika.
2. Add your sofrito to the skillet.
3. Add the arborio rice and sauté with sofrito until the rice becomes translucent.
4. Add the hot broth 1 cup at a time. Do not add too much broth because paella is not supposed to be soggy. Just use your best judgement and add a little broth at a time if you feel your paella is drying out too quickly. Let it simmer until the rice is al dente.
5. Meanwhile, add the chicken, shrimp and morcilla to the skillet. Let it simmer with the rest of the paella. Do not stir the rice while it is simmering!
6. During the last few minutes, add the frozen peas and cover the skillet with foil to allow the rice to cook thoroughly.
7. After you remove the foil, turn up the heat to high. This will create the “socarrat” which is the caramelized crust that sticks to the bottom of the pan. Many paella enthusiasts covet this slightly toasted crust.
8. After you start to hear the rice crackling, feel the bottom of the pan with your spoon. If it’s bumpy, then you’ve succeeded in making your socarrat!
9. Add the mussels to the top and serve your paella right out of the skillet.

Yum!!! This serves about 4-5 people and we just had the leftovers for lunch today.

And I almost ALWAYS end our meals with something sweet. Earlier this week I bought a bunch of small bananas from Chinatown and we needed to finish them before they turn too mushy. So here’s my “Fried Banana Split” dessert!

Ingredients:

6 small bananas (peeled)
6T flour
2T sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
Vegetable oil

1. Mix the flour, sugar, milk and egg until it becomes a smooth paste.
2. Refrigerate batter for an hour.
3. When you’re ready for dessert, dip the bananas in the batter and coat thoroughly.
4. Deep fry the bananas until golden brown.

To complete the fried banana split, I added two scoops of vanilla bean ice cream and topped it with a homemade chocolate ganache. Then I garnished it with chopped macadamia nuts and a light dusting of powdered sugar. We loved this so much that we’re having it again tonight

A Break to Rock Out

A moment to digress from the Basque updates.

When Pierre and I first started dating, we made a bucket list while sipping on a few dirty martinis at a bar in Manhattan.  Almost one year later, we are proud to say that we’ve managed to cross off a few on the list including wine tasting in Santa Barbara and trekking to Machu Picchu.

And more recently not only were we able to cross off seeing U2 in concert, we were able to experience Bono and The Edge up close and personal.  As Pierre’s all-time favorite band but never having the opportunity to see them live, this was top priority on our list when we knew they were going to be at Giants Stadium.  Scoring on some General Admission tickets was a collaborative effort of instantaneous computer clicking from our computer at home and in his office.  It was an emotional roller coaster of facing the devastation of sold out tickets within the first minute to the excitement of an additional performance date which prompted Pierre to join the fan club for pre-sale tickets.  And long story short, we  finally had our hands on 4 tickets to see U2, two of which we sold on Craigslist for a nominal fee that guaranteed a free concert for the both of us.

A record-breaking attendance of over 84k, U2 proved to be even more popular than the Pope’s visit to Giants Stadium in 1995 which held the previous record of almost 83k.  To witness Bono less than 5 feet away while they performed “Beautiful Day” in the misty rain was indeed a religious experience in itself.  Just as though it were directly summoned by the rain gods, the clouds gave way to the light drizzle and while the crowd hypnotically belted out the lyrics, the lights dramatically accentuated each raindrop that caressed our faces.  It was simply divine…

(A serious case of brain fart left us equipped with only our iPhone as a camera source)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a less eminent scale, we also recently saw Everclear at a small venue in the Meatpacking District.  A matter of being at the right place at the right time, I encountered a man who was distributing free tickets for the show later that evening.  Of course we were fully equipped with our SLR this time.  Our minds tend to work backwards sometimes…

Ironically, we stumbled upon a guy who was distributing flyers outside of the venue for an upcoming concert of a band called 2U.  Ummmmmmm no thanks.

The French Basque Country: Biarritz

The beach is a mere 15-minute drive from Bayonne which leads us to a quick visit to this upscale resort town.  Imagine the shops of Rodeo Drive cliffside with intimidatingly fancy schmancy Victorian hotels and you can find yourself in the midst of Biarritz (haha, I unintentionally created a rhyme). 

There’s not much story behind our visit to this luxurious town as we were only there to take their chocolate lab, Uschka, for an evening stroll…

 

 

And a quick stop to grab some delicious macarons from Maison Adam on our last day.  But regardless, we were able to capture a few beautiful shots…