Church Avenue Chomp

What a cliche of a title, and for that I should be scolded. However, the kudos I offer myself cancel that out. Kudos for falling prey to a package of shrink wrapped ribs at the new and improved Flatbush Food Coop, which is a festival of antibiotic-free meat, which is just the sort of festival this neighborhood needs. (Also like to take a moment to recognize the Natural Frontier Market, some Ditmas Park competition about a year old which I believe was the original impetus for the old, bad FFC stepping and become a destination with things like edible meat and fresh artisanal bread.)

Anyhow except for sausage and bacon as an accent meat in sauces or omelettes, pork and I have been on the outs of late. The last time I cooked a supermarket bought tenderloin, the smell when I opened the package precluded my ability to enjoy the meat even once it was cooked and the smell was gone. It was a strong sulfury smell — the smell of doom.

But when I saw this $19 pack of ribs. I got a gleam in my eye, dug a twenty out of my pocket, and tried to decide what to do with them.

The internet provides some pretty hilarious “recipe” advice for babybacks, with the ingredients being:

• some ribs
• 1 bottle of bbq sauce
• foil

And the method being: Put sauce on the ribs, wrap manageable sections of them tightly in foil, refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight, then cook at 300 for 2.5 hours.

And then everyone writes in with all of their comments. You know the kind, generally something along the lines of: “This was delicious! Except I used coffee instead of barbeque sauce, and hamburgers instead of ribs, and I didn’t put it into the oven, just sprinkled it with basil from my garden. My husband couldn’t stop eating!”

But in this instance, the kooky general public actually seemed grounded by the recipes. They wrote in saying: I made this and it was really really great. A predominance of people seemed to think that about this crazily simple little instruction, so I wanted to try it myself.

After reading (um, some of) Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, about the prevalence of high fructose corn syrup everywhere including in our favorite condiment, and a recent New York Times article last week about how much food we throw away, I was far more inclined to make my own bbq sauce out of things I already have then to buy a new bottle — plus, barbeque sauce is one of those things that’s like banana bread: if you taste and adjust, there is no real bad recipe. Tomatoes, orange juice, garlic, and vinegar will do in a pinch. Heck, coca cola and a pinch of salt will do in a pinch. Rendered pork fat goes a long way.

So I scoured around and found this one submitted by CM at Cooks.com for Honey Smoke Barbecue Sauce, and will now treat (or annoy or puzzle) you to my own modifications:
added cinnamon
added a few mashed up chipotles in adobo
deleted lemon because had none but added a dollop of the oily vinegary juice from a can of pickled jalapenos and carrots
ignored call for liquid smoke
Used Maker’s Mark rather than JD, since it’s what we keep around

It was surprising, at first, how boozy the bbq sauce was. But it adjusted (or I did?) and it was the perfect glaze for in-oven ribs. (A glaze of this sweet would have turned nasty on an open grill but I think that all ribs are at least par-cooked.) I am so gleeful at how delicious and easy these ribs were that I’m fantasizing about starting my own line of bbq sauce. However, I don’t know what is involved with that sort of endeavor, and I don’t want to spend too much time making the same recipe 2000 times and pouring things into jars I have sterilized, so I will be satisfied with letting you knpw about this experience, and moving on.

We ate these ribs at home and they DISAPPEARED. I had a bit more sauce so used it as a base and augmented and brought home to my family in CT, where they’d gotten 5 lbs of ribs from the local butcher. They were great — but M and I felt that the organic actually made a difference in this recipe. Still, we polished every single part off, the family enjoyed, and I highly recommend.

http://pakistaniat.com/2007/10/07/ramzan-ramadan-rooh-afza-milk-red-bull-pakistan/

This article, written on the day i got married, shows a man in a pink turban sloshing pink juice around in a gigantic tub. It is a tub full of a shake make from rooh afza, milk, and sugar.

We saw a scene *similar* to this on Easter Sunday this year, in our neighborhood. We got to watch our largely Pakistani neighbors rollicking on Coney Island Avenue at a festive birthday celebration for Mohammad.

The bar in my dining room has two bottles of this stuff; one for my husband and I, and one for my friend Barry, who told me about Rooh Afza after reading about it in Saveur Magazine. Because we are at the epicenter of all things Pakistani, I went out of and bought him a bottle then failed to deliver it to him before he moved to Italy for a year.

We also have a bottle for ourselves, but it makes Matthew sad to think that we have to drink it all before it is gone. But maybe it will make him happy when we are having it as milkshakes! (Matthew, will you try it again in a different formet?)

Also, we saw people drinking something fantastically pink out of a pitcher at a Pakistani restaurant one night when the sun had just gone down–and we thought it looked interesting but they basically explained that what the men at the table were drinking was glucose syrup and that we probably didn’t want any. (It was Ramadan and people hadn’t eaten all day.) I think now that it was Rooh Afza perhaps mixed with milk?

Obviously, too busy to write much. Aside from, happy birthday to my mom!

This morning the house has the warm clean feel that it does after a party. You look around at the plants, vases of flowers, our enormous tree, new persian rug (⇐), no clutter, happy plump couches, vibrant velvet pillows, and these things look somehow different, because they are still exuding the warmth of the guests last night.

But then you look at the kitchen, and you fall to the floor, despairing. I cannot provide a picture of the kitchen.

My husband sleeps 15% less than I do, but in a scary twist of fate I’ve gotten up first, and I really must make a dent in all of these dishes, because he also cleans about 80-100% more than I do.

(I know that these metrics, which we only figured out yesterday, make me seem like a bad person. But I have . . . some . . . good qualities. Read his blog to see what they are. Oh, except I just remembered that his blog is about real estate, not me. Well then, one of my good qualities is having a blog where I mention my spouse. Go ahead, turn that into a percentage.)

Last night was New Jersey night in Brooklyn. We had 2 couples over, and both drove all the way from New Jersey. The first couple to arrive brought their teeny, tiny baby, Jacob, who is three months old and therefore still a really good party guest. The second couple brought a cake shaped like a football, which, no offense parents, was an even better party guest.

But what kind of party guest am I? Guest: ok. Host: I am trying to grow in this regard. You may or may not know that my current objective / project is to be able to have people over with less stress. I love to cook but generally it’s just for the 2 of us, and one person is setting the table while the other is stirring, or whatever. But when we have people over my objectives are to 1) visit, 2) feed them something extremely delicious, and 3) not be mean to anyone. So being *really* prepared beforehand with a *really* delicious thing to eat that is easily served and doesn’t require my attention while people are actually there is my strategy.

Cooking is the bomb (da bomb?) but takes a lot of time, so one thing we’ve been doing on weeknights, when M works really late is have “crockpot wednesdays,” so that we can have a super easy dinner and actually work on other projects in the evening, instead of just cooking and cleaning up and falling into bed. I love Chicken Paprikash and Moroccan Beef Stew but one of my favorite crockpot dishes is Manuel’s Beef Brisket Tacos. I learned about this dish when I lived in Texas (which is where I know Manuel from) and actually it’s to be cooked for about 100 hours at 100 degrees in an oven–which in Texas basically means leaving it on the counter, ha, ha, ha–but we do the meat in crockpot. I love this for many reasons, but in part because it’s one of these recipes where you just need one of each thing, and the devil is in the time rather than in the details. This isn’t a delicate recipe–just a delicious one.

Manuel’s Beef Brisket Tacos
The Brisket
1 Brisket (2 lbs is good for 6 people, 3 if you want leftovers)
1 lemon
1 bottle beer
1 beer bottle’s worth of water
1 can of pickled jalapenos (can be jalapenos and carrots)
1 onion, sliced into rings, rings then cut in half
sprinkle cumin

Salt and pepper the brisket. Heat oil until hot on medium high in a heavy cast iron pan. (If you don’t have a cast iron skillet or dutch oven, get one! You will feel better, all of the time. But don’t worry about it for this dish–just use a fry pan.) Place the brisket fat-side down; make it sizzle. Brown on all sides, for about 10 minutes total.

While the meat browns, prepare the braising liquid in the crockpot. Pour in the beer, then refill bottle with water and add that. Watching for seeds, squeeze lemon into the pot. Drain the juice from the pickled peppers into the crockpot, reserving the vegetables for garnishing the tacos. Add the onion and some cumin. If the crockpot has an “automatic” setting, put in on that. If not, turn on high, then turn to low 2 hours later. Cook until the meat is done done done. It will fall apart when you pick it up with a fork. This will take about 5 hours, but you can cook it for longer.

When ready to eat, bring into a stove-top pan and shred. Heat on the stove with some juice. Season with salt. Heat flour tortillas, serve with hot sauce (goya or costena in a bottle is my favorite if I don’t get to make it myself), cilantro, sour cream, and the pickled peppers. Spanish rice, refried beans, and salad are all you need to go with.

(I also made shrimp taco filling with lime, garlic, red onion, chili pepper flakes, and cumin–and okra and corn taco filling.)

Finally, it was time for the cake. It was a chocolate frosted ball with white creamy stitches, with with a blue “NY” in cursive. Apparently this is in reference to a big game happening today.

They imported it across 2 rivers all the way from the Snowflake Bakery in Northern NJ, which is touted as being very old-fashioned. Indeed, the delicious chocolate frosting was the same taste and texture as the black part of black and white cookies. Inside was a lovely yellow cake with chocolate pudding bisecting the two layers.

I got a small round end of cake, which had a high frosting to cake ratio, which I construe to be a plus. Still, I felt sort of sad because my piece was small. Luckily I was seated next to baby Jake’s dad, who said he’s on a diet and wanted to lob off part of his own sagittal football slice, so I eagerly complied.

It’s not like *I* need any more cake this weekend. Friday night I met a friend and some of her friends in Queens for a birthday dinner. One person arrived late, a girl from Manhattan who complained about coming to Queens. Ironic, because though Queens and Bklyn are contiguous, there is no straight shot to get there, without some walking between 2 transfers. Hopstop, which I love, timed my trip there at 1 hour and 18 minutes, and it was fairly accurate.

We got invited at the last moment, because she felt weird planning a trip to Queens without me. Thank goodness she was plagued by her conscience, because it gave us a great excuse to go out to what is generally written about as the best Thai restaurant in NYC–Sripraphai. I expected no ambience but it was quite nice. We had a wonderful catfish salad with shreddy little fried crunchy bits supposed to somehow be catfish; pickled pork spare ribs (boneless tangy succulent chunks served with lettuce leaves, peanuts, and ginger); Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce; Drunken noodles with ground beef; another sort of not-as-awesome but still impressive noodles with egg and tofu; a duck curry in green sauce; a shrimp Panang curry; and a red snapper with his eyes fried shut and many many delicious herbs and peppers stuffed in and over him. We ate coconut rice (yum) and a very chewy “sticky” rice which is served in little bags in little baskets. The presentation of this rice is very charming but somehow reminiscent of the drug trade. We didn’t want to indulge too much because we know that one of the other guests, Theresa, who is discerning yet hilarious and also, a good driver, had made a cake. Yellow with chocolate frosting! It was amazing. Thank you, Theresa. Thank you, Rose Levy Beranbaum.

Onto some reading new: Last night I finished reading Are You Hungry, Are You Cold by Ludwig Bemelmans. It’s a first edition I got for Christmas. I’m sad it’s over but it was so good! If you haven’t read any Bemelman’s, you actually have, because he wrote the Madeline books, but also, he wrote some wonderful things about grownups. They all have Madeline’s signature naughty streak, which makes them extra lovable.

Around the World But Close to Home

With recent trips to Turkey, London, and Arizona, JFK is starting to feel as much like home as home.

Trips to the airport are expensive, long, and involve barreling down the Belt Parkway with an eye on the clock, but they do yield a chance for some human companionship–a precious commodity for a telecommuter like me–because I need to get driven to the airport and back. And car service drivers provide some of the most detailed and interesting information about other parts of the world that I am exposed to. One driver, plumbed for information about Haitian food, pointed out a place on Flatbush Avenue that reminds him of home–a place I will be seeking out later in the blog cycle. Another driver repeatedly mumbled questions about when my husband leaves for work, so he could come over and we could “make friends.” He got a very polite response from me (“can you speak up, sir? I’m really having a hard time hearing you”) until I suddenly realized he was asking. Yet another driver told me all about the city of Islamabad (only 40-ish years old, built recently to replace Karachi as the government center of Pakistan), he told me about an ice palace in Dubai, and his impressions of Iran and Afghanistan. I know more about the world now than I used to, so that trip compensated for the sleaze of the other guy.

Along with the human interaction, this overland travel lets me see a bit of what’s being developed in our area. It seems as if we are being crowded on all sides–well, on the south side–by Schnitzel restaurants. Except for health reasons, I could not be more delighted by this.

Schnitzel Fact Sheet

What is Schnitzel? Can you show me a picture of one? But if I don’t want to click on the link–just tell me this. Is it noodles? Or am I confusing it with that cheese thing with potatoes that you can get a separate little oven for?

The noodles are Spätzle. The potato cheese thing is Rösti, a food item that sparks all sorts of other debates. (Should I cook the potatoes before I make it? Is it good? Will I feel less or more existential dread if I buy a tiny little oven just to cook one thing that only Swiss Germans eat?)

Calm down, my friend, because you are about to know more about schnitzel than is, uh, strictly necessary. Schnitzel is German-language word which means pounded cutlet which has been egged, floured, breaded, and pan fried in lard. Generally the cutlet is touted as veal, often the cutlet is pork masquerading as veal, and sometimes it is both labeled as and is actually chicken. Chicken pounded flat and breaded and fried, esp. dusted with salt and squirted with lemon and heaped with arugula and finished with cubed tomatoes . . . ahh, that is the dish known in New York City as chicken milanese (or more colloquially Flatty Delicioso) and that is also a dish that is sadly not to be found in this part of South Brooklyn. But in Milan, where cutlet cooking of this sort was originally codified, purists use veal, eggs, unflavored breadcrumbs, no flour, and cook it in butter. Later, in Germany and Austria, it developed its own set of details, resulting in a slightly lower quotient of lip-smackiness.

However, Ashkenazi Jews who migrated to Israel from Eastern Europe imported the notion of schintzel and once in the promised land, where there is no pork*, started making it with chicken or turkey and re-upped the deliciousness, spicing it up Middle Eastern style, cooking it in oil, spritzing it with lemon, and putting lots of garlicky condiments on offer, and that’s what Schnitzi is all about. Oh, that, and a more delicious form of bread: the baguette.

From doing a bit of reading (one way of gathering information other than traveling or talking with a car service driver,) I have come to understand that schnitzel on pita is apparently a very important and pleasing part of life in Israel, and some believe it to be the national dish. It was surprising that before Schnitzi we hadn’t seen schnitzel in the nabe, because Israeli sandwich stores are one of the few amenities that our neighborhood does. not. lack. We’ve got the world-class Olympic Pita a few blocks to the south—which is my favorite—and the Famous Pita just a few blocks north, and this is the one which my husband votes for as being the best. Those deserve their own posts (and perhaps some sort of eat-off contest).

Schnitzi Schnitzel

But we noticed Schnitzi last summer, when it sprouted up as a bright shiny clean coin on the face of the CIA (Coney Island Avenue). We knew of it before the wedding but didn’t manage to eat their until right after. It was yet another foodery with rabbinical blessings from various sects on the doors. but instead of being an Italian restaurant or a sushi one, this somewhat garish orange and blue storefront promised to bring something new to bring to our experience. Once married, we tried Schnitzi. In the time between the wedding ending (early October) and the honeymoon beginning (mid-October) I developed and then secretly nursed a Schintzl fascination, obsession, and subsequent addiction. Luckily, our trip to Turkey quelled it.

With Spanish (chili peppers and bread crumbs) Greek (garlic and bread crumbs), Italian (herbs and bread crumbs), Polish (bread crumbs and MORE bread crumbs), and Chinese (sesame seeds and I will let you guess what else) as some of the exciting things on Schnitzi’s menu, you can eat your way around the world without ever leaving the block of the CIA between Avenues I and J. Think of it as a bread crumb tour of the world with juicy glatt** kosher*** chicken cutlet on a yummy baguette with any number of sorts of sauces.

The chicken is breaded and fried fresh, requiring a huge amount of labor in a very small, open kitchen, which is why the numerous young countermen (sort of Coney Island Avenue Israel hipsters, if that is . . . possible) all wear t-shirts which say, on the back “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

There is another Schnitzel opened a bit closer to JFK, and soon we will go. Hopefully, sooner than I return to JFK, but that is doubtful. Meanwhile, if you have any questions about where, in the airport, to buy a bag of cashews or a neck pillow shaped sort of like a bear hugging your neck, post in the comments tab and I will get back to you asap. However, I would prefer comments on the topic of sandwiches.

* how could be promised land?
** certified as having died without spots on the lungs, ie very healthy
*** blessed but more important, brined in salt and osmosis makes it extra juicy