dinner for six

squash tortelli, roasted chanterelles & fried sage:

salad verte, black radish, grapefruit and hazelnut vinaigrette

the amuse (sideways) porcini arancini with yellow tomato sauce from the garden:

canapes - figs with bleu d' auvergne, cheese pennies (natch) and shrimp tartlets with green tomato chutney

better view of the adorable pennies...thanks to ryan for his thyme-picking expertise!

not pictured: roasted pork tenderloin with farro, black kale and port reduction. my iphone would not cooperate, and i needed to get that food out! also - the apple & plum jam tart with cinnamon-cognac ice cream. i will be reprising that ice cream on thanksgiving...

top chef new york...padma's return

rob finally admitted padma's hotness last night. he said he'd lick her scar. i just want her shoes, but different strokes, right? we watched the first 2 episodes of the new season last night, as i was at the restaurant last wednesday.

so, i feel strongly that the blond who works at absinthe is going to win. it can't be the finn, because he looks like a super-villain, and it can't be the italian, because...well, he's ridiculous. and was he trying to make time with the guest judge last night? 

the first episode was interesting in that they started with a field of 17. i can't wait until they start with 25, and eliminate 8 on the first day. i can just see whiny chefs flouncing around and muttering that tom and gail didn't even get to see what they were all about...a la flavor (or rock) of love. in any case, it didn't bode well that a lot of time was devoted to 2 fresh-faced kids who reunited on the ferry to governor's island. the military wife determined not to rot away in savannah and the apple-cheeked gay CIA student...what an unlikely, but adorable pair - i could hardly wait to see the hijinks that were sure to ensue... 

i liked the first quickfire, and i liked that it was progressive. it's a little appalling that any one of those chefs would be daunted by the idea of peeling apples with a knife. peelers are faster, but come on...it's not like you were asked to make a hot dog in 20 minutes. not this week, anyway. so the turtle-joey fattone love-child from LI (does he wear red jeans in the promo??? i couldn't get past the facial hair which looked oddly like band-aids had been involved) bitches about the knife, and has to got to the next round, which is - um, cutting. he does ok. i don't think tom looked at his cup too carefully, but whatever. he called a tall coltish girl out for messy cuts, so maybe turtle/fattone (turttone?) was spot-on. the 4 last placers were a dark-haired girl i can't remember, the indian girl, who made it very clear in her first interview that she didn't want to be pigeon-holed as indian, but then proceeded to make something indian-inspired. (i think she should cook what she knows - but just don't be a hypocrite, ok?) and the 2 freshies (uh-oh). indian and brunette were fine - it came down to the buds who both made - a salad. eerily, it was practically the *same* salad. the dish was supposed to be about apples - why toss oranges in there? it didn't make any sense to me. anyway - savanah was sent back to base. i felt a little sorry for her, but not very. 

the first real challenge was also good - split into teams of 2 - same budget, same pool of ingredients, and then - snap - face-off. i loved it. fresh-face decided to use an ingredient he's never used before. people, this is the reality tv show equivalent of "don't go down to the basement when it's raining on halloween and the lights are out but you can swear you hear a chainsaw."  it's one thing to be given a challenge to cook food you're unfamiliar with (though, seriously, mom - you live in NJ and you've never had middle eastern food before?? what does turttone cook at the carriage house? pot roast??) and it's another to be a complete freaking moron. rule number one when you're short on time and long on pressure - stick with what you know - or adapt something unfamiliar into something you do know.

in the end, i think the finn won. padma made this big speech about how the first winner has been the eventual winner in every season but one (so...3/4? 4/5? not exactly decades of history to work with here.) but he's not going to win. he's too arrogant. someone will say something negative about his food at some point, and he'll lose it, and piss tom off. i hoped the hawaiian with tons of tattoos, something to prove and the heart of gold would win, but no luck. the bottom 2 were mom and the apple-cheeked culinary student i called "sweetie boy." mom was there for undercooked farro (and excessive whining? maybe a dash of lazy?) and SB was there because the judges thought his food was boring and predictable. jean-george wanted more ginger and scallion (which wouldn't exactly have upped the creativity factor, but you are *not* going to catch me ragging on JGV. no sir). mom was safe, sweetie was sent back to the minors. 

last night, the quickfire was to make a hotdog. cool challenge, if very difficult to do in 30 minutes. tall, coltish leah used a regular hot dog, and talked incessantly to the poor indian girl who looked like she wanted to grind her up and add her to her (ahem, indian-inspired) kebab-dog. the guest judge is a NY restauranteur with whom i'm vaguely familiar, though her name escapes me. she seems to be as famous for being young and attractive as for her numerous restaurants. the most striking thing about her, however, were her facial expressions. she'd take a bite, and instantly get an, "i'm going to vomit" look on her face. apparently sometimes that's a good look, because despite her look of horror after tasting the kebab, the indian girl won. (i can't remember her name. i want to call her reykjavik, but that would be even more confusing. if she's still around in a couple of weeks i'll either learn it or give her another name. promise.) she hated the finn's sandwich which pleased me. i can't like the finn, and i enjoyed his pain at being called out. 

the main challenge was good again - cooking at craft for 50 new yorkers who didn't make it to the show. everyone either did an app, an entree or dessert. clear winners and losers were apparent right away, as is often the case. mom did something from the 80's, that she makes at her restaurant all the time - lemon meringue martini. everyone said it was sweet. she knew it was sweet but (again) seemed too lazy to redo it. wtf? tall coltish leah decided to do ostrich egg quiche for no good reason, and hosea bought crab in a can. again - wtf? winners - absinthe made corn soup - easy, appealing, clean. she said something simpering at judge's table about celebrating the season which made me throw up a little, but the soup looked good. the italian made carpaccio and added a high-tech twist of making olives back into olives by pureeing them and dropping the liquid into some sort of stabilizer which recreated a skin. cool. and i have to say, the best use of that kind of technology - it is exactly what it looks like - but with a twist. a nice change from marcel and wolverine and their penchant for overreaching. KISS.

so italian won (and maybe hit on the judge). coltish was sent packing, despite the fact that mom was on the chopping block for the second time, and padma spit out her 80's fantasy into her napkin. i'm thinking that guest judge (donatella something) had it in for coltish from the start. she really hated her hot dog. coltish didn't help herself with a very miss south carolina ("and the iraq") statement about why she should stay. how about, "well, i've certainly learned what not to do, and i will make sure i never make the same mistakes again." how hard is that? too hard for coltish apparently. so donatella broke her leg and and sent her out to pasture.

the 'duras - part 2...paradise (lost?)

so, we arrived at the roatan ferry terminal at about 6pm, got a cab and headed to the "resort" where we were to spend the next week. we knew it was the rainy season, but we kept telling ourselves that despite dire iphone weather forecasts (12 days of solid rain) it was tropical - so it was bound to be rainy for part of the day, with at least some sun breaks. we're still telling ourselves that. the weather on roatan was never what i would describe as "sunny." there was sun - in fact, it looks lovely in this photo: 

too bad that was the only few minutes of sunshine we saw there. fortunately, i burn to a cinder in about 10 minutes in the sun anyway, and rob gets antsy on the beach, so neither of us were too disappointed that we wouldn't be able to qualify for coppertone kids after our trip.

roatan is...interesting. it was supposed to be the lux, relaxing part of the trip, but for the first several days, i actively hated it. not that i had a bad time. rob and i could have fun together in a cardboard box (and if i remain unemployed and screwing around on facebook and blogger all the time, i might put that theory to the test.) in any case, it was fun, but the place itself...kind of sucked. it's neither unspoiled enough to be rustic and charming, nor lux enough to be a real escape worthy of the money we spent. the beach view from our (sterile) cabana was pretty, and we spent a lot of time on the porch, applying deet and reading.



the trouble is that the island is filled with people with whom i'd never choose to be, well - stuck on a desert island. there are 3.5 main groups on the island:
1) wannabe diver types - looking for cheap certification and a certain amount of youthful adventure. sadly, adventure and a bath seem to be mutually exclusive for this set.
2) desperate expats. not that the people themselves were in desperate situations, but we just kept meeting people who were too old to run away, but who had done just that. and i kept thinking - damn, you're 50 and you ran away. to a tourist beach. in honduras, where you spend all your time with people just like you. you're kind of a pathetic loser.
3) enterprising locals. it's a tourist island, i get it, and everybody's gotta eat, but we got really tired of feeling like we were being ripped off.
3.5) nearly dead animals. it was beyond insane how many stray dogs, cats and kittens we saw. when we got home, sophie


looked positively obese to me. bob barker needs to stop harassing the beauties and get his ass to roatan asap for a little spay-and-neuter lecture.

a couple of random notes...cars - all were under 5 years old. the "roads" on roatan were abysmal to be kind, and the salt and sand rot them away in no time flat. we took 3 taxis in roatan - from the ferry to the hotel, once to west bay (the real resorty part) and to the airport. each was more appalling than the last - it was funny. the first one smelled like something died in there, and to cover the smell, the owner rubbed the inside with rotten fish. the second one had no working doors, barely made it up hills and definitely had a death rattle. the final cab smelled bad, was completely out of gas, and was missing its back window. welcome to paradise!

deet. i wrestled with taking anti-malarial meds before we went to honduras - it's recommended for the island, and given the rainy season, i imagined millions of little hatchlings would love nothing more than to feast on me. some people never seem to get bitten (dad) some people are like an old country buffet for the little suckers (moi.) but i didn't like the contra-indications for any of the meds i researched. some cause a reaction in asthmatics (rob) and the last thing i wanted was to watch my husband being given a tracheotomy with a rusted pen-knife by a local healer. so we decided, simply, just *not* to get malaria. i bought copious amounts of deet (in convenient, plane-approved sizes.) i do not know what is in deet. i know it stinks. i know it's greasy. the fumes taste awful. it may cause cancer. it is certainly very very very bad - it ruined my pedicure. i'm not saying that to be prissy - i'm saying, with horror, that it removed the shine and some of the polish from my toes. what, pray tell, did it do to my liver? less damage than malaria is my hope, but only time will tell.

in summation - despite my bitching, we really did have a great time. we found out too late (bad weather) that we could gone diving with an instructor without certification. an hour in the pool and they're ready to take you 40 feet down. rob was a natural, breathing underwater, removing his regulator, flushing his mask like a cousteau in no time. i had more trouble. i gutted through it, but i have to admit, i really had to convince myself that i could breathe, not to panic and that it was worth it. we did the pool thing, which everyone says is the hard part (and i dearly hope they are right) but the weather was too choppy for the remainder of our trip to actually get to dive. even though i didn't like roatan, it has the second largest reef system in the world, and i can absolutely see going back there to learn to dive. don't worry though, i will always take shampoo.