food

Always Read Faulkner Aloud to the freshly made Krispy Kremes when the “Hot Donuts Now” sign is on.  This is the way.

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On a forgettable weeknight recently, I decided to get some Klondike bars.  Klondike bars.  It’s not that crazy deep, but the first thing that came into my head was how I used to eat them with Herman.  And I do love Klondike bars.

I got to thinking recently how food is connected to so many core memories of ours.  When I went to Florida recently (longer entry TK because I need to wrap a narrative around my pictures) I had to have some Krispy Kremes.  Ok 12 to be exact.  I even posted a survey on my Instagram about what the highlight of my summer trip was, the salt flats or the 12 Krispy Kremes.  The Krispy Kremes won.  And before you write me a long diatribe about how I shouldn’t be eating donuts., I really only eat them in Florida, despite living LITERALLY across the street from a Dunkin Donuts.  The commonwealth demands that we all live within 200 feet of a Dunkin Donuts .  This is the way.

Krispy Kremes are kind of special to me for a bunch of different reasons.  A dear friend of mine grew up in Pensacola, Florida or as he has given me permission to call it, the Redneck Riviera.  My friend lives in New York City and is the friend who is better at being a New Yorker now than I am.  There are three Krispy Kremes in the city and I must inject some Krispy Kreme goodness into my bloodstream.  To me, the Krispy Kreme is a unique treat.  My friend sold Krispy Kremes to fund his childhood baseball team, so he fails to see this is a rare delicacy.

A lot of our time too at church is spent talking about food.  I always joke that the Baptists got me in the door of a church with the cute kids and the food.  The first night of this thing called Community Group that I attended in 2017, not even being sure what I was getting myself into, we sat there and talked about food forever.  That nights ice breaker was “what is a food you don’t like that other people like?’  I’ll never forget this.  We sat there and riffed on different kinds of food all night.  I remember one of the other people at the community group said he didn’t like pizza and we all sat there describing every single pizza slice we had ever eaten.  Of course I had to talk about the New York City pizza slice experience, where you walk down the street and wait for the pizza smell to envelop you and you go in and get that pizza slice on a paper plate.  There probably won’t be seating and the spices will probably be attached to the counters in some way.  I once saw a place with the parmesan was basically chained to the counter.  

I think about that conversation a lot, that first night in the community group.  It was a bunch of people, sharing their personal experiences with food.  Food is fuel, but a lot of the time, it’s connected to core memories in our lives.  I could not believe this was supposed to be bible study.    

We eat this Polish salad on Christmas and Easter that has a really original name.  It’s called…salatka.  Mini salad.  Even the ingredients, hold a core memory.  I saw this HILARIOUS video recently made by these two guys who kind of explain Polish things to people.  

The Poles are… specific.  In the video, one guy sports the classic Polish dad look, with the full head of hair, bushy mustache and resting Polish uncle face.  I have a theory that Lech Walesa, my dad and Bela Karolyi met up in like 1978 for a short meeting where they all agreed to keep the mustache and the full head of hair into old age.  I’m thinking it was about a five minute meeting, given the talkative nature of that population bracket.  Don’t believe me??? These are three different people.  No really.  They are.  I would include my dad but he’s shy about media coverage.  And Wrong Side of the Camera is a multimedia juggernaut.  No really.  We get like tens of views.  

Again, these are three different people: 

Unkie Roman is one of these three people above, but I’m not telling you which one.  In the video, Unkie Roman talks about the greatest time of the year, the kiszenie of the cucumbers.  For those who are not Polish, which I assume is probably most of you, Polish people brine the cucumbers to produce the single greatest thing on earth, the Polish pickle.  Well, brined cucumbers.  The video is deeply Polish, which includes Unkie Roman reading Krzyżacy by Henryk Sienkiewicz to the pickles.  I mean BRILLIANT.  At the end of the video, Unkie Roman’s compatriot Janusz has a pickle and says — it tastes like Poland.  And these wonderful little gourds are a key ingredient in the wonderful Christmas salad.

The thing though is that I’ve shared the Christmas salad with other people and they think it’s a fine salad but aren’t as crazy about it as we are.  Obviously, those people are wrong.  A very dear friend, my beloved pastor, our fearless leader, does not like pickles.  

To backtrack here for a second, I need to provide a little back story on Sienkiewicz, how he’s connected to the title and to show that he has one of those magnificent Polish father or uncle mustaches.  Sienkiewicz is kind of super specific to about 40 million people in the world, so I need to explain him.   Sienkiewicz is a kind of iconic Polish author.  He was an itinerant wanderer, in the style of Mark Twain.  And he wasn’t just a member of the bushy mustache club.  He was likely its founder.  Sienkiewicz, in all of his bushy mustached glory: 

Sienkiewicz wrote a book called Krzyżacy about the defeat of Prussian Teutonic knights by the Polish-Lithuanian army.  How this is connected to the kiszenie of the cucumbers is anyone’s guess.  Maybe it helps the kiszenie along or something.  I found this part of the video extremely funny but when I tried to explain the whole thing to my overwhelmingly non Polish friends, it kind of drew a blank.  That’s when I thought about how to translate this to my audience.  I thought — what if you went to Krispy Kreme and read Faulkner to the donuts rolling off of the conveyor belt when the “hot donuts now” sign is on.  I guess this helps the donuts.  This is the way.

The other thing I discovered of late is that crepes are fancy.  Oh and that the people in my church community love them.  The big debate among us is that I am firmly of the belief that crepes require no toppings.  Our family ritual is standing around the stove while they are getting made and eating them right off the plate.  I mean you have to try the first one and then the next one to make sure the batter is done right.  And then all the crepes are gone.  If you eat them as you cook them, no toppings needed.  This is a core memory for me, a little ritual we always engage in.

The debate about the crepe toppings got me to thinking about what a core memory this is for me.  The crepes fresh off the pan, us arguing about whether or not the batter needs more salt or milk.  Emotions connected to food.  

A couple of weeks ago, I attended this thing called Fluff Fest in Somerville.  It’s a completely Massachusetts-esque type of event.  The MC is a guy wearing two mismatched types of plaid and a fedora.  He presides over an array of completely inane challenges, culminating in Fluff hairdressing.  He mentioned something about his time teaching at MIT, which for Massachusetts, it tracks.  I love marshmallows and anything sweet because I have the palette of a 12 year old.  The whole thing was rip roaring good time.  

It’s funny though that I don’t have a deep connection marshmallow fluff like I do a lot of other food things.  It was something I bought with my little paycheck from my first job to make the occasional fluffier nutter.  

Somehow the Instagram algorithm sent me an account for a podcast called “Explain Boston to me.”  The podcast is hosted by a Massachusetts transplant that aims to explain our unique Boston and New England ways.  In time for the fluff festival, she had on a guest named Sarah Dudek on, who it would seem explores all of the intricacies of native New England cuisine, with a special focus on…. Fluff.  It’s a really funny episode, with the guests concluding that Fluffernutters are just a part of the core New England experience.  

Well, congratulations.  You’ve read down this far, so as a reward, you get to see Wrong Side of the Camera’s wall to wall coverage of Fluff festival.  No need to thank me.  And as a bonus, the tap dancing stylings of the Yellow Shed dance company.

Glorious Gastronomical Gluttony

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I’ll be the judge of that.

I am, as my faithful fans know, constantly seeking the perfect burger. Some people love fine wines, others dark chocolate. Me, its the humble hamburger, invented when some angry cook smashed a meatball because it wasn’t cooking fast enough and put it in between two pieces of bread so someone could walk and eat at the same time.

This place, Mr. Bartley’s Burger Cottage had me at hello with the menu:

I nearly ordered the Dick Cheney burger, but someone the thought of that man made me lose my appetite.

And then there is this recent addition:

And, the decor, really really really interesting:

Love how Bill is wearing the dress (sorry for the blurriness):

Self explanatory:

Reagan sells cigarettes:

Onto the food. I’ll start with the good:

This is a frappe, which is New England for milkshake. Super sweet and absolutely delicious. Really really good.

And now for the hamburger:

WOW. I waited about a half an hour for my food. This thing finally arrived and I spent five minutes trying to figure out how I was going to eat this thing. I asked for extra bread and they said no. It was a double burger, two giant patties. Good lord. I finally used a knife and fork. Took out the joy of the burger eating. It was just too much. And then there was the name of this thing — the George W. Bush burger. I had to say I wanted George W. Bush. Why oh why?

The burger itself was charred on the outside. I’d give it a 6/10. However, those orange fries next to it, were made of sweet potato and completely divine. I kept eating and eating them.

I think this place is worth another visit. The Bush burger may not have been the best choice, so expect a follow up to this one.

Glorious Gastronomical Gluttony

/ nataliar77 / Leave a comment

I’ll be the judge of that.

I am, as my faithful fans know, constantly seeking the perfect burger. Some people love fine wines, others dark chocolate. Me, its the humble hamburger, invented when some angry cook smashed a meatball because it wasn’t cooking fast enough and put it in between two pieces of bread so someone could walk and eat at the same time.

This place, Mr. Bartley’s Burger Cottage had me at hello with the menu:

I nearly ordered the Dick Cheney burger, but someone the thought of that man made me lose my appetite.

And then there is this recent addition:

And, the decor, really really really interesting:

Love how Bill is wearing the dress (sorry for the blurriness):

Self explanatory:

Reagan sells cigarettes:

Onto the food. I’ll start with the good:

This is a frappe, which is New England for milkshake. Super sweet and absolutely delicious. Really really good.

And now for the hamburger:

WOW. I waited about a half an hour for my food. This thing finally arrived and I spent five minutes trying to figure out how I was going to eat this thing. I asked for extra bread and they said no. It was a double burger, two giant patties. Good lord. I finally used a knife and fork. Took out the joy of the burger eating. It was just too much. And then there was the name of this thing — the George W. Bush burger. I had to say I wanted George W. Bush. Why oh why?

The burger itself was charred on the outside. I’d give it a 6/10. However, those orange fries next to it, were made of sweet potato and completely divine. I kept eating and eating them.

I think this place is worth another visit. The Bush burger may not have been the best choice, so expect a follow up to this one.

Sampling Florida’s culinary delights

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Love how pork is in really small letters here:

And I could wash it down with:

Or, if I wanted to spice things up a bit, I’d could use any of these:

Dimpled chads anyone?:

Well, we are in Florida after all, the reason George “I scraped bird shit off a fighter jet in Texas air national guard to avoid the draft” Bush is the supreme leader of the world.

But this last one, well, as usual, it is the best:

I’ve been searching for this for over five years. I saw it at some restaurant in Virginia forevers ago and unfortunately, didn’t take a picture of it. Now we are reunited and I am now the proud owner of a bottle of this substance. I am truly pathetic. Oh and a close up of the bottle? OK:

Perhaps they should have one called “Cheney’s Breathe?” Just a suggestion.

Snowfall here on the East Rock

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The view just outside of my door:

And no, certain Northern European wise asses, the picture is not the result of me not cleaning off my lens. It is from clicking the flash and stopping the action of the snow falling. So don’t be leaving comments about that on this humble blog.

I love the way the snow looks under the light and I might be on my way towards capturing what it looks like in real life:

And, this was a good chance to photograph this neighborhood landmark:

Valhalla. Woop-de-do. But here’s another:

And, another because I couldn’t choose which one I liked the best. Here I edited the photo because I wanted to expose the trees a little bit more:

I wanted the Valhallagrillen seem like it was emerging from the darkness and the fog. Now I think it looks like a sausage selling spaceship. I do love the alliteration, don’t I?

Glorious Gastronomical Gluttony

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I’m introducing a new feature on ye olde blog — restaurant reviews. Lame, I know, but I am no Frank Bruni. There will be pictures of the food, my extremely witty commentary and then I score from 1 to 10, but for means of exaggeration, some scores can go as high as 40, because, like I said I am not Frank Bruni or the New York Times. I am but a humble blogger, one of the 100 million people on this planet that blogs.

For my first reviews, I sampled the culinary stylings of Cold Stone Creamery and the Five Guys burger joint in Brooklyn.

First to the Cold Stone Creamery. Last week on Top Chef, the chef-testants were asked to create a new ingredient addition for the chain’s ice cream. The show is always filled with its share of eccentrics, who I think could make really good food, but decide to stretch themselves to show off and out do everyone else. Sometimes, they are very successful. Other times, they fall flat. The falling flat is really funny a lot of the time, because these guys have huge egos and they get taken down a rung or two. I get the feeling a lot of these guys are out to prove they are worthy to everyone.

Each season has had its share of eccentrics. There was the guy who made a tamale with about a 100 ingredients for a challenge where they were judged by housewives. There was also the guy who pretty much put foam on every one of his dishes, or some kind of gelee.

This season features a chef named Hung who I could tell from day one was not going to disappoint in the cooking insanity department. So, last week it was put stuff in Cold Stone Creamery ice cream. The highlight were the Cold Stone Creamery ingredients made by Hung. My personal favorite was his cauliflower white chocolate foam. Cauliflower white chocolate foam? Cauliflower white chocolate foam??????? I couldn’t stop laughing at this thing.

I decided to go to the Cold Stone Creamery myself, hoping that the cauliflower white chocolate foam had not made the menu. Liquid into liquid ice cream? Create a slight problem there, Hung?

The place was mobbed, but I went to the one in Times Square, so that’s not a surprise. Another pleasant surprise was that no cauliflower landed in my ice cream. Ok, I’m going to say it again — cauliflower white chocolate foam?

Anyway, back here on Earth, in the mobbed ice cream place, I had to pick from the menu fast. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure I would have been the victim of a stampede. I choose “Birthday Cake Remix. Here it is just after I started eating it:

The verdict: 7.5. I am sure the cauliflower white chocolate foam would have greatly improved it. Ok, stop talking about that. It was cake batter flavored ice cream, mixed with brownies, sprinkles and some kind of caramel type sauce.

What I never get about these kinds of places is why this stuff has to be so sickly sweet. I choose the smallest portion, because I knew if I got anything else, I couldn’t finish it. But the whole combination was this sugary insanity. Cake batter ice cream. Sweet on its own. They could have put a dark chocolate dense cake in these and called it a day. Then, the sprinkles. Ok, jazz it up a little, but to finish it off with that syrupy sauce? That lowered its point value with me. Cold Stone Creamery is a good concept. Ice cream, mixed up with what you want or off the beaten path kind of ingredients. Interesting. But less is more when it comes to those types of things. I am not some sort of culinary snob. A Big Mac to me, is a little slice of heaven. But this was underwhelming.

Well, despite its sickly sweetness, I did finish the thing:

But it isn’t going to become a destination for me. Kind of a one time thing. But no way in hell a cauliflower white chocolate foam would have improved it.

Next stop on the gluttony tour was the Five Guys burger joint in upscale Brooklyn Heights. When it comes to Five Guys, I am actually hipper than the Brooklyn hipsters, because I knew about it first. I loved Five Guys burgers when I lived in Washington. Actually, for about a year, they were pretty much my sole source of solid food. The Five Guys I went to was always mobbed with people, smelled of fries and peanuts and was the absolute definition of place that looks like a ramshackle shack from the outside, but had great stuff.

Five Guys is kind of a down home, hole in the wall kind of place that isn’t anywhere even close to being hip in Washington. In New York, its in hip Brooklyn Heights. The place reproduced the decor I was so accustomed to in Washington:

Still, something about it felt wrong. Maybe because it is franchised, or something. It kind of reminded me of that moment in the original Wayne’s World when Wayne’s basement is reproduced as a TV set. The original had missing floor tiles and showed a general lack of regard for decor, which was fine by me. But, this is not a review of the decor. Its about the burgers. This one gets a more complicated score.

Overall burger quality: 8.5
In comparison to the original: 6
Comparison to previous burgers I had in New York: 9.5
I guess that averages out to about a 7.

Yeah, the original is always the best. I got my usual combination — cheeseburger with onions, relish, pickles and mayonnaise. The patty was thinner than I remember and not as juicy. The burger itself was overloaded with my toppings and almost got lost in all of it. I did eat the whole thing, of course:

Going, going…

Gone:

See the extra pickle and onion left over. What am I supposed to do with that? I guess I could have gotten fries, but with the visit to the ice cream place beforehand, it was all kind of too much. Also, considering I take a cholesterol lowering drug prescribed for geriatrics, I’ll skip the fries for now.

The final analysis:
If I crave burger-y goodness, I’ll just fire up my George Foreman lean mean fat reducing grilling machine (it always has to be referred to in its entire name) and cook a burger recipe I found in a book by James Beard, who is pretty much the father of modern American cuisine. I take ground beef, put some heavy cream in it, grind up onions, salt, pepper and on to George and maybe toss on a piece of cheese and you are good to go. I’m just not sure if it is worth enduring the [censored]ing New York City subway system for just an ok hamburger, when I can make the same one at home.

Anyway, stay tuned for more gastronomical gluttony, because believe me I love to eat.