These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

As part of the birthdays-that-go-on-without-end celebrations, I took my brother out for his (January!) birthday last week.   You'll remember that I made him a duly documented birthday dinner early in the life of this blog, but I hadn't yet fulfilled our ritual in which we take each other out solo, no others, for our birthdays.  In recent years, rules have been relaxed enough that we occasionally allowed significant others to join us...for dessert. 

This year we went to Chinatown, first to the eponymous Fried Dumpling for what I have to say I think are NYC's best all-time dumplings.  This hole-in-the-wall on Mosco Street was made famous by Calvin Trillin in his book Feeding a Yen.  It's one of the best quick meal/snacks you can get in these parts:  5 perfect, freshly made dumplings (and the women behind the counter are making them even as we speak), meaty and bright with scallions, fried crisp on the outside and eaten while walking around Chinatown or standing at the counter with vinegar or hot sauce for yes, ladies and gentleman, a dollar.  One dollar.  And you can buy a big gigantic bag of them for 5 dollars and put them in your freezer and fry them up yourselves, which I pretty much always do when I go there.   

So even though we knew we were going up the block for duck, rather than pay 5.95 for an order of mediocre dumplings anyplace else in Chinatown, we decided to do the two-stop dinner, and have a stand-up appetizer course at Fried Dumpling, and then go sit like a proper lady and gentleman with tablecloths and all at Peking Duck on Mott Street, a very civilized experience...where your duck is roasted complete, head and all, and then expertly sliced by a guy in the tallest chef's hat I've ever seen.  I know that my vegetarian friends and readers are very grateful that I didn't take pictures. 

I almost had a disaster on the way to meet my brother.  I was carrying all the things you see in the above picture plus some other things as well, wrapped up and in two shopping bags.  And as I crossed Lafayette Street at Canal, one of the shopping bags burst and all the food items, in their lovely glass bottles and jars, fell into the street, just as the light changed and the traffic roared toward me.   Some force of nature took me over and I simply stayed in the street, collecting my items which were miraculously unbroken, stuffing them in my purse and the other shopping bag, accepting the help of a good samaritan who came back across the street to help me.  I made it to Mosco Street and we went and found another shopping bag at a souvenir shop to relieve our troubles. 

I had decided that G and I would give my brother, who is a wonderful cook in his own right, some of my favorite food-related things.  After our dinner, we went back to his apartment where he opened his sack of booty amid exclamations of delight.  First there were books -- the wonderful Toast, by Nigel Slater -- a read that pulls at the heartstrings and also makes you nod with your own reminiscences.  In addition, two of Jeffrey Steingarten's: The Man Who Ate Everything and its sequel, It Must Have Been Something I Ate.  These are uproariously funny as well as frighteningly obssessive -- and they have some pretty great-sounding recipes for those who are willing to be as meticulous as Steingarten.  Then came kitchen tools.  My brother had let it slip that he actually doesn't own a Microplane grater, which I found a shocking and saddening state of affairs for someone who actually does cook dinner at least a couple of times a week.  I found him one of the ones that has interchangeable blades, which I own and love.  On my excursions in the world, I kept coming across "favorite things" -- a tiny Microplane clone for grating spices (says it grates cinnamon as well as nutmeg -- gotta try this), one of those rubbery tubes (green in the picture above) for peeling garlic (it's amazing), little muslin spice sacks for bouquet garni, and my favorite "spoonulas", spoon-shaped rubber spatulas for scraping every last bit out of the bowl.  And finally there were the lovely food items, so recently saved from the onslaught of Chinatown traffic (we also had a couple of CDs of music that I often listen to while cooking -- but since I never fulfilled my "Music for my Kitchen" tag I won't go into that here...)  Maldon salt, of course -- is it true that this salt is lower in sodium?  or maybe it's just more flavorful and so you need less?  Anyone know?  Please share your knowledge with us.  And another salt -- this delightful Provençal herb salt from a company called Solleilou (no link, sorry).  I picked it up at Fairway on a whim, and it's now become one of those seasonings that I throw into many, many dishes.  There was a tin of my favorite Bed of Roses Middle-Eastern-inspired spice rub; a beautiful square, corked jar of smoked Spanish paprika, a bottle of Chipotle Tabasco sauce (I can only say yum), and one of my current loves, Cuisine Perel's Blood Orange Vinegar.  The vinegar was the only thing to suffer in the crash -- and its only damage was the cap, which got cracked.  No matter.  This stuff is so incredibly delicious.  You know that trick of sprinkling a little balsamic on strawberries?  Try this divine elixir -- on berries, mangoes, pretty much any fresh fruit.  Unbelievable.  It also makes for a luscious roast chicken marinade, great sparkly salad dressing and it's not bad on fish, either.  I think summer is going to find many fruity dessert uses for it, however. 

So that ends this little interlude.  But the birthdays-without-end debacle is not yet at an end, as next week, brother-about-town and I hotfoot it over to the Modern Bar for dinner.   Not to worry, I'll tell you all about it.   

Comments

[Bakerina]

Julie, I think we share a kitchen mind -- between the books you mentioned, the garlic-peeling tube, the Microplane grater (I just have one, but I use it for everything) and the mighty Maldon salt, it's amazing to see just how many points on which we converge. The blood orange vinegar is new to me, but I can't imagine how it would not be simply perfect. :)

I second your opinion on Fried Dumpling, too. I also love Excellent Dumpling House on Lafayette Street for steamed dumplings and buns, and Bo Ky on Bayard Street for their chicken and curry soup. It's been too long since I've been down there. I've heard rumors that the import ban on Szechuan peppercorns has been lifted; if it has, I am running, not walking, downtown to stock up.

[Katherine]

I'm not so much commenting on Julie's last blog as wanting to say publically that Julie's foody influence helped me out in the last few trying days. I am a non-cook. A non-cook who has 7-year-old twins who occasionally get hungry. Usually, they get some horrible microwave-heated instant chicky nuggets(though I am good at providing fresh fruit and vegetables and medleys of enticing take-out food, and though my husband can cook and spares them from my creations occasionally.) Julie regularly suggests to me things I could make them that I pretend I will make and then never do. Anyway, my little girl had to have surgery last week (too complicated to describe, but relatively minor), and before you have surgery you're not allowed to eat or drink for, essentially, the entire day. She's skinny anyway, and barely eats (I know, I know--because all there is to eat is microwaved chicky nuggets), so I wanted to fill the house with good smells so that at least the night before she'd fill herself up. So I got out my husband's Ruth Reichl Gourmet cookbook and made gingerbread by her recipe--a big, big deal for me--a mixer was involved, for god's sake. The whole time I kept thinking how proud Julie would be. When Madeline got home the house smelled amazing, and she gobbled half the gingerbread up. The surgery day was still horribly stressful, but at least I felt like I'd done everything a good mother should. Now that she's back home and eating again, I still have the other half of the gingerbread left to heat up and give her, and when I do the house smells good all over again. Perhaps I'll consider making my own chicky nuggets next.

[Zarah Maria]

That must be the PERFECT gift! I love each and everyone of those products Julie - the vinegar is new to me though, but it sounds lovely!

[Moira]

What a fab sister you are! No surprise there, of course...;-)

My husband thinks that Chipotle Tabasco is the nectar of the gods, so we've always got a bottle (or 6) in the cabinet for eggs, and I don't know how I lived without my microplaners before I got them. I don't have anything else in your pile, though- hopefully I'll be able to remedy that when we're in the states! I've been wanting to read Steingarten, so I'm going to check out used book stores while we're there.

Happy Easter, Julie!

[Jessica "Su Good Eats"]

Ahahahah, the two-stop dinner! I've never done that before, but I suppose it's a cheap and tasty alternative to eating everthing at an expensive restaurant.

[Ernie]

The only thing missing were coffee eclairs eaten outside as well!

[Julie]

I just updated this post with links for everything I could find. That was always the original intention, but I was running out to Nia (dance) class yesterday a.m., and didn't have time to plug it all in -- so there it is.

Jen, I agree with you -- we are certainly kitchen kindred souls. And if what you say about Szechuan pepper is true (oh let it be so!), it's definitely run-don't-walk time!

Katherine -- I am SO proud of you. Not just cooking, but BAKING. You really deserve a gold star on this one -- but you got it already, from M's reaction to the gingerbread. I don't have that cookbook YET (it's on my list), so I guess I'll just have to ask you for the gingerbread recipe...what irony...

Zarah, the vinegar's fantastic! I'll post you some if we can keep the bottle from breaking...

Moi, Happy Easter to you too. The Chipotle is an egg essential. You're going to have fun on your visit here, aren't you? Shop until you drop, girl...is NY in your plans?

Jessica -- I was tempted to make it a 3-stop dinner for dessert at Chikalicious, but I'm saving that for a girl's night out...

...speaking of which, hi Ernie. Yes, I replayed our Chinatown night sans eclairs...yum yum yum. And I took the frame home and made duck stock, too.

[Ernie]

Duck stock, that's great. I love using everything up, so satisfying.

[Joe C]

How lucky the brother upon whom all this love and care are lavished. The Microplane is fantastic, as promised. I've been using the Maldon salt, Chipotle hot sauce, and paprika too (the last being an important ingredient in superb spice rub for fish with ground cumin, black pepper, and coriander).
Fried Dumplings indeed is great, especially for an occasional carnivore like me, and as my sweet little sister would no doubt repeat -- a dollar!

[Joe C]

Oh and I've been reading the Steingarten, browsing through both books. Hilarious and wise.

[Joe C]

Oh yeah -- that rubbery garlic-peel-remover works like a charm.

[élodie]

je suis en BEP de vente et j'aurais besoin du maximum d'informations sur un de vos produits:
le vinaigre de framboise solleilou.
je vous remerçis d'avance

[Julie]

Ernie, I used the duck stock to make risotto the other night -- incredibly good!

Bro dear, I'm so glad you're enjoying your new toys. As Julie Powell of Julie/Julia Project fame once said, "When I die, bury me with my Microplane grater."

Elodie, I'd try to do this in French but it would be laughable, and not in a remotely good way. I don't any connection with Solleilou other than having bought their herb salt, and have neither seen nor heard of their raspberry vinegar, although if I did I'd probably try it. Sorry I can't help.