At Live Cultures, we're not huge fans of ratings and rankings. We tend to think that they are limiting, divisive, and a bit silly. All the same, we love a good list. So here's 25 things we really really loved in food and drink this year, in no particular order.
We started out the year living in Houston, then traveled to Rome and Florence, briefly returning to Houston with enough time to sort our affairs, take a short weekend to Austin, Hill Country and San Antonio, and finally head up to New Jersey. Since that time we've managed to get out a bit–mainly to Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Hamptons, with an extended weekend in North Carolina. And we've been exploring the Delaware River Valley on both sides–New Jersey and Pennsylvania. With that in mind, here's some stuff we enjoyed:
1. Last Meal @ Sushi Miyagi, Houston, Texas, 3.26.11.
There are many places I miss dearly in Houston, the Susan Lucci of Food Cities. Foremost among them, no question, is Sushi Miyagi. Like so many great Houston sites, it's tucked away in a nondescript, almost barren strip mall way out in West Houston - in fact, it's right past the beltway. And it's beyond worth it. All our meals at Sushi Miyagi were extremely special, but I know this time there was Tuna Kinutamaki (a huge roll with burdock and roe, something I've still only seen there), Goma-Ae (the unbelievable spinach and sesame salad we ordered nearly every time), Gyoza, White Spider Rolls, Idaho Roll, Crazy Roll, and Kara-Age. How do I know that? Because I wrote down what we had at every meal at Sushi Miyagi. It's that good.
2. Shiso Vodka & Others, 2011.
In the Live Cultures food labs, we're always working on a host of different things, but 2011 was definitely dominated by our experiments in the world of infusion, bookended by the Shiso Vodka we made in Houston around the beginning of the year and the Orange & Spice Infused Rye we concocted for a friends' birthday near the years' end. Inbetween were a host of garden chiles, coffee rum, wild wineberries and our own blueberries, toasted coconut and nuts, and some strange failed experiments with mint and other sundries.
3. Green Tomato & Tongue Pizza @ Pizzarium, Trionfale, Rome, March 2011.
As we raved
back when, this place is almost unbelievably good. The whole square it's seated on really deserves mention as one of our favorite discoveries of the year- two great bars (in the Italian sense), an amazing bakery and a specialty shop (meat, cheese, stupendous house-made salads of antipasti and seafood) on par with anything else you'll find in the city. But the green tomato and tongue at Pizzarium takes the prize for the unexpected epiphany of flavor that results from eating such a Spartan dish, and for how such an elegant, rustic, modern combination represents what this man and his pizza-mad cadre of new believers are trying to do. At the heart of all of Bonci's creations is a capacity to comprehend and wield the raw magic of flavor that would do any Michelin-starred chef proud, and would most likely embarrass quite a few of them. Long may he reign.
4. Black & White Milkshakes, Gronsky's & Others, Hunterdon County, NJ, 2011.
If there's one dessert item I've missed since living in the mid-Atlantic and South for the past ten years, it's the black & white shake. Met mainly with headshakes and queer looks once you get past Pennsylvania, the black & white is iconic in my food universe. There's no frozen treat better. If I was dying and had only one frosty treat left to down, etc. etc. In western NJ the art of the ice cream stand still runs strong, and you can get all kinds of classic scoops and pours and twists and what-have-you at the Polar Cub on Rt. 22, at Gronsky's in High Bridge, at Grochowicz in Glen Gardner (their extremely-borderline take on the proprietary cows of Chick-Fil-A pictured above would no doubt have generated a thorny lawsuit if there was any kind of corporate presence near by), and just across the river at the expensive but awesome Gerenser's Exotic Ice Cream in New Hope, PA. All of these spots offer quality (and in the latter two cases, handmade) ice cream in a fashion that hasn't changed in my lifetime. And at all these places you can get a black and white, done right, with no talk of some chocolate ice cream nonsense.
5. Our Own Produce & Others, Hunterdon County, NJ, 2011.
I'm not much as a gardener, and for most of my adult life I've lived in apartments or rented houses with little space to grow. There have been exceptions, and they've mostly filled me with frustration. There was plenty of frustration this year–an absurd degree of rain in August and September, the usual host of insects and hostile critters, lack of daylight to get out and muck about. And though we lost nearly all our sauces, pestos and summer concoctions that we froze rather than pickled when we lost power around Halloween, we think the experience was still worth it. And we can't wait for the ground to thaw. Even when we had to step beyond our own back yard to get produce, we managed to do so for most of the growing season without having to go to a supermarket, thanks to western NJ & eastern PA farm stands and lean-tos that dot the country roads around here the way they always have done. Here's to next year!
6. Chai Pani, Asheville, NC, October-November 2011.
One thing we've missed dearly since leaving HTX is unpretentious, reasonably priced Indian food.
This spot in mountainous Asheville really hit the mark, giving us not only classic Indian street food but also some wry modern takes that are more on-trend than trendy. Outstanding Puris, perfect Aloo Tikki and Pakoras, well-portioned and priced Thali meals, and witty spins on Southern (American) fare like Bombay Chili Cheese Fries and Okra Matchsticks go disarmingly well with their very good beer selection. But, really, order anything, especially something new to you–everything here is executed with a passion that puts flavor at a premium, yet never strays from the comfort these dishes ought to bring. So good that during our brief time in Asheville we went twice.
7. OG Iron Chef's On-Again Off-Again Relationship with Cooking Channel
Food Network's spin-off network (the creatively-named Cooking Channel) is in general a damn sight better than its parent. Having a Two Fat Ladies marathon during the Christmas holiday displays some kind of savvy, and reruns of shows like Good Eats and the various Julia Child programmes are always welcome. How then to explain the astonishing lack of intelligence when it comes to the Cooking Channel's mistreatment of FN's greatest signing of all time : the original Japanese Iron Chef. When we first moved to NJ they aired the show every weeknight at 11. A little late, but certainly worth recording or even staying up for. Around the end of the year it dropped to one night at week, Tuesday. At some point it was two nights a week. Then it was all week again. And we figured someone figured it out. Then… it's gone. Well, there is an Iron Chef show airing at that timeslot, every weeknight. It's just the shitty American one. Someone retained a smidgen of a clue, though, and so they're still running the OG on Fridays. Well, it's better than nothing. But only just - Friday night? At 11 PM on FRIDAY, when people should have better things to do? Jeez.
So our seventh entry remains a bittersweet one. To be reuinited for so much of the year (it's been ages since my TV was anything other than the internet) with our beloved Chen, our sweet Sakai, our cantankerous Michiba… and then to have that yanked away like so many blankets covering a secret ingredient. In the meantime, note that nearly every episode is available in parts on YouTube. Search Iron Chef + Battle Number + Ingredient (both easily found in your Wikipedia
episode list) and there you go. Quality a bit rough, but these are desperate times.
8. Pork Roll Egg & Cheese, If You Please : Various Locations, NJ.
The iconic sandwich of New Jersey is the sub. And there is nothing like it outside of the North East, the kind of quality meat and cheese towering colossus of sandwichery, vegetables sliced on a meat slicer, razor-thin, spices, oil and vinegar… living in Virginia and Texas I missed the sub dearly, and no poxy imitation could compare. But something even more Jersey than the sub, maybe even more than the Almighty Slice is the pork roll sandwich, something no one else in the country will even attempt for fear of reprisal from the Jersey Food Police. OK, actually they aren't so much afraid as they are mocking–order pork roll anywhere but the Garden State or eastern PA and you'll likely get a hostile, incredulous stare. And don't try telling them it's "sorta like Canadian Bacon" because it F**KING ISN'T. Canadian Bacon is an insipid piece of rubber pork that's been left out in the rain. Pork Roll is tangy, crispy when fried and absolutely not like a "big hot dog" or "fried baloney" or any of those things. It's pork roll, dammit. We celebrate its' appearance every day in one of its most succulent incarnations- the pork roll egg and cheese sandwich, available anywhere in the Jerz for about the first half of the day : pork roll sliced thin (that deli slicer again), quick fried on the griddle or grill and topped with fried egg and melted cheese, ketchup, salt, pepper.
Above you'll see it in an even more rarefied and mouth-watering form, on a crushed everything bagel from Clinton Bagel Company. Yeah, it takes them like twenty minutes to make a crushed bagel sandwich. You've got the time, trust me.
9. Last Meal in Houston : El Rey Tacqueria, 3.30.11.
Our exodus out of Houston took us North, and we could think of no more fitting last meal than one we enjoyed many times : the Tres Amigos special @ El Rey. For those not blessed by the knowledge of El Rey's wondrous goodness, it is a Cuban-Mexican taco and rotisserie joint with one location Downtown (never been) and one on North Shepherd (been many, many times). Not everything at El Rey is amazing–the rotisserie is underseasoned and likely to be dry, the tortilla soup is more lauded than loveable, and you may get stiffed going through the drive thru, but… yeah, that's right. Drive-thru. For what's pictured above. What's good at El Rey is phenomenal–coffee, salads (believe it), tacos (especially the Cuban, the El Rey fish, the Shrimp Tempura, the Ropa Vieja), the plates (especially Ropa and Cubano), the Summer Special (mango, avocado and shrimp tacos, which is always on, because it's always summer in Houston) the platanos, salsas, and the desserts. Tres Amigos is a combo of any three tacos and we usually got it like this : one Shrimp Tempura (neither Cuban nor Mexican but bloody amazing), one Cubano with Pork (not actually listed as an option, but they will make it for you and it is INCREDIBLE), and one Ropa Vieja or El Rey. One word of caution, you may want to take a bath in their cilantro sauce.
10. Pork's, Mercato Centrale, Florence, March 2011.
In a perfect world, every fooderie is like Pork's. One person or one family, doing what they do right, with love, with a loyal following of locals and itinerant wanderers, a place you come to once or twice, whenever you can, and are always treated like an old friend. It's not falseness, either, because to me, Pork's is an old friend. In a corner of the Mercato Centrale, this lovely Sicilian woman and her husband have carved out a niche. They do much well but they do two things better than almost anyone else in Florence : make espresso and make porchetta. Proper, Roman, whole pig porchetta, with all the bits intact, roasted whole with herbs and sliced right through the middle of the beast, tossed on a roll with maybe a little hot pepper for accompaniment. There are few things that taste so visceral, so real. And in the middle of snooty, snoozy Florence, where one can easily get steered into a trendy, overpriced meal or snack, a place like Pork's is as welcome as the tripe carts and the honest, affordable trats tucked just around the corner from the palaces of excess. Follow your nose in Florence, and you might just find a snout.
11. Pig's Ear Cake @ Feast, Houston, TX, February 2011.
Our meal at Feast was an excellent one all around, and we felt well chastened for having taken so long to finally eat there. And while everything was extremely well done, the Pig's Ear Cake was a step beyond. A healthy reminder to ask and listen when it comes to a well-informed server: we wouldn't have ordered it if he hadn't recommended it. Sort of like a direct-flight ticket into the world of British traditional comfort food for those of us growing up in America, it's fried slices of pig's ear in a bready cake with parsley and cheese. Doesn't sound good yet? Imagine bacon cornbread with cheese. Then go one better, because the cake itself lacks the sweetness and heaviness of cornbread. It's like a savory pound cake with crispy bits of pig and melty pockets of cheese… oh no, it's no use. I can't describe this and I can't even go out and eat it.
12. July 4th Weekend, East Hampton, NY 2011.
If there was a singular food-besotted weekend to remember this year it was that of July 4th. Friends new and old, round after round of Hampton Sunsets, and some serious throwdowns on both grill and oven. Of course the main event was incredible, pulled pork and steak tacos with red and green salsas and immense piles of guacamole, tortillas toasted on the gas burner, grilled veg and antipasti, rice and black beans. But first came the "staff meal," a lunch of Basque spareribs (above) and an iceberg and romaine salad with that amazing bacon and blue cheese dressing. Oh, then the other staff meal, that wacky buffet dinner with a san antonio chili served cincinnati style, jicama & cucumber salad, grilled cabbage and kale & chickpea salad. Imagine that!
13. Metropolitan Seafood in their new location, Lebanon, NJ, Fall Onwards.
They finally made it. After a long and exhaustive process of moving relentlessly self-documented by owner Mark's always odd & entertaining weekly emails,
Metropolitan Seafood and Goumet finally opened in their new, 21st Century location, the old kitchens and baths store on route 22. Well, half the building anyway, but it's plenty of space. Metro is a Central Jersey institution, serving up the most lovingly-curated collection of squeaky-fresh fish and seafood in the area. And not only do these guys have the goods, but they will happily give you a rundown on how to cook your purchase if you're in the slightest bit uncertain. Hell, sometimes if you know exactly what you're doing the guys will shake you down with their favorite way to prepare whatever it is you're taking home. Above is a ridiculous Spanish mackerel that we took home and stuffed with sweet potato and greens and olives. Coupled with an excellent selection of local cheese, eggs, honey and bread, a very sizable (space considered) selection of Lebanese and Middle Eastern specialties, great olives, their own excellent prepared dishes and soups, and you've got some pretty choice one-stop shopping. Oh, and did we mention Metro is easily one of the best places to get lunch in the county? I find it hard not to stop by here at least once a week, especially since they've moved from crummy downtown Clinton to their shiny new digs on the highway. Keep it up, boys.
14. Meletti Amaro from Ascoli Piceno in La Marche, and from Eataly Winseshop, New York, NY.
Eataly itself is a bit of a Rabelaisan place–conceited, faintly ridiculous and a bit swollen by volume, both of goods and people. Navigating through this collision of eight or nine small food shops is made extra perilous due to the presence of eight or nine restaurants, panini stands and wine bars with full tables that are somehow inside the other shops, which are all inside each other. Mind you, it's in no way not worth it–the goods are priced competitively with other vendors in the area, and the few sections of the complex that are underwhelming (seafood, regional olive oil, kitchenwares) are made up for by the ones that aren't (dried pasta, balsamic, pre-pack deli meat and cheese). The library-evoking wineshop concealed in the bend of Eataly's "U" is a welcome break from the madness of the main floor. And while we didn't buy much wine, the inexpensive Meletti Amaro was a purchase so welcome we'll surely be back to further investigate the main attraction.
Meletti is an amaro from La Marche, and it's quite unlike the Milanese and Sicilian amari that are probably most familar to American drinkers. Lacking a pronounced bitter flavor like Fernet or Campari, it's quite sweet and smooth in a glass, the very light bitterness quite muted by the plush, cozy dominant flavors of saffron and honey. The finish is herbal, and it's only at this moment that one remembers this is supposed to be good for your digestion. There is nothing of the medicinal flavor of some amari (which, admittedly, I often like), nothing citric, nothing anise-y, nothing floral. So what's left? Something insanely mixable, but also quite good on its' own or with the usual partners of ginger ale or club soda or tonic and citrus fruit. Its' flavor is mild enough, though, that a splash in almost any mixed drink that balances sweet and bitter can be a welcome bridger-of-gaps. Flavored seltzers and soda with simple syrups work excellently as well. And all by its lonesome after a meal, it soothes the full gullet and pleases the eye with a beautiful polished bronze color.
15. Hilltop Deli, High Bridge, NJ, 2011.
High Bridge has some great local spots, but the Hilltop Deli is a great local institution. I've been coming here since I was just a tiny food jerk, and after ten years gone from the area it's one of the first spots I hit. Nothing's changed but the prices. Actually, it's gotten even better as a one-stop : the paper, smokes, a sandwich, some cole slaw (unless someone's bought it all again), a sandwich with some cole slaw on it (the "Sloppy Joe," another Jersey sandwich done well here), fresh local ricotta, milk, butter and eggs, honey from Milford, decent dried pasta with a jar of local sauce, cold cuts and quality bread, Italian cookies, chips, hell why do you even go to the grocery store? Coupled with a stop at a farm store or stand during the long Jersey growing season, Hilltop and the many shops like it make that whole supermarket trip obsolete.
16. Claudia Roden,
The Food of Spain, 6.7.11.
2011 wasn't a big year for me for books, maybe because I stopped regularly working with them. Didn't help that in a NJ pretty devoid of book stores, the old Borders finally dropped out of the game. Not before we nabbed this–surely the food tome of note in 2011. Massive, sumptuous, and deeply informative, it'd make for great bedtime reading if it weren't for the danger of being crushed underneath it. Part history, part culinary overview, part mama's recipe book, perhaps the strongest recommendation that can be made of it is to say that it is equally as brilliant as all of Roden's work. In progress for years, its' release this year is nothing if not timely, coinciding with the moment at which even regular folks on the street know that Spain is the current leader in matters of Western Gastronomy. Serious about Spain or Spanish food? Curious about one of the world's greatest food traditions? You must have this.
17. Tortilleria Mexicana Los Hermanos, Brooklyn, NY, Summer 2011.
(Stock photo, sorry). The two cuisines we've missed most since leaving Houston : Mexican (Tex and otherwise) and Vietnamese. We've scoured New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania for both of them. There have been some decent Vietnamese places in all three–but nothing yet to compare with the best of Houston. Mexican? You can pretty much forget about it, for all the luck we've had so far. Until we came here. On the surface, it looks just right–low prices, hand-made tortillas, one long grill with various meats being sizzled, fridge full of Jarritos. And while they don't have the melon, which no one seems to have any more, you can't really beat a lime or tamarind soda with quality tacos. Which these are. Properly wrapped in 2 tortillas and accompanied with cilantro and onions, these are pretty much the closest thing we've found so far to your average Houston truck or tacqueria taco. They were out of the salt beef,
cecina, which is one thing I'd never seen on a Texas taco menu, and they didn't have
pastor, which is usually my benchmark taco (a little post-meal investigation seems to indicate that what they call "enchilada" pork is something that sounds close). But what they had–carnitas, bistek, and chorizo–ranged from solid to excellent. If this doesn't sound like a ringing enough recommendation to fill out our Annual, let me just explain something to you : once you have regularly eaten good and great Mexican food it creates a need in you, a compulsion you never knew existed. And like a junkie chasing that first great high, the inability to quench that thirst will forever haunt you and hunt you and have you crying and shaking on freezing street corners in the great cities of the northeast wondering what what what the hell went wrong. For now, Los Hermanos helps keep that particular wolf at bay. For now.
18. Homemade Mayonnaise, all year.
Making mayonnaise is one of the first things I ever learned how to do in a commercial kitchen. I'm not sure, then, why it has taken me so long to get into the habit of making it at home. Adding a twist now and again, but mostly just busting out batches. Because you really can't go wrong with western cuisine's most affable cold sauce. Even when you call it
aioli like you're from Provence, and like adding chipotles or whatever to it is something anybody making actual aioli is going to do. I hate that. If you're making a sauce from hand-pounded garlic and hand-integrated olive oil you can call it aioli, but if you're just a chef in a fancy restaurant and you're making a food processor emulsion with egg and oil and garlic (if you even use garlic in what you're roundly calling "aioli") you're making fucking mayonnaise, let's call it that and be done with it. People : if you read "aioli" on a menu, it is 19 times out of 20 mayonnaise. Yes, it's still mayonnaise when it has olive oil in it. And, though I can't speak for the Provencal, I understand that modern Catalans normally integrate egg into their
allioli. It just makes an emulsion easier.
OK, getting a bit rant-y here but the point is that mayonnaise is wonderful, and needn't fill Western diners with shame. No, it deserves your love and like maximum ten or fifteen minutes of your time once or twice a month. Here's all you need to do :
1. Take an EGG out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature. An hour or so should do it. I suppose you can substitute one of those fake egg yolk products if you're vegan or whatever. I don't really know how that all works.
2. Pour 1 cup of vegetable, canola, sunflower, safflower, olive, or mystery OIL into a 1 cup measure with a pouring spout. If you don't have a 1-cup pyrex glass measure or something laying around, go back to the store.
3. Get your mortar and pestle (GO BACK TO THE STORE) and crush up anywhere between 1/4 tsp (for lo-salt diets) and 1 tsp (for complete salt whores) KOSHER or SEA SALT (I use around 1/2 tsp, sometimes a shade more, sometimes a shade less), six or seven (or more! or less! WHOLE PEPPERCORNS (traditionally white, as black will leave, well, black flecks in your mayo, but I am not a huge fan of white pepper and often use black with no loss in flavor), along with :
3b. (optional) : whatever other whole spice or seasoning you might want, including of course 1 or more WHOLE CLOVES OF GARLIC (there's yer aioli), or several threads of SAFFRON, or whole RED PEPPERS or GROUND OR CRUSHED RED PEPPER (taken in any form- cayenne, chili powder, chili de arbol, paprika hot sweet smoked or whatever, etc etc) or really whatever strikes your fancy. Just add and crush with the salt.
4. Add the crushed salt & spice to the yolk of your room-temperature-ish egg. Whisk.
4b. (optional) Whisk in a little VINEGAR, LEMON JUICE, PREPARED MUSTARD, or additional liquid or emulsified or gooey flavor addition. If using lemon, I usually just add a squeeze of a cut lemon in that sucker. If mustie, I usually whisk in a small spoonful. Doesn't really matter, champ. And it might just help you avoid the hassle of spending all day and all night and your whole life whipping up batches of
Mustardayonnaise.
5. Make sure your egg and seasoning mix is in a metal or glass mixing bowl. Take a kitchen towel and wrap it around the base of the bowl to help keep it stable. Use a whisk (I prefer plastic) to slowly integrate the oil into the egg yolk mixture, adding a few drops at a time at first. When the mixture starts to look like… mayonnaise, you can add the oil a little quicker. The key here is smooth and glistening but not too glossy, if that makes sense. If you see too much gloss you have un-integrated oil sitting on top that you need to work in before you add more oil. I've also seen such as Jacques Pepin add the oil pretty quick at the beginning but that man has whisk technique the likes of which you or I can only dream. Also his forearms are small bears.
6. Oh, look, you've added all the oil and now you're looking at something that looks a bit like the above, or mayonnaise. Yay! You're done! Unless, of course, you want to add more lemon juice. Another squeeze or two of your lemon or some more vinegar at this point will make something that very much resembles a traditional French mayonnaise. Without them, your flavor profile will be closer to that stuff you buy in plastic tubs in American or Japanese supermarkets.
6b. (optional) You can of course use a food processor for the above. Just put the yolk etc. in a processor, start the blade whirring, and drizzle in the oil. However, it doesn't quite have the same
elan. Plus, if you keep making mayonnaise the old-fashioned way, you may one day too have beararms. Your choice.
19. Salt Lick BBQ, Driftwood, TX, March, 2011.
(Apologies for the stock photo). OK, so this place has more press, awards, profiles, etc. than almost any other cue shack on the planet. There are two main reasons for that. The first is that Salt Lick is a destination dining experience. People drive to Driftwood to eat at Salt Lick because no one in the world is actually from Driftwood. People park in the large lots and empty out in family-sized clusters like they are coming to the county fair. There's a recommended dining time. There's a gift shop. There's an open pit, one of the last in Texas if not the country (some kind of health code bs, but have any of the Salt Lick's many happy customers been poisoned? Nope.). It's an experience. The second reason is that having had that advantage, some might say an unfair one, the Salt Lick proceeds to COMPLETELY NOT SCREW IT UP. Not a bit. Especially the open pit part. Get caught taking a snap of the pit on your way out and they will escort you to the back of the pit for a better peek. It's a family-friendly place, but serious eaters will not feel like they have come to BBQ Chuck E Cheese. But the meats that come off that pit and the sauces that you can IF YOU LIKE dress them with are nothing short of outstanding. The sauces served with the
best BBQ we've had in Yankee territory were like the memory of a dream of the movie version of the sauce from Salt Lick. For real. But the meat–links maybe not so much, but brisket : perfect. Ribs : perfect. Turkey : amazing, and probably the best thing there and definitely the best turkey I've ever had except maybe once when the world was young and my brain was on fire with thoughts of Thanksgiving. Maybe. Anyway : go. eat. believe.
20.
Coda Alla Vaccinara at Antica Hosteria Da Angelino, Rome, 3.2.11
I love the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele : urban, yet ancient, in one of Rome's most interesting and "modernized" areas, with a carousel and falafel cart at one end and the preserved "door of mystery" (pictured above) from some wanna-be neo-pagan's villa from the
ottocento. In between, lots of cats. And graffiti. Nearby : many Romans of non-Italian origin. And the Antica Hosteria Da Angelino, very Roman. Very Italian. The genial, stout host Stefano; the 1950's decor; the brassy house wine; the house specials prepared always on the same day, the day chosen as propitious for eating them, just the way Romans have done for many decades : these things will never change. Just so with the food.
Coda alla vaccinara is one of the quintessential Roman dishes : oxtail stewed in a ragout of tomato and celery with just a hint of cinnamon, clove, black pepper and chocolate. Mysterious, strange, yet familiar–except for the presence of tomato, it's almost medieval. One gets the feeling that Romans for centuries have eaten something much like this and known its' heart and palate-pleasing greatness. Have it here and have it perfect. But only on Wednesday. Because that is the day on which we eat it.
21. Tewksbury @ Valley Shepherd Creamery, Long Valley, NJ, 12.31.11
This place, no,
this place in scenic Long Valley, NJ, no
this place in less-scenic Park Slope… wait, these are all the same place. And this is a serious, serious place. It's a dairy farm. It's an educational research farm (whatever exactly that is). They built their own "cave" to age their cheese. Their website is the very model of a well-run, informative website, the kind everyone who produces serious edibles should consider. There are tours. There's a shop. Sorry, a "Shoppe." Which hones in very precisely on the entire process of raising sheep in a very traditional, unflinching manner, from wool-based gifts to sheep cheese soap to their chopped up and separated meat in the freezer in the back.
We picked up three outstanding cheeses our first trip here : an ash rind Pecorino called Ewe Nero, a Manchego-type cheese, and Tewksbury, a mixed-milk cheese in an Alpine style. The first two were top shelf. But the Tewksbury : something else entirely. Made from a mix of sheep and cow's milk, it has all the nutty, refined flavor of a really good Gruyere, but with a rich, buttery undertone that I associate more with Emmentaler, AND the sort of dryer, crumbly texture and roundness of flavor that I love in Cheddar. I would easily hold it up against any cheese I've eaten, in America or Europe. Cheese. Of. The. Year.
22. Butternuts! NJ/NY, Year Round.
When's the last time you had a case of cans this good? Long time. When's the last time you had a VARIETY PACK with all good beers in it? That's right, the Butternuts variety pack contains not a single suck-ass beer. Retailing at around $13 or so in our area, it's fun for the whole family, everybody's favorites included. Well, maybe not the whole family…
The Hefe is in the country's top 20, the IPA excellent, the Stout superb and none-too-heavy and the Porkslap a smooth-drinking, well rounded ale. Did they really miss anything? Nope. Throw a couple of these in the cooler at your next grill-a-thon and watch those faces light up.
23. Cookies from The Dessert Plate, Somerville, NJ, 6.16.11 & Others.
I don't really eat that many sweets, so when I do I really want them to be absolutely top-shelf, otherwise I'm just full and riddled with guilt.
The Dessert Plate fits the bill. All their sweets are aces, but for a bit of shelf-life and powerful concentrations of flavor in an affordable dessert format, you really can't go wrong with these bad boys. Amongst our favorites are : anise, pecan shortbread, triple ginger, macaroon and whatever the flavor of the month is. Always get it, it's usually when you get to see the creative ladies behind this place really shine. Are they pricey? Sure, at $1.50 a pop you aren't gonna be handing these out at work, but they are serious, legitimate cookies. When it comes to desserts, I pick my battles. In the Central Jersey area, you can't miss doing battle here.
24. Glen Gardner General Store, Glen Gardner, NJ, Year Round.
One of the area's best-kept secrets (to the eternal chagrin of the genial couple that run the place), the Glen Gardner General Store is typical of what neighborhood delis and country stores should all aspire to. If you ever find yourself driving up (or down) 31 between Washington and Clinton, do yourself a favor. Stop by. Talk to Shelly. Get a sandwich. Order whatever she has on special that day. If it's early, get an omelette, again, order from the specials board. If she has soup, buy it. Get a cup of coffee. Sit down. Relax. You will find something comforting and cheering that you might not have thought of, a flavor combination that no one else in the area is thinking about. Warm, nourishing, homemade. You won't be sorry.
25. Ghetto Meal, La Taverna Del Ghetto, Rome, 3.6.11
We might have had better meals in Rome this year–I would put our relaxed rainy meal at Da Angelino and our harried, awesome family lunch at
Fiaschetteria Marini right up there with this one. And we might have had more fun eating out in Rome, as we did when we twice (!) rocked pizze and Nastro Azzuro at Da Baffeto. But few were as complete an experience as our meal the Sunday before we left for Florence.
Sure, there were some gripes (trouble getting seated, being bugged by panhandlers, people taking a million shots of something just above and behind us). But all of this is part of what I associate with the stuffy, intrusive experience of traditional fine dining. And it's not necessarily a bad thing–like I said, complete. The food was excellent, and we hit many of the classics of Roman Jewish cooking–
baccala, of course the iconic
carciofi alla guida (splayed fried artichoke with lemon), charcoal-grilled vegetables, polenta with beef stew, a wonderful hand-cut
pappardelle with air-cured beef (very much a big deal in the Roman ghetto) and cherry tomatoes, tagliatelle with grouper and zucchini flowers.
But the best part of all was being with the family, and I was so happy everyone could be together for this. I'd long had a bug up my butt to eat a modern/traditional ghetto meal, to investigate this part of Roman foodways, a series of interlocking traditions I might be just a bit obsessed with. It was just perfect that everyone could be along for the ride.
