Some Weird Eating Habits of Americans #1

So, now that I work and actually work and interact with humans and not vampires, I get to survey peoples eating behavior...and American's by far have the weirdest eating habits. Yes, it is true that some Euro's eat animal organs and brain and my people eat dogs. North Koreans universally practice cannibalism. We've all seen the footage. But all these are tasty, delicious and does a body good. American's not only desire by enjoy eating food that has negative nutritional value and possess the taste and texture of dirt.

Power Bars and Apples

I do not much like to challenge myself physically, EVER. I don't mind a little mental challenge and stimulation because nothing really is a challenge to my superior intellect. And a little stimulation keeps me on my toes and sharp as a circle. So when I walked into a 4 hour meeting at work the other day and encountered someone who just came from running the Boston Marathon, I was in stunned silence. Not in awe or respek, but it was early in the morning and I hadn't had my coffee yet. The meeting was progressing smoothly and I was getting situated all nice and compfy about to think with my eyes closed, when all of a sudden I hear a really loud crackling. The marathon guy, looking typically marathony whips out a Clif bar. Yuck! I never understood people who ate those. Or Power Bars. Or Balance Bars. I've tried them all, obviously out of curiosity because I'm a curious knowledge seeker the way any double Ivy Leager is trained to be, and they all universally taste like dirt. With the exception of Luna Bars. But this was implied. He ate half then put it away, obviously because it tastes bad but wanted to show off that he was a runner and needed energy. Then proceeded to tell me how famished he was and started chomping on a granny smith apple. Gross. The only acceptable snacking apples are Fuji. I know things like this because I am a cesspool of useless information. The apple made a lot of noise and I just couldn't focus. I get very easily distracted. It was just rude. The he finished off his Clif bar. Americans sometimes eat the weirdest grossest things. I think if I ever did run a marathon, which I would never because I'm not crazy, I'd probably eat a 10lbs steak wrapped in bacon and deep fried with a buttermilk batter dipped in mayonnaise slathered in Peter Lugars horseradishy sauce!

Presbytarians Love Red Meat

I like to throw dinner parties sometimes. When I feel motivated and my nails are not freshly painted. I was partying hard one week and by the time the weekend rolled around, I just couldn't get my flat caboose off the sofa. And it just got flatter but I didn't care. It was Friday night, I felt like a turnip and I don't like to hang with guido's and BnT, so it was an acceptable night to stay in and do absolutely nothing. I may have also been in a very bad humor so it was better that I stayed in than bring out my sass. I invited a friend over to come have dinner with me at my house, and then we spoke with some others, and suddenly a dinner party materialized by noon on Saturday. It was the Saturday before Easter so a roast was in order. A beef roast. Not chicken. Cause chicken in any other form other than nuggets or fingers is gross. And it's also not good when not deep fried and slathered in honey mustard. And I don't like touching raw chicken skin because it's all human skin-esq looking and raw poultry kinda smells rank also. I went to Whole Foods to pick up some meat and holy shit, I was nearly stampeded by the chosen people looking for kosher briskets. I give mad respek to the chosen people because they built the pyramids. Good thing I don't cook my own brisket and I didn't particularly feel the need to buy kosher meat since I'm a good Presbyterian. And Presbyterians are omnivores. Yup. That's a fact.We especially enjoy bacon.

Anyways...I made this Beef Bottom Round (this was the only piece of meat left) and served it with the fantastic herby sauce type thing.

Recipe to come

Weekend Eats

It's Here! 540 calories of deliciousness. I can't wait to try it this weekend. This is going to be epic. Fried chicken breasts, bacon AND cheese! Shake Shack is out and KFC is back in!

Here is a very interesting article. I gained about 5 pounds just reading it.
http://dealbreaker.com/2010/04/first-kfc-double-down-challenge-of-the-season-under-way/

I Love Bottled Water

Everyone in New York City universally loves Fresh Direct. I would probably be dead if not for the bi-weekly beverage delivery from  freshD. It is also a universally known fact that all the cool New Yorkers only drink expensive bottled water from Fiji. Sometimes water from France is an acceptable substitute. The further away it comes from, the better it is. Because it will be that much more expensive and New Yorkers like to pretend that they are ballers. You can immediately identify a cool New Yorker by the water they drink. When you are next hosting your ugly sweater party and someone asks if you have any artesian water from Fiji or any French mineral water, you will immediately want to tell them how awesome they are and facebook friend them. It would be wise to get their BBM pin and twitter account so that you can have multiple methods of staying in touch with such a cool person. This way you can host another awesome party together with awesome people, drinking awesome shooters, listening to awesome music, and then just sit around and soak up each other’s awesomeness. However, if at your party, someone asks for “New York’s finest” meaning dirty tap water or filtered Brita water, they are either from out of town or the wrong type of New Yorker. Either way, you will immediately want to throw them out of your party. This is acceptable social behavior because this is New York and it is just standard procedure to cut off all ties immediately with anybody uncool or has bad taste.

Derelict Chef Hates Foodies

In the past couple months, jillion's of people have laboriously asked why I do not cook more and if I do not cook, what do I eat? Some have even demanded I cook for them. Infidels! My food consumption, especially my act of cooking should be nobody's concern. The moment I mention I went to culinary school, I love how people try to make small talk by mentioning that they are also a foodie. "Also"? BTW, I really hate the word foodie and people who use it like it's a legit adjective to describe themselves. Foodie is NOT a real word! And honestly, is there anyone who isn't a foodie? Is there anyone in this world who doesn't like food? Even anorexic girls love food. I also love how they compare their inferior preferences to my supercalifragilisticexpialidocious tastes. So what do I eat? Whatever they have at the restaurant! Honestly, I'm not sure cause I've been eating out every day so all the tastes are blending in with one another and forming this extreme umami taste on the buds these days. I might as well eat some MSG. Yes, it gets exhausting, but until some enginerd invents disposable pots and pans, I may continue this odd urban behavior called eating out. I am a rogue chef! YES! I feel like I have street cred or something now! I do love cooking, but ever since the new job, I've had barely enough time to squeeze in the partying, let alone the sleep. So cooking has taken the backseat and completely abandoned. I shall cook something spectacular this weekend and post another blog. But seriously, unless I'm eating out, I really don't eat anything. Below is a picture of today's lunch...

Hugs and Kisses,

Chez Jamie

Eating out can be a bore sometime. Many restaurants in NYC are great, but I have yet to come across a place that's so amazing I'd like to eat there every day. Maybe I wouldn't mind going to Soto everyday for my daily fix of Uni orgy, but otherwise...nothing else comes to mind. Actually, I could eat at Fette Sau everyday, but its geographic location is not ideal. Probably a good thing else I'd be a heifer. So where do I go when eating out gets boring? Chez Jamie of course. It's really the only place to get delicious food in this city. Definitely not low cal food, but who watches their weight and fat intake these days. Weight watching is for suckers. Eating alone is not much fun, so I invited some people over for dinner and did some cooking. I live on compliments and compliments I got! This was overall a pretty successful dinner but maybe a little too aggressive cause I was a zombie the next couple days. I don't have pictures of everything cause I think I was busy stuffing my face. And I may have been a bit tipsy and forgot. I get tipsy often. And when I'm tipsy, I get very forgetful.

Menu

Roasted Veggie Canape

Roasted Red Pepper and Feta Cheese Dip with Crudites

Spinach and Artichoke Dip

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Pretty Salad with Tarragon Vinaigrette

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Lemon Rosemary Cream Pasta

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Black Sea Bass with Herb Butter Sauce

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Cupcakes

Roasted Veggie Canape

 

MAKES 24-30

INGREDIENTS:

1 red bell pepper, chopped very fine

1 red onion, chopped very fine

2/3 eggplant, chopped very fine

4 garlic cloves, crushed

20 basil leaves, chopped

Thyme

Salt, pepper and EVOO

PREPARATION:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Chop pepper, eggplant, onion and garlic. Spread out the veggies on a baking sheet. I like to use a silpat so things don't stick and it makes the cleaning process easier. Add as much thyme as you want, some salt and pepper and drizzle with about 2-3 tablespoons of EVOO. Give the whole thing a good stir and pop it into the oven for about an hour. After about 30 minutes, give it a little stir so the little diced up veggies don't burn. Once its done, put the roasted veggies in a bowl. Add the basil right before serving. 

Pretty Salad with Tarragon Vinaigrette

I was going to serve this with a poached egg instead of a hard boiled one, but I got lazy. It is more fun with a poached egg. The salad is prettier when you add more vibrant colors, but it is winter and this is the US. It's not as easy for a commoner to find super fresh and beautiful produce as it is in France. So I made do with what was available.

INGREDIENTS:

Green cauliflower

Purple cauliflower

Haricot verts

Mini carrots

Radish

Mache

Eggs

DRESSING:

Tons of tarragon

Dijon mustard

Sherry Vinegar

1 hard boiled egg

Salt, pepper, sugar, EVOO

PREPARATION:

Blend all the dressing ingredients in a blender so it's a beautiful silky green texture. Blanch the carros, cauliflower and the haricot verts all separately. Mandolin the radishes. Arrange everything on a plate, add the hard boiled egg (preferably poached, but whatever works), then drizzle with the dressing and serve immediately.

Black Sea Bass with Jamie's Signature Herb Butter Sauce
This was a bit annoying and super time consuming. I asked the fish monger to fillet the thing, but he just gutted it and didn't even scale it completely so I had to come home and perform surgery on it with my delicate little genius hands that move with grace and dexterity like that of a plastic surgeons. I've made this a couple times now and I think I've perfected the recipe.

FOR 6

INGREDIENTS:
Sea bass or some other soft, delicate and flaky fish
5 tomatoes, confited
1 bundle of chervil, chopped
1 bundle of tarragon, chopped
1 bundle of chives, chopped
2 shallots, chopped very fine
1/3 cup of dry white wine
1/2 cup of fish stock, preferably homemade
3 sticks of butter, very cold and cut into small cubes
Tumeric powder
Salt and white pepper

PREPARATION:
This is basically a butter sauce with herbs and such added to it at the very end. Confit the shallots in some butter. Add the fish stock and let reduce till almost all the liquid is gone. Add wine and reduce the liquid half way. Add a couple shakes of tumeric. This will give it the vibrant yellow color. Put the heat on low and slowly, add the cubes of butter using a wisk. Emulsify the butter into the rest of the mixture so that it creates a thick sauce. Don't ever let the sauce come to a boil or the butter will separate and you'll end up with an oily mess. Once all the butter is incorporated, add the confited tomatoes, and all the herbs. Give it a good wisk and set aside while you cook the fish. Once the fish is ready, serve immediately with a generous amount of sauce.

Some of these techniques are a bit tricky and I'm being a little lazy and not writing every little detail. Cause I'm not even sure if people are reading this. But if you have questions, email me.

The Best Cereal Ever. Try It!

I haven't had cereal in a really long time. It just seems too healthy. Besides, I only eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Reese's Peanut Butter Puffs and I got sick of them and didn't have any other substitute. But I found this great cereal at Whole Foods the other day. And I'm addicted! Puffins brand Peanut Butter cereal. It's a mixture of Corn Pops, Captain Crunch and Peanut Puffs packaged into a size just slightly smaller than Shredded Wheat to form the perfectly scrumptious bite size cereal. On a more educational note, did you know that they eat Puffins in Iceland? I once saw a documentary on this on either the travel channel or Nat G. Probably Travel Channel. It was pretty sick. But I enjoy the unctuous flavor of diseased duck liver. So who am I to judge.

Tasteless Turned Tasteful

Zucchini and eggplant. These two words are synonymous to tomatoes in my discriminating mind. They plague me with tastelessness and torment me with odd textures reminiscent of old people food. However, the French have found a brilliant way to combine these uncanny ingredients to create a supernatural dish they call ratatouille. Ratatouille is pretty much the only way to make me eat all three of my least favorite ingredients, the zucchini, eggplant and the tomato. But the combination of these three ingredients with the addition of red bell peppers and onions creates a melt in your mouth sort of provencal dish I'd like to eat everyday. I'd rather not make it everyday because it's labor intensive and requires a little too much tender love and care I can give in these chaotic times. So here's a little secret. You just make a very huge batch and reheat it everytime you feel the urge.

Ratatouille

FOR 8-10

INGREDIENTS:

2 onions

2 large red bell peppers

2 zucchinis

1 eggplant

5 tomatoes

5 garlic cloves, crushed

Thyme

Salt, sugar and freshly ground pepper

PREPARATION:

Roughly chop all veggies in the same size. Heat some EVOO in a large pot and saute onions and garlic without browning. Add chopped tomatoes and thyme and let stew. In another saute pan, add more oil and cook the peppers. About 10 minutes. Add peppers to the tomato and onion mixture. Clean the pot and repeat with eggplant and then zucchini. Season with salt and pepper and a little bit of sugar. The sugar adds a little something i feel.

Babbo's Basic Tomato Sauce

Tomatoes are definitely on the top of my least favorites list. Probably cause it's really good for your body with all the lycopene and riboflavin. But I do love ketchup. So tomatoes can't be all that awful, right? Cooked tomatoes are definitely bearable. I like to focus my cooking on French food most of the time because in my opinion, it's by far superior to Italian with all the fun cream and butter sauces. And the French also invented foie gras. Sick bastards. I give them mad respek for their deranged culinary methods. Anyways, the other day I thought I'd stop watching reruns of the Family Guy and do something productive like reading. So I stopped by the nearest Barnes&Noble, which is still far, like 2 metro stops far. And I took myself straight to the cookbook section and bought the first book with the most pictures that made my mouth water. Pictures are key. Cookbooks without pictures for every recipe should be burned. But what do I know. I'm just a humble amateur blogger. My opinions don't really matter.

So I bought the Babbo cookbook and went right to work. I had to make another trip out to Whole Foods once I got home, which was pretty annoying but I did it. Picked up the ingredients and lugged it home on the metro. I like to call the subway, metro. It sounds more chic. And I like chic. I followed the instructions almost exactly for the basic tomato sauce on page 220 of the book and the taste was superb. Although, next time, I might get crazy and puree the chunky sauce with a hand mixer. Below is the picture of the sauce. I'm not the best dried pasta cooker so just admire the sauce.

Babbo's Basic Tomato Sauce

Once I learn to improv on tomatoes, I'll post an original recipe. I'm not a huge fan of Mario Batali only cause there's no reason for any high caliber chef to be that rotund unless they're not really working, but this sauce was pretty delish. I'd probably give Babbo the three Michelin star rating Mario thought he was entitled to way back yonder with just this tomato sauce alone. After all, he looks like the Michelin guy. He deserves the three stars.

MAKES A LOT

INGREDIENTS:

1 onion, chopped fine

1/2 carrot, shredded very fine

4 cloves of garlic, chopped fine

2 28oz. canned whole peeled tomatoes (I like San Marzano)

Fresh Thyme

Salt and freshly ground pepper

PREPARATION:

Heat some EVOO in a pan. Add garlic and onions and saute until very soft. Add carrots. Saute about 5 minutes. Crush the tomatoes with your hands. Then add tyme and all the tomatoes to the pot/pan. Bring to a boil and then simmer till you get a rich thick consistency. Season with salt and pepper to taste. I actually added a little bit of sugar because I like my savory food a little bit sugary. I simmered for about an hour.

Carbicide Happens to Good People

The pretty princess had a friend, the ogre, coming over for dinner on new years eve. The ogre only thought the princess was a debaucherous, champagne drinking party animal so she wanted to impress him with her domestic goddessness. The princess decided to serve her infamous lemon rosemary cream pasta and slaved over this delicious meal all day. The ogre came pounding on the door and as she told him the menu, he freaked out. He didn't eat carbs! But whatever, the princess still plated and once the ogre tasted the pasta, he couldn't stop eating. He ate the whole vat with extra cream sauce. The ogre then fell into a deep and troubled sleep from the carbicide he had just committed. The princess couldn't give him a true loves kiss to wake him from his deep slumber. I mean...he was an ogre! The princess had to think of her reputation. So while contemplating on ways to wake him, the princess fell asleep too! But then she was wakened by the ogre's thunderous snore. The pretty pretty princess got up, went over and slapped the ogre silly until he woke up. They both changed into their fat pants and lived happily ever after.

Lemon Rosemary Cream Pasta

The combination of flavors may sound bizarre but it's actually quite orgasmic. Take that Chef Boyardee! When seasoned just right, you should be able to taste just a hint of sour lemon and some very small hints of umami. I usually don't eat carbs because it makes me fat but I wanted to start out 2010 with extreme gluttony. So bon appetite and Happy Happy New Years! Better picture to come...

FOR 4 (2 for hogs)

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 box of Dried Linguini

Microplaned zest of 2 lemons

Big thick slices of 2 lemon peels

Big thick slices of 1 orange peel

Juice of 1 lemon

2 cups Low sodium chicken stock

2 pints of heavy heavy cream

Lots of rosemary, chopped

1 cup parmesan cheese

PREPARATION:

Bring out your fat pants. Set aside. Blanch the thick lemon and orange peels. 2 or 3 times depending on your level of motivation. Add chicken stock with blanched peels and reduce on high heat for about 5 minutes. Remove the peels from the stock and reduce till you have about 1/2 cup. Add the 2 pints of cream and reduce till you have slightly more than a pint of liquid left. Cook the linguini according to package directions till al dente. While the pasta is cooking, add the rosemary, lemon zest, lemon juice and cheese. Stir in the pasta immediately and serve even more immediately. If there seems to be too much sauce, don't worry. My pasta is always swimming in the sauce and it's better that way cause the noodles soak everything up. This version of the sauce is going to be pretty thick. If you're a puss and calorie count, then you can use less cream and you don't need to reduce it cause the cheese will bind everything together anyways. But you probably wouldn't be reading this blog if you calorie count...