Still hard at work. Don't have much to write about. So I'll pass the buck to a worthier author, to give you something to think about while I'm eating nothing but takeout.

It is these comparitively cheap and private expeditions that substantiate our existence and batten our lives -- as, where a vine touches the earth in its undulating course, it puts forth roots and thickens its stock. Our employment generally is tinkering, mending the old worn-out teapot of society. Our stock in trade is solder. Better for me, says my genius, to go cranberrying this afternoon for the Vaccinium oxycoccus in Gowing's Swamp, to get but a pocketful and learn its peculiar flavor -- aye, and the flavor of Gowing's Swamp and of life in New England -- than to go consul to Liverpool and get I don't know how many thousand dollars for it, with no such flavor. Many of our days should be spent, not in vain expectations and lying on our oars, but in carrying out deliberately and faithfully the hundred little purposes which every man's genius must have suggested to him. Let not your life be wholly without an object, though it be only to ascertain the flavor of a cranberry, for it will not be only the quality of an insignificant berry that you will have tasted, but the flavor of your life to that extent, and it will be such a sauce as no wealth can buy.

- Henry David Thoreau, Wild Fruits (1859), excerpted in Choice Cuts: A Savory Selection of Food Writing from Around the World and Throughout History (Mark Kurlansky ed.), at 319, 320-21 (Ballantine 2002).

Good advice for all of us, particularly New York City lawyers.

Posted by jeremy at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In case you couldn't tell from my last post, I've been working pretty hard lately. I spent 30 of the past 36 hours in the office, and what I've eaten there isn't worth inconveniencing the electrons necessary to describe it to you.

Which is not the worst situation imaginable, because it gives me an opportunity to remind myself and my readers that when I'm not eating, I'm still a lawyer. And today the Supreme Court heard among the most important arguments it's heard in maybe 50 years. You can get the Readers' Digest version from Dahlia Litwick at Slate (she's one of the better non-academic legal commentators around, by my lights). For a more complete picture of the cases, you can get the briefs and lower court decisions from Findlaw (there are two cases involved, Rumsfeld v. Padilla and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld).

The reason these cases are important is because of the precedent being relied on in the arguments, which comes from World War II. The key case, Ex Parte Quirin, involved a bunch of Nazi spies who were tried before a military tribunal without the protections afforded to criminal defendants under the Constitution. The catch is, one of these Nazis -- a man named Haupt -- claimed to be a naturalized American citizen. This was in 1942. The Nazis were starting to get pretty good at killing Americans on the battlefields of Europe, and FDR and J. Edgar Hoover were going to make an example of these men. And the Supreme Court, in a moment of historic cowardice, caved to the Executive's will, saying:

Citizenship in the United States of an enemy belligerent does not relieve him from the consequences of a belligerency which is unlawful because in violation of the law of war. Citizens who associate themselves with the military arm of the enemy government, and with its aid, guidance and direction enter this country bent on hostile acts are enemy belligerents within the meaning of the Hague Convention and the law of war.... We conclude that the Fifth and Sixth Amendments did not restrict whatever authority was conferred by the Constitution to try offenses against the law of war by military commission, and that petitioners, charged with such an offense not required to be tried by jury at common law, were lawfully placed on trial by the Commission without a jury.

Ex Parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1, 37-38, 45 (1942) (internal citation omitted). (You can read more about the real-life travesty of Quirin here. In fact, the quote above was published months after Haupt and his co-petitioners were already dead.) So the man known to history as Petitioner Haupt, the American Nazi, the John Walker Lindh of the Third Reich, never saw an American courtroom. A military tribunal convened under orders of the President tried and convicted him, and he went to the electric chair. And that, as they say, was that.

Until today. Padilla and Hamdi, unlike Haupt, haven't had a military tribunal. Padilla at least hasn't aligned himself with any government against whom the United States has declared war. They have barely had access to counsel. They've been held without bail, without charges, with hardly any contact with the outside world, for about two years apiece. The only basis for their imprisonment is that the President has decided they're out to hurt Americans. Frankly, the President is probably right. But he's never had to prove it to anybody, not even a military tribunal. And the question in these cases is whether he should even have to bother.

Today, in America, even a person who the whole world agrees should be locked up gets a chance to stand up and try to convince the world it's wrong. Depending on how the Supreme Court rules on the cases it heard today, that may not be true much longer. Fifty years from now, the "war on terror" -- like the war on fascism -- will be a chapter in a history book, but there will be some new menace threatening whatever way of life we've settled into by then. Maybe you'll have voted for the President who's in office then, and maybe not. But a court is going to be citing the opinions the Supreme Court writes in these two cases to decide whether the President can unilaterally, indefinitely imprison the grandchild of somebody who is alive today. The prisoner (or, in the genteel world of appellate argument, the "detainee") will likely be a genuinely dangerous individual who deserves incarceration. But maybe he (or she) will just be someone who strongly disagrees with the President's policies -- say, foreign policies in a time of war -- and has spoken out against them.

These cases aren't about terrorists. They aren't about dirty bombs or sleeper cells or enemy combatants. They're about law, plain and simple. Either there is law or there isn't. If the President can lock you up because he thinks it's a good idea, there just isn't any law. Give Padilla and Hamdi their day in court, let them try to persuade us they deserve their freedom, then prove them wrong. They'll most likely end up in stir anyway. But it will be because the person trying to put them there proved to a disinterested party that that's where they belong.

I went to law school with some astonishingly smart and genuinely good people, a few of whom are who are now clerking for the Justices that will be deciding these cases. Most if not all of them are married or engaged. I hope that tonight, they're thinking of the grandchildren they'll have someday.

Posted by jeremy at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

We work. We live in this fantastic city ... but it costs so much to live in this fantastic city, so we have to work. We work late; we work weekends. We forget to enjoy our fantastic city, because we're too busy working. We work so hard to live in our city that we need to get away, if only for a little while. Because we live in the city, we have to work hard enough to save enough to leave the city. Just for a little while; we work to get away from work.

Remember Rome? Remember when we got away from our city, for a little while, and enjoyed someone else's? Remember walking the streets at night, past ancient ruins and their more modern similacra, looking for a place to get a glass of wine or a late dinner? Remember the abbachio arrosto at La Campana, the oldest restaurant in the Eternal City, just north of the Piazza Navona? Remeber thinking it was the most perfect piece of meat we'd ever tasted?

Remember how I dragged you, starving, through so many narrow streets, past so many crowded pizzerias, in search of three words in the window that would tell me it was safe to enter? Remember how I raced to snap a photo of our wood-oven pizza before you tore into it with your knife and fork? Remember the difference between that pizza and every other pizza you've ever eaten?

Remember Rome? Remember Florence? Remember the Osteria in Santa Croce with three different names, just up the block from Vivoli (remember the gelato?), where we worked our way up to an enormous bistecca alla fiorentina with a plate of tuscan crostini -- smooth, tender white beans; creamy liver paste; rich, salty lardo? Remember the first time you dipped cantuccini into a glass of vin santo?

Someday we'll go back. Someday we'll summon up those memories and strike out to make new ones. Until then, darling, we work.

Posted by jeremy at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Everyone must read this op-ed piece in today's New York Times. And do exactly what it says.

Posted by jeremy at 01:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Iron Chef America, which premiered tonight on the Food Network, is a mistake. I love the original Iron Chef series, but Iron Chef America is the sequel you wish they never made. The Food Network has missed the point of the original entirely.

Iron Chef is not about food. It's about fetish.

What makes Iron Chef entertaining is its other-ness. In the best and worst meanings of the word, it is Oriental. We watch it, not to enjoy the spectacle of cooking, but for the voyeuristic thrill of observing an utterly foreign culture from the safety of our living rooms. We watch it for sequined epaulets and ruffled lace cuffs; for a giggling woman-child's description of what a meal is doing inside her mouth; for a chef who will shave his head to prove a point that nobody seems to be arguing with him about. We are hypnotized by stiff-backed bows and politeness in victory, by puns that don't hurt us so much because they originated in another language, by a misplaced sportscaster in a silver bow tie. We revel in the double-irony of those who take their theatricized combat seriously. The food's main purpose is to trigger an otherworldly ballet of preparation: ritual slaughter, fanciful knifework, seafood desserts. It is only when the bizzarre, sometimes grotesque dishes are presented for tasting that we finally connect in any recognizable way to what we have witnessed. The outlandish weirdness of it all ultimately resolves itself in the most universal of human experiences: a meal.

The popularity of Iron Chef in this country is a silent testament to the chauvinism of American leisure. It thrives on the same smug sense of cultural superiority that made Lost in Translation one of the most popular films of 2003. But we cannot possibly admit to ourselves that this is what entertains us about it. So long as it mimics formal details like a know-it-all commentator, a stoveside correspondent radioing in updates, and a stern-jawed "chairman" presiding meaninglessly over the fray, many Iron Chef fans will never understand why Iron Chef America does not provide them with the guilty pleasures of its forebear.

That's why the best part of tonight's broadcast was an Orbit chewing-gum commercial, in which a female Asian kickboxer hurled an incomprehensible obscenity at her blonde caucasian adversary, scandalizing everybody but the oblivious target of her insult.

News Flash, Iron Chef lovers: we're the blonde.

Posted by jeremy at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (1)

Remember the story about the porcupine who turned into a shad? Allow me to illustrate the point. This is a shad filet boned by the expert fishmongers at Citarella:

This is what they had to do to the poor creature to get all its bones out:

Now you know why I don't buy shad whole. Incidentally, the meat of shad is not nearly as interesting as its roe. As I've said before it's essentially a giant herring: oily, fishy, relatively firm-fleshed. If you can get it to hold together in a pan, you can treat it like mackerel or even catfish. Just keep the windows open; you don't want this smell lingering in your home.

The cooked shad fillet isn't bad, but it isn't that great either. I'm thinking maybe the best thing to do with this fish is pickle it, like the herring of Scandanavia or Zabar's. Sounds like a project...

Posted by jeremy at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I told you that when spring arrived in New York you'd see a shad recipe here. Well we've had a string of days breaking the 70-degree barrier, so I guess it's about time. This morning I made a real Hudson Valley breakfast, with shad-roe scrambled eggs and a bacon-wrapped shad roe.

It all started with a single shad roe from Citarella.

The whole roe actually consists of two egg sacs connected by blood vessels and membranes, which must be cut away. Once that's done, you have two options: open the roe sac or leave it whole. The only conceivable reason for opening it, in my view, is to add it to scrambled eggs -- the egg grains within become tough and gritty if exposed to direct heat. That's why most recipes call for broiling or pan-frying a whole shad roe, often dredged in flour.

I decided to try it both ways. First, I wrapped one of the roe sacs in about five slices of Niman Ranch thick-cut bacon. When wrapping, it's a good idea to make sure the strips overlap and all the seams are on the same side of the roe, so it will hold together in the pan and the roe sac itself won't come into direct contact with the hot surface (which could cause it to scorch or split open). Place the bacon-wrapped roe seam-side down in a dry skillet on medium-low heat. It is very important to control the temperature; if the roe is overcooked it dries out and takes on a sandy texture as the egg grains within solidify. Just let the roe cook until the bacon on the underside appears to be cooked through and crisp on the outside (the seams should hold together when you tip it to the side with a spatula to check for doneness). Repeat on the other side, and remove the roe from heat as soon as the bacon is cooked through on the second side. The whole process will take 15 to 20 minutes.

When done, the roe should still be faintly red at the very center, and its texture will be creamy and smooth.

The flavor of shad roe is more calf's liver than caviar: bloody, fatty, with a strong hit of metallic iron flavor. That's why it pairs so well with bacon and onions; it's the liver of the sea (well, technically, the liver of the river; but that just sounds silly).

I sauteed some onions in the bacon drippings and then added three eggs scrambled with the other half of my shad roe, broken up into pieces, to complete another traditional shad roe dish. I don't believe I was as successful with this preparation; I found it difficult to gauge the proper temperature and I believe I overcooked the roe. The flavor of iron and fish fat was still present, but the texture was off. Better luck next time I guess. The shad season still has over a month to go.

Posted by jeremy at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I read the eggs chapter of Harold McGee's excellent On Food and Cooking on the train on the way upstate to visit Lisa Friday evening. I've been thinking about eggs all weekend. Lisa and I went hiking in the Catskills yesterday, and on the way home I nearly killed us swerving into a roadside farmers' market, hoping to find farm-fresh eggs. I emerged both alive and successful, so that today I may offer you this Soft-Boiled Egg Cake.

This cake is not made with soft-boiled eggs; it's something of a gag made to resemble its namesake dish. I made two small angel food cakes, hollowed them out, filled them with warm lemon curd, and covered them with whipped cream (well, actually, leftover CoolWhip from a long-forgotten strawberry shortcake experiment, but you get the idea). When you cut it open the lemon curd runs out like the gooey yolk of a soft-boiled egg.

You can use store-bought angel food cake for this, but I originally conceived of the idea as a way to avoid the waste that is typical of recipes that call for only half of a separated egg. The angel food uses the egg whites, while the lemon curd takes care of the yolks.

Recipe: Soft-Boiled Egg Cake

Ingredients:

For the angel-food cake:

• 4 egg whites
  
• 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
  
• 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
  
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
  
• 1/3 cup cake flour
  
• pinch salt

For the lemon curd:

• 4 egg yolks
  
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
  
• zest and juice of 2 lemons
  
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
  
• pinch salt

For the "shell":

• 1/2 cup whipped cream (or, if you must, CoolWhip)

In a clean mixing bowl, whisk the egg whites together with the cream of tartar and vanilla extract until foamy. Add half of the confectioners sugar to the egg whites in stages while whisking. Continue whisking until medium peaks form.

Sift the cake flour with the rest of the confectioner's sugar and the salt. Fold the dry ingredients into the egg whites in stages. Pour the batter into small cake molds and bake in a 350 degree oven until a skewer comes out clean; about 15-20 minutes. Cool completely before unmolding.

For the lemon curd, whisk together the egg yolks with the sugar and salt until creamy. Add the lemon zest and juice and cook over a double-boiler until the mixture just starts to thicken. Whisk the butter in by tablespoons over the double-boiler, and continue whisking until the curd thickens to your liking.

Cut the centers out of two angel food cakes and stack them with their wide ends touching. Cover the outside of the cakes, except the top, with the whipped cream, and smooth it out evenly. Pour the warm lemon curd into the top of the cake, cover the hole with the plugs of cake you cut out of the centers, and smooth whipped cream over the top.

When you cut into this cake, if the lemon curd is still warm it will run out onto the plate like a soft-boiled egg yolk. If the lemon curd is chilled, it will simply sit there, but the gimmick is only slightly less amusing. Enjoy.

P.S. - Thanks to Renee at Shiokadelicious for hosting this event.

Posted by jeremy at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (1)

Lisa has explained to me that no authentic Polish Easter table is complete without a green bean casserole. I have no basis to dispute her contention, so I dutifully prepared this traditional holiday dish.

There are those who claim that the green bean casserole was first created in the Campbell's Soup test kitchens in 1955. I can only assume, given Lisa's insistence on the dish's inclusion in our Easter dinner, that this attribution is a lie spun by power brokers of the McCarthy Era in an effort to marginalize the national achievements of a Soviet Bloc puppet state. Campbell's, I surmise, is either: (a) the arm of the military-industrial complex charged with perpetuating this propaganda; or (b) a stooge of the Unamerican Activities Committee which -- having built fifty years of goodwill on a lie -- cannot even today admit the truth.

My own theory is that the green bean casserole was actually invented by Sigismund Augustus, the legendary king of Poland and Lithuania, who helped spread Renaissance thought and culture among the Slavic Peoples from the Carpathians to the Baltic Sea.

Posted by jeremy at 01:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Ingredients:

• 1 head savoy cabbage
• 3/4 lbs. ground beef
• 3/4 lbs. ground pork
• 3/4 lbs. ground veal
• 2 cups cooked white rice (cooled to refrigerator temperature if you will not be cooking the stuffed cabbage immediately after mixing the filling)
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 29-oz cans Hunt's Tomato Sauce
• 1 tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
• Salt, Pepper, and Sugar to taste

	After removing the outer leaves, core the cabbage by cutting around the stem at an angle with a paring knife. Remove as much of the tough white flesh of the core as possible without damaging the inner leaves.
	Place the whole cabbage, stem side down, into a pot of gently boiling salted water.
	As the outer leaves loosen, pull them away from the head and rinse them under cold running water to stop the cooking. You may need a paring knife to cut the base of the inner leaves off what's left of the core. Give the inner leaves a little more time to soften in the pot before rinsing them. You may want to use a rubber glove; the leaves and water will be very hot. Continue this process until you have separated all but the smallest leaves; it should take about 15 minutes.
	When the leaves are cooled, cut away the ridged part of the rib running down the center of the leaf, to make it roughly the same thickness as the rest of the leaf. This will make the leaf less rigid and easier to stuff. (Incidentally, the savoy cabbage is preferable to green cabbage precisely because its leaves are thinner, flatter, and less rigid).

Mix together the ground meat, rice, diced onion, Worcestershire sauce, and 1/4 cup of the tomato sauce. This will be the filling for the cabbage; keep it in the refrigerator unless you are ready to stuff and cook the cabbage immediately.

	Place a trimmed leaf on a cutting board with the stem end facing away from you. Place a handful of the meat filling in a ball on the near end of the leaf.
	Roll the near end of the leaf over the filling and toward the stem end, stopping when the filling is halfway covered.
	Fold the sides of the leaf over the filling, tucking any excess under the side flaps.
	Continue rolling the filling toward the stem end, holding the side flaps closed as you roll.
	Let the cabbage roll rest on the stem end. It should hold together on its own as long as it's resting on a flat surface.
	Use a spatula or other flat utensil to transfer the golumpki to an ovenproof pot with a lid. Season the remaining tomato sauce with salt, pepper, and sugar, and pour it over the golumpki. Cover the pot and place it in a 250-degree oven for three to four hours.
	When the golumpki are finished, you can serve them immediately. However, they benefit from an overnight stay in the refrigerator, where the flavors can come together. Chill them quickly by refrigerating them in a shallow dish, then reheat them before service in a 350 degree oven.

Posted by jeremy at 08:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)

On the evening of Good Friday, I make my way East on St. Marks Place, past the bong-sellers and piercing dens that prey on NYU freshmen. It's a different neighborhood than when I came to New York as a college freshman nine years ago. The East Village, like the rest of Manhattan, is giving in to serial Starbuckses and two-thousand-dollar studio apartments. But I know there are vestiges of an older New York just around this corner.

On First and Second Avenues, in the blocks around St. Marks, a proud immigrant community has left a footprint on the path to Brighton Beach. This is, for lack of a better name, Little Little Odessa, a faint echo of the Slavic outpost that once thrived here and has since relocated to Brooklyn and beyond. The neighborhood is dominated by Ukrainians, but Poles and Slovaks have a claim to it as well. Tonight is the night to shop for Easter dinner, and the tri-state area's slavic peoples are converging on these bleak streets to remember what it means to be their parents' children.

Lisa is half-Polish, and to her Easter means fresh kielbasa. Banish from your mind all associations with Hillshire Farm. Kielbasa is a thick pork and garlic sausage that is usually hot-smoked before consumption. For Easter, Polish families get the sausage prior to smoking, and braise it with sauerkraut and spices. Lisa has happily participated in my family's holiday traditions, so I am returning the favor. I am breaking the Passover fast to make her an Easter dinner that, hopefully, will remind her of home.

On Second Avenue between St. Marks and 9th lies Julian Baczynsky's East Village Meat Market. The fresh kielbasa pictured above sits out on the counter; in a few minutes it will be gone -- purchased by a Polish mother -- and replaced with fresh links. I get one length of "kobasy" and a jar of "kapusta" (Polish sauerkraut). I pass over the stacks of stuffed cabbage and the rows of babkas that are being carted in from an off-site bakery and dusted with powdered sugar right in front of my eyes -- I'll be making my own, thank you.

On to First Avenue between St. Marks and 7th, and the Kurowycky Meat Products store. Martha Stewart Living Magazine has put Kurowycky's kielbasa on its April calendar, and there's a line out the door. But I'm patient, and the crowd is friendly. In front of me, a man in his late forties with a thick Long Island accent is going over the holiday schedule with his two young daughters. When his turn comes up, he leans over to the toe-headed seventeen-year old behind the deli counter and starts placing his order in fluid Ukrainian. The boy behind the counter responds in kind. I wonder if the two girls understand the exchange; my guess is they probably don't.

I leave Kurowycky's with a length of fresh kielbasa and a box of "chrusciki": deep-fried "angel's wing" cookies dusted in powdered sugar. Most of the other patrons are ordering smoked meats -- especially hams, for which Kurowycky claims to be famous. But I've got all I need for a classic Easter dish, plus a little extra for a comparative taste test. If I'm going to make this pilgrimage year after year, I'd like to know where to get the best kobasy on the block.

On bag design, I think Baczynsky has Kurowycky beat hands down. And Baczynsky's fresh kobasy definitely looks fresher. The seasoning of both sausages is very similar: palate-crushing amounts of garlic and salt. Both are stuffed in natural casings. The difference here appears to be in the grind. Baczynsky's kobasy is coarser, studded with chunks of pork the size of cherries. Kurowycky's sausage, aside from being more finely ground, seems to have a higher proportion of fat to lean meat than Baczynsky's. This makes for a smoother, tastier sausage. I think from now on I'll be braving the lines on First Avenue.

But this year, both sausages made it into the pot, along with a jar of sauerkraut (drained and rinsed), some peppercorns, juniper berries and cloves, a handful of caraway seeds, and a bay leaf. I browned the sausages in butter first, then cut them into chunks and braised them on low heat with the other ingredients for a couple of hours. I omitted the apple juice, chicken broth, and soup vegetables that some recipes call for -- from what Lisa tells me they don't belong on her Easter table.

I've never been to a real Polish Easter dinner, so I don't know if my cooking is true to the methods of Polish grandmothers who still truck into the East Village on Good Friday. But Lisa loved the end result, so as far as I can tell I'm doing my part to help the traditions of her forbears maintain a foothold in Manhattan.

Posted by jeremy at 05:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

The day after Easter. 15-packs of Peeps are seventy-five cents at Rite-Aid. An egg crate filled with a dozen chocolate-covered marshmallow eggs costs fifty cents. How am I to resist? I'm just a man. So yeah, I bought something like seventeen pounds of candy for about four dollars.

Now I'm just a man with a tummyache.

Posted by jeremy at 03:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's yet another attempt to coax culinary blood from the proverbial stone that is unleavened bread. Matzah brei is the pascal equivalent of french toast. The French term for french toast is pain perdu (and I'll bet you thought it was "toast"). Pain perdu is literally "lost bread": bread that has gone stale but can be brought back to life by a soaking in eggs and milk. Personally I don't know what life matzah ever had in it to be reawakened, but mine are a resourceful people, who never shrink from a challenge.

The great standing debate over matzah brei is whether it should be sweet or savory. Sweet matzah brei is more like french toast, made with vanilla and a little sugar, and sometimes served with maple syrup. Savory french toast is more like a matzah omelet: it's often made with onions and black pepper, and often has a higher proportion of egg (food blogger Amy even makes hers with bacon, which is funny on at least three different levels). My uncle actually splits the difference, putting maple syrup on a savory onion matzah brei (which is gross on at least three different levels).

I prefer the sweet variety, so here's my matzah brei recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 piece matzah
  
• 1 large egg
  
• 3 tbsp milk
  
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  
• pinch sugar
  
• pinch salt
  
• 1 tbsp butter
  

Whisk together the egg, milk, vanilla, sugar, and salt. Break the matzah into bite-sized pieces and put them into the egg mixture to soak, stirring them around to coat them completely. Leave them to soak for about 15 minutes in the fridge.

Melt the butter in a skillet on medium heat. When it begins to bubble, add the matzah and egg mixture and stir constantly until it dries and begins to brown slightly. Remove to a plate and serve with maple syrup.

Posted by jeremy at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The New York Times is reporting that most of the world's sushi -- even in Japan and Manhattan and L.A. -- is made from previously frozen fish. So next time a friend of yours says they know a sushi place with "the freshest" fish, you just walk right in and ask if their fish has ever been frozen. If the answer is no, well, they've violated FDA regulations, and you can report them to the local board of health, embarrasing your friend in the process.

Stupid FDA with its stupid rules. They won't let us eat fresh raw fish, they won't let us eat young raw-milk cheeses, they won't let us drink real Absinthe. I swear one of these days I'm just going to move to a farm and eat only what I've made myself. Stock a pond with fish, raise hogs and sheep and chickens and maybe a cow or two, plant my own vegetables and fruit trees, build a smoke house and a pot still. And I'll open up a big farmstand where you can come and get all the things the FDA doesn't want you to have. Let the feds try to stop me; I'll go Waco on their ass. Someone has to draw a line somewhere.

Posted by jeremy at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

We Jews eat matzah to remind us that our ancestors were slaves in Egypt. We make it into pizza because we're Americans now, and slave food sucks.

Matzah pizza sucks marginally less than matzah alone, so here's a recipe for my observant readers.

Ingredients:

• 1 piece matzah
  
• 1/2 cup marinara sauce (homemade or from a jar, but the latter may not be strictly kosher for Passover)
  
• 2-3 oz. fresh mozzarella
  
• 5-6 fresh basil leaves
  
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  
• salt and pepper
  

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, and place it in a preheated 500-degree oven.

Spread the tomato sauce over the matzah, leaving the edges dry. Tear the mozzarella into pieces and scatter them over the sauce. Place the basil on top of the cheese. Drizzle the pizza with the olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.

Place the matzah pizza on the heated baking sheet and quickly close the oven door. Remove the entire baking sheet when the cheese begins to brown and bubble, or in approximately 8-10 minutes.

The tomato sauce will have softened the center of the matzah, so be careful when transfering to a serving plate. Also be careful when eating: a fork and knife may be necessary.

Posted by jeremy at 01:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

I feel better today about defending Amanda Hesser's restaurant reviews. Turns out she doesn't like Compass, for reasons largely unrelated to the food. I could have told her that months ago, and saved her the trip. It sounds like Katy Sparks hasn't been paying much attention to the front of house since she took over. And today I'm feeling even more confident in my decisions to: (a) never set foot in Compass again, and (b) stand up for Hesser's critical judgment.

Maybe now that a major player like the Times has drawn it to their attention (I suppose I couldn't expect them to care what I think), Sparks and her bosses will start paying more attention to the catastrophe of a dining room they've got on their hands.

Posted by jeremy at 01:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This week marks the celebration of Passover, the Jewish festival of unleavened bread. For eight days, Jews are forbidden to eat any "chametz": grain products that contain leavening such as yeast or baking powder. The dietary laws also reflect an understanding that a natural fermentation process occurs within 18 minutes after water comes into contact with the flour of wheat, barley, spelt, oats, or rye, which can result in a leavening effect. Thus, no food made from these grains is kosher for Passover unless it is baked dry within 18 minutes of the addition of water to grain. During the week of Passover, therefore, Jews forgo normal bread in favor of matzah (also spelled matzo), a flat, crunchy wafer.

Matzah may be the least palatable food ever devised by man. But for a week, we must eat it, or tempt the wrath of God. So I've taken it upon myself to find the least offensive matzah on the market today. I've collected all the varieties of matzah I could find in various supermarkets (21 total) and conducted a taste test to identify the tastiest matzah of them all. (That's Frost Street: Eating all the crap so you don't have to). Before getting into the tasting notes, I should explain the categories of matzah listed below. If you lack patience for all this detail, you can skip right to my recommendations.

Traditional Matzah: This is your garden-variety bread of haste, made from special Passover wheat flour and water (more on what makes the flour special in a second). Sometimes egg is added for flavor and body. The point is that these matzahs are perfectly suitable for the Passover table, and are mass produced so as to be widely available.

Shmura Matzah: This is the pascal equivalent of artisinal bread. The word "shmura" means "watched", a reference to the requirement that a rabbi watch every stage of production, from the harvesting of the wheat, through its threshing and milling, on to mixing and baking, to ensure that no water is introduced before its proper time. Shmura matzah is made in small batches, often of whole grain flour, and typically in hand-formed round wafers (distinguishable from the square shape of mass-produced varieties). Most shmura matzah is made in areas with large Jewish populations, and sold to the local community (the most notable exception being shmura matza made in Israel for sale in the United States). I have included in my tasting only one example of shmura matzah, found in a grocery store.

Designer Matzah: Much of the matzah on the market today is not kosher for Passover. Nine of the 21 matzahs I found fell into this category (six of them carrying the Manischewitz name). These matzahs usually contain added flavors -- some of them are even flavored with malt, a definite Passover no-no due to the fermentation taboo. No observant Jew may eat these products during Passover, and no rational creature would eat them if not compelled by religion or starvation to do so. Their raison d'être escapes me, but my guess is that there are many Jews who like to obey religious imperatives in spirit rather than in letter, so I have evaluated them all the same.

Traditional Matzah

	Streit's This is the grand old matzah of the Lower East Side, manufactured here by five generations of the Streit family for almost a century. Light and neutral in flavor, not too brittle nor too grainy in texture, this is the benchmark against which I'll judge all the other traditional matzahs.
	Manischewitz Sodium Free Manischewitz (pronounced man-uh-SHEV-its) is the Wonder Bread of matzah. You can find it just about anywhere matzah is sold. I was unable to find a kosher-for-Passover Manischewitz matzah that had any sodium; presumably this is the standard product. It is a bit darker than Streit's, with a more burnt, carbony flavor. Some may find this to be a welcome alternative to the utter blandness of other matzahs; I do not. There is also a faint musty aftertaste to the Manischewitz; this may be a result of improper storage, but improper storage may be an inevitable consequence of Manischewitz's massive volume. This comes in a bigger box (16 oz. instead of 10 oz. for most other matzahs).
	Manischewitz Thin Unsalted This is just Manischewitz Sodium Free in a different box. Any difference in thickness or weight is too slight to be detected by my household instruments, although the thin matzahs are about 3 millimeters shorter in both length and width than the regular Manischewitz. This being the case, you'd be a fool to buy the regular Manischewitz over the thin kind; the latter seems to give you more matzahs per ounce at no added cost (compare the costs at your local matzah-monger).
	Manischewitz Thin Tea Matzos Again: new box, same old matzah. The burnt flavor is a bit less prominent here, but maybe that's just because I'm getting used to it. There is one less matzah in this 10-oz. box than in the Thin Unsalted 10-oz. box.
	Yehuda This one's made in Israel, and cheaper than the Manischewitz clones. It has a slightly more toasty flavor than Streit's, and isn't as light, but is more pleasant than the brittle char of Manischewitz. A good value.
	Horowitz Margareten This brand is actually made by Manischewitz, but marketed under a different brand name (I can only imagine the tales of corporate intrigue in the matzah industry that led to this arrangement). This matzah is palpably thicker and denser than the other traditional matzahs, but has an even more insipid taste: utterly lacking in any wheat flavor, devoid of toasty notes, with a faint wood-pulp aftertaste: it's like a piece of cardboard.
	Rakusen's This matzah is noticeably thinner than the other traditional matzahs, but its flavor is inconsistent. Some pieces have appreciable char on them, and others are practically blond. The flavor varies accordingly, from charcoal overtones to a Streit's-like neutrality. One thing to notice: The perforations on this matzah are more evenly spaced than on other matzahs, making it easier to control how they break (or come apart if moistened for a recipe). These matzahs are also smaller than the other brands, resulting in more matzahs per box.
	Goodman's This matzah is distributed, but apparently not manufactured, by Manischewitz (more corporate matzah intrigue). It's texture is very similar to that of Manischewitz: dry, flaky, and brittle. The flavor is more neutral: no strong carbon notes, no pronounced wheat flavor. It's like eating crunchy, mouth-drying air.
	Manischewitz Egg Matzos Finally: taste! Egg matzah usually has some egg yolk powder added to it to add body and flavor. The rabbis seem to think that this is OK, since the egg matzahs I found all bear "Kosher for Passover" seals of approval. Purists might flinch, but I say bring it on. This matzah is smoother and sweeter than the eggless varieties, and dries the mouth less. It tastes almost malty, although there is no malt in it.
	Streit's Egg Matzos The sweet smoothness of egg yolk is less pronounced in Streit's offering than in Manischewitz's, and the texture is drier. I think I prefer Streit's un-egged matzah to this one; it tastes more like what it's supposed to be.
	Horowitz Margareten Egg Matzohs I can detect no egg flavor in this. The egg seems to have drawn Horowitz out of the realm of cardboard and into the domain of un-egged matzahs. And it's more mouth-drying than the other un-egged matzahs, to say nothing of the egg varieties. This matzah is a waste of eggs.

Shmura Matzah

Manischewitz Matzo Schmura I've tasted hand-made shmura matzah from Israel, Brooklyn, and Silver Spring, Maryland. This is not shmura matzah. Shmura matzah is usually about as thin as a CD, blackened and charred in an irregular pattern, with a hearty flavor of whole wheat and a dense texture. Manischewitz may have complied with the religious regulations governing shmura matzah, but its product is like a whole-wheat version of its standard offering. There is a hint of bran flavor, and the matzahs appear speckled with whole-wheat confetti, but the texture is still dry and flaky, the aftertaste still faintly musty. This one isn't worth the extra money.

Designer Matzah

	Manischewitz Unsalted This matzah is made with enriched wheat flour rather than special passover flour, it is therefore not kosher for passover. But that doesn't mean they went to any trouble to make it pleasant. To my palate it's identical to the kosher Manischewitz varieties. The only distinction I can note is that this matzah tastes faintly bitter, but that may just be a reflection of my displeasure at having bought four different boxes of the same damn thing.
	Geffen Traditional Like the previous entry, this is made with enriched wheat flour rather than special passover flour. It has a faint buttery taste up front, which gives way to a funky aftertaste. It has a good balance of toasty flavor, and is not overly brittle. If this was kosher for Passover, I might consider using it at a Seder.
	Geffen Whole Wheat This matzah is shot through with spots of wheat bran; it looks like a redhead at the beach. But this wheat lacks any redeeming qualities: it's harsh, moldy-tasting, and undercooked. The texture is the matzah equivalent of a rubber tire: dense but not crunchy or brittle, essentially leaden.
	Manischewitz Thin Salted This is bizzare. This matzah does not have salt mixed into the dough; the salt is sprinkled on top. Every once in a while you get a grain of salt which wakes up the flavor of the wheat inside, but most of the salt just gets brushed off and sits in the bottom of the box. The salt does add a dimension to the flavor of matzah, and this one is less charred and musty than the other Manischewitz varieties. But you could achieve the same effect by brushing the regular matzah with a little water and sprinkling it with salt.
	Manischewitz Saltine Wow, this tastes kinda like saltines! You know why? It has malt, shortening, and YEAST!!! The most unholy thing you can eat during Passover, and Manischewitz markets it in a matzah. Shandeh! Plus, it's not even a good saltine - not flaky enough, not salty enough, not enough shortening. Double shandeh!
	Manischewitz Savory Garlic Basically the same concept as the Manischewitz Thin Salted, but with garlic salt. Quite a bit of it actually. There's a kitcschy cheap-pizza-parlor appeal to this one, but it's basically the same old dreary Manischewitz matzah. The raw garlic flavor actually accentuates the musty aftertaste, which is bad enough as it is. I guess this might make an interesting matzah pizza.
	Manischewitz Egg & Onion Okay, now we're talking. This has egg yolk powder, onion powder, and salt in it. This is a cracker I might actually eat outside of Passover. The salt brings out the richness of egg and the sweet, smoky flavor of cooked onions. And because there's egg in the mix, this isn't nearly as dry, brittle, or mouth-drying as the other traif matzahs.
	Manischewitz Everything An unleavened homage to the everything bagel. It contains garlic powder, onion powder, poppy seeds, and salt. It also contains malt: a necessity to simulate the flavor of a bagel, but nonetheless a sin during Passover. However, it does not contain egg, so it is as brittle and mouth-drying as any other Manischewitz matzah. The poppy seeds add little, and the garlic and onion do not get along well. The salt tries to bring them together, but only ends up overpowering them both. Finally, the texture is denser and less flaky than other Manischewitz matzahs.
	Manischewitz Apple Cinnamon This one's a little peculiar. Apple juice is used instead of water to mix the dough, which is further sweetened with brown and white sugar and flavored with cinnamon. The first thing you taste when you eat this matzah is -- matzah. Bland, undercooked wheat. Then a wave of sweetness and stale cinnamon washes over you. When that passes, the aftertaste remains musty like all Manischewitz matzah, but this flavor is accentuated by the absence of the powerful hit of sweetness. I imagine you would have a similar experience if you emptied a bag of Quaker Instant Apples & Cinnamon oatmeal into your mouth.

Frost Street's Picks

So which is the one matzah to rule them all? Well, in my book, these are the winners by category:

• Traditional Matzah (no egg): Yehuda/Streit's (tie)
• Traditional Matzah (with egg): Manischewitz Egg Matzos
• Shmura Matzah: Anything But Manischewitz
• Designer Matzah: Manischewitz Egg & Onion

Happy Passover all. I'll be posting some matzah recipes over the next couple of days, until I have to get into Easter mode for Lisa.

Posted by jeremy at 05:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

The Food Section today picked up on a story out of Dixie: Yesterday the Atlanta-Journal Constitution reported that a recipe in this month's issue of Southern Living Magazine could cause serious bodily injury and property damage.

The recipe calls for boiling a pot full of shortening and water for five minutes. Of course, if you're educated enough to read a magazine, you probably know that oil and water don't mix. Follow Southern Living's instructions, and the shortening will melt and sit in a layer above the water until the latter reaches a forceful boil, at which point it will explode out of the pot, spraying scalding liquids all over your kitchen.

Now Newsday reports that the magazine is recalling every copy of its April issue: a quarter of a million all told. A stern warning, in all capital letters, is on the Southern Living website. You're all now witness to a case study in the juxtaposition of an alert free press with a ravenous personal injury bar.

Personally, I don't see why these muckrakers couldn't just let natural selection take its course.

Posted by jeremy at 06:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)