Fun Playing With Fall Road Trip Food, pt. 2

Having cooked up a storm of Rosh Hashonah goodness for the family on Long Island and then rested, we resumed our road trip on Friday. Destination: Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. My BFF Jeanne and her family, as well as her extended family at the Jamaica Plain Co-Housing Community, awaited us. I haven't seen my friend since my wedding almost 16 years ago, so this trip was way overdue. 

Our route on this fabulous fall day would take us off of Long Island and into Connecticut (and then Massachusetts) via the Bridgeport & Port Jefferson Ferry. This direct route would also spare us the travel nightmare of the shoddily maintained and constantly-under-construction East River crossings we would endure if we traveled the mainland - so off to the ferry we went!

Our coach - the PT Barnum. The weather and conditions were so splendid that I had to snap a few photos with the cell phone camera. We simply drove into the car deck, then walked to the elevator and rode to the top open-air deck. We did not partake of the snack bar on the boat - though its fried olfactory treasures did waft throughout the top deck; we decided that this was deliberate, to encourage more concession sales. Nice view, isn't it? And we haven't even left the dock yet.

After about an hour on the water, Connecticut gently beckons.

As land drew closer, an announcement ordered us back to our vehicle, and we prepared to continue the journey. As luck would have it, though, Mother Nature began to call just as we returned to the car. Too late to hit the boat's facilities, we agreed to seek out a bathroom and a snack once we returned to terra firma.

These needs led us to rather urgently seek out a local place, and the luck of the exit draw brought us to Peppino's Pizza, 200 East Main Street, Stratford, CT. Though the menu refers to a website, it does not appear active; phone number is 203-378-5552.

Though we'd enjoyed New York pizza twice on this trip so far, too much is never enough. The condiment table held the usual suspects - garlic powder, oregano, chili flakes and grated cheese. This would be true New York style pizza! And indeed, the friendly folks at Peppino's served up some mighty fine pie.

Bob's slice was "meat lover's" and he most certainly did.

Ricotta-filled calzone or plain cheese slice? I opted for the slice, since I needed to avoid a food coma with several more hours of driving ahead. I was rewarded with a nicely prepared pizza with a properly dirty bottom.

Relieved and satisfied, we again hit the road. Travel was smooth until we hit the Boston Metropolitan Area, which lived up to its traffic-choked, insane-driver reputation. By the time we had followed Google Maps's horrible choice of directions (directly through downtown Boston) to Jamaica Plain Co-Housing, we were ready for dinner!  Reunited with Jeanne and thrilled to finally be back in Boston, a small group of us repaired to Bella Luna Milky Way, 284 Amory Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130, Phone: 617-524-3740. The restaurant was too dark for any of my photos to come out well, so suffice it to say that we enjoyed a lovely time planning for our cooking class later in the weekend while quaffing freshly brewed Samuel Adams (a pumpkin ale not released outside of the greater Boston area) and eating sandwiches and housemade fries!

The cooking class was a vital component of our visit. Co-housing has been my friend's passion for many years. A fusion of condominium and commune - the essential concept is community and consensus.

 A paving stone that's up my alley!

Vegetable Garden

Jeanne had been asking my advice on cooking for large groups. The community strives to prepare and serve a community meal about once a month, and has found it challenging. Our mission was to demonstrate some new (to this group) cooking techniques, as well as a recipe that could be prepared in "mirror" versions both vegetarian and not. Finally, there were issues with the two range-ovens that we'd not figure out until after the big dinner. The place to start, however, was with sharp knives. Without sharp knives, it would always be a struggle to produce dinner for 40. So we planned to begin with weaponry, immediately after breakfast and shopping the next day.

All three of our breakfasts in Jamaica Plain would be consumed at the most friendly Ula Cafe. By far, the most amazing item in the joint is the freshly baked, eggily delicious popover:

Good thing I don't live there - I could eat a lot of these. Seriously.

Bob also enjoyed this pastry:

I felt that the brioche with egg and cheese lacked the profundity of the popover:

But any lingering thoughts of imperfection disappeared in the taste of the two sandwiches we shared for lunch on Sunday on a short break from food prep.

Egg Salad: Fresh Dill, Peas and Romaine, together with robustly cracked pepper and another crunch (maybe scallion?) on peasant white bread. No celery! Delicious.

Sweet Potato Sandwich: Roasted sweet potato, avocado, Monterey Jack, red bell pepper, red oinion, tahini-poppy seed spread on peasant white (hold the sprouts for me, please).

Who'd have thunk to use cold, cooked sweet potato as a sandwich base? And it really worked! This lunch was topped off with house-made ginger lemonade, which also pleased.

After breakfast, we spent the better part of Saturday shopping for our planned Sunday feast. The menu would consist of a braised meat, meat and vegetarian versions of Linda's Cheesy Corn Bake (each pan a double batch; click the link to see a photo from another time I made it for a crowd and a description of the dish), a triple batch of the Tomato Cobbler seen in my last post (and yes, we still had tomatoes, corn and basil from our Cleveland garden to make it wonderful), Faux Stir Fried Tofu and Vegetables with Garlic Sauce, and two desserts: Cory Barrett's Honey Pound Cake and Chocolate Mess (also known as a crock pot dump cake). We made our lists, checked them twice - and headed off to a local farmers' market for our first stop.

The beautiful blueberries and raspberries at the very first vendor's table tipped us off that this was not a producer market. Those items have been out of season in Boston for many weeks (and probably came from California or Mexico) - so we realized that we needed to shop carefully. (A producer market is restricted to items grown or produced by the vendor.) Nonetheless, we scored some lovely broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and red bell peppers (all but the peppers were definitely local; the peppers may have been) for our Asian-inspired "faux" stir fry, ripe red jalapenos for the Cobbler and Cheese bakes, and locally sourced fresh eggs for the Cobbler and desserts.

We left the market knowing that we needed a several heads of garlic, and at least one item that would probably need to come from an Asian grocery. Jeanne hoped that we might find the brown bean sauce in a  more mainstream store, since she wasn't sure where a conveniently located Asian grocery might be. Knowing that most supermarket garlic is sourced from China and not very good, and in hopes they might also have the bean sauce, she determined that Whole Foods would be our next stop. I've got nothing for or against Whole Foods, but I am fortunate to have better alternatives to it where I live for these types of items, so I don't shop there much. Still, we felt lucky to find garlic from Mexico rather than China (though it was disappointing to me that a place that touts "Whole Food" would import their garlic), and acceptable soy sauce. The brown bean sauce remained elusive, so we purchased a bottle of black bean chili sauce. Then,   we made our way to Costco.

I had never shopped in a Costco before; it was interesting. Definitely fewer choices than at Sam's Club, where I have shopped. But some better quality items - we were chagrined to see that the Costco garlic came from California's Gilroy Farms (too late for us, but goes to show you how sometimes the warehouse club is a better choice than Whole Foods). But due to the Jewish Holidays, first cut brisket was on sale for about $5.50 a pound - and so our cost-conscious friends would be treated to brisket for their braise!

Even after hitting a local supermarket for the last items - the brown bean sauce remained absent. We'd substitute with the Whole Foods black bean-chili sauce if we had to. But I really wanted to make authentic "yi suen" or "strange flavored" (or "fish flavored") sauce, so the dish would look and taste like something folks had actually experienced at a Chinese restaurant.

Returning to JPC, Bob put on a knife clinic - sharpening and honing all of the cutlery in the Community Kitchen, as well as the knives of all comers! He also taught those who were interested how to hone using the steel and told them to get rid of that rolling sharpening thing you see on the table!

Though this project took awhile - I still pined for proper brown bean sauce. We finally headed off to Ming's Supermarket when we were done with the knives. Paydirt! I learned later that this is one of the best Asian groceries outside of Boston's Chinatown, and there was even some parking. Jeanne was so tickled, she decided that we should also acquire some firm tofu, to demonstrate that yes, tofu can be delicious if prepared well. Apparently, the preparation of tofu had been a, um, bone of contention at JPC in the past.

Saturday night, we dined at Bukhara Indian Bistro and I forgot my camera, so the cell phone had to do. This restaurant is apparently part of an eight unit chain, but you'd never know it from the fresh flavors and interesting menu options offered. I love visiting a restaurant that has menu items I've never tasted, even if I'm familiar with the cuisine. And so, we sampled pappadum, two introductory chutneys (the onion one convinced me to stick with "medium" spice, because it was HOT), fried bread called Bhatura, naan, a curried duck special, and my entree, Pav Phaji, described as "Famous Bombay style potatoes, cauliflower, peas, carrots, tomatoes, beans and onions seasoned to your preferred degree of spiciness and served with a toasted roll and barbecued lamb." This may not look like much, but at "medium" spicy, it really hit the spot:

Sadly, I have no photos of the prep or the dinner on Sunday - too busy cooking to shutterbug. But picture if you will a very busy kitchen. First, the view from the dining room.

Then, from the other end:

Among the lessons we taught to a number of residents who wandered in and out of the kitchen all day: brisket the way my mommy makes it and general braising techniques, pressing tofu to get the water out and make it stir-fry (or pan fry) friendly (a multi-hour process), how to fake a stir-fry for a crowd by preparing the sauce separately and combining all of the pre-cooked ingredients in a stockpot to finish it, and scaling recipes up to four times. The latter didn't go as well as we'd hoped, though we think we figured out the finicky ovens when de-briefing after dinner - no one had ever tried using the convection fans in the ovens (and I admit to some ignorance in that department)! When fully loaded with a hotel-size pan on each shelf, the oven temperature dipped more than fifty degrees below where set, though it's twin had handled the brisket pan alone without a problem (but it also went kerfluey once the hotel pan of Tomato Cobbler was added). I'm thinking the convection fans will correct this issue in the future, but didn't think of it until too late; the low oven temperature caused our corn bakes to come out soupy (and late), but still delicious, and after removing the brisket, oven 2 was able to finish the cobbler without completely massacring the pound cake. Thirty-plus people shared the meal and had a great time, and only about a quart of leftovers remained when they were through, soupy texture be darned! 

Our work here was done. Here's the empty dining room, photographed the day after:

And last but not least:

Every kitchen does need a scrub brush like this.

Anyway - we awoke Monday and after a quick fun food and coffee-tea break at Ula Cafe, we hit the road again. Next stop - the home of Uncle Jerry and Aunt Phyllis in Binghamton, New York and some local eats nearby! Fun Playing with Fall Road Trip Food continues in the next post!

Fun Playing with Rosh Hashonah & Road Trip, Part 1

We are now returned from our 1300+ mile odyssey through Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. It was an amazing and wonderful trip, highlighted by some truly fun food and great times with family and friends. 

We began by driving out to Long Island and sharing pizza with mom after we arrived. The next day would be for shopping - Bob and I intended to prepare and serve my mother's traditional Rosh Hashonah feast to the family, and though we had brought with us from Cleveland a gorgeous Meyer's brisket flat from Mister Brisket, together with a huge basket of garden tomatoes, there was much to acquire. After returning home from what had become a day-long project, we prepared supper for my parents:

Tomato Cobbler with Garden Tomatoes, Corn and Basil

Fried Flounder

Cobbler and Flounder - Yum!

Matzoh Meal (breading)-Eggwash Leftovers Pancake

The fish was sourced from my favorite local fishmonger - Catfish Annie's of Commack and now also King's Park, according to their website! It was exquisitely fresh and barely wanted any breading.

We worked on the holiday food all day for the next three - Monday through Wednesday. More on that in a moment. First - here's a look at Monday night's dinner for Bob and I, and my parents. The shot of the serving platter next to the dinner fork is intended to give perspective on the size of the platter.

Pasta tossed with Soup Chicken Shreds, Garden Tomatoes, Garlic, EVOO, Garden Basil and Parmesan Cheese

By Tuesday, we were sufficiently exhausted from the food prep that we ordered in a pizza, which made for a perfect dinner. But this trip was all about the holiday food, only some some of which I photographed.

In this phase of the prep, we were working on a delicacy my Grandma Anna used to make for my dad, called French Loaf. It is essentially a meatloaf that contains hard cooked eggs. While it's not my favorite thing (I prefer my HB eggs cold), I consented to make it for my dad. First, the eggs. I generally steam mine. Mom, however, who once prepared hard boiled eggs for the entire Hebrew School of the East Northport Jewish Center (about 750 of them in one session in the temple's commercial kitchen), insisted on boiling them. Who was I to argue with the Jedi Master of Hardcooked Eggs? 

After boiling, Mother Yoda runs cold water into the prep pot, then taps the eggs against the sink, then peels.

Mother Heller is one with the hard boiled egg.

This is the finished French Loaf - we used the ubiquitous Manischewitz Tomato Mushroom Sauce to cover the Meyer ground meat we'd also brought to LI from Mister Brisket in Cleveland.


The eggs, and the chicken you are about to see, all came from the local and organic Makinajian Farms, located at 276 Cuba Hill Road, Huntington, NY 11743. Since they do not process on premises, we were not able to get any chicken feet for the pot (even with an advance order), but these two older hens yielded a delicious soup!

Cleaning the soup pot contents lead to an amazing moment. By "cleaning," I mean after the liquid is drained from the pot and strained, picking through the solids to extract the tasty bits - the carrots, for serving in the soup, the liver and poopick (or gizzard), which my dad loves in his soup, and any chicken meat I missed when grabbing out flesh for our pasta dinner earlier in the evening. So, Bob and I are sitting at the dinette table with the pot of stuff, and I'm picking out carrots with my tongs. Suddenly, for no actual reason I could fathom, I left the tongs on the table and began to pull out carrots with my fingers, the better to wipe then clean of parsley or other nasty bits. I realized after a few moments of this that I was cleaning the soup with the exact same motions as my dear Grandma Lillie had done for all of the years of my childhood in this house, an activity which I studiously avoided as a youngster. A strange and strangely wonderful moment, as I could almost feel her smile upon me.

The matzoh balls came out a little too stiff - I think the straight ratio of 1 cup matzoh meal to 6 eggs is just too much matzoh meal when doubling the recipe to 12 eggs and I will make an adjustment next time. They were still delicious!

The most fabulous thing we made was the Gefilte Fish, the raw materials for which were also sourced from Catfish Annie's. I'd never seen a raw gefilte fish order prepared as they did it, though I could understand the sense of it. Sorry there is no photo - but each of the three types of ground fish (whitefish, pike and carp), as well as the ground onion, were in a separate round plastic take-out type container. The flesh was sweet and fresh, probably only a day or two out of the water when we received it. Here's the final product:

We served it with garden horseradish, which Bob prepared before we left for NY. He also, for the first time, added some cooked garden beets to some of the horseradish to produce a milder, sweeter product, which my parents prefer.

Here's the traditional raisin challah, from Park Bake Shop in Kings Park, which apparently does not have a website, but is located at 112 Route 25A, Kings Park, NY 11754, (631) 269-3825. It tasted as good as it looked!

We also plattered a bunch of Bob's amazing tomatoes - I was going to dress them with EVOO, salt, pepper and basil, but they looked so beautiful that I couldn't bring myself to touch them! Next to them went a platter of sliced apples (Macoun and Empire varieties) from Richter's Orchard nearby at 1300 Pulaski Rd., Northport, NY 11768, (631) 261-1980.

The table, set with two challahs, the fish and horseradishes, tomatoes and toppings, honey and wine.

Family gathers, the brucha are recited, and dad cuts and serves the challah. My brother, his wife, her mom Ann, and their two boys are with us; my sister is unfortunately far away in Florida.

I'm afraid that the only other dinner photos I got were of the French Loaf.

We also served the marvelous chicken soup with matzoh balls and noodles, a potato kugel, and the Meyer's Brisket. You can see what these delicacies looked like by looking at my previous blog posts here and here.

Desserts came from Park Bake Shop, the same bakery which provided the challah. I didn't get any photos of them, or the chocolatey babka that Ann brought. After a full day of shopping and almost three full days of cooking, it was time to rest.

But I wouldn't have it any other way. Thursday night, we enjoyed a second Rosh Hashonah dinner at the club my parents used to belong to, The Hamlet. There is simply no comparison between this mostly food-service food and the homecooked goodness we'd enjoyed the night before. It was, however, very nice to sit and be waited on!

Chopped Liver, Caramelized Onions & Salad

Matzoh Ball Soup - the smell and taste of bullion cubes was unmistakable

Potato Pancakes - the freezer-burned taste and tepid temperature gave them away as frozen

This cornish game hen wasn't bad, but the rice and asparagus stuffing in my entree likewise tasted (and had textures) of the freezer.

I could not bring myself to taste Bob's brisket - not after the melt-in-your-mouth goodness we'd enjoyed the night before (and there were leftovers in the parents' fridge!).

The three plates of fruit and veggie sides likewise smacked of food service preps - assorted carrots, green beens, and cooked apples. The desserts also don't merit much attention. But the company, which again included my brother's family, made it all worth while. And even my two teenaged nephews, who care more about sports than food, seemed to be able to tell the difference between the two meals - there may be hope after all! I am so glad that we were able to re-create the culinary magic of my mother's holiday meals, even if just for one night, and share it with both the previous generation and the next.

In the next post - the second leg of our trip, Long Island to Jamaica Plain, MA!

Fun Playing With Boxty in Pittsburgh

A favorite venue in Pittsburgh PA is Piper's Pub. Bob and I recently returned to visit near Pittsburgh (it was the 20th anniversary of our first meeting, which, like our most recent visit, took place at a Mensa Regional Gathering). Piper's, located across the street from Fathead's, in the popular South Side bar and restaurant district, came onto our radar because Drew Topping, the Executive Chef and owner, is the son of our friend Sandra. Sandra would often attend the Pittsburgh RG and organize a dinner trip to Piper's - but it had been a few years since Bob and I had partaken. 

This year, after sleeping in and missing both breakfast and lunch served at the event, we decided to take advantage of Piper's Sunday Brunch (served 11am to 3pm, which for us was most fortunate). 

We rolled in around 2:30pm. Though Piper's has a fabulous beer and scotch selection, we stuck to iced tea. Piper's also offered its full regular menu at that time (which is a rather eclectic mix of Scottish, Irish and English, together with some American favorites) - but we both gravitated to the brunch-only offering of boxty. According to Wikipedia, "Boxty is a traditional Irish potato pancake. . . . There are many different recipes but all contain finely grated, raw potatoes and all are served fried."

Over the years, I've sampled boxty a number of times, and to my palate, they mostly resemble potato latkes, served in Eastern European and Jewish-American cuisines. I've noticed as much variation in different interpretations of boxty as I have with latkes - many restaurants grate the potatoes with a standard grater hole, and the result is more hash brown than pancake in texture. Piper's version was much closer to my own dear latkes, with the potatoes grated with a very fine or small grating hole, which enables them to get a truly "pancake" type consistency (with a little flour and baking powder added as well, I'm sure). 

And so, our boxty:

Irish Boxty

The crispy, yet creamy potato pancake was folded over bangers (sausage), ham, scrambled eggs and provolone cheese. The sausage was of exceptionally good quality, and the sum of the parts equaled a great whole - I had to steal a second bite from Bob! As you can see, the portions at Piper's are generous and the cost about $10 a plate for all of the brunch items, and most of the regular menu items (except the "entree" section of the menu, which averages closer to $15). 

Creamed Corned Beef Boxty

My boxty was folded over corned beef and covered with a rich cream sauce. Truthfully, I've had better corned beef; this version was average. But I've never enjoyed a boxty more than I enjoyed this one. Not only was the pancake exquisitely fresh and perfectly made, but the cream sauce made up for any profundity lacking in the corned beef without overpowering the plate. 

Both plates were served piping hot (you should pardon the expression), and both included some wilted greens and food service grape tomatoes. They'd have done better to have just left the greens off, but no harm done.

Piper's remains our favorite "go to" for fun food and drink when visiting the Pittsburgh area.

Fun Playing with Garden Bounty and Breychak Pork

It is nice to be back to blogging. Suffice it to say that this has been the summer of my discontent - and hopefully the bad things are past and fun things are to come. And so, here is tonight's dinner of garden bounty and Breychak Farms pork:

Bob cooked this low and slow on the Weber for about 2 hours, then finished it in a slow oven after the coals died.

Black Crim Tomatoes are our favorites, and this year's crop has not disappointed.

Garden Corn and Green Beans sauteed in butter, with salt and pepper

Simple and delicious.

Dinner is Served.

I hope that you are having fun playing with the bounty of the garden season in Northeast Ohio, or wherever your bounty may lie!

Fun Playing with Cheesesteak Wit Whiz in Twinsburg OH

My blogger friend Tom (Exploring Food My Way) recently referenced a post he made last year, describing a relative newcomer to the Northeast Ohio food scene - The Original Steak & Hoagies in Twinsburg, which promises to deliver the true Philadelphia Cheesesteak experience. I saw Tom's more recent post, and wondered, "how did this place slip through my radar?" And so, after a trip to the Geuaga Farmers' Market on a recent Saturday, we headed for Twinsburg to see if a true taste of Philly had landed in our proverbial back yard. Please refer to Tom's excellent post for some background on the genre, and the family that owns and runs Original Steak & Hoagies.

 

Orders are placed at the friendly counter - I ordered a small Cheesesteak Wit Whiz; Bob opted for Wit Provolone. As we sat and waited for our food, I was impressed by how exquisitely clean the place was - both the dining room, and the large portion of the food prep areas we could see from our seats in front of the restaurant.

We had also decided to share an order of fries, which was more than plenty for the two of us. The fries came up first:



The staff told us that they had just switched to this product, and asked how we liked it. The fries were perfectly cooked to crispy goodness and dressed with just the right amount of salt. Most important, they weren't greasy. Though not house-made "from scratch," we loved them.


Bob's Wit Provolone


Mine Wit Whiz

For those of you not conversant in Philly Cheesesteak speak - the "wit" refers to "with grilled onions."



This "sandwich consumption in progress" shot says it better than I can. The combination of an authentic roll sourced from Amoroso Bakery in Philadelphia, which handled the extreme juiciness of the sandwich with perfect aplomb, the creamy meld at the left of the sandwich in this photo of whiz, caramelized onions and tasty rib eye which had been chopped and fried to order on the grill, led to happy sighs. Our last trip to Philly was July 1990, but one bite of this sandwich took me right back.

We were having so much fun playing with our food that proprietor Bill Fromholzer stopped by our table to chat. I mentioned how the sandwich took me back to my last Philadelphia cheesesteak experience, and commented that next time, I'd have to try the Mom Mom's Meatball with Gravy sandwich. But before you could say "on top of spaghetti," Bill brought us each a meatball and a taste of gravy - made from scratch from his grandma's recipe ("gravy" is of course the Philadelphian term for tomato sauce) and piping hot; no microwave needed here.





The meatball tasted like a combination of different meats (probably pork, beef and veal), egg, seasonings, and just enough breadcrumb to hold it together - a great set of ingredients prepared with grandma-like finesse. And the sauce also sang with fresh-made flavor.

Since we were grilling sausage for dinner that night, we decided to grab a side of the house-made coleslaw to go with it.



This cole slaw had the flavors and texture of cole slaw as I enjoyed it growing up on the East Coast - chopped vegetables (not food service pack, and not shredded, but obviously chopped in house) with just the right amount of mayo, vinegar and simple seasonings (including a pinch of sugar, which always seems missing from Midwest coleslaws). Darn tasty.

According to the Steaks & Hoagies website, you can enjoy their products at Canal Park in downtown Akron (home of the Cleveland Indians AA affiliate Akron Aeros), in addition to the Twinsburg location on 10735 Ravenna Road. And free local delivery is available; call to learn if you are in their range. If you are fond of cheesesteak, Philadelphia, meatballs and gravy, or coleslaw - you will have fun playing with food at  The Original Steak &  Hoagies.