From New York Magazine:
Saturday, March 12, 2011
a whole day standing and stirring (not)
I went to the “too much is not enough” School of Italian cooking but I still cut a corner now and then.
Homemade lasagna is a vegetarian crowd pleaser, but making the tomato sauce from scratch can be a whole day standing and stirring in and of itself.
That was too much at the moment, so I opened a jar of De Cecco. Sue me.
I like De Cecco sauces because they are acidy, like a good Summer tomato. Besides, were I actually Italian I’d be calling it “gravy” anyway, not sauce.
Cook the noodles with a bit of olive oil (so they don’t stick together) in a lot of salted, boiling water until they’re limp, but not yet soft. They’ll soften in the oven. Sauce your best baking dish, layer the noodle, add a bit more sauce and then spoon in a layer of fresh ricotta.
Add layers of fresh basil...
...grate lots of reggiano parmigiana...
...layer in thin-sliced fresh mozzerella and a bit of ground pepper, too. You can’t really make a mistake here.
Just layer in the stuff you love. A noodle layer. More sauce. We used pesto sauce, too. More ricotta.
Build it up until the baking dish is almost full, then finish with a final layer of all three cheeses. Oh yeah.
Add another grate of fresh pepper, maybe a bit of dried oregano. Place the whole thing on a cookie sheet because it can bubble over. That’s it.
Pull a cork on a good red and sit back for 45 minutes at 350 degrees, then throw together a couple nice salads and at about the one hour mark, I think you’re good to go. Yum.
Invite me over. :-)
Yeah, right.
I know, I just posted the AppleStore on Wednesday.
But I was midtown yesterday so I decided to walk over and check out the launch of the new iPAD2.
You know the one? The thinner, lighter, faster, video-wifi-Facetime, same price iPAD2? I wanted to see it.
Yeah, right. I couldn’t even get close.
The Apple faithful had camped out overnight as usual.
I gave this young fella a ClockTowerTenants card so he could come see himself online.
Hi little buddy! Thanks for letting me take your picture.
After the plaza filled, they snaked the line across 58th street.
Then it turned north on Madison.
See the Bally Shop on the distant corner of 59th and Mad?
It went all the way up Madison to the Crate and Barrel and then turned west and headed back across 59th towards the Apple Store again, continuing around the block.
Oh well. Maybe another time.
Friday, March 11, 2011
six degrees of separation
Last Summer, event-designer friend Yvette (1)
asked me to light a show at the ACE Hotel. At the afterparty I met Blogxilla. (2)
Bloggy writes a daily hip hop column for “Sexual Intellectuals”.
He introduced me to actress/singer Destiny Campbell, (3)
and Destiny subsequently hired me to light a music video for her.
Destiny had retained video journalist Joy Daily (4) to direct.
And Joy has her own internet TV broadcast celebrating rap, hip hop and black urban culture.
One night while lighting her midtown broadcast I met Torch (5), a German/Haitian rapper in the studio that night...
and he introduced me to Cassidy, (6) in the red hat, a gangster rapper visiting from Philadelphia.
Philadelphia? I’m originally from Philadelphia.
So while talking with Cassidy we discovered that Grendel’s Lair, a Philly rock club on South Street where I had worked lighting back in the day had become a hip hop lounge where he had just performed the night before---same venue in Philly now under a different name--- and only about ooooohhhh, 35 years later.
It’s a small, six degree world.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
$98.02
Two quarts 2% milk
Two pounds lowfat plain yogurt
Three liters seltzer
Two corn muffin mixes
Three paper towels
Two 10oz. Bustelo espresso
Two 64oz OceanSpray Cranberry
Two 64oz Tropicana Tropics
One box Special K
Two boxes strawberries
8oz. Mushrooms
1.2 pounds lean ground sirloin
2.3 pounds sweet Italian sausage
One large bunch broccoli
Three red peppers
Two Vidalia onions
Two avocados
One cucumber
One sleeve celery
One bunch curly parsley
One bag Gala apples
Six bananas
Four D’Anjou pears
One case (four sixes) Presidente beer
How’s your neighborhood market compare?
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)