On my way home from work every day, I walk down Lexington Avenue and risk the smell, squeeze, and auditory onslaught that is the Grand Central station subway stop. I never get to see the beautiful, soaring interior of the actual terminal , which looks like a starry night's sky. No. Only the passage where everyone else shoves into this awful, grubby stairway under a Strawberry clothing...
I’ve already done my public fawning over Thomas Keller’s cookbooks. The absurd attention to details, the flowery short essays about “the importance of onion soup” in the philosophy of bistro cooking, the potential of preparing-ahead the “building blocks” of cooking (like soffrito and aioli ) that allow you to continue preparing uncomplicated dishes with simple, inspired combin...
As we were pulling the dark brown breaded chicken nuggets from the bubbling pot, dropping them onto the oil-soaked paper towel to cool and drain, the whole thing struck me: this is the most unhealthy food I’ve eaten all year. It follows: Kids eat total crap in school. If it isn’t fried, it’s poor quality meat seasoned like crazy, processed and emulsified and water-injected and general...
Besides meatloaf, it's the ultimate mystery meat. Coated with a thick brown sauce and usually hard as a rock, Salisbury steak was the meal I most genuinely hated during my school years. Its presence institgated the hoarding of dinner rolls and the unfortunate act of talking to girls, just so I could make off with one of their mini cobs of corn. It was a tough day on the streets, and one I...
