Corn tortillas are my comfort food. I use them as carrying cases for simple, satisfying meals and I use them a lot. They are a mainstay on my lazy Sunday breakfasts and always around when it’s time for a feast.
Part of that comfort factor comes from having them in my fridge at all times. While not as resilient as Twinkies, they can hold up for a time if properly wrapped in the fridge. ...
Bushwick, named by the Dutch Boswijk for “town in the woods,” is no longer a town in the woods—it is a rapidly gentrifying section of Brooklyn southeast of tragically hip Williamsburg. Once one of the most blighted areas in town after the blackout lootings of 1977--at that time, it was characterized by empty lots, drugs, and arson, and the majority of residents who could leave, l...
It didn't start off as a quest. I had a job in the Flatiron section of Manhattan and I needed to eat cheaply. I'm not much of a brown bagger, and soups don't always interest me, so I began to search for the best places to find a meal for around $5. It became an obsession. See, Flatiron and the eastern part of Chelsea have some of the finest restaurants in the world, but they are far fr...
I screwed up. During the last throes of summer , I treated my grill with the utmost love and care. But I'm apparently a fair-weather fan, for as soon as the temperature dipped I completely forgot about it and retreated into the warmth of my kitchen. Not only did I neglect my cooking apparatus for a solid month, I didn't even bother to cover it. I didn't even set it close to a wall...
First off, a language lesson: refried beans are not fried twice. It's understandable that most people, myself included until I started writing this, assume a literal translation of the word "refried" and, employing razor-sharp detective skills, deduce that the beans are fried, let rest, and then fried again. But the word refried is actually an approximation of the Spanish word refrito , me...
"Just use whatever leftovers are in the fridge."
That little statement is repeated endlessly throughout the course of one day on the Food Network and I'm not sure who they are trying to fool. It's as if those celebrity chefs aren't paid enough to send an assistant to the store to pick up some tomatoes--not that they need to. Their fantastically clean fridges come stocked with leftover t...
Grilled chicken breasts are the obligatory un-hamburger. They tend to grace all backyard cookouts because someone ultimately didn't want red meat. And even though most chicken breasts lack flavor, cook unevenly, and will undoubtedly be dry, they, like burgers, can be easily pressed between two pieces of bread. They keep the cookout rolling, but they're essentially a cop out.
So when it c...
On Saturday morning, at the bright and early hour of noon, my phone began ringing. I vaguely remembered excited pronouncements the evening before about going for a bike ride out to Red Hook to visit the infamous ballfields , where soccer and baseball games unfold throughout the weekend, and outdoor food vendors set up shop on Bay St. to serve cheap, fresh food from south of the border (all...
I'm tapping numbers into a junky-looking ATM in the back corner of some random bodega that hugs the BQE. It's dropping those dollar bills down, one hundred, two hundred, as I get prepared to hand over some dear cash to the broker for a beautiful new apartment in Brooklyn, when I notice that I probably shouldn't probe the machine for any more.
I have thirty dollars.
Which is all well and...
Our own version culled from a few different recipes, an emulation of the classic recipe of homemade tortillas, lightly fried tempura-style fish, a dairy-based white sauce, and fresh, crunchy, gently spicy cabbage.
Real Baja fish tacos are nothing like what you're used to eating when it comes to Mexican food. In fact, true Mexican cuisine might be our biggest missed chance. Satisfied...