There are lots of things I love about being a pastry chef: working with my hands, not working in an office, the nutty personalities that kitchens attract, making people (hopefully) happy. But lets face it, I’m not saving lives–not even close. My job affords me few opportunities to actually feel like I’m helping people or improving the world. So, when I was asked to be a judge for Fierce and Sweet, the first annual bake off to benefit New York Cares, a fantastic organization that mobilizes volunteers to meet community needs, I was was more than thrilled to accept.

This past Sunday, I made my way over to  Williamsburg, where 20 bakers–pros, hobbyists and business owners alike–set up shop in East River Bar’s side yard, hoping to impress us four judges with their sweets, their stories and their presentation. With the recent demise of Gourmet magazine and the seemingly endless popularity of non-chef-centric food magazines that aren’t even foodie-centric, along with the rise of in-your-face “food” television that’s more about loud voices and cartoon-ish faces than food (Top Chef and No Reservations blessedly aside), I admit to having some minor trepidations about what these contestants would bring to the table. But after tasting every single baked good (no small feat, I assure you), I was duly impressed and relieved that so many folks clearly still love to bake from scratch, put their creative food brains to good use and really think about what they make and how they make it. Score one for real every day food. Here are few highlights:

Alison Robicelli brought us Chicken and Waffle Cupcakes, a waffle-inspired cupcake topped with butter cream and a healthy nugget of fried chicken that had been dipped in maple syrup. My first thought was genius! Someone decided that bacon was not the only meat that could find it’s way to the dessert table. My second thought was, but wait, how long has that fried nugget been sitting out in the sun? Had the chicken been fried to order, an impossibility at this event, my excitement would not have wavered.  Still, after hearing Alison explain that she and her husband introduce a brand new cupcake every week or two at their shop, I was impressed–that’s a lot of cupcake ideas, and from the sound of it, a lot of good cupcake ideas. I left her table wishing I could have tried her pear and olive oil cake with blue cheese butter cream, port wine reduction and candied walnuts instead.

Blogger Raissa Nebie, stage name “Draculinaria,”  won our vote for The Most Surprising Ingredient with her use of pop rocks to top off her almond raspberry bars. It might have been nostalgia that won us over, but it was also her full commitment to her story. She was inspired by her obsession with True Blood (full disclosure: she is not the only one obsessed) and the pop rocks represented the feeling of euphoria that accompanies a bite.  She and the two women working her table coordinated their black and red outfits, complete with blood-stained neck bites.  She was clearly in it to win it–and she did. I would love to see her at every bake sale.

After trying 20 different sweet items, there was only one that had me wanting a second bite: Viviana Vitale’s alfajores, a cookie that she had eaten growing up spending summers in Argentina. Unable to find satisfactory alfajores back in the states, she and her grandmother set out to come up with their own and we were lucky enough to have them at Fierce and Sweet. I loved most the shortbread-like cookies that almost dissolved in my mouth; they were sandwiched with dulce de leche and covered in a bittersweet chocolate that made it almost the perfect bite. I wish more people would get together with their grandmothers to get results like this.

I loved the heart-felt effort that clearly went into every bite, every display (among them a white, wooden sheep that held “coconut wool” cupcakes), and the ideas that people were willing to try out (dehydrated sweet potato cream, anyone?). While not every dish was as successful as others, I’m convinced that every entrant was. Hearing their stories, both personal and bake-sale-related, put me in very good company–the entrants and I share a love for feeding people, a most basic joy and one, on that day anyway, lent support to New York Cares.

I rarely order dessert when I eat out. Partly because I just don’t have that strong of a sweet tooth (maybe being elbow deep into sugar, chocolate, and cream all day more than satisfies my dessert cravings). But the other reason, is that outside of 4-star restaurants or spots that push the boundaries of cooking, I’m convinced the dessert menu won’t have anything that I haven’t seen before, and I just don’t crave sugar enough to try another ubiquitous molten chocolate cake, mediocre apple cake or too-sweet tart. The exception to this rule is ethnic restaurants, and the more foreign to me, the better, where the element of surprise alone is enough to get me excited about that final course, along with everything that precedes it.

So, the other day, when  a chef-friend and I decided to go to dinner after listening to legends Daniel Boulud, Pierre Gagnaire, and Grant Achetz talk about the restaurant industry at the Star Chefs Congress, we opted for a kind of food that neither of us gets to eat that often: Persian, and settled on the blandly decorated Ravagh Persian Grill. One look at the menu and we knew we wouldn’t be disappointed–not only was the large folder of options jam-packed, it was jam packed with all kinds of things I’d never heard of, a sure precursor to an invigorating meal. The sambuseh, fried dumplings, were crisp and hot with a rich, earthy filling of mashed chickpea, but it was the spicy/sour herbed chutney that came with them that I couldn’t get enough of. Ditto for the torshi, a small side dish of mixed, chopped pickles that I could have easily eaten all on its own. Neither my food-genius friend nor I could figure out the delicious, predominant spice that made it so distinctive. Add in the lamb kebobs, kashk badamjoon, and barberry and saffron rice that we ordered and we could barely fathom dessert.  We’ll at least look at the menu, we told our waiter. Surely there’d be something on it I’d never tried.

Which only made our disappointment that much greater. Our waiter handed us a small, postcard-sized, full-color, glossy booklet filled with industrially produced fancy “French” desserts: chocolate mousse encased with a striped sponge cake, hollowed out citrus halves filled with sorbet, all things that were manufactured in a factory somewhere, with lots of stabilizers and little love, which were then packaged up and sent who knows how far. This was it?

You don’t have any Persian desserts? we asked incredulously, trying not-so-hard to disguise our disappointment. It just didn’t make sense.

Well…, our waiter offered. We do have a few Persian desserts but we don’t put them on the menu because usually it’s only Persian people who want them.

Turns out they had three desserts and we decided on the one that sounded the “weirdest”: faloodeh, which our waiter described as rose water ice cream with rice noodles, fresh limes, and cherries.  How do you not order that? The ice cream was actually closer to finely shaved ice flavored with so much rose water that eaten alone, it was like a mouth full of frozen perfume. But we’d neglected its condiments: fresh lime wedges and soupy sour cherries. Once we tempered the rose water ice with the sour fresh juices from both the limes and the cherries it was another experience entirely: refreshing, complex, acidic, addictive. And as promised, thin, opaque rice noodles had been folded into the rose water ice, giving the dessert a pleasant, slightly chewy bite. But then, I’m a sucker for the texture of all rice products.  We finished it, and must have been so visibly happy to have “discovered” this gastronomic find, that our waiter then told us about another item that wasn’t on the menu either but that had us both drooling. And before we knew it, he set down yet another bowl of food in front of us, a gift. This time we were back to savory: a sheet of rice (the rice that gets stuck to the bottom of the pot during cooking, turning it sticky, crisp, and chewy all at the same time) smothered with a tangy lamb stew. It ended up being our favorite dish of the night (after the faloodeh). Turns out that sometimes it does pay to ask about dessert.

Let me take this opportunity to invite you to check out the column I’ve been writing for a new web newspaper called The Faster Times. Below are the my last two columns,  both on my recent trip to Iceland.

Part 1

I’ve been in Iceland for just about 6 days now, which is hardly enough time to collate a comprehensive and far-reaching opinion on all things pastry in this island of near-midnight sun (It’s 9pm here and I can still see the sun just barely peeking out behind the mountains from my hotel room in Husavik.) But, in 6 days I’ve already driven round half the country and consumed 18 meals plus almost as many snacks, if you count cups of coffee. So here are just a few highlights from the sweets (and bakery) scene in Iceland, surely just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

I’d heard about skyr before coming to Iceland, but the only skyr I’d tried was Siggi’s, a variety made in upstate New York that I bought at Whole Foods. And Siggi’s skyr, a decidedly unsweet, thicker-than-Greek-yogurt, low fat yogurt-like dairy product is good, but I did not quite understand the full range of skyr until having it every day–sometimes twice a day–here in Iceland. One variety of skyr (prounced skeer) is the thick Siggi’s variety, which often showed up in my desserts (most recently and simply, blended with tiny Icelandic blueberries and drizzled with heavy cream, but also in a more modern approach: whipped and smeared on a plate and topped with rhubarb compote, rhubarb granita and lightly stewed slices of rhubarb). It was this modern dessert that got me thinking about ways to use skyr in my desserts back home. It is a perfect starting point and counter point for someone like me who likes her desserts on the less sugary side and pairs beautifully with almost any fruit. Its thickness only makes it easier to incorporate into into mousses.  But it is the other kind of skyr, the looser, slightly less sour kind that has really won me over, the one that’s been elevating my morning muesli to something I look forward to while falling asleep. Well, one of the things, but more on that later. This almost pudding-like skyr is similar to yogurt but without the sourness, and is impossibly creamy while remaining low fat, as skyr is made with skim milk. It, too, appears as a simple, classic dessert, usually with berries and a simple shortbread biscuit.

What else do I fall asleep thinking about? Vöffler, for one. These waffles seem to be everywhere, for breakfast and for an afternoon snack with coffee. And they’re not like any waffle I’ve seen before. In fact, they are more like slightly thick crepes that have the tell-tale, golden brown hatch marks of waffles. They are soft, with only the slightest bit of crunch on the edges, and are served the way crepes and waffles are served in the rest of Scandinavia: with fresh whipped cream and jam. I like the the tender, egg-y vöffler with my afternoon coffee, without the cream and just a tiny bit of strawberry jam, but that’s just me.

Iceland has got me wondering why we don’t have better whole grain bread back in New York. Don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of the fresh, whole grain bread from the Union Square farmers market, and even a lot of the store-bought types ( I’m weirdly partial to Ezekial, despite its biblical background). But Iceland has got me thinking that maybe I’ve been settling. Maybe I’ve just gotten used to the somewhat dry, vaguely cardboardy-but-definitely-good-for-me bread, and maybe never realized how delicious whole grain bread could and should be. Every morning my breakfast-included hotels put out a spread that includes the aforementioned skyr, sometimes waffles, and always the best whole grain bread I’ve ever had. It’s not always exactly the same, but it has not disappointed yet: crunchy/flaky crust with a very tender, but sturdy crumb, always with flax seeds, usually with sunflower seeds, sometimes with millet or other grains. The point is, it isn’t dry. It’s soft and dense–but not too dense. And it has enough salt to bring out the flavor of all the seeds. But it’s that crust that really sets it apart. The crusts of whole grain bread back home are more like tough edges posing as crust. Crust should be crisp and flaky and actually leave crumbs behind when you bite into it, like when you eat a baguette. In the next 5 days it is my mission to find a recipe for Icelandic-style whole grain bread.  Another thing Icelanders have figured out that New Yorkers are only just beginning to appreciate? Currants, black and red. These tiny berries have been showing up everywhere: in my berry compote, on top of skyr, made into marmalade. Not only are they packed with anti-oxidents, they are deliciously tart and unlike any other berry. Sure, I’d known about currants before coming to Iceland, and even used them to make sorbet but sometimes it takes travelling to be reminded of just how much you love a simple, less common thing like currants. For now, I’m happy to mix red currant jam into my skyr, onto my vöffler and onto my generously buttered whole grain bread while looking forward to 5 more days of of eating.
Part 2
The second half of my trip around Iceland was much like the first. Each day we spent a few hours driving past green hills, numerous waterfalls, volcanic fields, glaciers, and even a vast black sand desert, on our way to the next overnight town. In between were few signs of life,  aside from countless free-roaming sheep and a multitude of sleeping horses. In fact, all forms of life in Iceland seemed to be more relaxed, and the laid back attitude was contagious.

My love affair with all things skyr grew, and I continued to have it every morning for breakfast. But skyr wasn’t the only object of my desire, I fell for all the dairy in Iceland, from butter to milk to cheese to ice cream–all of it tasted richer, better, than at home. Learning that hormones are prohibited and that pesticides are not used (the harsh climate makes them unnecessary) only encouraged my pro-dairy diet. Take into account the vast supply of clean, glacial water and unpolluted air (the country is virtually run on clean, geo-thermal energy) and how could I not ask for extra butter with my bread or order the local jöklais ice cream in Skaftafel?  I’m absolutely certain that the reason the cafe latte I had at Kaffitar in Rejkyavik blew me away so completely was the milk. And with 700 dairy farms, Iceland dairy products are almost always local.

I’m sure it was the butter that made the pastries so undeniably superior–that along with the influence the Danes have had on their bakery business.  The vinarbraud (or what the Danes call wienerbrød, which really means Vienna bread) was some of the lightest and flakiest I’ve had outside of Denmark, and was never tough or soggy or overly sweet (no syrup-y glazes), as is too often the case with mainstream pastry here in the U.S. It seemed that quality pastry, sweet and savory alike, could be found even at the gas stations, and that most larger towns had seriously good, proper bakeries. Sandholt in Reykjavik was one of my favorites.

Driving through the weird and cool landscapes surrounding Lake Mývatn, an area of active volcanism, I discovered hverabraud, a dark rye, incredibly moist and slightly sticky bread lightly sweetened with molasses. It’s baked for 24 hours underground by geothermal heat–I even spotted a few above ground doors leading to the underground “ovens.” Topped with plenty of Icelandic butter, hverabraud was my favorite afternoon snack, and one I’ll never be able to replicate here in New York City.

So what didn’t I like about Icelandic sweets? Kleinur, for one. These cardamom-scented doughnuts just didn’t do it for me. I found them un-crispy to the point of seeming stale, overly dense and just plain uninspired–and they were everywhere. And I’ve never been able to develop a taste for black licorice, which as in most of Scandinavia, flooded Iceland’s gas stations, grocery stores and candy shops. Too many times I’d fill a bag from bulk candy bins and bite into what I thought was a malt ball, a chocolate covered nut, a nougat, only to be disappointed by the assertive flavor of black licorice, or worse, its harsher, crazier cousin, salt licorice.  Still, only two dislikes out of an entire country of sweets isn’t too bad.

I so often find myself in the Union Square area struck with sudden and urgent hunger pangs. I’m usually shopping (at the farmers market, Barnes & Noble, Anthropologie) and so I want something quick, satisfying, cheap, and easy to eat on the go. Until recently, there was blessed little that satisfied these requirements. Falafel is too messy. A muffin or baked good from the market is just bread–not enough to keep my energy up. A generic sandwich from a generic deli? No thanks. Everything else requires a sit down. That is, until a group of geniuses opened Dogmatic.

Dogmatic is a self-proclaimed “gourmet sausage system” and what a system it is. Each sausage (choose from pork, chicken, beef, lamb or turkey–all are locally sourced from sustainable farms) is a mere $4.50 and comes “wrapped” in a sort of chewy-in-a-good-way mini-baguette that is locally baked in NYC. Yes, I did say wrapped. The bread is not split down the middle like a lowly hot dog bun, but instead hollowed out with a big, heated spike which effectively toasts the bread from the inside out which, as the website points out, helps keep the sausage hot while not burning your hands. Each sausage comes with your choice of sauce (cheddar jalapeno, horseradish mustard, truffle gruyere, chimichurri, sun dried tomato feta, mint yogurt) and if deciding on a combination is just too much work or outside of your skill set, they’ll happily suggest one. Or, you can go with my absolute favorite, lamb sausage with mint yogurt or a close second, chicken sausage with sun dried tomato feta. The sausages come packed in a foil and paper bag–perfect for eating on the go, or reserving the un-eaten half while you have a look in the bookstore. Oh, and vegetarians can opt for grilled asparagus.

I want to tell you that their “handmade” sodas are fanstastic all the time but I can’t. One day the lemon-lime soda was perfect: not too sweet, not too strong, very refreshing. Ditto the ginger soda. Another day, the ginger soda tasted like the ginger syrup had sat around a few days too long and the strawberry soda tasted weirdly spicy and not all that strawberry-y, so drink at your own risk. And don’t ask me about the sides (mac ‘n’ cheese, tomato basil salad, cole slaw) because not only do they not sound like anything special but they can’t be eaten with one hand, so they’d just slow me down.  Why bother? A single sausage is the perfect size anyway.

I wasn’t always a pastry chef. Before jumping into life as a restaurant kitchen slave, I worked as a sales and marketing coordinator for a large publishing company. Little remains of those years spent setting up the company booth at trade shows around the country, walking down the hallway to use computer that I shared with the rest of the sales assistants and coordinators, and staring out my window. There is one thing, though, garnered from those early years that I hold quite dear: two friends with whom I commiserated about work through those post-college years.

We didn’t know we were starting a tradition 15 years ago, when we spent the latter day of half-day-Fridays at the Molly Wee Pub. And I’m not sure any of us know why it was the Molly Wee we gravitated to, a generic sort-of Irish pub on a grungy block close to Penn Station–none of us took those trains home. (FYI, the Molly Wee has since been refurnished and now looks like a brand new, sort-of Irish pub and has absolutely no charm at all). Still, somewhere in those lazy afternoons of beer and burgers and kvetching about the office are some of my finest memories of being young and in New York City. We finally left the Molly Wee and the publishing house, one by one, for bigger and brighter things, but we kept meeting–always for burgers and beer and almost only at that burger joint so worshipped by the New York free press: Corner Bistro. And I was happy at the Bistro for many years. Fantastic jukebox, good burgers, cheap McSorley’s Ale. But as with so many things this past year, I, for one, was ready for a change.

We’ve been to Black Iron Burger (540 East 5th Street) three times now and sadly, maybe, for the member of our trio who comes in from New Jersey, it looks like we’ll be staying East–at least for a while. Black Iron is small, a nook, really, but that’s all it needs to be.  A small bar with a well-appointed and rotating number of draft beer (I was all about the Blue Point toasted lager–but then, I like almost anything toasted) lines one side of the room, with the “kitchen,” a few feet of fryer, grill and refrigeration, at its end. The rest of the dimly lit room is filled with a handful of high stools and tables with a single booth in the back. The menu is small but has everything a burger place needs : shakes and malts in three flavors (van/choc/straw), fries & onion rings, cole slaw & baked beans, two salads (yes! salads!) a wedge and a green, and of course, the “sandwiches” as they are called. A straight burger will set you back a very fair $7, while the mouthwatering Iron Horse (a double with horseradish cheddar and grilled onions) costs $10. Me, I go for the Patty Melt at $8. Who needs a bun? I’ll take crispy grilled bread with my burger any day and that burger, by the way, did arrive medium–the way I ordered it–every time. And for any friends who might not eat cow, or meat at all, there’s a turkey burger, falafel burger, grilled cheese and a b.l.t. We haven’t tried any of these but I just might one of these days. My friends might gasp and roll their eyes, but even they will have to admit, it’s not really the burgers that bring us together after all.

Not long ago I passed by the Bedford Cheese Shop in Williamsburg and saw a sign posted in the window: Recession Special! 20 cheeses under $20 a pound! I know Williamsburg has been gentrifying for some time now, and I’m more than happy to pay top dollar for quality, artisanal, organic foods, but since when is it a deal to get cheese that costs less than $20 a pound? I can buy organic meat at Whole Foods for less than that. So, I thought I’d note some places that truly are deals.

You’d miss the Vegetarian Dim Sum House (24 Pell Street, near Mott) for sure unless you were told to stop by as it looks like nothing special—just another grub hub on another sidestreet of Chinatown. And after peeking through the window and seeing the run-down, generic decor, you’d probably keep on walking and miss a fantastically delicious (and very cheap) meal. Though Vegetarian Dim Sum House has a full, many-paged menu of everything from noodles to “duck” to “seafood,” I always opt for the dim sum, listed on a separate, small sheet of paper.  The rice flour rolls with Chines kale are thick, sticky rolls of white rice flour dough filled with green, leavy veg and topped tableside with a light, soy-based sauce. Buddha’s bean curd rolls are tofu skin filled with shredded vegetables and arrive piping hot doused in a savory brown sauce. I also love the half moon pockets, fried crescents, pea shoot dumplings and shrimp dumplings. A selection of 5 plus two fresh juices (watermelon, honeydew, kiwi) is barely over $20 and plenty of food for 2 people to leave full and very happy. I go there even when I’m feeling financially flush just because it’s that good.

In my neck of Williamsburg, good restaurants do not yet abound, and aside from Dumont and La Locanda, there have been few other reliable spots to which I can quickly walk for an above average meal–until Motorino opened one block away. This corner spot had been struggling or shuttered for most of the 13 years I’ve lived here so I was thrilled when this Neopolitan oven pizza joint opened and beside myself when I had their delicious pizza–after my first visit I had to return 2 more times in the same week! The pizzas arrive hot, the sauce is tangy and flavorful, the cheese creamy and not overpowering and the crust (which, on lesser pizzas, is the bit I leave uneaten) is chewy and soft–I often find myself noshing on the slightly burned crusts well after my stomach is full. Most of the personal-sized pizzas on their menu are under $13, and aside from the oysters, all the appetizers are $8 and under. The real deal, though, is Motorino’s lunch special: $10 gets you a pizza with your choice of soup or salad, without the crowds that routinely fill the dining room during dinner.

I hate walking on Broadway. The blocks between Houston and Canal Streets are torturous on account of all the tourists slowly making their way in and out of what seems like one of every chain retail shop in the country. Is is me or do the sidewalks just seem smaller there? But, sometimes, if I want to check out the rotating wares at the fantastic Salvor Kiosk on Spring or pick up almost anything at the time-sucking Pearl River Mart, I suck it up and brave the crowds. And when I do, I always reward myself with a trip to Hampton Chutney Co. on Prince Street for a dosa. It’s a small place, without table service and only a handful of stools and tall tables/counters, so scoping out a spot to sit can sometimes be tricky, but well worth it as the dosas (large, crispy, sourdough crepes stuffed with a variety of fillings) are outrageously delicious. Okay, I cannot attest to all the food (they have soup and sandwiches, too) because I fell so in love with my first dosa here, a breakfast dosa with 2 eggs, spinach, roasted tomato, jack cheese and avocado for $10.45 (all dosas come with a choice of chutneys and I always go for the cilantro), that I’ve never even tried another. It is so delicious that it is all I crave and all I want.   And if you like lemonade, try theirs, which has the addition of orange blossom water and was good enough to inspire me to make a sorbet with the same flavors.

After seeing the French film Tell No One (thriller, quite good, too) the other night, my husband and I both had a sushi craving. There is certainly no shortage of sushi places surrounding the Landmark Sunshine theater, but it had been quite a while for both of us and we wanted good sushi, closer to traditional style more often found in midtown, when the rice is slightly warm and not too sweet, the fish is carefully chosen and sliced into perfect, bite sized morsels and the service is thoughtful. We immediately thought about Jewel Bako, where we had one of our first dates six years ago.

Read more »

I wish I lived closer to The Roasting Plant on the lower east side. My friend, The Food Genius (he knows more about the anthropology, history and preparation of food than anyone I know), and I made a pit stop there our way farther north and it was well worth the detour. This coffee company prides itself on freshness and sources all of its green beans from mostly organic and fair trade sources around the world, and then roasts them on premise as needed. The various types of whole beans line one wall in transparent bins, and each one has a tube coming out the top which leads to the snazzy Swiss grinders and brewers. According to the website, the owner invented this system, called a Javabot, which allows beans to be ground and brewed (straight coffee or espresso varieties) to order. And it’s all worth it: the brewed to order coffee is delicious (and remember, you can choose the kind of bean you want and watch them shoot through the tubes) that somehow manages to have a wonderfully strong flavor without being cloying or tasting burnt like a lot of the other fancy coffee joints in town. Now if they would just open one in Williamsburg….

I love the long tables (and smaller nooks, too), the cavernous ceiling and the relentlessly laid back vibe of Radegast Beer Hall. The atmosphere is equally perfect for quizzing each other on the populations of various states (answers provided by an almanac found right outside the door), planning a cd release party or just shooting the breeze. But if you get hungry, skip the menu. While a chicken and rabbit pate was passable, the braised rabbit arrived lukewarm with two ovals of what looked and tasted like frozen hash browns. It was bad enough to crush any confidence I had in the rest of the small, meat-heavy menu. If hunger strikes, you’re not completely out of luck. There’s an open-air grill at the back of the other room where you can get any number of wursts along with fries and kraut. Wash it all down with any number of the mostly Teutonic-named, fine and fairly priced beers, available by the bottle, glass or pitcher.