Great News!

My favorite restaurant (EVER) is Five & Ten.  New York...LA...Chicago - they all have great restaurant scenes, but my absolute favorite place to dine can be found in good ol' Athens, GA.  Five & Ten will always hold a special place in my heart for opening my eyes to the world of cheese.  I've always been a cheese girl, but there was not a plethora of fancy cheeses in Savannah when I was growing up.  Off I went to college where my brother introduced my parents and I to Five & Ten.  One trip and we were hooked.  Every time my parents came to town, we went to Five & Ten (you know those dinners when the parents relieve their broke college kids from nights of Easy Mac and take them to a nice place).  I think the reason Five & Ten stuck with us (at least with my Mommy and I) was all because of the cheese plate.  Never before had I seen a cheese plate, and I couldn't imagine a better course of food.  The combination of hard and soft cheeses and the matching jams, nuts, and toasts just spoke to me.  This is food, I thought. But it's not just the cheese I love about Five & Ten.  Not once have I had a bad meal there.

The consistently delicious food is all due to Hugh Acheson, head chef.  Thankfully, others have taken notice.  And I'm not just talking about the James Beard folks (but yea, he's been nominated for those awards, too).  I just learned that Chef Acheson will be on the next season of TOP CHEF MASTERS!!!!  So set your DVRs for April 6th so you can watch my man in action.  I never got into the Masters part of the franchise before, but between the fact that my favorite restaurant's chef is a contestant and that Ruth Reichl and Curtis Stone are judges, I think this show will be added to the roster.  Good luck, Hugh Acheson!

I Wish Awash

On Saturday evening, Podz texted me that she just discovered an Ethiopian restaurant in her neighborhood.  We had just been talking about how we love Ethiopian food but there are only two restaurants in NYC.  Scratch that; apparently there are three.  I said we should definitely check it out sometime.  Wait a minute - sometime?  I didn't have any plans on Sunday, did Podz?  Why put off an opportunity to try a new restaurant if we're both free?  Turns out, she was free for supper so we set a date.

I had a little trouble finding the restaurant.  I probably should have familiarized myself with the 1/2/3 subway line because I didn't realize the 2/3 part of it split off and I wound up lost in Harlem.  After my 30-40 minute detour, I arrived at Awash extra hungry.

We started with a meat sambusa appetizer.  It was ground meat and spices stuffed in a phyllo dough wrap and served with a mustardy sauce (made with chickpeas, perhaps?).  We decided to go with a combo platter for the main course because we figured we would get the best bang for our buck.  For only $25, we shared the combo platter for two which included two meats and three veggies.  For the meats, we chose special tibs (beef in peppers and onions) and doro wat (chicken in berbere sauce) and for the veggies we picked cabbage and carrots, collards, and ground chick peas.  Everything was great.  We went through almost all of the extra sponge bread they brought us because we just couldn't stop eating.  I'm glad Podz decided to peek up from the laundromat an get a good look at her surroundings this weekend because it meant we discovered a great new place.

Make It Macondo

Last night was time to celebrate Greg's 29th birthday with dinner and some bar fun.  A few of us met at Macondo for dinner before meeting the rest of the crew at the bar.  I've heard Macondo has a great drunk brunch so I still plan on returning for that, but dinner was a good introduction to the restaurant.

When you go, make sure you're thirsty because they have a great cocktail list.  We tried sangria, the guava and whiskey, and a tequila cocktail - all were delicious.  The best part is that all the drinks can be served in carafes, all the better for sharing and tasting your way through the cocktail menu.  The beverages aren't the only thing that can be shared.  We decided to dine tapas style and ordered our booties off:

• Almondegas: Brazilian meatballs with guava sauce and a ricotta-type cheese.  Lucky for us, it came with some bread for sauce sopping.
• Croquetas de Jamon: ham hush puppies with a horseradish aioli
• Camaron (shrimp) Ceviche: None of that wussy rock shrimp stuff.  These shrimp were nice and meaty and served with pineapple.
• Clam Tiradito: Clam ceviche: You'd think one ceviche would be enough, but this one was spicier and tasted very different from the first so we had to try both.
• Pato Tacos: Duck confit, peaches, caramelized onions
• Pescado Tacos: Tilapia and mango poblano sauce.  This was one of the simpler dishes, but probably my favorite of the evening.
• Mofongo de Pulpo: Octopus with mofongo.  Is mofongo not one of the most fun food words to say?  It means mashed up plantains - a surprisingly delicious mush.
• Carne con Yuca: Skirt steak with chimichurri and massive yuca fries
• Tostada de Huevo: This was like a thick slice of savory brioche french toast with an egg in the middle, ham, and truffle oil.  Love.
• Buenos Aires Coca: Crispy flatbread topped with skirt steak, arugula, jalapenos, onions, and cheese.  I'm a big fan of thin crust pizza, so this was a goody.
• Willianco Arepa: quail, spinach, figs, and manchego.  The quail was good, but it was served on top of a sort of polenta cake, whereas I think of arepas as a corn pocket stuffed with goodies.  This was tasty but didn't seem like an arepa.
• We also got some sort of crispy skinned pork that was good but not as impressive as the other dishes.

We ate everything, which I think is pretty good considering we ordered 12 dishes for 6 people.  I didn't get too many pictures, but you can see the Tostada de Huevo and Willianco Arepa below.  We didn't sample any of the desserts because we brought our own banana cake from Momofuku, my personal favorite cake ever.  As we walked out, I noticed a sign that said they're open until 5 AM on Friday and Saturday nights, which means you can eat this delicious nuevo latino food all night long.

After dinner we headed to Swift for some drinks.  I had never been there before, but they had an impressive beer list on tap and nice long tables for groups in the back, so I have a feeling I'll return.  The crowd had a nice mix of plaid shirted hipsters, almost baldies, and preps, which I see as a little something for everybody.  There's a dj, but he's not spinning too much from the top 40 list, which means it's slightly more laid back and not as many people under 24. Apparently not everyone got that memo, considering we saw a newly graduated girl leave when we did and then vomit just as she got outside.  Her male escort responded by saying "Ugh it's not even 2 AM yet."  Hopefully he learned his lesson.  Time to stop taking out the babies and look toward your own 25 year old age bracket for girls.  Girls like me who have gained wisdom with their 25 years of age...and the ability to hold our liquor.

Top Tapenade

There is no Trader Joe's in Savannah so whenever my Mommy goes to Atlanta, she brings a cooler and stocks up.  When I was last home over Thanksgiving, I got to sample some of her latest finds.  Even though I have a Trader Joe's here and can shop regularly, she manages to find things on the shelves that I never seem to see.  Such was the case with the green olive tapenade.  I usually see tapenade made with black olives and ground into a paste.  This salty tapenade is chunkier and although part of the same family, the green olives have their own flavor.  My Mom served it with an antipasti platter and I thought it was such a great addition that I made a mental note to find it and put my own spin on it.

So on my last Trader Joe's run back in the city, I searched out this tapenade, eager to incorporate it into some new recipes.  Last week, when making a roast beef, ham, and cheese wrap for lunch, I added the tapenade to mayonaise as an extra condiment.  It was a nice little twist on a muffaletta.  But I'd only just begun...

Saturday lunches are all about throwing together ingredients you have lying around the house.  Lucky for me, one of those ingredients was the tapenade.  Today, I made stuffed chicken with cream cheese, the tapenade, and panko bread crumbs.  The tapenade was like an instant flavor boost to the chicken.  I served it with broccoli and white bean dip leftover from Thursday's supper for a well rounded meal.  I can't wait to see what other uses I come up with for that salty spread!  

Accept Help, Eat More

On Thursday night, I did what I like to call a little half-and-half.  Half new recipes, half help from the store.  I couldn't resist starting my meal with a beet and goat cheese stack from the prepared foods section of Whole Foods.  I never tried beets until I moved to New York and now I'm obsessed with them.  I never make them myself, but I was happy Whole Foods had put together this perfect salad course.  For the main meal, I took a little more help from whole Foods with some of their lemon-thyme marinated tilapia that I threw in a pan while I put some cous cous in the rice cooker.  I wanted to make the boxed cous cous a little more interesting, so after it finished cooking, I tossed it with some rosemary mushrooms (another fave from the Whole Foods counter) and pine nuts.

Then it was time for the recipe half of my dinner to take over.  For the vegetable, I made broccoli with white bean dip that I found on Epicurious.  The dip was a blender masterpiece.  I threw in canned white beans, tofu, garlic, lemon juice, cumin, and cayenne and let it whirl.  The result was a hummus-like dip that gave a little life to the broccoli.  I misread the recipe and didn't notice it said to add just a pinch of cayenne.  I added plenty of pinches so it was a little spicy, but I think it only made it better.  It was good as a side dish, but I think it would be even better as a healthy appetizer.  It only took about 5 minutes to make, start to finish, so it would be easy to throw it together for a last minute party.

The other new recipe I tried that night was dessert.  As a non-baker, I usually leave the dessert to the professionals, but when I saw this recipe I knew it was one of the few desserts I could handle.  I made a parfait: The first layer was crushed ginger snaps, the second layer was raspberries, and the third layer was greek yogurt mixed with honey and cinnamon.  Repeating the layers probably would have looked better in the dish, but I had already eaten so much, that I knew I should stop at three.  I made sure to get some of each layer in every spoonful to get a little spicy, a little juicy, and a little creamy all at once.  I think of berry desserts as very Summer, but the gingersnaps rooted it in the colder season that currently seems neverending.

I don't usually have a three course meal on a school night because it can be a lot of trouble and I like to eat before 10 PM.  But since I allowed myself a little help from the store, I was able to enjoy more courses and still get the satisfaction of cooking a couple new recipes.  Half-and-half is the way to go!

Book Review: The Kitchen House

My Mom sent me back from our ski trip with this book and told me to start reading it immediately because she knew I would love it.  She was right.  The book follows Lavinia, an Irish girl brought to America aboard a Virginia tobacco farmer's ship at the age of 7.  With no family, she is sent to live as an indentured servant with the slaves.  Although she is white, the only family she knows is that of the black men and women who work the plantation, which pulls her in opposing directions as she grows older and straddles both the white and black worlds.  I particularly liked that this book was able to show two points of view.  Most books and movies about slavery times follow either the black or white side, but this book was unique in that it followed both.   The author, Kathleen Grissom, is no Southerner, but it seems she did her research and I can respect that.  4 out of 5 stars.

Unanswered Questions: Gossip Girl Recap - 2/28/11 Episode

I'm finally back on track with my blogging, which means we're up to our latest recap:

• What DA decides to open up the courthouse at that time of night?  I don't care how rich you are, that conversation could have waited until 9 AM the next morning.
• Why would Thorpe prefer Raina thinks her mother was a slut who left them for another man without a word than the truth that she was killed?  I smell something Oedipal.
• Where can I get a hat like Blair's?  Between that cute cloche and all the great chapeaux I've been seeing on future princess, Kate Middleton, I'm on the hunt for some new headwear.
• Doesn't Ben seem a bit too scrawny to have the kind of authority to command a beating of the Captain?  It's not like he's the kind of psycho murderer who would get respect in prison.
• Blair and Dan?!  I mean, I knew this is where the writers were headed, but it still baffles the mind.  Oddly, they could make a good pair, considering they have the same taste in art and movies...but we'll have to wait and see once the dust settles from the incoming explosion that will be Serena and Chuck.