Saturday, January 29, 2011
Pulled Pork Tacos at Bueno y Sano
Instead of my usual down-in-the-dumps musings about Val, today I get to talk about something I actually like: the pulled pork tacos at Bueno y Sano. Bueno is a lifesaver when Val gets really crummy (i.e. today) and the pulled pork tacos are a great find. You get a choice between pulled pork with BBQ sauce and regular pulled pork - I go for the regular. They pan fry the pork, making it crispy, and then wrap it up with the usual: lettuce, tomatoes, and yogurt (in lieu of sour cream). The crispiness of the pork works beautifully with the acidic, juicy tomatoes and the runny yogurt, all wrapped in a tender, warm tortilla. Dip it all in the mild or spicy salsa they offer and enjoy.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Dana Goldstein writes a really thought-provoking article on how our public schools are more segregated today than they were when he was alive:
http://www.danagoldstein.net/dana_goldstein/2011/01/on-mlk-day-some-thoughts-on-segregated-schools-arne-duncan-and-president-obama.html
http://www.danagoldstein.net/dana_goldstein/2011/01/on-mlk-day-some-thoughts-on-segregated-schools-arne-duncan-and-president-obama.html
The funny thing about the holidays is that you have to be with your family, which inevitably causes the dreaded questions to come up. You know the ones - in high school it was "So, which colleges are you looking at?" then, in freshman and sophomore years of college, it was "So, what are you going to major in?", and, once you become a junior, people start to ask the worst question of all - "So, what are you going to do with your life?"
It's really easy to just nod along and either deal with the judgement of not having an answer or make up something false that people will vaguely nod at and say "That's great! Good for you!", but the harder thing is to say what you're really thinking. For a while (from freshman year of college through about two months ago), my answer to the last question was "something in the restaurant industry" - an atypical answer that usually inspired people to give me a puzzled look silently asking why I'm wasting my potential, which would cause me to delve into one of my spiels about how many awesome things are going on with food right now and how there is so much talent in that industry, at which point people would give me a sympathetic nod, like I'd failed my LSATs or something and had to resort to working in a restaurant, and leave for more wine.
Since I've decided to join TFA, the reactions have been really varied. A lot of people feel like my response to their question invites them to give me their opinions on the public education system, the teachers' unions, and immigration - things that I'm not always up for hearing. Just because I don't want to lie when I tell you what my job will be for the next two years shouldn't permit you to rail at me for the decisions I've made or to rant about the current situation in our schools. I know it's an issue and that's why I'm trying to help do something about it.
My family, however, has been awesome. They've asked the kinds of questions that have allowed me to come to terms with next year, balancing the excitement with the nervousness. They've also showed a ton of respect for my choices, letting me talk about my decision making process instead of bombarding me with the reasons why they would never do it. It's inspired a series of great conversations about some deep topics, including the ones I named above - discussions that have made me even more excited about what's to come.
It's really easy to just nod along and either deal with the judgement of not having an answer or make up something false that people will vaguely nod at and say "That's great! Good for you!", but the harder thing is to say what you're really thinking. For a while (from freshman year of college through about two months ago), my answer to the last question was "something in the restaurant industry" - an atypical answer that usually inspired people to give me a puzzled look silently asking why I'm wasting my potential, which would cause me to delve into one of my spiels about how many awesome things are going on with food right now and how there is so much talent in that industry, at which point people would give me a sympathetic nod, like I'd failed my LSATs or something and had to resort to working in a restaurant, and leave for more wine.
Since I've decided to join TFA, the reactions have been really varied. A lot of people feel like my response to their question invites them to give me their opinions on the public education system, the teachers' unions, and immigration - things that I'm not always up for hearing. Just because I don't want to lie when I tell you what my job will be for the next two years shouldn't permit you to rail at me for the decisions I've made or to rant about the current situation in our schools. I know it's an issue and that's why I'm trying to help do something about it.
My family, however, has been awesome. They've asked the kinds of questions that have allowed me to come to terms with next year, balancing the excitement with the nervousness. They've also showed a ton of respect for my choices, letting me talk about my decision making process instead of bombarding me with the reasons why they would never do it. It's inspired a series of great conversations about some deep topics, including the ones I named above - discussions that have made me even more excited about what's to come.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Bay Area for the first time
So, last Wednesday, i headed out to the Bay Area to check it out for the first time since i learned I'd be living and working there next year. I had to take the first round of certification tests (yay CSET), meet some of the people I would be working with at a meet and greet cocktail party thing, and, of course, check out the city's food scene.
The test went OK, I think - I'll know for sure on the 31st when we find out if we passed, but it was just about what I expected.
The meet and greet went really well. There are always nerves when you're meeting people for the first time, but everyone seemed really cool and nice, which is a really good sign about the next two years.
And the food. Some was good; some was, quite frankly, disappointing.
The first really California meal I had was a quintessentially West Coast thing: In n' Out burger. It really is fast food, but if you need to eat something and your other choices are McDonald's or Burger King, your best bet is to opt for In n' Out. They pack a lot more vegetables onto every burger, so you don't feel quite as sickly overwhelmed after eating one as you would after eating a Big Mac or a Whopper. The burger itself is pretty tender and the sauce is quite delicious. All in all, not bad for fast food.
Our next meal was at the standard bearer for American cuisine: Chez Panisse. Started by Alice Waters, it has espoused the wonders of healthy, fresh, local, farm cooking since the day it opened. Because we had to cancel our original reservation because of the meet and greet, we had lunch at the cafe - the more casual alternative offered in the space above the actual restaurant. The menu is relatively small and simple - all vegetable heavy items aplooking as fresh as can be. I opted for the halibut tartare served in endive wedges and then the house made spaghetti with baby arugula and mint pesto and sun dried tomatoes.
First, the tartare. The dish looked beautiful upon presentation, but was off-balance in terms of taste. The sweetness of the fish was completely overwhelmed by the tartness of the endive leaving this bitter ugly taste behind.
Then, the pasta. The spaghetti was well made, delicious and perfectly cooked with the toothsome quality that you don't find often in the US but that the chefs in Italy could do with their hands behind their backs. The sauce, however, was way too oily and out of proportion to the spaghetti, leaving a bowl full of oil behind once the spaghetti was gone.
Both of these dishes were completely disappointing and I really expected better from what should be the best of the best. Chez Panisse did excel on one point, though: about tphalfway through our appetizers, the electricity went out, leaving the staff scrambling to find alternate sources of light for the guests and to alleviate the smoke from the kitchen since the fans were no longer working. They handled it like pros, however, within minutes, a server had brought a lantern to our table and hey had opened all of the windows to get the smoke out of there. It was really cool to watch and definitely an example of really good service.
That nit, we headed over to a restaurant we had found throu Open Table, called Ame. We didn't really know what to expect, but knew that it "combined Japanese, Italian, and French flavors." Yum.
The space was spare and modern - rather dimly lit with tables spaced pretty far apart. I went for the barbecued eel and foie gras Napoleon - because, after all, if you saw something like that on a menu, wouldn't you have to order that too? The fish and foie were served on top of a daikon radish whose juice perfectly balanced the overwhelming richness. Honestly, when the dish drives it looked overwhelming - too big, too rich, too much, but the end result was amazing. The juice and the radish perfectly complemented the fish and foie. Unbelievable.
The next course - a survey of each offering from the sashimi bar - was less than remarkable. Or, to put it this way, I don't even know what I had because it's not worth remembering.
The next meal was really awesome. To recover from the awfulness that was the CSET and from the awesomeness that was the night out with my fellow future TFAers, we went out for dim sum at the highest rated Chinese restaurant in the Bay - Yank Sing. It's a lot more elegant than your average Chinatown place and the food represents that. It's absolutely delicious and i can't even begin to list the great things we tried but i can tell you to get the pork buns. They are light, fluffy, sweet, sour - really worth the trip.
Monday night was a dinner we had all looked forward to - Quince, an upscale Italian restaurant in San Francisco. I had really high expectations and, like Chez Panisse, the only one that was met was the service. None of the appetizers or entrees really interested me, so I opted for two pasta dishes, both of which were incoherent and lukewarm. Really disappointing.
And that was San Francisco. The trip was really fun and made me excited about next year.
The test went OK, I think - I'll know for sure on the 31st when we find out if we passed, but it was just about what I expected.
The meet and greet went really well. There are always nerves when you're meeting people for the first time, but everyone seemed really cool and nice, which is a really good sign about the next two years.
And the food. Some was good; some was, quite frankly, disappointing.
The first really California meal I had was a quintessentially West Coast thing: In n' Out burger. It really is fast food, but if you need to eat something and your other choices are McDonald's or Burger King, your best bet is to opt for In n' Out. They pack a lot more vegetables onto every burger, so you don't feel quite as sickly overwhelmed after eating one as you would after eating a Big Mac or a Whopper. The burger itself is pretty tender and the sauce is quite delicious. All in all, not bad for fast food.
Our next meal was at the standard bearer for American cuisine: Chez Panisse. Started by Alice Waters, it has espoused the wonders of healthy, fresh, local, farm cooking since the day it opened. Because we had to cancel our original reservation because of the meet and greet, we had lunch at the cafe - the more casual alternative offered in the space above the actual restaurant. The menu is relatively small and simple - all vegetable heavy items aplooking as fresh as can be. I opted for the halibut tartare served in endive wedges and then the house made spaghetti with baby arugula and mint pesto and sun dried tomatoes.
First, the tartare. The dish looked beautiful upon presentation, but was off-balance in terms of taste. The sweetness of the fish was completely overwhelmed by the tartness of the endive leaving this bitter ugly taste behind.
Then, the pasta. The spaghetti was well made, delicious and perfectly cooked with the toothsome quality that you don't find often in the US but that the chefs in Italy could do with their hands behind their backs. The sauce, however, was way too oily and out of proportion to the spaghetti, leaving a bowl full of oil behind once the spaghetti was gone.
Both of these dishes were completely disappointing and I really expected better from what should be the best of the best. Chez Panisse did excel on one point, though: about tphalfway through our appetizers, the electricity went out, leaving the staff scrambling to find alternate sources of light for the guests and to alleviate the smoke from the kitchen since the fans were no longer working. They handled it like pros, however, within minutes, a server had brought a lantern to our table and hey had opened all of the windows to get the smoke out of there. It was really cool to watch and definitely an example of really good service.
That nit, we headed over to a restaurant we had found throu Open Table, called Ame. We didn't really know what to expect, but knew that it "combined Japanese, Italian, and French flavors." Yum.
The space was spare and modern - rather dimly lit with tables spaced pretty far apart. I went for the barbecued eel and foie gras Napoleon - because, after all, if you saw something like that on a menu, wouldn't you have to order that too? The fish and foie were served on top of a daikon radish whose juice perfectly balanced the overwhelming richness. Honestly, when the dish drives it looked overwhelming - too big, too rich, too much, but the end result was amazing. The juice and the radish perfectly complemented the fish and foie. Unbelievable.
The next course - a survey of each offering from the sashimi bar - was less than remarkable. Or, to put it this way, I don't even know what I had because it's not worth remembering.
The next meal was really awesome. To recover from the awfulness that was the CSET and from the awesomeness that was the night out with my fellow future TFAers, we went out for dim sum at the highest rated Chinese restaurant in the Bay - Yank Sing. It's a lot more elegant than your average Chinatown place and the food represents that. It's absolutely delicious and i can't even begin to list the great things we tried but i can tell you to get the pork buns. They are light, fluffy, sweet, sour - really worth the trip.
Monday night was a dinner we had all looked forward to - Quince, an upscale Italian restaurant in San Francisco. I had really high expectations and, like Chez Panisse, the only one that was met was the service. None of the appetizers or entrees really interested me, so I opted for two pasta dishes, both of which were incoherent and lukewarm. Really disappointing.
And that was San Francisco. The trip was really fun and made me excited about next year.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
After last night's fevered rush home (involving all flights to NYC being cancelled and our getting last minute on a plane to Baltimore and then racing to catch the last Amtrak train to Penn Station and arriving safe and sound at 3AM), I woke up this morning and decided there would be nothing better to do than to make chocolate chip cookies today. This is one of my favorite things about being home - the fact that i can just wake up and decide to cook or bake something and, if it's something simple, we will most likely have the ingredients and the equipment needed.
Right now I'm waiting for the butter to soften up (I always manage to forget about the butter until the last minute and then have to wait impatiently while it slowly softens) but more on this later...
Right now I'm waiting for the butter to soften up (I always manage to forget about the butter until the last minute and then have to wait impatiently while it slowly softens) but more on this later...
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