phoenicia diner

On Route 28 just outside the main part of town in Phoenicia. An old diner that has been taken over by new owners in the past few years. It has a nice vibe but I would say the food is just okay. They are going for the hipster redo on classics. Or as I read in a yelp review, they are trying to appeal to a hipster tourist crowd. The menu choices are good, the execution is a little sloppy. I really like the diner itself, and where it's situated. To be kept in mind for coffee.

Phoenicia Diner
5681 Route 28
Phoenicia, NY

eats in kingston

In late December we were in a rush to move the contents of our two storage units out of Brooklyn and into one that would cost us less money. We had already been renting a unit in Red Hook when the storm occurred, as we had extra items from the closing of our store that wouldn't fit into our apartment. Our goods were housed on the second floor of a five-story industrial building, which shared space with a Chinese- owned wholesale business, and a collection of artist's studios. Throughout the summer the storage company had been adding more units outside, in the form of metal sheds. As the hurricane ravaged the neighborhood, they recognized the need for what they offered, and hauled ass to build more units. As they were offering 50% off these units for the first two months, Bryan reserved one for us. The end of the second month was winding down, and like apartments in nyc, rental on storage units ain't cheap. We weren't positive where we wanted to move, but we didn't have much time. So we packed up a U-Haul truck, drove north to Kingston, and unloaded our haul into a much cheaper unit right off the Thruway. Bryan did a little research and found a couple of places he thought I'd like to eat at.

The view across Fair Street from the window counter at Yum Yum Noodle Bar.

Yum Yum's flattened, fried, vegetable dumplings. Outrageous.

The dish I get every time: noodle bowl with miso-dashi, udon and pork. They fry their shredded pork into a patty. It's crazy good.

Yum Yum's communal tables and shadow guests.

The Hudson Valley mini-chain of natural food stores Mother Earth's Storehouse has a wonderful cafe inside its Kingston location. After eating so much takeout and microwave food (bleh!) I was happy to dig into this healthy sandwich and salad. I had a portobello burger on gluten free bread, Bryan had turkey breast, and we shared a kale salad.

korean delaware

b's west coast friend dennis is spending the summer working in the nyc area. he had some time off, so we joined him last weekend on a road trip to washington d.c. on the way we stopped for lunch in wilmington, delaware for korean food! it was some of the best me and b had ever had. and cheap!

CSA Love

b and I are enjoying the challenge of coming up with ways to use our CSA share. I feel spoiled, really. each week we get such a great variety of greens, herbs, aromatics, root vegetables, berries, stone fruits and eggs, and now zucchini. I've been snapping photos of our dishes- everything looks so pretty.


mizuna salad with radishes, garlic chives and tuna.


quinoa elbows with a light tomato sauce and tempeh. steamed broccoli and green beans. snips of fresh oregano.


ground beef bok choy wrap. I ate about 5 of these.


gringo tacos. name stolen from calexico.




oven roasted corn. garbanzo bowl: beans sauteed with onion, cumin and mustard seeds, simmered with some vegetable broth; seared summer squash with garlic; sauteed callaloo; millet. tahini sauce: tahini, lemon, tamari, water, minced garlic scape.

down on the farm

b and I joined the Red Hook CSA this year, and the pickups started last week. We are lucky not only to have a CSA in our neighborhood, but one that supports its own urban farm. Red Hook Farm sits on city park land that had formerly been a paved baseball field. (yes, that's how they used to do it) You can see its history in the remaining backstops and perimeter of London Plain trees, one of the city's most commonly planted species. When you're at the farm nature takes over and you can barely notice the Ikea right across the street! New York Harbor is on the other side of Ikea, its ocean breezes periodically breaking the heat on the farm. Membership requires that we work nine hours a season, and we've already fulfilled our requirement. As the farm will take walk-on volunteers, (show up at 10am on Saturdays if you're interested!) I have a feeling I'll be down on the farm a lot this summer.



Here's what I did with some of the ingredients from our first pickup:



Egg-bowl brunch. I sauteed chopped collard greens, kale and garlic scapes in a small pan. Since the heavy greens took a while to cook, I cracked the eggs right on top of them to finish cooking. The result was something between a fried and a poached egg. (I placed a lid on top for the last few seconds, to cook the whites) This went in a bowl, topped with my homemade kimchi, a dash of tamari and sprigs of oregano. Eaten with Finn Crisp. I made a similar version with zucchini (not from the farm) the next day, and placed the whole shebang on korean yam noodles. yummers!



Another use for the garlic scapes- hummus! While it can be tempting to pick up a tub at the supermarket, the amount of salt in most brands is insane! I prefer to make my own from dried garbanzos, tahini, lemon, a bit of cayenne and salt. Of course the variations on the recipe are endless. Substituting the scapes for bulb garlic was magic. Second pickup is today!

Are You Prepared for Allergy Season?

Someone I see periodically asked me that question, and for the first time I was able to say yes. Yes, I am prepared for allergy season.

Shiitake- miso dashi with sauteed carrots, daikon, cabbage and green onion. Served over bún gao kho, (rice vermicelli) and topped with fried tempeh.

salami heads

b and I were walking through little italy last week when we saw the weirdest thing in a shop window- heads made of salami and bread. I started snapping photos when the owner came out to lock up. she told us that the now-faded meat heads were busts of the Giants' top draft picks, as documented by the Daily News article in the window. she also threw in the fact that the Giants didn't get their picks. Although DiPalo's window is refrigerated, the salami is now fading, giving the dudes an eerie washed-out appearance. "guess it's time to throw them away!" she said. the busts were created by the shop owner's friend, who loves to make food sculpture, and occasionally drops his work off at the store.

gf dinner party

since b's mom is town, I thought it would be nice for her to meet some of our friends. (we can be pretty hermit-like most of the time) so I called up my friend bobbi and invited her and her bf carlos over for dinner last night. I love to cook and make most things from scratch when I do. but I've only thrown a handful of dinner parties in my life, and find the whole time management thing a big challenge. (I started cooking as soon as I woke up, and still served dinner an hour and half after our guests arrived.) I hadn't planned on having appetizers since I didn't want everyone to fill up, but realized it would have been a good idea. b got beer, soda and chips, but the chips went fast. so anyway I thought I'd share the recipes for what I made last night because I realized that I pulled off something pretty great- a gluten-free Italian meal for five. Not consciously making it gluten-free, but it's just the way I cook now. So here's the thing- I usually don't post recipes because I seldom measure anything. But I'll do my best to estimate, and some of the recipes are ones that I got online.

Salad
1/2 to 3/4 head romaine lettuce, cut into strips
4-5 radishes, thinly sliced
generous handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves

Dressing
adapted from Grandpa Blake
dollop of mayonnaise (I like Trader Joe's organic)
squirt of ketchup
dash of tamari soy sauce
squeeze of lime

Polenta with Mushrooms
I found this amazing quick-cooking polenta at union market. I thought I was buying regular polenta and didn't know there was such as thing as quick-cooking. It's ground much finer than the regular stuff so the texture isn't quite the same. but I found that with the addition of mushrooms, it is greatly improved. I prepared it according to the directions using water instead of chicken broth, and subbing pecorino romano for parmesan. I buy it by the block at Whole Foods and grate it as needed. Before preparing the polenta I sauteed a whole bunch of crimini mushrooms (cut in half, then medium sliced) in butter, olive oil and fresh thyme. when the polenta was cooked I stirred in the mushrooms and transferred it to an oiled bowl, smoothing the top with a rubber spatula. When it was ready to serve I placed a plate on top of the bowl and flipped it over, exposing a perfectly-molded polenta. you can leave the bowl over the polenta until everyone is ready to eat, to keep it warm.

Quinoa Linguine
This is hands-down the best pasta substitute on the market if you have a sensitivity to wheat. Cook according to directions and toss in a bowl with butter and olive oil.

Pasta Sauce with Turkey Meatballs
Smash and coarsely chop 3-4 large cloves of garlic. Chop 1/2- 3/4 lg. white or red onion. Saute both with a douse of olive oil, a pinch of dried chili flakes and (about a teaspoon?) of rosemary in a large pot. I like to break the rosemary up a bit in my fingers before adding. Saute until onion is tender, stirring occasionally to prevent the garlic from sticking. Add two 28-oz. cans of tomatoes. I used one can crushed and one can of whole tomatoes. I cut off the stem end and chopped the whole tomatoes before adding. Then add about a teaspoon of dried oregano, a whole bunch of chopped flat-leaf parsley (about a 1/4 cup?), and 1/2 to 1 tsp. dried thyme. Fresh basil is lovely in this sauce but out of season right now. Maybe some stores have it- I don't know. Oh, and I usually find that the salt in the canned tomatoes makes it unnecessary to add any to the sauce. So simmer the ingredients a while, partially-covered, stirring occasionally. I cooked the sauce about halfway before adding the meatballs, then finished cooking. I'm not one to leave a pot of sauce on the stove cooking all day. As soon as the herbs have melded into the sauce, it's ready for me. Maybe an hour of cooking tops. It might have been a little longer with the addition of meatballs. (before adding the meatballs I blended the sauce with a wand blender. this is great for combining the tomato chunks and the juice. just a few blends to break them up)

Turkey Meatballs
adapted from cooks.com
1 1/4 lb. ground turkey
1 jumbo egg
2/3 c. breadcrumbs from 1 1/2 slices 100% rye bread
rounded 1/4 c. grated pecorino romano
rounded 1/4 c. chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 t. dried oregano

Mix all ingredients together with your hands. Use two soup spoons to portion mixture into 10 balls. Heat a little olive oil in a wok. Then roll each ball between your hands before adding to the wok. Brown each one, rolling to get all sides, then add to the sauce. The meatballs will finish cooking in the sauce. As you might be able to tell from looking at the original recipe, I increased it by 1/4. The butcher I went to only had 1 1/4 lb. portions of ground turkey. But it ended up being the perfect amount for five people. About the meatball rolling- handling ground turkey can be very messy. I found it much easier to form the balls roughly first with the spoons, then shape and compact them by hand to finish.

Flourless Chocolate Cake
from all recipes.com
Here is a simplified version of this cake. It's very quick and easy to make, but more fudgey and dense than the more familiar cake-like version. It was my first time trying a flourless chocolate cake. I will try one of the more complicated versions (where the egss are separated and the whites beaten) when I have more time. But if you're in a rush, this is a great (and impressive) dessert option.

4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate
1/2 c. (1 stick) butter
3/4 c. sugar (I used turbinado)
1/2 c. cocoa
3 eggs, beaten
1 t. vanilla

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Grease an 8 inch round cake pan, and dust with cocoa powder. (line the bottom of your pan with a piece of parchment, cut to fit)

In the top of a double boiler over lightly simmering water, melt chocolate and butter. Remove from heat, and stir in sugar, cocoa powder, eggs, and vanilla. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

We added blueberries and sliced strawberries. I never buy fruit that's sold in a plastic box or shipped across state lines. really. Tutu bought the fruit.

served with barley tea, available in Korean food markets. barley tea has the nice hearty and toasty flavor of dark teas, without the caffeine.

about the herbs:
If you cook a lot, buying small bottles of dried herbs and spices can be very costly. I buy most of my spices in bulk at Indian grocery stores for a tiny fraction of the price. But for Mediterranean-style herbs that are readily grown in the U.S., I prefer to buy them fresh and (if appropriate) dry them myself. Some herbs are ill-advised to dry or purchase dry such as basil or parsley. But the ones I dry as a rule are rosemary and thyme. I learned this trick from my mentor, Michael King of Richmond's Grace Place. Take your bundle of herbs (unleash them from their rubber band first) and place in a paper bag. roll down the top of the bag and fasten with a paper clip. Place on a shelf and within a week or so you will have perfectly dried herbs. Roll the leaves off the stem with your fingers and decant into a glass herb jar or vitamin bottle. Keep your herbs inside a cabinet for maximum freshness. Light and heat are enemies to herbs.

I hope you enjoy my recipes and we all agree to cook more in the new year! go local! go fresh! compost if you can.

nyc weekend

our weekend started on friday, as all summer weekends should. we started off exploring the easternmost end of bed-stuy, where the neighborhood tapers down to a point at broadway and fulton st. this area is known as broadway junction, where the L subway line crosses the A/C and the J lines. I had not seen this end of fulton before. I was surprised at how cleaned up this end is getting. there are a number of renovated buildings that have available store fronts, and parks all along the street. at 2037 fulton, in the triangle created by rockaway ave. and somers st. is an enormous community garden which is in the process of a major renovation. b said he saw people months back cleaning up the lot and preparing it. from the fence we could see tomatoes, cabbage, corn and other crops, as well as many varieties of flowers and bushes. birds and butterflies flew all around. from there we hopped on the A train and headed over to the west village. b had seen a post on worship worthy about sucre boutique on bleecker, and thought it might be a good shop for my jewelry. but before we did, lunch was in order. I wanted to eat at the Bus Stop diner, but we had a hard time finding it. after circling around and heading south on 8th ave. from 14th st., we ran into la bonbonniere, a place I've always wanted to stop at. so we did, and it was great, and cheap. as we headed further south on 8th, we passed the bus stop. now we know! then onto bleecker, to find sucre. wow, was it a beautiful little shop. some of the coolest jewelry I've seen in a while. while we were on bleecker, I figured we'd go by porto rico and pick up some freshly roasted and ground coffee. at $6.99 a pound, you can't beat it. when we had gotten off the train at west 4th, walking north on 6th ave. we passed the path train station. I asked b if he would like to take it over to jersey city. with a $1.75 metro card swipe, we were on our way across the hudson into jersey.

I had only been to jersey city once, and it was at night, to go drinking with my old roommate marshall, who lives there. b and I took the path to grove st., in the middle of j.c.'s gentrified old town. we walked by little bodegas and sidewalk cafes. b said it looked like new york lite. I told him it looked like new york clean. streets lined with row houses were amazingly well-maintained and quiet. I reminded b that several years back jersey city, like bedford-stuyvesant, was the place where you did not want to go. this is more obvious as you head east towards the waterfront. like downtown phoenix, arizona, it looks like the city was razed and replanted some time in the 1980's. citibank, bank of america and chase all have gigantuan office towers, alongside- what's this? a residential trump tower! but in between all this affluence are vacant lots, broken-down industrial buildings from the turn of the century, and oddly suburban-like big box stores. we walked along the waterfront and enjoyed seeing manhattan from this vantage point, then circled back to the old part of town. of course we were getting hungry again, and happened upon a vietnamese restaurant! by the time we finished dinner it had started raining and we walked our exhausted little butts back to the path station.

on saturday i was eager to visit bed-stuy's new farmer's market at malcom x and chauncey. although the market is tiny, union square power vendor migliorelli farms' booth has enough of a selection to fill your fridge for the week. we walked home with peaches, apricots, apples, lettuce, rapini, radishes and corn. on the way back, we noticed a new-looking store stocking natural health and beauty products and a few food items. so we stopped in to ecodermis to check it out. the owners (mother and son?) couldn't have been nicer, telling us to mention any products we'd like them to carry. b got an an acai juice and I got a burt's bees lip balm. malcom x is really coming up.

since the day was getting nice and hot, we decided to drop off the produce and head to the beach. if you make the decision after noon, the place to hit is brighton beach/ coney island, our best and closest city beach. we laid on the beach a while on the brighton side, amused by the people around us- russians in thongs and speedos, black market vendors selling beers out of coolers. after a while we headed over to brighton beach ave. to have some delicious russian food. we looked for our favorite spot but had a hard time finding it, as it seems most of the restaurants have remodeled. we would have felt weird sitting down to white linen in our beach attire. so we hit the diner-like oceanview cafe, where we had eaten once before. only problem was, they were filling a huge takeout order when we got there, and the service was incredibly slow. but fun nevertheless eavesdropping on the russian families and the adorable children running from table to table. when we finally did get the food it was really good. I always order for the both of us, since the cooking is similar to what I grew up with. we shared the mixed pickle salad of cabbage, watermelon wedges, sliced dill pickles and olives, brought out with a basket of rye and pumpernickel breads. then a chicken shish kabob served with a garlicy fruit chutney and mashed potatoes piped from a pastry bag; potato vareniki (dumplings) nice and peppery, topped with french fried onions; and delicious, slightly sweet cheese pancakes. b was admiring the dessert case, but we were there so long that we lost energy for dessert. in the bottom of the refrigerated case were glass tea cups filled with dark liquid and berries. most of the russians were drinking the tea, and I realized it must have been made with goji berries. next time!

after lunch we headed back to the boardwalk and walked down to the coney island end. we had seen ads for a new flea market down there and went to check it out. wow, was it lame. there was only one vendor selling anything antique-like. all the rest was counterfeit hello kitty crap, incense and plastic jewelry. the syren music festival was being held on two stages, one right by the flea market. despite this, there were three or four vendors with loud, amplified music, competing with the concert going on. as we rounded ocean ave., dodging through the crowds of people on the way back to the train, I vowed not to venture down to coney island again. bleh.

I should mention that in addition to the restaurants along brighton beach ave. there are a number of russian and israeli food markets and produce vendors that are worth visiting, where you can pick up home made pickles, teas, breads and caviar. several of the restaurants also sell a selection of piroshki, fried buns filled with potato, cheese or meat, out on the sidewalk. click here to read some very descriptive yelp reviews of brighton beach.

finally, today we headed out to dumbo to check out the brooklyn flea's newest location, the sunday market under the brooklyn bridge. after selling at the flea their opening weekend and a few after that and attending the market numerous times, including the indoor dumbo flea over the winter, I have to say this was the best flea yet. finally, there was an array of inexpensive goods that you could dig through. like a flea market! while I greatly appreciate the flea's intention to make the market more of a contemporary urban spot with hand made vendors, (such as myself) it had been greatly lacking in the affordability aspect. today we spent a few hours there! and I came home with some jewelry parts, (first time this was possible) a $3 italian brass incense burner shaped like a snail, and a lovely mexican silver ring for $10. the brooklyn waterfront is really coming along, with the new parklands being phased in and the addition of a farmer's market and other community events like yoga classes. can't wait until they complete the southern portion. there are few food vendors at the flea. I had some fish tacos while b had a margherita from the pizza moto guys. man, was it good. after the flea I decided it was time to go home. I was really exhausted, and after writing the story of our adventures this weekend, I understand why!