In between again, still thinking about food.

There are the beginnings of things and then there are the ends. 

Somewhere between yesterday and today we passed the peak of the fall colors.  More leaves are now on the ground than on the trees.   

I've spent an inordinate amount of time planning, pulling together, and celebrating the birthday of my ten-year-old.  And that, too, as of this weekend, has come to a close. 

For the record, it involved sparklers, an excess of handmade signage and balloons, bowls of popcorn and a borrowed film projector (to show Le Petit Nicolas). Oh, and a sleepover that included fourteen spirited tireless best friends.

 

And yet, and yet, New York is still very much on my mind.  To be more accurate, NY food is on my mind, in all its variegated glory. 

Culinary possibilities in New York can seem nearly infinite. If you should find yourself in, say, SoHo, you can also easily find yourself in front of a thickly-sliced, well-pickled and delightfully basil-y Vietnamese papaya salad, simply by ducking into Bun (143 Grand at Lafayette).      

Then there are special Vietnamese banh mi (baguette sandwiches) sprinkled here and there across Manhattan.  While you won't find the selection or quality available in, say, Southern California (with its far larger Vietnamese population), my sandwich, crammed with pickled carrot and fresh herbs and greens, still pleased me.

Having gotten a bit of Vietnamese, it was time for some serious slurping.  Time for Japanese udon soup.  To explain my passion for Japanese--and other foods non-French: outside of Paris, Japanese restaurants are (still) relatively few and far between in France, especially, of course, in the countryside. 

New York's East Village, however, is filled with noodle shops and other Japanese restaurants.  In fact Japanese can be found in the financial district and any number of other areas, but the East Village seems to have far more than its fair share. With New York University right there, you'll find an awful lot of Japanese students wolfing down heart-warming soup goodness right beside you.

 

Now that I'm looking at this photo of udon soup bubbling away in a cast-iron bowl (taken at Udon West), I realize you can't even see the thick, chewy namesake noodles for all those toppings.  Sorry about that.  I was too focused on eating.  Other udon places you could try: simple but good at Onya, the first outpost of an Osaka udon chain, and upscale, wide-ranging Seo, which also offers soba (buckwheat) and ramen (thin wheat) noodles. (An authentic noodle bar is likely to have zero atmosphere, but it really doesn't matter, as the hearty soups are hot--and inexpensive--bliss.)  Please note that each of these photo collages can be clicked on, to be viewed in far greater detail.

After a good bowl of soup, you can walk all day.  Which I did, managing to take in a large chunk of Chinatown in the process.  There were all those intriguing ingredients to explore, like dried sea cucumber...but since sea cucumber takes a really long time to hydrate then prepare, etc., etc., I settled on a bit of dragon beard candy, made before my eyes by two neatly uniformed people beside a food cart.  If you haven't had it, here's more of a photo description. 

The snack essentially consists of very fine strands of cotton candy (far less sweet than the Western version) expertly spun by hand and wound around a crunchy, peanutty center.  You bite into one of these, there's a bit of give, and then they shatter in your mouth with a powdery pop.  As long as there's good weather, you should be able to find Yao, his food cart and his candy, which he sells 6 for $3.

While out wandering, there's that schizophrenic moment when you falsely imagine yourself deep in Chinatown, and all of a sudden you bump up against Little Italy.  In New York, the two countries are just a street-width apart.  But boy, does the scenery change.  Seeing all those top-shelf ingredients, the avid cook in me was desperately wishing for more lenient airline weight restrictions and a fatter pocketbook.  I got to do some more longing at the brand-new complex that is Eataly, on Fifth Avenue.  (4,600 square meters, or 50,000 square feet!  In Manhattan!)

Eataly features several restaurants, a year-round rooftop beer garden and microbrewery, a cooking school-- and you can buy all things good and Italian, from designer cookware to fresh crimini.  Expensive (quelle surprise), but pristine, authentic ingredients. It is built on the same premise as the slow-food promoting original in Torino...only it's in Manhattan, and backed by three high-profile Italian American restaurateurs.  When I went, it was chock-full of Italian Italians, as there was an Italian wine fair filling the space.  I stuck to my (very fine) espresso.

For the somewhat less well-heeled (or those allergic to chic-ish spots), there are always the ubiquitous food carts and trucks, which turn out often quite delicious fare, whether artisanal ice cream, or Malaysian, or Korean, or Latin.

For those who adore South American cuisines but would rather sit down, there's Empanada Mama, in Hell's Kitchen, just a block or two over from the Theater district.  So GOOD, I made a collage of their dishes (I'm still working on the empanada altar).   The empanadas are absolutely crammed with rich, flavorful fillings.  My favorites were the Reggaeton (Caribbean style roast pork with sofrito yellow rice and peas), Cuban (falling-apart tender slow-roasted pork) and Spicy Chicken, but as there are over forty different kinds of empanadas, plus a full menu including meal salads and family-style dishes, there's something for everyone.  I just never got past those fantastic fried empanadas (they have baked ones, and corn flour ones too, which I liked less), plaintain chips and tostones.  While the dumplings may look puny, after two or three of them and some plaintain chips, I promise you're stuffed.  Empanada Mama is also easy on the wallet: an empanada costs just $2.52.  They are open 24 hours a day, there's takeout and they deliver.  Plus they have loads of funky cocktails. 

 

I preferred to savor my Cosmopolitan at Birdland, an intimate (and famous) jazz club named after Charlie Parker. Relocated to Midtown Manhattan, on the edge of the Theater District, the club serves food and very fine musical fare.  The night we went, there was Afro-Latin jazz on offer, with a fun Calypso drum.  Very nice, very fusion.  And to my slightly cocktail-addled mind, so very New York.

The low and the High of it.

New York is the kind of place where people express themselves in superlatives. All or nothing. In Manhattan's Nolita neighborhood: “The Best Tiramisu In The World,” declares the sign. Tallest, biggest, best. You can be reborn. Shed your previous life, previous definitions, previous loan. It’s all about the here and now, and really making it. It’s the immigrant experience, writ large.



The sheer range of restaurants flabbergasts me each time I visit. The reinventing continues in many if not most of the city’s kitchens. Viagra empanadas, or smoked salmon roll with Idaho potato flakes, anyone? I actually tasted the former, which are, unsurprisingly, a lot tamer than they sound.



The urge to modify is not new. The (kosher) bagel dog which was developed (way back) in 1943 comes to mind. Still on the dog front, some claim Brooklyn's Coney Island to be the birthplace of the now-ubiquitous American hotdog, tucked in its white bread roll (and yes, frankfurters and wieners already had their homes in Frankfurt and Vienna).

 

Incidentally, "Coney Island dogs", with their beanfree, beef-heart chili topping, have nothing whatsoever to do with the original oceanfront Coney Island. They’re from Michigan.



As of this summer, you can once again have a hot dog at a newly opened Coney Island Luna Park. But it isn’t the Luna Park of 1903, which by 1907 had 1.3 million little electric lights, live elephant rides and a whole mess of other madcap, escapist possibilities. This was way back when it was feasible to be 22 acres in size in NYC, and this while cheek to jowl by two other pioneering parks, Dreamland and Steeplechase. Coney Island was quite simply the birthplace of the American amusement park, and as such an epicenter of a certain kind of pop culture.



Today, the blandification on offer by Mayor Bloomberg & co. translates (as of February) to the current Luna Park being owned by Central Amusement International (majority shareholder: Italian Zamperla which produced the brand-new rides and will manage the park). As of November 1st, the conglomerate has seen fit to evict 9 of the 11 long-standing, honky-tonk operations on the boardwalk. Every single one of the boardwalk places I saw and photographed last week (and which are shown here) will have to vacate their premises within the coming two weeks. They are yesterday.



The owners of Luna Park explained that it was looking to “extend its vision of a resurgent Coney Island.” It seems their vision involves a sports bar, sit-down restaurants, and retail.

Even the Cyclone is at risk. A legendary, clattery wood roller coaster inaugurated in 1927 and still in use today, its fate is also in the hands of Central Amusement International and Zamperla, who hold a ten-year lease on the land.

This process of cleaning up--and out--Coney Island reminded me uncomfortably of walking by the Victoria’s Secret, American Eagle Outfitter, Gap(s) et al. thronging the streets of SoHo. I was having trouble finding the galleries, as SoHo veers ever closer to being a tastefully sanitized outdoor mall. Ditto for Times Square, with its Ann Taylor Loft and Aeropostale clothing emporiums, Pop-Tarts World (where you can feast on Pop-Tarts sushi), the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company and so on. I don’t want to become overly nostalgic about 1970s city grit and seediness, but man, I just wish they wouldn’t keep throwing out authenticity with the bathwater.



At least Times Square has its Naked Cowboy, who knows how to keep it real. He sued Mars Inc. in 2008 for trademark infringement (because yes, folks, he owns the “international” trademark to being kinda naked and playing a guitar). They’d had the gall to have the blue M&M play a guitar, similarly cowboy-hatted and kinda undressed. In a cartoon. Mars settled for undisclosed terms. Now the Naked Cowboy’s suing the Naked Cowgirl, a bawdy busker who refuses to become a paying franchisee of his, which would cost her $5k per annum. The Naked Cowboy claims that continuing as she does, she may bring about “a potentially permanent devaluation on a real American Brand and Icon.”

This latest lawsuit may not have his full attention though, since, on October 6, he officially declared--fully dressed-- that he would be running for President of the United States in 2012. On the Tea Party ticket. All the presidential merchandise you could wish for is already available for sale at his official website, where you can find his DVDs, i-Tunes downloads, his self-published book, and the Naked Cowboy Workout Method. That last one’s free, actually. Oh, and he’s an ordained minister, so he can marry you, if you swing that way. That’s a lot less free.  All of this with the aim of becoming "the most celebrated entertainer in the world."

Do I sound a touch bitter about all this? Can I legitimately be a critic? I did, after all, go home with a pair of Gap jeans, and maybe a t-shirt or two…But sometimes changes just feel wrong, sometimes people go too far.



Other times, changes feel very right. In the plus column goes New York City’s High Line, which I truly love.



I love the concept (old, unused raised railway turned aerial park), I love the wild grasses they’ve encouraged to grow, and the sense of immediate, pure escape that comes over me when I walk it. I love that the existing railway was integrated into the new structure, and that the neighborhood through which it runs is clearly reinvigorated by its presence. I love that lovers of astronomy set their telescopes up there on certain propitious nights. The High Line is a poem in mid-air, where children come for Halloween fun and the fabulous stroll come summertime.  



And they haven’t even finished building it. Gives me something to look forward to.

More thoughts, views and tips on New York:

- My Endless New York, by Tony Judt

- 36 Hours in NYC, from the Travel Section, NYT
- The Secret Subway Stop, from Yahoo News
- New York, I Love You, the film (Natalie Portman, Andy Garcia, et al.)

- Three new books on NYC

Westward bound.

 This was my last view of the French coast today.

Despite the pale-shade-of-'68 révolution convulsing significant parts of France, I was able to make it out of the country without incident (if you don't count the oddly aggressive X-ray security person I ran into at Charles de Gaulle airport).

As the sun set over New York, I looked out the window, and the first thing I saw was a baseball diamond.   The French teenagers in the seats behind me were incandescent with a (contagious) glee.  There was the Etats-Unis, indeed.  I mentally agreed with them wholeheartedly when they said the week is going to fly by...The plane banked, turning into the black, and I then saw the enormous full moon, casting its endlessly long shadow across the rumpled, wrinkled dark sea.  It really was magic. 

And I can't wait to get out and walking...

Just the headlines and some real pie comfort.

Autumn and I are continuing to get reacquainted.  The bite of cold in the fingers, the ears.  The feel of a friend's frigid cheek, mid-kiss, at the outdoor market.  The critical eyeing of the mushrooms on display and tut-tutting over the cost.  In short, the usual.  Except this is France, and today, here's what we're facing:

Revolutionary woes: French airports face major strike disruption Tuesday

Half of all flights to and from Paris Orly airport and 30 percent of flights at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle and other French airports will be cancelled Tuesday due to strikes, aviation officials said. The civil aviation authority DGAC said it had ordered airlines to reduce their traffic after unions called the day of strikes, with the airport stoppage set to last 24 hours. Tuesday will be the seventh day of nationwide protests in two months against a government reform that will raise the retirement age from 60 to 62.
© 2010 AFP

But that's not all: France activates fuel supply crisis cell
France activated Monday an emergency government crisis cell charged with maintaining fuel supplies amid a strike that has shut down refineries and blocked storage depots, the interior ministry said. Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux decided to "activate from today the inter-ministerial crisis centre in order to assure the continuity of petroleum supplies," a statement said. Petrol distribution bodies UIP and UFIP said separately that pumps were starting to run out, with the UIP estimating that 1,500 out of 4,000 major service stations were affected. Most of France's oil refineries shut down production last week as part of a nationwide movement against plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, and protests escalated Monday with truck drivers blocking access to depots.
© 2010 AFP

In practical terms: More than 1,000 French petrol stations run dry
Around 1,500 petrol stations located on the forecourts of French supermarkets had run out of fuel Monday amid strikes against pension reform, their industry association told AFP. Around 4,500 of France's 12,500 filling stations are attached to shopping centres, and they are the country's busiest, supplying 60 percent of the fuel used by French motorists. "Twenty to 25 percent of our distribution capacity is either stopped or in trouble," said Alexandre de Benoist, a senior official with Union of Independent Petroleum Importers, which represents the sector. He said that some regions, in particular Brittany and western France, were in a "very worrying" situation because fuel distribution stations were either on strike or blockaded by strikers from other sites. "There are at least 1,500 stations that have run out of at least one fuel product or are totally dry," he added.
© 2010 AFP

If you can't get enough of the hullabaloo, there's this: French truckers block roads as anti-reform protests escalate, and oh, yes, this: Go-slow protests hit French roads.  This all means far too many schools are on strike, as well as post offices, oh, the list of government-related strikers goes on.  As of today, here in the Gard, people are suddenly limited to 20 euros of gas at a time, thanks to those charming strikers. Living here, you learn to go with the flow, only my challenge is this: I am supposed to fly (on strike-prone Air France, boo hiss!) to New York City (oh yes!) this particular week, when all things transportation-related are a bit, well, hairy.  Wish me luck.  I have a few days yet.  This may all calm down by, say, Friday. 

 

Hmm. Much closer to the home front, my neighbors have finished their grape harvest some time ago.  The unmarked trail from kitchen door to forest is lightly carpeted with leaves. We've gathered the walnuts from under the big tree (well, what the squirrels left behind anyway).  It's an opportune time for some fine autumn comfort, using some of those walnuts in an easy-as-pie riff of a Bon Appétit recipe (October 2001).   This comfort comes dense, whole nuts bound only by cream and honey, contained within a gorgeous shortbread crust.  There's no complicated palaver with eggs. It's just the kind of thing you need to throw together and eat as the days grow colder.  It's maybe even just the ticket for a paralyzing national strike.

Tarte aux fruits secs et miel (Honeyed Autumn Nut Tart)
For the crust:
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cut into smallish pieces
1 142 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
 OR 1 refrigerated, prepared pâte sablée/pâte brisée crust

For the filling:
3/4 cup whipping cream

1/2 cup (packed) brown sugar

1/2 cup darkest possible honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon rum

1/2 teaspoon blend of ground cloves and cardamom

2 1/2 cups coarsely chopped toasted nuts (can be a blend of cashews, walnuts, pinenuts or really, any other nuts)

1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 180C (350F).  Pulse butter, flour, brown sugar, and salt in a food processor until small lumps form. Press onto bottoms and up sides of small (about 9 inches) tart pan. If using a ready-made crust, transfer the crust to a tart pan, fold in any overhang to form double-thick sides, and place in freezer while preparing filling. 

Whisk cream, honey, sugar, vanilla, rum and spices in heavy, large saucepan. Add nuts. Simmer over medium heat until mixture is bubbling and darkens slightly, stirring until sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes. Spread filling evenly in crust. Spinkle salt evenly over tart. Bake until filling is deep golden brown (watch closely for signs of burned nuts, so much less yummy) and crust is golden, about 25 minutes. Cool completely before serving. Can be baked in advance. Cover and store at room temperature.

Any given saturday.

There are no morning cartoons on Saturdays here.

They exist in France, bien sûr, but not at our house, because for that you'd need a television.  So, after the early morning daddy/daughter/dog walk, the young ones go with their father to the bakery, some five minutes away in the village.  After that, the paper, a croissant and coffee for daddy at the cafe.  The kids get green tea or chocolat chaud. I get to sleep in a bit longer.

Only now, in mushroom time, I don't. Instead, the five year old buccaneer stays home with me, because he loves to 'hunt for treasure'. Penknife, camera and basket in hand, he and I step out into the field and forest sparkling with dew, heavy with the scent of the blooming oregano, to seek out our treasure, like the perfectly purple fungus below.  (I think it's a lactaire amethyste, or amethyst deceiver.)

Since it's just the two of us 'experts' we harvest only the local basics I'm comfortable with, like rosé des prés (in English they're just a plain-Jane-but-tasty field mushrooms), chanterelles/girolles, trompettes de la mort, cèpes--and if we're crazy lucky--l'oronge. 

The unknown mushrooms in these photos were admired, and left alone.  They are really only the pretext, anyway. 

We are as much there for the dappled sunlight, the discovery of any number of potential, seductively mossy picnic spots, and any particularly well-formed dead branches (to use as swords, obviously).  

Sometimes we find a clutch of chanterelles, other times a wild boar mudbath, with the tree trunks all around it covered in mud up to my eyeballs.  That's when I start Talking Really Loudly.  (Did I ever tell you my neighbor shot a boar that weighed 120 kilos?  You should have seen the tusks.)

Other times it's the flowers we stop to admire. The little one's at the ideal height to best enjoy all these things. He orders me, repeatedly, to take pictures of  'all the beauty'. So I do. Sometimes I'm laughing too much (goodbye, blurred shot of tiny, electric green acorns).

We look for the spiders who made such airy, deadly traps in the broom.  No luck.

No matter: this past hunt, we had luck enough to fill the saucepan.  After leaving my co-conspirator with his father, I spent my usual two hours singing in the choir (we're now rehearsing Yugoslavian drinking songs and Mozart's ecco quel fiero istante). Boy, was I ready for lunch, and the mushrooms were soon ready after a thorough brushing.

Threw in some golden tomatoes I put up a while ago, a smidge of salt and white ground pepper...

...some spaghetti al dente and we were good to go.  Bon ap', as the young'uns say.

With the 600-odd new books just in at the library, after lunch I put in some extra time there organizing.  I came across this gem, which I had to share with you.

Here's a peak inside.  Inside a pimped van, early 70s, opium den style.  How about that?  Tell me you have one, just like it.

In between raindrops, the colors are up in the village as well, if less Dance of the Seven Veils-ish. 

 

On the way home, the ripening fruit of an olive tree mingles with a yellow firethorn. 

Note to the dearest little pirate: I'm doing my best to take pictures of all the beauty.

The emperor's choice.

Some days, there is just no sun to be seen. Autumn is advancing on cat's paws. The pyracantha/firethorn seems pleased, heavy with its burden of color and fruit (fit only for birds). The young liquidambar (sweetgum) I planted was the first to don red, a pop of verve in the wan day. And so yes, we all know there are elements of beauty present in every season, but these are perhaps a bit more valued just now for their fleeting nature. Also now, with varying degrees of subtlety and regularity, we're all off to the forests, to tease forth semi-hidden mycological treasure. Beauty of another breed. You can tell foraging is going on by the number of hastily abandoned cars alongside country roads here. I'm the rawest of novices at this business, but I go too, armed--with a basket, a penknife--and a person in the know.  Who could tell you, for instance, that the mushrooms below are definitely delicious black trumpets.

Mushroom hunting verges on the French cult activity of fall, even for the resolutely citified. If you do find someone willing to show you some of their favorite places, they are indeed fond of you; no one is exactly advertising the mushroom-laden spots...Luckily for newbies like myself, each and every pharmacist in France is trained to identify all the good, bad and the in-between of the mushroom world. So if you're even slightly uncertain, you simply head to any pharmacy for a (free) consult.Beyond the extraordinary truffle, in a league of its own, I've always reserved my biggest passion for cèpes, also known as porcini, and am far from the only person to feel this way in France. So I was rather surprised to find there's a rarer, fairer beauty held in even higher esteem in mushroom-mad France: the amanita caesarea. This mushroom isn't to be found in North America, though some call lookalike relatives such as Amanita hemibapha and Amanita jacksonii American Ceasar's Mushrooms. In France, the original amanite des césars, or l'oronge, maintains a near-mythic status, in part due to its relative rarity, in part its delectable taste. As implied by its name, the Roman emperors held it in the same esteem. Absent in the north of France, it tends to be found in the backcountry of the Mediterranean... where I live. And oh, is it ever a sight to see, emerging slightly, palely orange, out of a layer of beige forest detritus, not unlike a sunrise. Or maybe you manage to see an immature one: the white of the "egg", gleaming white in the undergrowth. If you cut open the egg, you see the yet "unborn" perfectly formed mushroom, waiting to burst out (this is why the Italians call it ovoli). Its exquisite, delicate flavor is so prized that, while recipes abound, aficionados recommend simply eating it raw with a bit of salt and olive oil. If it must be made into something, they recommend it sliced, raw, into salad. I'll admit I'm tempted by a briefly baked stuffed version, however. The amanita family is generally quite toxic (read: forager beware!). This particular amanita does distinguish itself from its hot-headed and deadly cousins: while the inside is white, the gills and trunk are outwardly clearly yellow. I don't think any of my images do its true beauty justice, and of course I forget to bring the camera while foraging...The finest image I have seen in situ is actually on Wikipedia.

Mushroom hunting is a win-win kind of activity: you may find no mushrooms, but you've still spent an hour or two foraging in a sweet-smelling forest--it doesn't get much more primal.

It seems the madness for mushrooms is catching. (Why did it take me so long to get on the fungus foraging bandwagon? Fear. Not trusting my own capacity to learn how to pick out the good from the dangerous. Those scary anecdotes of people who died, or nearly died, because they just had to eat this or that particular mushroom...Caution is good, but it is best when calibrated. Because there really is nothing quite like savoring something utterly wild, and wild-tasting, that you tracked down, all by yourself. Plus, in the case of mushrooms, there's no blood involved.)

For those of you who do dare, here's a German recipe for amanite des césars/keiserling from the 16th century (with thanks to Anahita):

Nim{b} Keiserling/ welche Schwäem{m} man gemeiniglich füer die aller besten helt/
wasch sie auss/ pfeffers vnd saltzs/
leg sie auff ein Rosst/ brat vnd begeuss sie mit Butter/
vnd gib es warm auff ein Tisch/
besträew es mit Pfeffer vnd mit Saltz/
so seind sie gut vnd wolgeschmack.

Take Keiserling/ which Mushrooms one generally holds [keeps] best of all/

wash them off/ pepper and salt [them]/

lay them on a Grill/ roast and baste them with Butter/

and give [i.e. serve] them warm on a Plate/

strew them with Pepper and with Salt/
thus are they good and well-tasting.