Don’t say that, please.

There is one word in the English language that really irks me. I know I’m not alone in my hatred of this word because I heard on NPR’s “Wait, wait don’t tell me” that this word is consistently deemed the most hated word in America. I’m talking about the word “moist.” According to Peter Sagal, it is the pronunciation of the two vowels, “oi” that makes people cringe in disgust.  I agree wholeheartedly that when one makes the sound “oi”, sandwiched between the beginning letter “m” and the ending letters “st” that one speaks the most shudder-inducing word. This word evokes for me a feeling of creepy clamminess. When I hear the word “moist” I see small sweat drops clinging to extremely pale skin. Ugh. I can feel myself making a face even as I write this.

So why is it then that everyone continues to use this word to describe food? There hasn’t been an occasion when someone has baked a cake or some sort of quick bread that someone hasn’t uttered the word “moist”. And then usually someone says, “Hey, doesn’t Ashley hate that word?” And then I usually say, “yes, that is the word that I detest”, which is followed by more people using the word and laughing at my face.

A friend told me the other day that I should just get over it, because there is no better word that describes the crumb of a really good cake. But I beg to differ. I love cake, and talk about it frequently without using the word-that-must-not–be-named. Cake is my favorite dessert and when I don’t have some sort of dessert that resembles cake around, I feel lost and sad. I don’t necessarily mean those elaborate birthday cakes that are available at bakeries, or the really sweet Costco kind that is more frosting (another thing that I hate- frosting) than anything else. No, usually I am referring more to the texture of say, something simple like banana bread, persimmon bread, pound cake, or sponge cake.

What’s wrong with the word “cakey”? That’s the word that I always use when I’m describing the texture that I crave. Or how about “spongey” or “soft”? I use all of these words and I don’t feel like anything is missing in its description. I propose that we all replace the word “moist” with the infinitely better sounding “cakey.” That’s the word I used today when I announced that I was going to make French yogurt cake. Yes, that’s right. I craved that “cakey” texture. And this recipe, from my host mom in France, definitely fits the bill. It’s the perfect simple teacake. The crumb is dotted with holes, and it bounces back when you poke at it. It has an eggy, vanilla flavor and is light while being slightly chewy. Make it, and then when you are thinking about what to say about it, remember that “moist” is probably the worst option.

Gâteau au Yaourt de Nathalie

- Usually you use one container of plain yogurt for the recipe, and then you just use the same container to measure all the rest of the ingredients. The recipe that follows is in number of “pots”, which is the number of times you fill up the container. A ½ cup measure works just as well.

Ingredients:

1 pot plain yogurt

½ pot oil, crème, or melted butter

1 ½ pot of sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 pots of flour

4 eggs

2 tsp baking powder

Mix all of the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Whisk together the wet ingredients in a large bowl, and add the dry mixture to the wet mixture. Mix together until there are no lumps, but don’t over-mix. You can also add chocolate, fruit, nuts, etc. to the mixture. Bake at 356 degrees for 35-45 minutes.

I love simple things.

The Trappist

Once upon a time I was not 21. Ah, yes I remember those days, days that were young and carefree. When gas prices were high but the housing market had not yet crashed. Come to think of it, that wasn’t so long ago after all. But then, why do I feel so old? Perhaps I am in the midst of what they call “the quarter-life crisis.” You know, when you’re about to graduate from college and you’re not sure if you know how to handle the real world. Somehow, I’ve just never imagined what life would be like when the next step wasn’t the same for everyone, where you’re not just expected to be a student anymore, but you have other options. Too many other options.

But then, I look on the bright side. Now that I’m 21 there is a whole world available to me that was not before. Two years ago, when I worked for a summer in Oakland, my co-workers and I tried to go to a bar on the last day of work. I wasn’t able to order anything, but we figured that it wouldn’t be a problem for me to just sit there and not drink anything. We were wrong, and long story short, the afternoon ended with us sitting around on the grass in the park near the office, against a backdrop of honking horns and wailing ambulances.

This past Friday, I finally had the chance to redeem myself from that experience. Ever since my birthday I have wanted to go back to the bar that everyone talked about during my summer working in Oakland. So when some friends and I wanted to celebrate the end of finals, it seemed like the logical choice. The name of the bar is the Trappist and it is known for Belgian and specialty beers. It is named after Catholic monks from Belgium who brew beer to sell to the public. At the Trappist there are 25 ales on tap that rotate, and it being the month of December there were plenty of Christmas choices. I had a beer called, “Santa’s Little Helper.” It was dark and delicious, with hints of chocolate (according to the description). It was strong too, coming in at 10.5% alcohol. I wish I had known that, considering my history as the lightest lightweight in the history of people who don’t tolerate alcohol well.

Anyway, it’s a good place to go for a more upscale bar experience. The drinks come in at anywhere from 5-8 dollars, which is a little pricier than your average college bar. The bar also received excellent reviews on yelp. I just read a review that mentions one beer called “The Beast”, with 16.5% alcohol. Hmm, that one may be the next logical step in exercising my legal rights.

What we’ve been missing

So I’ve realized that we’ve barely posted any pictures on this site. I don’t know if we even did post any. It’s been a while since the last posts, because I guess life intervenes and blogs take the back seat. It’s funny how “side-projects” work when you’re a student. It seems like every year I tell myself, I am going to do “BLANK”, and I will keep doing it. But then, more important things must be done, like homework. Anyway, in the end its not really an excuse, because plenty of students have blogs out there that are really good. So hopefully, in this lull between semesters, I can post a little bit more. If not for anyone else, then just to prove to myself that this is something ongoing, even if its ongoing with a some breaks in between.

Oh right, the point was to post some pictures. Here are some of Sushi Sho. I miss you Sushi Sho! Now those 40 dollars I would feel bad about spending at this restaurant go towards buying clothes online (when I should be studying). Hahaha.

Beets: a haiku

Beets are so red and

They are very tasty now

My pee is pink too.

Expenditures: Conclusion

Okay…I lied. Tonight, I went to Sushi Sho again.  I said I was never going to be a regular there, and I guess I’m still not, but I am now one of those people who will go twice in a span of five days.

How did I get over my “ pricey food angst”? It was easy. My friend appealed to the side of me that is easily seduced by the “live life while you can” argument. So, I did. And I don’t regret it. It was another amazing meal. Some people spend their money on cars, some on expensive purses. Hey, I have to spend my money on something, right? It might as well be uni.

Expenditures, contd.

To continue the theme of pricey food angst (developed here) and the theme of sandwiches (developed here), I would just like to say that I have discovered another fabulous sandwich in the Boston area, albeit one very different from the chacarero I discussed in my last post. this sandwich is the well-known, well-reputed Cuban sandwich at the bar at Chez Henri. everyone (or at least everyone on the Boston Chowhound board) knows that this sandwich is the shit. but I had not experienced its excellence until this past weekend, largely because Chez Henri is an expensive and somewhat snobby place, unlike the sorts of places I am used to finding good sandwiches in.

nonetheless, this weekend I bit the bullet and went down there for rum drinks and the famed sandwich, which costs 14 dollars (plus a $9 drink and a big tip for the extremely great bartender), is actually pretty big (although not by Philly standards), and comes with paper-thin, totally ungreasy fried plantain chips, salsa, and some greens with a bright, citrus-y sort of vinaigrette. as I devoured it ecstatically, reveling in the perfect balance of pressed cuban bread, superbly roasted pork, swiss cheese, ham, pickle, and mustard (with the roast pork as the strongest element – as it should be – most inferior cuban sandwiches are too sharp, dominated by the salty taste of too much ham or the mustardy taste of, well, the mustard), I thought to myself, “in the whole wide world of discretionary food spending, what could possibly be a better use of a couple hours’ wages than purchasing the right to eat this sandwich?” And I could think of nothing.

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Meditation of the day: is a hot dog a sandwich? Discuss

Expenditures

What is a great meal worth? With today’s economy, this is certainly a pressing question for us foodies, and a question I struggle with over and over.

Today I went to the best sushi restaurant I have ever been to and probably will ever go to (unless I make a trip to Japan). The sushi is some of the freshest that can be found in California, and it is where I had my first taste of the magnificent Uni (sea urchin). Mmm… the scallop, amaebi (sweet shrimp), tobiko (fish roe) with quail egg, and tamago (rolled egg) were simply amazing.

The sushi here is so good that it has attracted quite a cult following in the Bay Area. But as any sushi connoisseur knows, to get good sushi one must be prepared to pay the price. It is very difficult to have a meal here under 40 dollars, putting quite a dent in your average student food budget. I mean, if you want to have the real experience, that is. If you just want to get a roll and leave hungry then it probably isn’t worth making the trip.

At Sushi Sho, once you enter the restaurant, you feel like you have been accepted to some special club. There are only eight seats at the sushi bar, and once those are filled, that’s it for the first 6 o’clock seating. Other diners will then have to wait for the later seating at 8.

At the bar, the regulars know each other. They talk to the sushi chef, Aki-san, familiarly, asking about his son, future business plans, etc. They also talk to each other about what kind of fish is fresh today, what “off-the menu” items to order, and other insider topics. Throughout the night people who don’t know about how the restaurant works come in the door from time to time, only to be turned away with “we only serve sushi here”, or “ you need to wait 25-35 minutes”. The regulars snicker and murmur that these people should read the sign at the door, laying these policies out in writing.

Being a regular here means spending more than 40 dollars for a meal at least once a week. Some go two or three days in a row. It is plainly evident that being a regular at Sushi Sho gives one a certain feeling of prestige, one of those who are “in-the-know”. A meal here is always a good experience, and it makes me want to be a regular too. But at the same time I think about how 40 dollars spent on groceries could feed me well for a week and a half. And how a great, albeit simple, meal with friends at a good burger place costs at most 10 dollars. It’s a sort of tug of war for me. Some weeks I’m all about frugality and adhere to the “simple life” philosophy. Other weeks I’m a hedonist and throw caution to the wind, ready to lay down 50 dollars or more for a nice meal. I suppose I can never be a regular at any place with these tendencies, but at least in the end my expenditures sort of even out.

sandwiches

as I have often commented on this blog, I come from Philadelphia, a city of many fantastic and excellent sandwiches. the City of Brotherly Love boasts dozens and dozens of sandwich shops producing not just good sandwiches, but good and distinctive sandwiches unique to this country and perhaps the world, including the incomparable cheesesteak, the hoagie (which is not the same as a sub, hoagie, grinder, hero, etc., but, indeed, is BETTER), and the roast pork & greens, which I happen not to be particularly fond of (even having sampled the alleged best of philly, at tony luke’s) but which a lot of other people swear by. (NB: I can’t help that these roast pork fans choose the pork over the cheesesteak because roast pork is lesser known, harder to find, and a somewhat purer food (consisting only of succulent pork, broccoli rabe or spinach, and maybe some good sharp provolone), while the cheesesteak is beloved and consumed worldwide (athough most have only eaten the foulest imitation of it), even by the crudest of food philistines, and frequently comes doused in neon yellow-orange Cheez Whiz. But I digress.)

Having grown up in the sandwich utopia of our nation, I have had a hard time adjusting to life in Boston, where decent sandwiches are rather hard to come by, and decent and distinctive sandwiches even more so. here and there you will find a good rendition of a classic sandwich, as in the generally solid menu at Darwin’s, good sandwiches, but of the sort you can get most other places in the country. reubens, ham and cheese, and the like. also, Darwin’s is both expensive and incredibly slow. Then, of course, there is the transcendent roast beef at Kelly’s and points further north (roast beef being a North Shore sort of thing), but Kelly’s is all the way out on Revere Beach and thus must be an occasional luxury. I hear good reviews about Sam Lagrassa’s downtown, but haven’t been yet, and it’s apparently damn expensive to boot. So all in all, I can’t claim to have comprehensive knowledge of the Boston sandwich scene, but I have been around a good bit and I can say without hesitation that the pickings here are somewhat slim.

BUT today I finally tried the chacarero at Chacarero in Downtown Crossing and it gave me the thoroughly satiated contentment that only a huge excellent sandwich can, and that I don’t think I’d yet experienced in Boston. To obtain a chacarero, you wander around Downtown Crossing until you find the random side street it’s on. there will be a long line of workaday-looking people on their lunch break from whatever financial services / banking / accounting jobs they have. order your sandwich with the woman up front, advance slowly up to the counter, and observe as the following elements are assembled:

• a round, flat-but-slightly-puffy torta sort of bread
• sauteed pounded plain chicken breast (you can also get beef)
• a green chile based hot sauce that’s really more pesto-like than hot sauce like in form
• sauteed green beans
• avocado spread (NOT guacamole as some have suggested)
• lots of tomato
• melted muenster cheese

the resulting sandwich will be ready in approximately 3 seconds and will be the size of your whole face. and what a sandwich it is. connoisseurs know that the true potential of the sandwich form is realized in those specimens which weave disparate ingredients (including bread, the most essential ingredient of a sandwich and the one whose quality will make or break the whole thing – which boston, with its horribly innocuous sandwich rolls and “bulkies,” does not seem to realize) into an indivisible whole. anyone can make a pile of stuff and put it between bread, but a good sandwich is not this. a good sandwich, like a good cocktail (or really anything with a complicated recipe in which the core ingredients remain more or less intact at the recipe’s completion), is not a cacophony – it is, above all else, harmonious. it is a triumphant symphony. and anyone who thinks this language is too lofty for mere sandwiches has never enjoyed a good sandwich.

the chacarero is indeed a symphony. no ingredient is out of place, no ingredient is overwhelming, no ingredient hides mutely in the background. the melted muenster cheese, is perfect, perfect, and the hot sauce is precisely hot and sharp enough to accent the chicken, which would be bland on a plate by itself but here shines in its own quiet way. the bread, which they bake themselves, is tasty. there is just enough of it, and it is a robust enough sort of bread, to support the relatively large sandwich without making it overly bready.

the whole sandwich was seven bucks and was almost too much to eat in one sitting. so in conclusion, if this is not the greatest and best sandwich experience in downtown boston (if not the whole city proper), I will eat my shoe, Werner Herzog style.

Procrasti- nation

So I am supposed to be writing one of the many papers I have to finish before the end of finals. But it’s well known that the more one has to do, the more ways one finds to procrastinate. There are many methods of procrastination. Some read online comics, some play computer games, some just stare listlessly out the window for half an hour at a time. While I have done all of these at some point in order to avoid doing work, in recent years I have found a new, better, and in a sense more productive activity for procrastination. 

BAKING.

In the past three days I have already made biscotti and scones. Today while scanning the food blogs (another time-delayer), I bookmarked cornbread, lime-lemon muffins, and granola. I don’t even like granola. 

I remember a time when I didn’t bake. But that was before I lived with the G-4. One of my roommates, E-dawg, was an excellent baker. I used to turn my nose up at the thought of baking (since “top chefs” usually look down upon the lowly dessert and pastry), but soon I was powerless to resist the smell of cookies, cakes, muffins, and breads in the oven. I began experimenting myself. I started with bread, since I thought it was healthier. But I wasn’t the only one baking and there was always something sweet around as well. I got used to that smell and the luxury of a hot muffin or scone every few days. So I felt deprived when there was none around. And especially around finals and midterm, the steady trickle of buttery goodness would come to a temporary halt. 

That’s when the urges would come. 

At first it was just in the middle of studying. I was hungry, but for what I didn’t know. I looked around and nothing seemed appetizing to me. I also wanted to be doing something that didn’t feel too much like I was just wasting time. Suddenly it hit: an indescribable desire to mix and stir, melt butter, and measure ingredients. Before I knew it I was making muffins. I believe the time was 12am  (pretty late for me if you know anything about my sleeping habits).

So stay tuned, because it is that time of year again. And I am currently reading MFK Fisher’s “How to Cook a Wolf”. Baked apples and gingerbread, here I come.

Recent things I have eaten and grumbled about

So I went to Drink a few days ago as promised and had a pitch-perfect Manhattan ($10), or rather a more interesting riff on a Manhattan, with good spicy bitters. It was delicious but I was more in the mood for something traditional…I suppose it’s not the place for that, though. The bar was nice but not particularly comfortable…it’s a basement with lots of hard corners, exposed brick, dark metal surfaces. I liked Green Street’s vibe a lot more. Also there was a gratuitous collection of bugs mounted on pins in boxes (which freaked out everyone but me)…of course, the bugs weren’t quite as gratuitous as the HUGE BLOCK OF ICE from which the ice for drinks is HEWN before your eyes by the bartender.

The other thing I should note about Drink is that there are no menus and you have to talk to the bartender to figure out what you’re going to have. This is potentially a very good way to get exactly what you want, and is good intellectual stimulation for the (sharply dressed and somewhat tattooed) bartenders, but I imagine it’s got to get annoying after a while. Also that means that everything costs the same ($10), and a lot of those same drinks are going for $6.50 to $8 even at the snooty bars around town.

Also, today Nina and I stopped in at Sweet, the new cupcakery in the Square that I have been bitter about because I can’t possibly imagine it’s the best use of that space (next to Urban Outfitters on Brattle). I mean, in what sort of bizarro restaurant universe does Harvard Square manage to accrue 12389 burrito joints, 5 Thai places, 5 Indian restaurants, and an artisanal cupcake boutique, but nowhere for a decent sandwich or Italian food? Ugh. Anyway, the cupcakes at Sweet are very good, especially the as far as the cake goes – very moist, dense, not cloyingly sweet chocolate cake, in the one I had. The buttercream was decent too. That said, this cupcake, of modest size, was $3.25 (!!!!!), and in order to purchase it I had to withstand the lethally precious experience that is Sweet’s interior (cutesy faux-vintage wallpaper, plush pink cushioning, a flat screen TV playing nostalgic 60’s movies, cute hipster-y female waitstaff with chunky eyeglasses). Take note: the best dessert in the Square is still a demi dark hot chocolate at Burdick’s ($2).

Considering all this, I think the best food experience I’ve had lately took place in my room and involved some handmade landjäger my folks sent me from DiBruno’s. PHILLY