Even for the Naughty Ones

I think animals sense the holidays. After all, suddenly there’s a big tree inside the house replete with chew toys hanging all over it. Something is up. Everybody seems stressed out. And the people-who-control-the-food seem to always be eating…always. So, why leave the pooches out of the holiday feasting? And even if you don’t buy my theory about CSP (Canine Sensory Perception), these goodies are a thoughtful gift to the humans in your life who dote on their dogs. The recipe is incredibly simple, and let’s face it, who’s going to complain that they aren’t “butter-y” enough or whine that you’ve blown their diet? Cooking for those who can’t critique, or at least, can’t critique eloquently, is the way to go. So here are the Christmas cookies you won’t mind dropping on the floor (like I did…parchment paper is slippery as hell).

1 ¾ cup whole wheat flour (I used white because I had it…)
½ cup oatmeal
¼ cup wheat bran (what? I’m not buying wheat bran for this…)
½ cup of cornmeal (I’ll just double this instead…)
½ teaspoon salt
1 egg
½ cup beef or chicken stock
½ cup butter, shortening, or meat drippings

Mix up all the dry ingredients (or your version of them). Add the shortening/drippings till you have an oatmeal consistency. I went a little overboard in this area and boiled a chicken carcass I had lying around (does that make you uncomfortable?) and used the resulting schmaltz. Glorious, glorious schmaltz. Ahem. Anyway. Then add the stock so that your dough forms a ball. Knead it for a couple minutes, and roll on a floured surface. It should be about ½ inch thick. Cut it into whatever shapes you fancy. I used a bone-shaped cookie cutter.

I was going to make some cat-shaped ones, but the skinny tail looked like both a burn-risk and a choking hazard. Don't ya think?

Bake at 350 for about a half hour and voila! When the Dog Revolution comes, you may be up against the wall, but only because they’re humping your leg...in a loving way.

Give Thanks!

Football and James Bond marathons on the television? Boxed wine socially acceptable? An inexplicable desire to eat from the second you open your eyes this morning.? Oh yes, it must be Thanksgiving Day!

Like most holidays, Thanksgiving's origins are somewhat disconnected from its contemporary form. A History Channel special last night taught me that Thanksgiving was indeed linked to this nation's earliest settlers, the Pilgrims, and their desire to share and celebrate their life in this New World with the local, indigenous people, the Native Americans. It was we (white folk) who were the illegal immigrants so many years ago! And these continental squatters did their best to improve the land, to till the earth and to make for a new life for themselves and their families.

And as the United States of America grew, so did the tradition of Thanksgiving. By 1864, President Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November to be a national holiday of giving thanks. Politically, Lincoln may have already had the reconciliation between the North and South in mind (the holiday decree came after the pivotal battle of Gettysburg). But to understand Thanksgiving is to know this nation's history. Why is the turkey the traditional main course for this holiday? Because our founding fathers (particularly Benjamin Franklin, who wanted the bird to be our national symbol instead of the scavenger Bald Eagle!) adored this native wild game. Yes, in the late 18th Century, people regarded the turkey as a noble creature! And why did the last Thursday in November become the holiday? Partly because a popular widower/publisher named Sarah Josepha Hale (the Oprah Winfrey of her time) wrote letters and editorials repeatedly asking for this particular day to be a national holiday.

Seeing today's holiday through the eyes of centuries past is an important exercise. We enjoy a lot of luxuries that our predecessors could not have imagined possible. In fact, you don't even need to go that far back into history to understand how quickly life is moving in this country. Think back fifteen years ago, before everyone was on the internet. Think of how shopping for presents meant you HAD TO go to a store. Now, you can choose to stay at home and click away all of your efforts. But the important stuff, the fact that we don't have to hunt for our own food or worry about how a head cold could mean death, is what matters most on this day. Life may not be easy for many people out there, but it isn't nearly as difficult as what our ancestors (not only from America, but from all over the world) had to endure.

So, enjoy the day. Eat, drink and repeat the process until you find it difficult to breathe. And take a quick moment to give thanks to those whom you've never known that have helped make this life of plenty possible. Happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Haleyween!

I love this holiday. And not just because I can stick my name in it and let the inner egomaniac out to play. The costumes, the pumpkins, the candy, the begging children, it's just all so wonderful!

But I am ready for it to be over, and here is why: channel surfing has become a dangerous sport in the last couple weeks. I'll be happily flipping along and suddenly I'm watching a trucker brandishing a chainsaw in the air, or an evil clown peering out of a drain, or someone WITHOUT SKIN. This has really been putting a damper on my television viewing habits. I'm ready for the airwaves to be safe for wusses like me again.

Anyway, I present to you my family's offering of jack-o-lanterns this year. Mine is the surprised looking guy on the right. Too bad you can see his candle epiglottis. My sister's is the cyclops. Take a guess who the creative one in the family is.

And the best costume award goes to Grandma. She knows how to rock a mask and a leopard hat.

Although, this is an awfully realistic dog costume.

Rickey Salutes the Bloody Mary

As a rule, Rickey enjoys consuming spicy things. And in case you hadn’t noticed, Rickey also enjoys alcohol. So it comes as no surprise that if a wondrous adult beverage existed that combined spiciness and alcohol content, Rickey would be all over it like a donkey on a waffle. And indeed, such a magical drink does indeed exist: the Bloody Mary. And for those of you who have never taken the time to make one your own, trust us, they’re completely delicious.

Sadly, only two other people in Rickey’s life profess to enjoy Bloody Marys: Ms. Henderson’s grandmother, and a college buddy of Rickey’s from Texas who prefaces all public conversations with the word “gentlemen…” So clearly this Bloody Mary thing isn’t a widespread phenomenon just yet. That’s where you, the reader come in. Rickey’s taking time out from his busy schedule to educate you on this fantastic yet woefully unappreciated drink, so listen well.

First, let’s discuss consumption locales. The peculiar thing about drinking a Bloody Mary is that there is most certainly a time and place for it. Over the years, Rickey has set out to determine exactly what those precise times and places are. We’ve come up with the following list:

1. While tailgating (highly unorthodox, we know)
2. On an airplane or in an airport
3. At a horse race
4. At a cockfight
5. While bowling
6. And, finally, on boats. Always on boats.

In other words, don’t go into a nightclub and expect the bartender to serve you a Bloody Mary with a straight face. It’s a rookie error, and it’s also for your own damn good. That’s because any Bloody Mary made in a bar or restaurant will never, ever taste as good as the one you meticulously craft in your own home. And as a rule, store-bought Bloody Mary mixes should be avoided like the plague. While making one from scratch requires a fair amount of ingredients, Rickey promises that the resulting drink is worth the time and materials spent on its production. Rickey’s recipe follows below. We even included the precise amounts for those of you too timid to eyeball things. Feel free to adjust the ingredient measurements to taste—Rickey prefers a strong drink that induces a taste bud explosion.

• 1 3/4 oz. pepper vodka, preferably Absolut Peppar


• 5 oz. tomato juice (not v8 you jackass)


• Juice from a freshly squozen lime


• 1 teaspoon diced fresh horseradish


• Kosher salt (does any other kind of salt exist?)


• A dash of olive juice


• Several liberal dashes of Worcestershire sauce


• Several liberal dashes of Tabasco sauce


• Freshly cracked black pepper

Place all ingredients in a martini shaker and proceed to shake vigorously. You won’t get the same effect from stirring it, trust us. Pour the finished drink into a highball glass (preferably, one of the Duralex variety) and proceed to enjoy the flavorful goodness. Feel free to add celery as a garnish, but if you’re really under the impression that this drink has any nutritional value beyond its ridiculously high Vitamin C content, you’re even further gone than we’d suspected. Besides, Rickey prefers garnishing his Bloody Marys with olives. Give them a shot—in time, so will you.

On election night and food

So, tonight is primary election night in New York state. I work for a newspaper, so we're pretty busy tonight (not yet, though, because polls haven't closed — side note: you'd be surprised how many calls we get asking for results before the polls have closed, though that's not nearly as bad as all the people without computers who call up while we're on deadline asking who won this race and who the new superintendent of highways is going to be). Reporters in my office are writing a total of 16 stories for tomorrow's paper, just on the election.

So every election night we get food. Usually pizza.

We ordered six pies tonight - two cheese, two pepperoni, one sausage and one fried eggplant (that was my idea). We always ask for napkins and plates and usually don't get them. We didn't tonight. (Why should this night be different from all other nights? It's not Passover!)

There's nothing like a nice slice or two of really greasy pizza just before you have to sit down and plow through yards of copy and make sure you make it through the night. I feel it sitting like a gut bomb in my stomach now.

But while we were eating, we discussed the fact that pizza is pretty perfect. I mean, if you have one with meat on it, you've got your protein, your starch, your fiber, your dairy, your vegetables. Sure, it's fattening. Sure, it's greasy, but it's pizza and this is New York.

And what, my friends, could be more perfect than that?

RECIPE: Rickey’s Boneless Buffalo Chicken

Football season is now upon us, and you know what that means: cooking up dishes with great indigestive potential. Rickey isn’t as big a football enthusiast as he is a baseball fan, but when it comes to cooking, he’s ready to rise to the occasion. Do you enjoy buffalo wings but feel like all those pesky bones are taking up valuable space that could be replaced by yet more buffalo sauce and chicken meat? Well then this quick & easy recipe is for you. Whether you’re a rabid fan in need of sustenance to fuel a grueling Sunday spent on the couch, or merely a hausfrau who just barely tolerates your significant other’s alarming fixation with watching grown men in tight pants tackle each other, we think you’ll find something in this recipe that appeals to you. Here’s what you’ll need:

Chicken tubers (or boneless chicken breasts cut lengthwise into strips if tubers aren’t available)

Bread crumbs

Chopped Parsley

Flour

Several Beaten Eggs

Peanut Oil

Frank’s Red Hot Sauce

Butter

Blue Cheese Dressing (Rickey recommends Marzetti’s)

You’ll want to kick things off by heating your oven up to 200° (Fahrenheit, not Celsius you pan-euro jackass). In a large bowl of your choosing, combine the breadcrumbs and chopped parsley. Then place the flour, beaten eggs, and breadcrumb mixture in three separate shallow bowls. Presto, you’ve got yourself a little assembly line going on.

*Note: If you’re the type who likes things very hot, add cayenne pepper to the flour mixture. For the next part of the operation, we suggest a little musical accompaniment. Raymond Scott’s “Powerhouse” should work nicely. Go ahead and tap your feet a little—music goes hand in hand with cooking.

One by one, dip the chicken tenders in the flour. Then dip them in the eggs. Then dip them in the breadcrumbs. It’s a regular factory assembly line! (See why Rickey picked out that song?) When you’re all done, place breaded chicken tenders on a large plate to await their oily fate. Next, heat a large frying pan over medium-high heat, and fill the bottom of the pan with a ½ inch of peanut oil. Unless you want your precious tenders sticking to the pan, make damn sure there’s a ½ inch of peanut oil in the pan at all time. Using your trusty cooking thermometer (you do have one of these, yes?) heat the oil to 350°.

To prevent a horrific scalding incident, a splatter guard is kind of a must for this recipe. When you’re feeling brave enough, add a few chicken strips (5 to 6) to the hot oil, and cook them until they’re nicely browned on one side. This should take about three minutes. Use some tongs (not bare hands) to turn the strips, and allow them to finish cooking, two to three minutes more. Remove the chicken tenders from the pan, place 'em on a baking sheet, and season them with some salt and freshly ground black pepper. Repeat this process for all the strips.

Put the finished chicken tenders in the oven to ensure they stay warm and crisp. Don’t stack them on top of each other—they’ll lose their crunchiness. We’d explain why this happens, but that would require a sextant, a master’s degree in Norse mythology, and a small woodland critter. Frankly, Rickey doesn’t have that kind of time on his hands.

Now on to the hot sauce: the heart of the recipe. Combine a ratio of 2 cups hot sauce to 4 tablespoons butter in a small saucepan, and bring the wondrous concoction to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally. When you’re ready to serve, put the chicken tenders in a large bowl and pour the sauce over them. Toss 'em up to ensure proper coating, and serve them with that Marzetti's blue cheese Rickey Mentioned earlier. Enjoy. We think that you’ll find that the taste stacks up nicely to anything most buffalo wing joints create (except for The Candlelight Inn--those magnificent bastards are in a league of their own.

As far as beverage pairings go, you’ll want to drink something equally modest as this unassuming dish. Go with Sam Adams Light, it’s a stalwart friend that has never let Rickey down in the past. So maybe this wasn’t the most challenging or high brow recipe ever... But you’ll find that it pairs well with an entire Sunday spent watching football. Have no fear; Rickey’s working his way up to a soufflé recipe.

Culinary Patriotism

Adam, our eponym and absentee landlord, until very recently (2 days ago I think) has goodnaturedly called me a Red, a Commie, a bleeding heart liberal, and generally cast aspersions on my patriotism (always with love, but nonetheless...). He's recently changed his tune, and while I'm not sure what I did to deserve this turnaround, I offer the following as evidence that I'm a true blue American dammit -- I can bake an awesome apple pie. In the absence of inflated credit card debt, a stars-and-stripes foam finger, or a gas guzzling SUV, this is really the only evidence of my Americanness that I possess...

The great thing about pie is that you can take the ugliest apples ever (like these from my grandma's front lawn, which I absconded with in the dead of night...no, no, no...kidding, kidding, I don't steal from grandma...I asked permission first) and peel away the ugly til you have perfect apple purity.

And then you throw together a very ugly pie crust because, well, mine always are. But if you use the magic ingredient...the scary magic ingredient...you will have incredible pie. Real pie. American pie. The secret ingredient?

Lard.

Don't be like that. Lard crusts are the only way to go. It's how your grandmother (whom I'm sure you never stole from either) made her crusts. If that isn't a stamp of approval, I don't know what is.

So you take your now perfect apples and throw in a little sugar, a little flour, a little butter, a little cinnamon, and presto change-0 -- Instant Patriotism.






God Bless America!

Wherein Amy explains why she hasn't posted yet

OK. So I get this e-mail one day from Adam, asking if I want to take part in this new blog venture, all about food. Heck, I like food, so why not?

Of course, I do have a full-time job and I blog about television for it, plus I'm now a member of Blogs4Bauer (in part, also Adam's fault), and I also have two children under the age of four, so it's not like I have gobs of free time.

But, still, it sounds fun.

Then a week passes. Another week.

And another, and another.

Still nothing.

I check in from time to time, read Rickey's hilarious missive on random food left to kill people in the kitchen, even comment on it.

Still nothing.

I'm lame, OK? Just lame. I never have any interesting food anymore (trying to lose baby weight, after all, plus we never get to eat out hardly, because we have two smichicks and corralling them is like trying to herd cats).

But it occurs to me that perhaps that can be my niche: Boring food.

A colleague went to the Desert Moon Fresh Mexican Grille (you know it's fresh b/c there's an "e" at the end of Grill) today and I ordered a steak fajita burrito. It was on the low-carb/high fiber menu and came in a whole-wheat tortilla.

Of course, that means it was not really a fajita, burrito or, frankly, anything else you could actually find in the nation of Mexico. But it wasn't too bad. I pretended it wasn't Mexican food, and it tasted pretty good, in fact.

Unfortunately, it came with some corn tortilla chips, which I ended up eating, and that probably negated the entire idea of eating from the low-carb menu. I also had a can of Diet Coke.

By the way, did you know that Diet Coke has more caffeine than a regular Coke? true. Check out The Caffeine Database — 12 ounces of Coca-Cola Classic has 34.5 mg of caffeine; Diet Coke has 45 mg in the same serving.

And it's my second can of the day. Woo-hoo! Stop by about 5 p.m., when I'm on deadline, have a million people asking me a million questions and I've had two or three more cans. It's not a pretty sight.

And Fridays, wow. Fridays are really ugly. But that's another story for another day. Friday's Chinese food day, so you have that to look forward to. And don't worry, I don't eat at this place.

Rickey Reviews Odd Food Left in the Second Floor Staff Kitchen

Every now and then, someone at Rickey’s office will leave food in the staff kitchen with the intention of giving it away gratis. Generally, this food is either: bizarre, rotten, unhealthy, or all of the above. Rickey, being the curious individual that he is, will often take aforementioned food back to his office and examine it to see if it qualifies as a suitable mid-afternoon snack. Yesterday, a tiny plastic cup in the second floor staff kitchen caught Rickey’s eye. Colored red and labeled only “JELLY,” Rickey deemed this gelatinous oddity to be worth a closer look. Below are Rickey’s field notes on the matter.

Interesting: neither the product’s manufacturer nor distributor are listed on the jelly cup. Alarm bells are stating to jingle in Rickey’s mind.

The label does however clearly state: CONTAINS NO KONJAC. What exactly is this konjac they speak of? A Saturday morning cartoon supervillan? Is it good that Rickey is not ingesting any, or bad that he’s getting enough in his daily diet?

A Wiki search reveals that Asians use this konjac ingredient frequently in cooking. And the FDA issued a full-blown ban on it in 2002. Uh oh. Evidently there was a show on this on Oprah a while ago involving paramedics trying to save children that had choked on konjac. The paramedics would use an instrument that sort of vacuums the konjac out of the wind pipe. Sometimes however, the konjac sticks to the walls of the windpipe and so there is nothing paramedics can do to save a choking child once they ingest it. Klaxon sirens are now sounding in Rickey’s head.

But hey, at least the folks manufacturing this product wised up and removed the konjac from their product. So everything’s hunky-dory, right? Not quite. The ingredients in this highly suspect snack only heighten Rickey’s concerns. The contents are:

1) R.O. Pure Water (sholy shit, just how bad does water need to be to require reverse osmosis?)
2) Fructose (mmm, healthy!)
3) Sugar (what, the fructose wasn’t enough?)
4) Coconut (well hey, at least that’s a natural ingredient)
5) Seaweed Extract (ewwwww, what the fuck?)
6) Acidulants (hooray for additives!)
7) Natural Lychee Flavor (sorry, but there’s nothing natural about a fruit that comes from the soapberry family)

Feeling just barely brave enough to sample this seemingly lethal children’s snack, Rickey peels off the plastic top and gingerly licks it. Hm, tastes kind of like mop water. Sickly sweet, and there’s something else in there too… …a slight after-taste of what Rickey imagines horse semen must taste like. Awesome.

Now convinced that the experience cannot possibly get any worse, Rickey pinches the bottom of the cup, and tilts his head back to force the gelatinous mop water into his mouth. Oh god. If Beelzebub were to mandate that the damned take jello shots in the fiery abyss, we imagine this is kind of what they’d taste like. An entire afternoon of work productivity has been lost and Rickey must now unleash hell in the first floor men’s bathroom.

Rickey’s not entirely sure precisely which Asian country this awful food hails from (to prevent a full-scale nuclear strike, the label wisely doesn’t identify that information). But once Rickey finds out, he’ll definitely be writing a few letters to his congressman. And a big shout out to the sadistic bastard in his office who tried to poison Rickey today. It’ll take more than that to keep Rickey down.

REVIEW: The Oyster Bar

On a Tuesday night jaunt into NYC, Rickey decided to stop off for a bite to eat at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station. Be warned: those who are squeamish about eating raw shellfish should avert their eyes at this point. Indeed, it takes a special kind of person to enjoy the sensation of oyster brine trickling down your chin (or man-beard in Rickey’s case). Now Rickey knows very little about the various classifications of raw oysters, but armed with a vocabulary consisting primarily of words such as “awesome” and “scrumtulescent” we think we’ll get the job done just fine.

The Oyster bar features sit down tables, but half the fun of eating there is sitting at the bar and watching the shellfish get shucked right in front of you. So Rickey sidled up to the bar and ordered himself a financially unsound amount of raw shellfish as well as a pint of the local lager. Now, some people might try and tell you that white wine, not beer is a better accompaniment to raw oysters. These people are jackasses, pay them no mind. Rickey sampled a bunch of oysters bearing titles like “Blue Point,” “Wellfleet,” and other names we can’t recall at the moment, and found the Wellfleets to be far and away the best. They’re briny, meaty and sweet—everything that Rickey had hoped for (they’d goddamn well better be at $2.85 a piece). A quick Wiki search on these wondrous mollusks informed Rickey that the salt marshes of Wellfleet, Cape Cod are the perfect environment for raising oysters due to the fact that they are fed by springs. Okey-dokey then. Rickey finished slurping his oysters and took a peek at the entrees.

The main course selections really aren’t the Oyster Bar’s forte, but Rickey figured he’d sample a few things anyway. Ignoring the fact that he wasn’t dining in New England, Rickey thought he’d give the Ipswich fried clams a shot. Predictably, these were not the luscious, plump-bellied beauties you might remember from your Nantucket Red clad yachting expeditions to the Vineyard. Rickey paused while eating these sad little diner fried clams to shed a tear for his suddenly all too distant childhood. The fried oysters on the other hand, were a goddamned revelation, because well, this is the Oyster Bar after all. Crispy, large and juicy, these magnificent fried bastards wiped the preceding travesty from Rickey’s mind. Rickey finished up his meal by feasting upon a dish of oysters rockefeller, which were also exceptional. Reeling from a severe overdose of fried seafood, and badly in need of an antacid, Rickey paused briefly to admire his surroundings.

The decor of the Oyster Bar perfectly matches the rest of Grand Central Station’s majesty. The lighting and mood at the Oyster bar are warm and cozy, yet simultaneously grandiose. For the record, it’s a damn shame no one creates buildings like Grand Central Station anymore. Examining the colorful cloth napkins, Rickey could swear that they were identical to the ones his family used when he was a child—a suspicion that was later corroborated by his mother, who admitted to pilfering the Oyster Bar’s napkins on a regular basis. Lovely.

In summation, for all you seafood perverts out there, Rickey strongly recommends a pit stop at the Oyster Bar while passing through Grand Central. While quite pricey, it’s a worthwhile (albeit waspy) experience for those in search of the freshest shellfish available on the market.

SCORE: Out of a possible five ribs:
4.5

Wild Boar Redux

Hello Eaters! I’m back from a long weekend with the family in Vermont, ready with tales of lightning storms and faked pregnancy and farm stands (oh my!). I love farm stands and Dutton’s is a jewel – if you’re ever near Manchester Center, VT stop in.

But let’s address that second item -- you've all seen the now ubiquitous style of loose, flowing women’s shirts with empire waists, which suggest a certain “with childness,” yes? Well, they’re everywhere and I own one, to my sainted mum’s great chagrin. I guess she doesn’t want anybody thinking she could be a grandma yet, fake or otherwise. So, of course I wore one out to dinner on Friday night to Ye Olde Tavern, and was having a really lovely time rubbing my belly with one hand while I gestured with my cocktail in the other, remarking on how much “Baby enjoys a nice martini.” Cue our waitress appearing as if from nowhere. At least when I go to hell I know I won’t go alone because my relatives have never laughed so hard.

Hijinks aside, I had a wonderful dinner of wild boar chops (Ricky – I knew you wouldn’t steer me wrong!). I think wild boar tastes more like lamb than pork, but in any case it was awesome.

Now then, lightning storms. Southern Vermont saw a doozey on Saturday night, and while the weak-hearted hid under their covers (Aunt Kathy I’m talking to you!) the rest of us watched one hell of a light show over the Green Mountains, drinking and idly wondering what would happen if the cabin was struck.

But then I’m ahead of myself. Earlier that evening we began to see some ominous clouds roll in – not good since we had just built a fire to grill steaks. And that lead to some high-heat, crazy grilling that should only be attempted if there’s just no other way. While the rest of us ran around like loons trying to get everything done before dinner, at least one of us could not be bothered.

Amazingly, the steaks came out of their trial-by-fire quite nicely, and we had a stormy dinner of steak, goat cheese stuffed tomatoes, fresh baked bread and salad, topped off with a local organic beer. Nothing brings a family together like inappropriate humor, Mother Nature’s rage, and fine food and booze. Can’t wait for next year!

REVIEW: Yvonne's

This past weekend Rickey, Ms. Henderson, and Rickey’s folks took a drive up to the Catskill Mountains (aka, the Jewish Alps) looking for just precisely where the gnomes from “Rip Van Winkle” go candlepin bowling. Sadly the gnome hunt proved fruitless, but they did visit a fantastic restaurant which we’d like to share with you. Located roughly 25 miles west of Kingston, NY on the bank of the Esopus river lies Yvonne’s, a small red shack which houses some of the finest French cuisine you’ll ever sample this side of the Atlantic Ocean. Once upon a time, the Catskills were awash in French restaurants run by expatriate NYC chefs. Now? Not so much, and the only remaining joint is Yvonne’s. (The Mapquest inclined can click on the link for directions).

This little haunt is owned and operated by a French octogenarian with a creepy penchant for stuffed dolls (seriously, there are freaking dolls everywhere) and the ceiling is covered in quilts. For lack of better words, we’d call the décor “French Country Style, a la Mickey Mouse.” But once you get past the fact that you’re sitting in a total dive, the food proves exemplary. Yvonne still does all the cooking herself and it shows. The food offerings range from your normal run of the mill French cuisine such as escarole soup and escargots, to your more exotic fare such as rabbit, and brie soup. For an appetizer, Rickey had the duck liver pate which was too good to be described by mere words. Other crowd pleasers included a creamy nectarine soup, the rillette, various pates, and the escarole soup.

For an entrée Rickey feasted upon wild roast boar covered in a lemon garlic sauce. Having never tasted wild boar before, Rickey can definitely recommend it to you folks. Imagine a meat that’s port pork, part chicken, and part unabashed awesomeness and you’re on the right track. It was amazingly tender too. Also highly recommended are the crispy duck confit, and a beef bourguignon stew that was wonderfully tender and flavorful. And to wrap things up, Yvonne’s crème brulee for desert is a must have. Eating the food, we guarantee that you’ll completely forget that you’re situated in the Borscht Belt, in the very un-French-sounding village of Shandaken.

Be warned however, the prices are steep and a dinner for two easily tops $100. And we guarantee that you’ve never spent this much money while dining in a room surrounded by stuffed dolls. A table for four is a cramped affair which is odd considering the fact that on a good night, this restaurant serves no more than 15 people. Also, Yvonne seems to have been effected by the Vichy regime and strictly enforces rules such as ONE TRIP ONLY to the salad bar, an additional charge for French butter (which we imagine is like regular butter, but smarmier), as well as an exorbitant corking fee (the joint is BYOB). Rickey would’ve taken pictures, but that might have resulted in screams of “verboten!” and his camera being confiscated. Indeed, dining at Yvonne’s is essentially a “sit down, shut up, and eat your excellent French cuisine” kind of affair. But trust us, the food redeems everything.

The best part of the experience? Walking out to the parking lot and seeing a large black bear strolling casually into the woods. You better believe he’ll be on the menu next weekend. Yup, welcome to The Catskills. Rickey highly recommends stopping off at Yvonne’s after a day of fishing, hiking, camping, or tubing in the Catskills. This review has been brought to you by the Catskill Mountains Chamber of Commerce.

SCORE: Out of a possible five ribs:
4.7

Like your weekends are so exciting?

Sometimes a gardener gets busy. And sometimes said gardener forgets to harvest nature's bounty. And then nature's bounty grows out of control like a creature from some low budget horror movie. What is said gardener's daughter to do but save her sainted mum from these monstrous creatures? And if she happens to enjoy the visceral delight of digging out zucchini guts with her bare hands, then so be it.

Guess which one disapproves of this blatant waste of food? I think it's Grouchy McFrowny hiding in the back there... the drunken horizontal one couldn't care less.

I also discovered that scotch tape will stick to a zucchini just long enough to fashion a handsome replica of Ricky's impressive beard growth. The likeness is staggering, don't you think?

By the way, does anyone remember when Dom Deluise had a cooking show? I was but a wee kitten at the time, but I distinctly remember him brandishing giant zucchinis and yelling about these "Gugutz" or maybe "Gagouts"...? This ringing a bell for anybody cause I would A) Love to know the proper spelling and etymology of the "G" word and B) Just know that I'm not recovering phony childhood memories starring Dom Deluise.

RECIPE: Chicken Saltimbocca for the Rest of Us (and Haley’s first foray into food styling…

When I was living the grad student lifestyle up in Boston, my favorite little Italian restaurant was Antonia’s in Davis Square, Somerville. They made a chicken saltimbocca that was obscenely good…up until they got a new chef who made his own version of the dish – a tasty but much heavier version, not the lemony, sagey light offering I craved.

So I decided to recreate my favorite dish, and make it a bit more everyday, normal person, left-over friendly. Rather than wrapping the chicken breasts in prosciutto, I cut up the chicken and slice the prosciutto into thin strips so as to stretch it (that's some expensive ham, yo). I have made this many, many times, and it is consistently a crowd pleaser. Plus, it’s pretty easy…

I guess I should admit that I am not someone who believes in recipes. Trying to quantify the bits and pieces that go into this dish was a bit tricky, but let’s just remember that this ain’t rocket science, folks. Nor is it baking (much harder than rocket science). So, take these amounts as a loose guideline and adjust as you see fit.

2 large chicken breasts
16 ounces white button mushrooms
4-5 thin slices of prosciutto
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup white wine
Handful of sage leaves
Handful of Italian flat leaf parsley
1 Lemon
1 cup flour
Salt and pepper
Butter
Olive Oil
Pasta of your choice to serve over (penne works well)

Cut your chicken into bite-sized pieces and dredge them in flour seasoned with salt and pepper (if you have dried sage, throw a teaspoon or so in as well). Sauté the chicken in a Tablespoon of butter and a glug (yes, a glug) of olive oil. Remove chicken from pan and set aside (you don’t have to cook the chicken all the way through at this point – just get the pieces nice and golden brown).

Next, throw some mushrooms in the pan. Now, if you are cooking for your boss, your mother, or someone you are lusting after, I suggest you sauté the mushrooms one small handful at a time. That way they get nicely brown and crispy on the edges and look and taste amazing.

However, if it’s a Tuesday night and you’re hungry and you’ve already drank half the bottle of white wine that you bought to make this dish, just dump ‘em in. They won’t be miraculous, but they’ll still be good.

Once the mushrooms are browned, add the chicken back in along with the prosciutto and the sage leaves, both of which you have expertly cut into fine strips (but leave out a tablespoon of the sage to thrown in at the very end). Follow with the chicken stock, white wine, and the juice of half a lemon. Let it simmer while you put on a pot of water to cook your pasta, and enjoy the ingredient that just keeps on giving.

Side note: If you don’t have a vacuum wine-sealer thingamajig, go out and get one now. Go. Really, we’ll wait for you to come back. And don’t bother with that expensive rabbit thing – unnecessary. The cheap-o, white plastic thing with the rubber stoppers I bought years ago is still one of my most frequently used kitchen items, and works like gangbusters. Sure, I only have one of the six stoppers left, but I make do.

Once the sauce has simmered down to a nice spoon-coating consistency and your kitchen smells like Heaven (if Heaven is a hole-in-the-wall Italian joint) turn off the heat, sprinkle with your chopped up parsley, remaining sage, and the juice of the other half of your lemon. Serve over penne, with a glass of our aforementioned favorite ingredient alongside, and I promise that your mom will forget that you don’t call her as much as you should, your boss will give you the promotion that you thought would go to that ass-kissing Joan person, and the object of your affection will strip in your kitchen.

It’s really that good.

Rickey Reviews "Ratatouille"

Rickey is going on record as saying that “Ratatouille” may actually be the best film he’s seen so far this year. Rickey has seen a fair few, but this one takes the cake. He was really floored by it. It's flawless. Rickey liked the fact that the film’s protagonist develops a disdain for the status quo garbage that his fellow rats eat. Yep, “Ratatouille” centers around Remy, a rat who hates eating garbage. Not a bad conceit for a children’s film, eh? While his family members indiscriminately nibble away at moldy pieces of what (they think) used to be food, it disgusts Remy. He makes daily trips to an old woman's kitchen in search of finer dining, grabbing cheeses and fruits before racing away in the hopes of going unnoticed.

Naturally, hijinks ensue and Remy ends separated from his family and pursuing a cooking career in Paris in a formerly well-renowned kitchen. So why are we discussing this on this blog? Well, in case you haven’t seen it already, "Ratatouille" is a movie completely in love with food. Appreciation of flavors is a recurring theme, and in an early scene Remy compares cooks to artists and craftsmen. Even better is how the film’s cooking scenes capture the calamity and chaos that make a professional kitchen so much of a joy to witness. It may sound gross, but trust us, nothing in recent animated films can really compare to watching an army of rats frantically working together to concoct a dish in a kitchen.

The film’s most moving moment occurs when a notoriously harsh food critic samples a dish prepared by Remy which is so damned good that it triggers a memory rush to his childhood. And the villainous critic is left speechless and in tears. This is one of the best movie moments in recent memory. We found it inspiring, not just to an amateur cook such as Rickey, but for any profession or trade to see a film so eloquently state how powerful a well crafted piece of work can truly be. It’s terrific to finally see a movie that values striving for excellence over settling for the banal. And as the movie’s multiples jabs directed at the frozen dinner industry suggest, mediocrity simply will not do. Remember this when weighing the pros and cons of taking the kids to see Larry the Cable Guy in “Shrek 8.”

See, Rickey’s a bit of a snob in his tastes, and even more so when it comes to dining out. And this ties in nicely with that whole mission statement thingy that Adam discussed in a previous post. We’d like to strive for excellence in our reviews and recommendations on this blog. Of course Adam went and screwed everything up by reviewing a ribs joint in his first write up. Just kidding buddy—those ribs were terrific. Indeed, Rickey is not so much a “Foodie” (a trite little neologism drives Rickey up the freaking wall) as much as a “Gourmand.” But if you really are looking for a more accurate classification for Rickey, just go with “Food Pervert.” That works nicely too. And if you’re looking for a recipe for Ratatouille’s titular dish, proceed hither and give things a shot. Just don’t blame Rickey if you blow your damned eyebrows off.

REVIEW: Ribs on the Run

The wheel. Sliced bread. The Internet. These are all miracles of invention, things that have changed our lives inexorably. Well, I think it is reasonable to add barbecue to that list. The genius of smoked meats is something I will never take for granted. Nor will I ever tire of its flavor. With that in mind, what better way to kick off this food blog than to do a review of my favorite local barbecue joint, Ribs on the Run. Located in Yonkers, NY, this take-out restaurant is (unfortunately) one of the best-kept secrets in the area. I have spent many an occasion introducing newbies to this place. "Good BBQ in Westchester?" people say with skepticism. Ah, the joy of disproving people's doubts!

Tonight, I ventured to Ribs on the Run with Haley and Rickey Henderson, both of whom are contributors to this blog. I wisely dragged Haley to this place years ago, amounting to a "barbecue mitzvah" on my part. But this was, excitingly enough, Rickey's first time-- and while I'll let him speak for himself, I think he enjoyed the food quite a bit.

As I said above, Ribs on the Run is a take-out restaurant. This means that while there are tables inside, it is by no means a legit sit-down restaurant. This is a place where you get your food and either go home and eat it, or eat it at a table off of a plastic tray and out of Styrofoam boxes. What, you got a problem with that?

So, let's get down to the food. If you're going to a place called "Ribs on the Run," you are legally obligated to order their house specialty-- the barbecue ribs. Something magical happens in whatever rib-smoking/cooking contraption these guys have back in the kitchen, because since I've started eating there (going back to early 1990s), the ribs have been nothing less than excellent. We're talking tender pork ribs that fall off the bone-- juicy and meaty all the way through. And the sauce? Not too sweet, not too bitter, but balanced and a perfect companion to the ridiculously tasty ribs.

What else do they serve at Ribs on the Run? Well, if you must veer away from the ribs, they do offer a full menu of deep-fried goodness (fried mozzarella, fried zucchini, fried ravioli, fried clam strips, fried corn fritters, etc.). No, I don't believe they offer salads. But they do offer rib combo platters (pair these succulent ribs with some fried shrimp, BBQ chicken or whatever the heck else you feel like). And the dinner platters come with a generous supply of French fries, cornbread and cole slaw (the slaw is nothing short of awesome as well). But really, the main attraction is in the restaurant's name-- just go there and eat the ribs. You will not be disappointed.

SCORE: Out of a possible five ribs:
4.5

P.S. If you're ordering for a large group (four or more) do yourself a favor and go with the Party Pack-- you get two racks of ribs, several large pieces of BBQ chicken, cole slaw, fries, macaroni salad, potato salad and a nice-sized cut of cornbread. And if you have leftovers, consider yourself lucky. The fries are nice re-heated in the frying pan with some scrambled eggs the next morning.

"Food first, then morality"

Welcome to my food blog.

I am not a gourmet chef, I haven't traveled nearly as much as I would like and I don't want this to be an exercise in "foodie pretension." I am putting this blog together to share in the journey of finding and enjoying good food. What constitutes "good," you ask? Food that makes you happy. It can be a plate of truffle risotto or a donut, I really don't discriminate. My food stories will mostly cover my geographical area, which is a few miles north of New York City. And while the city is obviously a garden-spot for all types of cuisine, there are worthy establishments throughout my immediate area that deserve some attention. Trust me, I've been to a lot of unheralded places over the years. And I want to share those experiences with you.

I want to know about your food experiences as well. I always find myself gently interrogating people about where they like to eat. Everyone has a secret dive or a neighborhood greasy spoon that they want to brag about. Let's help one another find that most excellent pizza pie and that amazing soul food joint. And I suppose we can talk about the occasional high-class place... but I'm not about paying for someone's rent, ya dig? Let the food lead the discussion. I couldn't care less if some celebrity chef made his bones at a trendy place. I'm too hungry to get caught up in that nonsense!

So, pull up a seat and join the feast.

-Adam