Open up and say “ARRRRRR”: Of Tales and Tales.

For those of you who don’t live here, Summer in New York is a very divisive topic. People have strong opinions, and give absolutely no quarter. On one side, you have the people who hate the muggy heat, the endless rivers of sweat; who loathe the smells of the baking street and the sudden reappearance of the vast swath of the population that spends winter in hiding. On the other side, you have the people (like me) who basically live for Summer in the City.  For sitting on porches drinking Rose, for outdoor concerts, for being able to feel their toes, for sundresses and barbecues and sunblock. For the Coney Island Mermaid Parade.

Those of you who know me personally know that each year I join these lovely ladies to dance in New York’s best and most brilliant art parade, and it is hands down one of the highlights of my year. It’s a venerable Brooklyn institution (28 years and counting!) that attracts some of the most vibrant characters in town, be-costumed, be-spangled, be-painted, be-fabulous. It rewards creativity, chutzpah…and bribery.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that’s right: if you entertain any notion of winning anything at the parade, you had best be bribing the judges, and bribing them well. It’s not as unseemly as it sounds, I promise–bribes are typically food-related, and there is nothing clandestine about the practice whatsoever. In fact, people work very openly, and damn hard on their bribes. I know I sure did. Our bribe (a treasure chest full of goodies) went from being a cute little pirate-themed picnic to an epic explosion of art, design, and culinary skill, ultimately involving five designers, four cooks, two illustrators, and several construction geniuses to achieve. Also a laser.

It ended up being such a production that it almost hurt to pass it off to the judges–I was so proud of all the work we’d done, I just wanted to freeze it in amber and keep it around to appreciate at my leisure. (Also, I wanted to eat the picnic myself.)  But, teamwork must come first, and so I will have to content myself with reliving its glory here at P&C. So buckle your swashes, me hearties: in the next week or two, you’re going to get a little window into the magic of summer in the city, Mermaid-stylee.

Sweet and Hot: Mango-Tomatillo Salsa for Summer

I hesitated before posting this one, wondering how many salsa recipes one person really requires. Deborah Schneider’s salsa verde with tomatillos and avocado is worth its weight in gold, and I’m a big fan of Alton Brown’s simple tomato version, too. Before the weather got hot, I made one with black beans and oranges, too, but here we are, in June (June!) and those are not enough.

You need this sweet/hot mango salsa for piling on chips (a slick of guacamole underneath is encouraged) and spooning onto grilled chicken. You need it for cumin-rubbed pork chops and for hunks of halibut and skewers of marmalade-basted shrimp. I’d try it on chicken sausages, too, and tossed in a taco salad. It’s seriously good: refreshing, spicy and juicy; the perfect partner for a citrusy IPA or a light-bodied summer ale.

This summer is going to be a busy one for us–it seems like everyone we know is getting married, and Matt has to (start and) finish his dissertation before fall. I’m trying to remind myself that summer is a state of mind, and a big bowl of this salsa brings me right there. I’m looking forward to a few stolen moments of vacation: grilling and laughing while the sun sets on our balcony, bopping around beer festivals in Philly and on Governor’s Island, a lazy day at the beach when I can grab it. It’s better to not spend all summer concentrating on looking forward, anyway. I’d rather just savor it a little slower.

What recipes put you in a summer mood?

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In Memory of the Sun and the Sea: Mediterranean Grilled Chicken.

Ten years ago this summer, I packed up my belongings, dug up my passport, took a deep breath, and decided to hie me over to the UK for what would ultimately become the most informative, influential eighteen months of my underage life. It was a time full of adventure, both mundane and spectacular–my first office job, my first car race, my first night spent sleeping in a random field in France, my first adventures in cookery, and my first real love. It was also the time of my first road trip, a three week, hell-bent sprint across Greece in Sylvester, the big white Honda. In our trusty steed, we drove the length of the entire country on the shiny, new, terrifying 1.5-lane freeway (occasionally on two wheels)  not stopping until we reached the Westernmost regions. We had no a/c, and we couldn’t read the street signs.

It was AWESOME.

Along the way we saw a wide and amazing variety of Very Old Things; we saw monasteries perched on top of towering fingers of rock; we saw boy racers accidentally hurling themselves off winding mountain roads; we saw oracles and spiders the size of goldfinches; we saw rooms full of skulls and harbors so beautiful I thought I might never recover. We left one of our passports in a hotel somewhere near Patras, only realizing it after we’d driven the many hours back to Athens. We listened endlessly to the Chemical Brothers, Blur, and Madonna, the only cassette tapes we managed to score after we realized that there were no acceptable radio stations that far west. I went through a gallon of sunblock and still got a tan; he called me psipsina. We swam and napped and ate delicious food. I learned to read maps in Greek, and my skin smelled like the sun.

…And of course there was the food. I don’t even know where to begin to describe it. The honey, the olives, the cheese, the eggplant…So, I will just say: it was all fresh, and bright, and amazing. This week’s culinary adventure was conceived in honor of these memories, taking some of the flavors I remember best and mashing them all together to create a salty, bright, honeyed grilled chicken dish, resonant with rosemary and lemon. It’s easy, and surprising, and more or less guaranteed to put you in the mood for summer. Especially if you can put it on a grill.

It’s no Greek vacation, no wild and grand road trip, no first love…but it’ll do for now. It’ll definitely do until wind, and wings, and wheels conspire to bring me another adventure..

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Massa-massa-maaaaaan! Mystery chicken stew.

I am, typically speaking, a big fan of the happy accident. Which is probably a good thing, when you consider the fact that I am the Jedi Master of the crap-in-a-pan philosophy of cooking. It’s an approach that is aptly named–both because it’s a crapshoot, and because when you get it wrong, well…you’ve got an accurate description of the catastrophe. But when you get it RIGHT…well. When you get it right, you end up with something like my mystery chicken stew.

Note: It’s not really all that mysterious; it’s basically a west-african-thai dish, kind of a jacked-up massaman curry, but that’s so wordy. And wouldn’t YOU be interested in getting to know Mystery Chicken Stew?

Mystery chicken stew was born, weirdly, of a trip to the office cafeteria. Like most cafeterias, it’s not known for its wild and/or innovative offerings; this day was no exception–the endless rows of prepackaged turkey sandwiches basically forced my attention to the soup station, which piqued my curiosity with a savory peanut soup.  It smelled heavenly, though not quite heavenly enough to inspire me to purchase it (I find it suspect when cafeterias attempt to go global; it’s a terrible prejudice of mine). It did, however, smell good enough to make me wonder how I could co-opt the concept for use in my own kitchen. With this in mind, I tickered back to my desk and did what I usually do when I’m ruminating over a recipe: I called Bench, who not only gave me an inventory of the contents of the kitchen, but pulled my peanut-butter-obsessed brain back from the brink of such horrors as peanut-butter-and-preserves chicken (don’t ask).

Between us, we determined that we had the necessary ingredients to put together an excellent franken-dish–something with the kick of a thai curry and a decadent infusion of peanutty-satay-goodness, with the sweet vegetable profile of an indian massaman curry. Something surprisingly easy to put together, something flavorful and delicious and while not entirely unexpected, fully fantastic–sweet and savory and complex (and nowhere near as heavy as one would expect). Everything you could want from Crap-In-A-Pan cookery.

Or, put simply by my friend J, “It was delicious. The end.”

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It was only a matter of time: Compost cookies.

There is a certain inevitability to a great many things in this world: the rising of the sun each morning; death; taxes; graffiti on the subway; and the fact that, sooner or later, a batch of Compost Cookies was going to come out of my oven. Compost cookies are the brainchild of legendary pastry chef Christina Tosi, who has been cranking these things out on behalf of the Momofuku Milk bar for…well…I don’t know how long. Long enough that these cookies have an insane cult following; which, given that their entire raison d’etre is to slam together the worlds of salty and sweet, is not really all that surprising. Even less surprising is the fact that the official recipe has been crazily guarded by Tosi and the Milk Bar gang. Even their “official” recipe, as shared on Live with Regis and Kelly, is not REALLY the real deal (rumor has it that in the official version, there are coffee grounds involved–which are definitely not present here)–though it sure as shootin’ is absolutely delicious.

As I mentioned, the purpose of this cookie is to play up the relationship between salty and sweet; it’s a perfect buttery chocolate chip cookie, woken up by, well, more or less whatever you want to add–I used peanut butter cups, pretzels, milk chocolate chips and potato chips (I HIGHLY recommend using potato chips; not only do they add a ridiculous quantity of deliciousness, but they freak out the audience when you tell them it’s the secret ingredient). The trick to this cookie is really in the way you handle the dough in its early stages: you cream the butter, sugar, and egg mixture for a solid ten minutes before adding the dry ingredients. This aerates the batter, making it impossibly light and fluffy–which is imperative if you’re going to be folding in something delicate, like crushed potato chips. Unfortunately, it also means that you probably don’t want to tackle this business unless you have a stand mixer–consider yourself warned.

In my opinion, the greatest thing about the Compost Cookie is that it’s so flexible–there’s nothing in particular you should be adding to it, just whatever combination of sweets and treats tickles your fancy. It’s rich, delicious, and a guaranteed crowd pleaser. For serious–you bring this to a party and they’ll be talking about your amazing prowess in the kitchen for weeks to come.

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