Dinner For One a la Alain Ducasse

Cooking dinner for one's self isn't all that exciting.  Oh sure, you can make yourself a beautiful salad, or a nice one-dish meal, and that's just fine.  Something that'll give you leftovers the next day for lunch is always a plus.  But generally, are you roasting a chicken for yourself or making a pork roast or even preparing a big, fat steak? Along with a couple of sides?  My guess is no. Or at least not too often.

But since I 've had a bit of blogger's block lately, and since my blog is mostly about food and cooking, I figured if I started actually cooking when Significant Eater and I are in different cities, I might have that much more to blog about. Friggin' genius, eh?

Last week, while digging around in my freezer, I came across a steak I'd had frozen for a while and thought it would be good to use, since I wanted to try out the Ducasse method of cooking a steak over moderate heat on the stove top  (Alain Ducasse is considered one of the world's great chefs) and since I also wanted to empty my freezer of various frozen stuff that was reaching the end of it's lifespan.

Of course, me being me, I didn't follow the Ducasse directions exactly. But I did do what you all should do when following a recipe - read it from start to finish; that way you at least have some idea of what you're hoping to end up with.  It's also the first thing I learned in cooking school...read the damn recipe.

My steak happened to be a rib eye which is actually my favorite cut.  You'd never guess it was under here, but I always think these things will help keep the cook top clean, which, by the way, they don't...

The steak got turned after 10 minutes...

It's looking good, with a nice crust.  At the same time the steak was cooking, these were roasting in a hot oven...

And finally, the lonely man's dream frozen vegetable side dish (I always have them in the freezer - they come in so handy)...

One of the most important steps in that recipe you've read all the way through is the resting period.  I don't care if it's a steak, a pork chop or a roasted turkey. Let it rest before carving; end of story. Chef D. recommends resting a thick steak for about half the time it takes to cook it - I went a few minutes less, but not by much...

Perfectly medium rare, and exactly the way I like my steak cooked. Plated up with those vegetables and potatoes, and it's a meal you might even be tempted to  serve to someone other than yourself.  And it took less than an hour, start to finish...

A Real Rain. At Least I'm Cooking

Ahhh, what the heck. A blog about nothing, although I could write about how happy I am with the torrential rain... 

and the change of seasons and the fact that a fairly miserable (weather wise) summer is behind us.

So Significant Eater is here working, and I've already cooked 2 meals today.

Breakfast...

Some Flying Pigs Farm's shoulder bacon. I decided to pull out the plancha and make more use of it.  It's double sided (the other side is a "grill") and it can get really hot.  Although cooking this, it's at about 350° F...

I haven't cooked French toast in forever,  this thread on eGullet got me wanting it, so...it came out great, btw.

Lunch...

  Escarole braised with garlic and chili pepper. And...

Mussels steamed with garlic, white wine, tomatoes and parsley.

That's it. Almost live blogging.

Blogger's Block

I’ve got blogger’s block.  I figure I'm not really a writer, so I can’t have writer’s block. It's blogger’s block.  A month or two of not really being able to put fingers to keyboard to satisfy the goal I  had set for myself of 6 blog posts a month. I was good up until July, but...  Hey, what are goals for? To be broken, that’s what.

Anyway, after a drink (okay 2) (okay, 2 with a shot of Dickel) with friends at Pegu Club last night, and a mediocre hamburger at  a dive somewhere over in Soho (though I liked the wings and the fries), I headed east on Grand St. towards home.  

Mulberry & Grand. That time of year - the Feast of San Gennaro. The fucking 85th feast of San Gennaro.  Which only means one thing...traffic is utterly screwed making my journey home even more annoying.  

The smell of the "oil" hits you a block before you get there, but in all its glory, Fried Oreos.  You don't think I bought one, do you?

I like late night at the feast, as they're getting ready to close. It's nice and depressing...

OK, so past the festival, a block or two east. You know,  life is tough enough in NYC as it is. Just close the whole damn sidewalk, please...

"Cause you know that's gonna be fun walking by.  And safe. Anyway, a little farther on down the road, across Bowery, making a Chinatown delivery, it's...

And now I'm really glad I'm only a few blocks from home.

Whose Favorite Pizza Is That?

You know how it goes with pizza. First, you pick your favorite pizza place.  And then watch the fun start. One friend says: “You’re crazy!”  Another says: “What are you, nuts?”  Your mother calls. Your brother disowns you. Fisticuffs fly. And on and on.

Then, pick your favorite pizza place…in New York City.  Take all the above and multiply it by a hundred. Or maybe even a thousand.  Because if there’s anything New Yorkers are crazy about, it’s their pizza.

Now don’t forget the “style.”  Is it Neapolitan?  Perhaps Sicilian? Deep dish or Chicago style?  Maybe it’s New York style?  Is it cooked in a wood burning oven?  Or a coal burner? What about a good old-fashioned gas or electric “deck” oven? What if it’s grilled? Does the place you love sell slices? Or only whole pies? Are they individual pies or meant to be shared? Oy vey - you get the picture – the possibilities are seemingly endless, and no one style or slice or pie is going to make everyone happy all the time.

Trust me – as a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, I have my favorites. And since there has been a virtual explosion in high-quality pizza over the last few years, I guess my favorite pizza depends on what kind of mood Significant Eater and I are in. Or even what neighborhood.

Just last weekend, we decided to take a nice walk “downtown.” Downtown to us means the financial district, Wall St. – that general area.  We usually head off in that direction by walking right along the East River, because almost the entire waterfront has a lovely new promenade for walkers and the views are stupendous...

"Downtown" is one of the oldest parts of Manhattan; it’s where it all started. There are some buildings that are 250 – 300 years old; Fraunces Tavern is the oldest and I think George Washington might have gotten drunk there. Of course if you live in Rome or Paris or London, or almost anywhere but the United States, those buildings are merely babies – but hey, it’s all we’ve got, so - oh, by the way - it also has some of the newest buildings in town...

Nestled among all the old streets, all the old buildings and all the new skyscrapers sits old Stone Street, perhaps the first paved street in New York City. Part of Stone Street is a throwback – a mere alley with no vehicular traffic, cobblestones, lined with restaurants and taverns; the street is filled with tables for people to sit and eat and watch the world go by.

And there, right on Old Stone Street sits one of our favorite pizza places – Adrienne’s Pizzabar.  Adrienne’s makes two styles of pizza – a 10” round pie and what they call their “Old Fashioned Pizza.”  That’s the one we like, a large rectangular pie that’s sort of a cross between New York style and  Sicilian. It’s not all thick and doughy – it’s actually light and airy, meaning two people can almost polish off a whole pie – especially if the two people are Sig Eater and me.   And last weekend, we did just that to a half pepperoni, half plain “Old Fashioned Pizza,” from one of our favorite pizza places...

And because you need your vegetables, the sautéed broccoli rabe (sic) wasn’t bad either. Nor was the walk back home...