eat your kale. it is good food.

 

Kale is one of those vegetables that I was sort of unsure about as a kid. We grew a few different varieties in our garden and being very hardy, kale was always amongst the last of the vegetables standing as the frost spread it's beautiful patterns across the ground. Which meant kale had quite a long run at the dinner table at our house. I was lover of spinach and broccoli rabe and couldn't really get enough of them, but kale was another matter altogether. Perhaps it was the way that it was cooked that turned me off. To me, It was simply in the same category as collards and turnip greens, they all seemed bitter and tough to my childish palette. In my adult life I have had a change of heart towards this miracle Brassica. I simply cannot eat enough of it! I think the trick comes down to how it is cooked and what it is paired with. I can't imagine making a tuscan white bean soup without it or any winter vegetable soup for that matter. My favorite way by far to make it is inspired  by a recipie from the Lucky Dog Farm Store in Hamden New York. They make a very simple but addictive raw kale salad. 

Below is my interpretation.

 Lucky Dog Raw Kale Salad

Take a good sized bunch of organic kale of any variety. I like Cavolo Nero (also known as Tuscan or Dinosaur) or Russin kale

 With a large knife, Chop the entire bunch into medium size pieces

Mince and chop 3 cloves of garlic

Add  the garlic to the kale and a healthy healthy dose of olive oil and  pinch of celtic grey sea salt. 

Massage the garlic, olive oil and sea salt into the kale  with your hands until the kale starts to soften.

Set aside for a half hour or so before serving as it will continue to soften and breakdown.

This salad stores well and is great the next day.

add salt to taste.

This is a bright green, raw salad, full of iron and calcium and antioxidants. It is my daughters favorite!

what more could I ask for?

 

Copyright © 2011 Andrea Gentl all rights reserved

the gathering.

At 7am on a terribly rainy Saturday, I made my way up Broadway through the ultra quiet streets of Soho to The Union Square Greenmarket to meet my friend and fellow gastrophile, Nancy Jo. After much indecision about what to do for Easter this year, I decided to stay in the city and cook with friends.

Nancy and I decided to set some parameters for the meal. We would be inspired by our shared Southern Italian roots and the bounty of Spring. At the market we bought pink oyster mushrooms, ramps, Arucauna and pheasant eggs, dinosaur kale, french radishes,  spicy spring greens, Jerusalem artichokes, carrots, rhubarb, cippolini onions, escarole, baby artichokes, artisan bread, mint and other herbs. Then, over a soft boiled egg at  Le Pan Quotidian, escaping the rain...we plotted our menu.

crostini with ramp

crostini with poached rhubarb, thyme and fresh ricotta

crostini with sauteed pink oyster mushrooms

hard boiled arucauna  and pheasant eggs with sale di cervia and crushed black pepper

 french radishes with sea salt and butter

assorted meat and cheeses, fennel salami and Prosciutto di Parma

homemade ricotta with miele di castagno

frittata de menta

raw kale salad

escarole pie

onion pie with anchovies and black olives

bucatini with ramp pesto

fried baby artichokes with lemon and sea salt inspired by the artichokes at Maiolino

maple cheesecake

and a beautiful cake from Fortunato Brothers 

guests brought Lambrusco and various other wines and drinks!

recipes to come.

gastrophile/ noun.

One who loves good eating and plenty of it.

 photo of IO at window, bottom group middle right, Paola Ammbrosi de Magistris

Copyright © 2011 Andrea Gentl all rights reserved

a moustached chicken.

 

 This morning we made an Easter breakfast of hard boiled eggs, organic brown, Araucana, and pheasant.

It was a beautiful palette; no dye involved.

Note... the Araucana chicken, often confused with the Easter egg chicken, has a of couple distinguishing features...

They lay blue eggs, and they have feather tufts spouting out near their tiny ears giving them a decidedly Brooklyn  moustached  look!

Give this chicken a ten speed and you might see him riding down Bedford...

Happy Easter.

  

Marlow (again)

Last night I had the most delicious hand cut pasta with a smokey pancetta and tomato sauce (with a little kick) at Marlow and Sons in Williamsburg. Marlow is my go-to staple, so it will appear here quite often! We shared the pasta, a baby kale salad with a fried farm fresh egg dressed with lemon and olive oil, sour dough croutons and a shaving of parmesan. We also shared a crostini with ramp cream cheese and poached rhubarb and salad of mustard greens with shaved fennel and red onion... (Unfortunately there is no photo because we just ate it up so quickly!) It was the perfect comfort food for a chilly spring evening. 

Copyright © 2011 Andrea Gentl all rights reserved

fette sau

 

Fette Sau? Translation: "fat pig" in German. Brilliant. Vegetarians this is not for you.

By now most New Yorkers agree that the Brooklyn food scene has been in full swing for some time and is showing no signs of slowing. Though I want to show Manhattan some love, I keep coming back to Brooklyn for the food.

The other evening I met a friend at Fette Sau, the 3 year old smokey barbeque joint in an old automotive shop on Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg. It was a spur of the moment decision on a gorgeous spring day. I had always wanted to come but was wary (and for good reason) of the LONG lines and minimal seating. However, this day I was in the neighborhood and the planets aligned and barbecue was in my future. We walked right in at 6:30 and missed the line completely. (By the time I left the line was out to the street, but everyone had a beer in hand and seemed content and committed to the wait.)

We drooled over the case of meats before ordering 1/4 of a pound of four meats; brisket, pork shoulder, pork belly and pulled pork, some sides of baked beans, potato salad and a couple of Guss's half sour pickles. They loaded us up with four soft yellowy rolls that reminded me of school lunch (in a good way). The Craft Beer list is extensive and they try to stick to as much local as possible. They boast the best American whiskey list in New York City, with flights of scotch or whiskey available for the brave at heart, definitely not for me! We stuck to two pints of Captain Lawrence Liquid Gold and Coney Island  Mermaid Pilsner served in mason jars. The beer is available in 1/2 pint, pint,  quart, 1/2 gallon jugs or gallon jugs. The whole place has a bit of a secret moonshine making quality to it. On this particular evening Fette Sau was full of guys sharing a meat/whiskey camaraderie. This is where the bromance and the man dates happen! The crowd was a good mix of hipster to old Brooklyn to young a dad with his newborn baby strapped on Bjorn-style getting his meat fix (or his baby's momma meat fix). I came back on a friday night and the ratio was much more even, there were many more couples, obviously comfortable with eating piles of meat together!

The meat was perfectly cooked, smokey, a little spicy and not at all dry. Our favorite was the peppercorn-crusted brisket. We made sandwiches of the pulled pork and loaded them up with sweet sauce, vinegar sauce and hot sauce. I was partial to the ketchup based sweet sauce, a little spicy and a little sweet. Barbecue is very regional and different from place to place. My friend, a native South Carolininan, was telling me that all the Fette Sau barbeque is dry rubbed and smoked as opposed to South Carolina barbeque which is mustard based, Eastern North Carolina which is vinegar based and Western North Carolina is tomato based. The smoking and the rubbing at Fette Sau takes place out back. They smoke with a blend of Red and White Oak, Maple Beech and Cheery, all locally sourced. The meat is all organic and or small family farmed heritage breed animals. The sides were  deliciously perfect as well, the beans a little smokey and a little sugary and the potato salad was of the German sort with mustard seed and vinegar.

They guys next to us were fighting over the last pickle on their tray as Elvis crooned "It's Now or Never" in the background. "Dude that was mine...get your own damn pickle!" Wow. Pickles and barbeque that bring men to blows... This place is the real deal.

We finished up with a slice of Steves key lime pie, because I am nostalgic and have lived in New York long enough to remember when this guy and the artists were the only thing happening in Red-hook. We used to drive out to his bakery on the pier to buy his pie. If you haven't tried his pie, and you love key lime, you must!

We each left a full half pound or so heavier (and then some!) than when we had arrived, and we we were ok with it. In fact we talked about the next time when we could come back for some ribs!

 

 

 

 

 Copyright © 2011 Andrea Gentl all rights reserved 

354 Metropolitan Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11211 
nr. Havemeyer St.
718-963-3404