Brain Candy

The Green Street Grill

Green street Grill in Cambridge lays claim to the longest standing liquor license in the city, so what better place to stop for a much needed cocktail after a hard day's work? This was the mentality that food buddy John and I walked in with when our plans for an elaborate home cooked meal were derailed by a sudden emergency at John's office. What was supposed to be an early evening of steamed crab legs and angel hair primavera at my apartment had suddenly turned into a late evening of me looking over John's shoulder as he plugged information into his computer (none of which I understood) and he and his cube mate and I shared cheese and champagne while they worked. As far as late nights at the office go, this one definitely wins, but by the time we made our way out of the office and into the crisp air of Central Square around 10:30, we were ready for a real meal and some cocktails.

Green Street Grill did not disappoint. At John's recommendation I ordered the Sugar Daddy, a kind of deconstructed dark and stormy, with ginger beer and mint, and a snifter of rum served on the side. I was instructed by our wonderfully laid back and spunky waitress not to mix them. I'm normally not one to sip rum straight, but when she tells me it would be a waste of the lovely rum she's served me to mix the two together, I believe her and obey, and am rewarded with the beautiful velvety caramel of the rum, and the shocking bite of the ginger beer that chases it down my throat.

We decided we were feeling a little crazy and ordered offal to split as an appetizer, since neither of us had ever tried fried cow's brains before. Now I can say I've had them, and I would certainly order them again, but perhaps not here. The texture of the meat itself was delicate almost like a scallop, but the niceness of the texture was ruined when all I got for flavor was the slightly burnt oil it had been fried in. The whole dish was saved by the details however. The salad of baby arugula the offal was served on, with its bright, acidic dressing, and the swirl of funky aioli underneath kept my mouth happy and distracted.

My entree of fresh homemade pasta with Wellfleet littleneck clams was a great example of why fresh pasta is worth bothering with, (you can absolutely tell the difference, both in the texture and the flavor) and the light citrus-y sauce was so yummy that John continued to reach over and sop up what was left in the bottom of my bowl with his bread long after his own entree was gone. Even against the sunny sauce, the flavor of the clams shone in every bite, which is why it was such a shame that the clams themselves were slightly rubbery. That being said, John's lobster gnocchi was the clear winner for the entree round. The lobster's flavor could easily have been overwhelmed by the chorizo it was served with, and almost was, but then somehow it sneaks back into your mouth after the spiciness of the sausage has died down for a little fresh kick of seafood to balance out the richness of the rest of the dish. We both had to scrape our jaws off the table after the first bite.

Everything up until this point had been very nice, save for a few technical snafus. But dessert won the entire evening, hands down. We ordered the ricotta fritter, and received a tidy pile of chocolate pastries in the shape of pretty little eggs, sitting in a pool of liquid chocolate. When you cut into them they reveal themselves to be light and airy, not the dense heavy bricks of cheese and chocolate I had been expecting at all. And biting into them...pure heaven. The slightly crisp exterior melts into the sweet, slightly tangy cloud of ricotta and pastry inside, managing to be both shockingly light, and unbelievably rich. We were literally stunned into silence by our dessert. Finally I got my brain together long enough to say what we were both thinking: "It's like an evil doughnut!" John was still chewing, and so could only nod his approval and make yummy noises, in what I could only assume was his agreement with my (slightly unsophisticated) assessment.

All in all, a lovely dinner, a friendly and unpretentious server, and the discovery of a restaurant in my neck of the woods that's not afraid to put brain on the menu kept my Gastro-brain humming, and my mouth happy.

Confessions of a (formerly) Picky Eater

"Mom, I just don't like rice, okay! I don't think I should have to eat it if I don't like it!"

This is me, fifteen years ago, a ten year old making demands about what my mother should or should not serve for dinner. I remember my sister taking her cue from me from across the table, the very picture of seven year old self-righteousness, saying, "Yeah, I don't like it either!" and setting her fork down with a firmness that was just downright silly. I can't for the life of me figure out if my distaste was justified or not. I remember thinking rice was dry, grainy, tasteless and horrible. But this is not necessarily a reflection of reality, or of my mother's cooking, considering the list of foods I would rather have had my jaws sewn shut than eat at the time included pickles, quiche, guacamole, apple pie, tomatoes, cheese on hamburgers, gravy, olives, mussels, rare beef, cherries, yogurt, cream cheese... the list goes on. This is my dirty little secret. I was an atrocious eater. It took two and a half years of vegetarianism, a Summer as a vegan, and then a plummet back into the delicious world of meat to get me to realize that people can eat a lot of cool stuff, especially if they really have to. (My two favorite world cuisines, Ethiopian and Thai, would have never been on the menu for me if I hadn't been forced to broaden my horizons by my limited dietary options and my very veggie boyfriend.) Strange new foods are very often delicious, and the only way to find out is to bite the bullet and try it. Choking down rice doesn't seem like such a big deal once you've been feasting on Shiro Wot and Yeabesha Gomen at your local Ethiopian joint.

So I wonder what that ten year old version of me would have thought if she had been able to witness me this past Thursday night, sweating over a giant pot of arborio rice and mushrooms, willing it into becoming risotto. She probably would have begged me to order pizza.She would have been so wrong.

Risotto is really much more pasta than rice. Yes, it is rice, technically. But when it's been infused with onions and garlic and dry white wine, and stirred into oblivion until it's a creamy, starchy bowl of loveliness, the resemblance is much closer to a lovely pasta in cream sauce than a big bowl of rice. And let me address for a moment the mystique surrounding risotto, and it's reputation for being a difficult dish to pull off. I believe this is a conspiracy. Is it tedious? Sure, when you're adding stock a half a cup at a time and watching diligently as each grain soaks up every little ounce of liquid, it can feel a little tedious. This is not a quickie dish. But in terms of difficulty it's, well...not. I truly believe that risotto's reputation as a difficult dish is a farce put forth by professional chefs and restaurant folk in order to be able to continue serving what is essentially, I'm sorry, STILL RICE, in their fancy restaurants. And don't get me wrong. I adore risotto, and believe that it should be served in restaurants regardless of whether it takes years to master or not. But you should not feel discouraged from exploring the beauty of a well crafted risotto in the comfort of your own home because some professional cooks say it's difficult. Do not be intimidated, fellow Gastro-Junkies. It's just not that hard.

Here's the routine. There are a billion ways to prepare risotto, and a billion different preferences about type of stock, the toothiness of the grains...this is how I do it. Adjust as you see fit. Saute up a medium sized onion and 1 clove of garlic in about 4 tablespoons of butter over medium heat, until the onions are translucent and soft. Add the uncooked rice (use high quality arborio, not your regular long grained rice, the results just won't be the same) and toast until the edges of the grains go translucent. Reduce heat and add some good dry white wine, about a cup, and stir until the liquid is absorbed. You'll know when this happens because when you stir from the bottom of the pan the liquid won't run in to fill the space right away. Now add about a cup of high quality chicken broth (or if you're me, some good home made stock with a little water) that you've been keeping slightly warm on the back burner. Stir until the liquid is absorbed. Once it is, continue to add more broth, a half cup at a time, waiting for the liquid to absorb between each addition. Continue doing this for about 20 minutes, or until the rice is the consistency you prefer (I prefer mine fairly thick and creamy, as opposed to looser and soupy). Remove from heat, add a generous amount of Parmesan cheese and some cracked black pepper, and mangia.

You can adjust this recipe to be made with seafood (switch to vegetable stock), add mushrooms, or drop in a few drops of black truffle oil for some funky flavor. Whatever you choose to do with it, don't be afraid...it's only rice.

The Ugly Tomato

A fellow blogger pointed out recently on her page (which you can find here) that people tend to have wonderful, memorable anecdotes surrounding our dear friend, the tomato, and I felt inspired. My favorite tomato story isn't really a story at all, more like a memory of the first time I really tasted a tomato. But it also speaks to one of my major attractions to food--it gets all tied up in our memories and grounds us in them, and causing us to hold on more clearly to otherwise unremarkable moments about kitchen tables, conversations about nothing, and places we used to live.

Senior year of college, the three of us roommates sitting at the kitchen table in our apartment in Brookline in the Summertime. I still couldn't tell you how we got that apartment--it was too sprawling, too rambly and romantic for three girls still in college. Hardwood floors, working fireplace, built in glass cabinets, original 1920s molding, and no doubt, original 1920s dust. Steam radiators that hissed in the Winter and couldn't be adjusted for temperature. One of us took up residence in the old dining room, where she traded a little bit of her privacy for a chandelier and a walk in closet that used to be the butler's pantry. We adored it. No air conditioning, no dishwasher. Still, I've never lived anywhere nicer.

Too tired after work to make real food, the three of us sit down still in our work clothes and cut up the Brandywine tomato Stacey and I have brought home from the farmer's market. Misshapen, alien, heavier than you think it ought to be and sporting purple splotches, with streaks of yellow and green at the top. A crack of broken skin across the bottom, they'd never sell this thing in the supermarket. Nobody would want it. It's hideous. It's perfect. We cut it into slices, and the thing holds on to all of it's juices, doesn't waste them all onto the plate. We douse this monstrous tomato in olive oil, sprinkle it with salt and pepper and the three of us eat it just like that with forks and knives, all off of the same plate. Then we eat it with our fingers. It's sweet and slightly savory, not pale and watery and pink like the tomatoes we'd see at the store. It tastes like where it came from, we decide. Laugh all you want, but we decide it tastes just a little like the coast, like a little touch of coastal New England seawater somehow made its way into our ugly tomato through the soil. Finally, when it's gone, we grab chunks of Italian bread and drag it through the remaining oil and pink flecks of tomato juice, getting every last ounce of enjoyment out of this one tomato.

Smokin'

Walking into my Aunt and Uncle's house Saturday afternoon, the first thing that hit me was the smell of hickory smoke. My cousin Danny had been at it all week, smoking racks of ribs in an apparatus out back the approximate size and shape of a giant oil drum. The smell is filling the house, heck probably the whole neighborhood, with the promise of red meat. There is to be home-brewed beer this weekend, a light summery golden cream ale compliments of my uncle Jeff, along with guacamole, and grilled corn, and mojitos, among other things.

Is this a beach party? A family reunion BBQ? Perhaps the latest Food Network Challenge: Grillmasters-Long Island edition? Nope.

It's my wedding shower.

No cucumber sandwiches for this Gastro-junkie. No cheese fondu. No tea. I'm getting married in 7 weeks, and when my Aunt Pam called me and offered up their home on Long Island for a co-ed wedding shower (meaning Mr. gastro gets to come too, thank you very much) I knew there would be good food, good beer, and a refreshing lack of pink. The welcoming aroma of burning hickory that met me at the curb only confirmed what I already pretty much knew. This was going to be a spectacular food-fest.

First: Credit where credit is due. Cousin Danny is the hero of this story. The guy spent pretty much the entirety of the party slaving over large, hot pieces of cooking equipment--grilling corn, warming ribs, and taking breaks from the swelter only to do important stuff like fix everyone mojitos with his very nice rum that may or may not have had its origins in a certain nearby communist island that rhymes with SCUBA. The ribs were absolutely to die for, sporting the telltale ring of pink right under the dry-rubbed exterior that can only be the result of days of smoking, and packing a subtle sizzle of heat that politely waits until after you've swallowed to ignite sparks behind your teeth. The guacamole was perfect (Dad's always is) and Uncle Jeff's home-brew was crisp and light and only slightly fruity, a true testament to Jeff's powers as a home-brewer. But the real stars of the day were Danny and his ribs.

We did end up doing some traditional wedding shower stuff after all. Mr. Gastro and I received a cart full of completely inspiring kitchen gadgets that I'm certain will be making appearances in future blogs (traditional aioli using my very serious looking mortar and pestle is at the top of the list, not to mention the gamut of pan-Asian possibilities presented by the appearance of our new flat-bottom wok). Bridesmaids Leigh and Rebecca did manage to work in some silly hat action, a tradition I had remained blissfully unaware of until the disturbing appearance of paper plates, sticky bows and bubble wrap--on my head. There was cake, and wonderful company, and...have I mentioned the ribs yet?

On a serious note, it's no mystery if you've read any of my past anecdotes about family and food, that food makes me feel stuff. Belonging, comfort, relaxation, creativity, tribal-happy-I-feed-you, you-feed-me type of stuff. It just gets me. And so here I am again, my heart on my sticky, BBQ sauce stained sleeve, my emotions at the mercy of the people in the kitchen. And what I feel, is grateful. Grateful for a family that feeds me, and embraces the man I love because he loves me. Grateful for leftover ribs that fall off the bone, and sticky fingers, and new toys, and family recipes, and relatives old and new. Just grateful. And happy. And full.