I’ve been busy researching and writing a few pieces with the Queens Chronicle. Both highlight street food around the borough. Both came out in the September 27th issue. You can pick up a hard copy at street corners and supermarkets around Queens, or read them here. I had the idea for the 7 train piece in early spring, but held off on submitting it. Now, with the Vendy Awards this Saturday, my editor finally agreed to publish it along with the second piece.

Street Eats: A Journey Under the 7 Train (Cover Story for QBoro Section)

Vendy Awards Finalist From Queens (Feature Piece for QBoro Section)

We have been eating a lot of salads this summer. Mostly because it is an easy solution to our weekly vegetable drop, but really because it gets us in and out of the kitchen in record time. And as long as I can cover vegetables in a blanket of protein, D is happy.

My favorite protein in salad is fish. Salmon, tuna, monkfish, you name it, I can probably find a salad solution for it. Because of this, it is difficult for me to walk past the fish monger without stopping in. He must know this, and places all the calamari, clams and shrimp in the front window for me to spy on. Inside is the real gold mine. Wild salmon, lobster tanks, oysters, crabs, pompano, and the catch of the day line the shelves. I can walk up to each fish, sniff, eye and poke at it, then declare it mine.

Tuna is what catches my eye more often than not. It might be its arresting pink hue. It might be that I tease the fish monger about sushi grade tuna just to hear him laugh and say, “You kiddin’? You can’t get any fresher than this!” So I bring it home time and again, wrapped in paper and await mealtime.

This past week, how lucky we were to receive the proper fixings for a classic Salade Nicoise. It is one of my favorites because it is a hearty and playful salad where almost anything goes once you have the basics. D loves it because he can correct my French accent while I practice my pronunciation.

But I think the true love in this salad is the color display. How can you pass up something that looks this fresh?! I say go out and buy that tuna steak now. You will not be disappointed.

The biggest risk you have when cooking tuna steak is drying it out by overcooking. Tuna needs a scant 30-60 seconds per side over hot heat. Remember, this limited cook time leaves the center of the cut rare. As always, when dealing with any sort of protein, buy the freshest cut possible.

To cut down on prep time I slice and boil my vegetables when I bring them home, storing them in the fridge for quick prep or an easy snack. It makes assembling a salad like this a real breeze. It may be some work day 1, but there is nothing like being able to reach into the fridge and have everything done and ready to go. Here are a few tips, some used in this salad. All of these should be stored in sealed, air tight containers.

- Quarter potatoes, boil until soft. Storage time: about 1 week. Pancakes, salads, home fries.
- Trim and blanch green beans, 2 minutes. Storage time: about 3 days. Dip, salads, snack.
- Char red peppers in skillet. Storage time: about 5 days. Sandwiches, omelette, dips.
- Trim and boil beets until soft. Store in reserved liquid, 1 week. Sandwiches, salads.
- Peels and cut carrots. Store in water (change every 2 days), 2 weeks. Snack, soup, salads.
- Wash and cut celery. Store in water (change every 2 days), 2 weeks. Snack, soup, salads.
- Cut corn from cob, saute with butter 2 minutes. Storage time: about 1 week. Salad, soup, omelette.
- Boil and peel eggs. Storage time: about 5 days. Use in sandwiches, salads.

But let’s get back to the salad and this “fusion” I mention. I marinated the tuna steaks in a soy sauce-ginger-lime mixture, coated them with sesame and seared them. This presented a fabulous citrus snap to the salad. I tied the sesame theme into a tahini-based salad dressing (tahini is sesame seed paste). Together the tastes blended smoothly into the whole and create a fabulous play on a traditional salad.

Salade Nicoise
Serving size= 2. Cook time= 3 minutes. Prep time= 15 minutes.
For the Marinade:
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
juice of 1/2 lime plus zest
1 glove garlic, crushed
1- 1 inch piece ginger, minced
1/2 cup sesame seeds, set aside on a flat plate

For the Dressing:
2 cloves garlic, crushed
10 anchovy fillets
2 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon red cider vinegar
3 tablespoons tahini
1/4 cup olive oil
salt/ pepper to taste

For the Salad:
3-4 new potatoes, quartered and boiled until soft
1 tomato, sliced in 8 wedges
2 soft boiled eggs
small handful green beans, blanched
1 small head red lettuce (optional)
1/2 red onion, sliced thin
1 tablespoon capers
1- 1 lb fresh tuna steak

1) Prepare the marinade. Mix soy sauce, fish sauce, lime juice, zest, ginger and garlic in a bowl. Set tuna in mixture and marinade while continuing. Set the sesame seeds on a plate, aside.
2) Prepare the dressing. In a small skillet, heat the garlic with the anchovy fillet. No oil is needed as the fish has enough. Heat until garlic turns translucent and anchovies break down. Once ready, place in a bowl and mix with the remaining ingredients until well incorporated. Set aside. Turn tuna steak over in marinade.
3) Wash and prep the vegetables for the salad and assemble.
4) Begin warming a skillet with about 1 tablespoon peanut oil on medium high heat. Remove tuna from marinade and pat dry slightly. Place on plate with sesame seeds and push down slightly so sesame seeds adhere to steak. Flip and press again. Place in pan once hot, cook 30-45 seconds, flip and cook for 30-45 more seconds. Transfer to a cutting board and cut into 1/4 inch thick slices. Assemble over salad.

Note: This recipe makes extra dressing. Refrigerate and use it at a later date. It will keep about 1 week. Just bring to room temperature and mix well before use.

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Here’s an absurdly simple salad. So perfect it deserves an equally petite post so as not to obscure it. I became dangerously addicted to it the other week, tucking my knees up, with bowl between, to block D’s attempts at getting any. Was it the the honey-like tomato jewels? The seemingly familiar flavor combination that begs for another bite? The rich nuttiness of the olive oil?

You will have to judge for yourself.

Make this before tomato season leaves us for the summer. (I have already wallowed in fears of the fleeting tomatoes to D, don’t get me started.)

It is a play on the classic tomato-mozzarella-basil combination we are too familiar and tired of. This salad has a bit more Mediterranean tang to it (the tang lies in the cheese). I dream of making it with the raw milk ricotta I had in Indiana this summer…

Tomato Ricotta Salad
Serving Size= 2. Active time= 5 minutes.
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup crumbled ricotta salata (ricotta salata is the firmer, dried and salted ricotta)
1 teaspoon dried mint (2 springs fresh mint, leaves only, may also be used)
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
salt/ pepper to taste

1) Place tomatoes in serving bowl. Top with ricotta, mint, olive oil, salt and pepper. Serve.

It doesn’t get much easier or more delicious than that.

I created a new category on wine (see right column).

The general beverage column was getting a bit convoluted. Cheers!

D and I have received, dare I say, too many tomatoes from our local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Don’t get me wrong, they are probably the best tomatoes I have ever had. And no joke, every time one is sliced into D makes some comment about how amazing they are– like I didn’t hear it the first 30 tomatoes we sliced into the deep sweet skins. They really are amazing, but it’s too much for two people to eat.

The first week was fabulous. 10 tomatoes, all over 2 pounds. I gave one to my father who made some comment about the “pumpkin” I had given him a few days later. I brought a batch of gazpacho over to a party of 12 people (where everyone made some comment about how sweet it was), but 2 pound tomatoes go pretty far and I was still left with 7 tomatoes (that’s 14 pounds!). But we trucked on through leaving only 2 tomatoes over for the next week…

…When we received another 8, plus a pint of cherry tomatoes. That brought our tomatoes back to 10. Tomato salads galore: tomato with basil, tomato with mozzerella and basil, tomato with riccata, fresh tomato sauce, pizza with thinly sliced tomato, guacomole, sandwiches, tomato fritattas. We still had 1 left when we received our next shipment…

7 more plus 2 quarts of cherry tomatoes (total now 8 plus 2 quarts). I gave 2 to my brother’s girlfriend. She was going on and on about how horrible tomatoes were in New York City. Well, you’re not buying from the greenmarket, huh? She told me she missed the tomatoes her parents grew in Saint Louis. I gave her 2 tomatoes. She said she hadn’t smelled anything so good since her childhood.

It’s amazing an amazing feeling when you can give a gift so simple like tomatoes and have people calling you for days telling you how fabulous they were. We must really be neglected in New York City.

The dish above celebrates the sweet powerhouse of this summer’s tomatoes. I was looking for a dish to use those slightly past due tomatoes. You know the ones, a little too soft to eat, but you don’t want to throw them out. It was a hit, and took minutes, perfect for these days that are fading fast (with plenty of heat). I think of this dish as a Middle Eastern-Italian-South American fusion, but all summer.

Note: Quinoa (keen-wa) is a grain that is high in protein (surprise) and of course, fiber. It is originally from South America. It’s flavor is close to couscous, but a little wheatier in flavor (though it is gluten-free). It comes in light brown and red.

Quinoa w/ Summer Vegetables
Serving Size= 2. Active Time= 5 minutes. Inactive Time= 10 min.
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
4 shallots, skinned and quartered
1 ear corn, sliced from stalk
1 cup quinoa
1/4 cup fresh basil, tightly packed and loosely chopped
olive oil
Parmesan cheese to taste
salt/ pepper to taste

1) Bring a sauce pot to a boil. Cook quinoa according to package directions (usually 2 parts water, 1 part grain). Quinoa takes about 10 minutes to cook. (While water is coming to a boil prepare veggies.)
2) Turn on oven’s broiler. In an oven safe pan, put tomatoes, corn and shallots. Toss with 2 tablespoons olive oil, salt and pepper. Place under broiler for about 10 min. Check after 5 minutes, stir. Vegetables should be blackened once done.
3) Once done, mix vegetables with quinoa. Stir in basil and top with Parmesan.

Note: Add chicken or beef to this dish to make it a main course! This dish is great warm or cold.

What do you do when you realize you have ordered 20 pounds of Roma tomatoes to drop in one bountiful bulk shipment?

If you’re me, you work on cleaning out the freezer: Remove frozen soups from last year, remove lobster stock, chicken stock, bones awaiting stockage, eat through ice cream, make a plethora of Caipirinhas with that leftover bag of ice… breath.

And realize everything being done is unnecessary as long as one thing holds true: you learn how to can.

When I sat in a planning meeting with our potential farmers for my local Community Supported Agriculture Program in January (I’m not only a client, I’m also the president) a fair blond woman spoke up: “I want canning tomatoes– bulk! Can you give us that?” When the farmers responded with a “why not,” the deal was sealed and the season was underway. I walked away thinking the fair blond crazy, but bulk tomatoes did sound fun, think of all that roasted tomato soup I could make.

But the months passed and the bulk date loomed on the horizon. Was I crazy?! I planned to turn my oven on in some of the hottest days of the year. So I did the only other sensible thing and petitioned the fair blond to teach me to can:

“Well, it’s really easy, you don’t need me to teach you.”

“But I’ve only made apple sauce. That was in the third grade at school with my teacher we used to call ‘Nature Freak’ because JJ stepped on an ant and was yelled at for killing a living creature. I just need some hand holding the first time.”

So as cucumbers stacked up to 10 a week for 3 weeks (and there are only so many cucumber salads a person can happily eat) the fair blond, who will now be referred to as L, and I gathered our cucumbers for a wholesome day of pickling. This to become my re-entry into the world of glass jars beyond my grandmother’s jams.

The pickling went smooth enough, despite the burning vinegar smell that lingered in the air. I was warned a shelf time of at least three weeks and sent home with my 5 jars of pickles. Like any good student, when I returned home I gathered the remainder of the zucchini in my refrigerator and continued to pickle the night away (what else is there to do on a Saturday night in NYC afterall?).

The days were slowly checked off my calendar and I bragged to all my friends about my pickling adventures, promising all tastes of my sure success. Finally time came to pop a jar and I must admit my pickles were delicious. Adding red pepper flakes for a slight bite and coriander seeds for a twist paid off. Soon D and I were having pickle appetizers before every meal. When pickle jar one vanished in less than one week, zucchini jar one was opened as burgers cooked away.

But now is tomato season. After my pickle triumph I was ready to take on the non-pickling world of tomatoes. I found my recipe and plodded on the other night as temperatures dropped, securing the services of D, now known as the great Tomato Skin Peeler.

It is simple really. The hardest part is that the jars must remain submerged in boiling water for 85 minutes, easily avoided if you retreat to another room for a movie. The jars come out and as the night continues each “pop” of a lid brings a smile to your face, knowing you have another quart safe for the winter ahead when you will truly appreciate that reminder of summer.

At the end of the night, just for fun, I pickled 3 small jars of green beans. Afterall, with all those tomatoes a good Bloody Mary is in order as reward… in three weeks.

Canning Tomatoes
Active Time= 1 hour. Inactive Time= 1 hour 30 minutes
Roma Tomatoes
2 tablespoons lemon juice per quart jar
Jars and new canning lids

1) Fill a large stock pot with enough water to ensure quart jars standing upright will be totally submerged, bring to a boil.
2) Bring a smaller pot of water to a boil, sterilize all jars and lids in boiling water for 5 minutes. Remove and turn upside down to dry.
3) As equipment is drying, keep boil going (use same pot for next step). Prepare an ice bath and ready tomatoes and jars. Put 2 tablespoons lemon juice in each jar.
4) Blanch tomatoes (submerge in the boiling water) for 1 minute then transfer immediately to ice bath. Once in ice bath, skins should slip off tomatoes easily. Remove skins, core, and any visible bruises from tomatoes. Fill the jars with the tomatoes as you skin and core them. Push down on tomatoes to stuff in as many as possible, making sure to leave a 1/2 inch space at the top of the jar.
5) When all jars are filled, wipe the jar lips clean and cap, securing to finger-tight.
6) Submerge jars in water, standing. Boil for 85 minutes.
7) Carefully remove from water, set on racks to cool overnight. Any jars that do not pop tight should be transfered to the fridge and eaten. You cannot store these jars for long term.

NOTE: There are plenty of books and recipes online for canning if you do not like this one. Compare what is available, have fun and enjoy your reminders of summer all winter long!

A few months back, Scribner sent me a copy of Educating Peter, by Lettie Teague (with the hefty subtitle: How I Taught a Famous Movie Critic the Difference Between Cabernet and Merlot or How Anybody Can Become an (Almost) Instant Wine Expert). The call to review this book arrived at the perfect time: My mother had just purchased me a subscription to Wine Spectator, and D and I were on our way to Napa in a few months with our interests in wine growing (and a wedding to attend).

While I found wrapping my head around some of the articles in Wine Spectator challenging (did I really know what first growth meant?), I was pleased to find that Educating Peter provided me the base of understanding I needed to not only pick up more challenging concepts in wine, but also inform my purchases and answer most of those questions I was too afraid to ask (wait, so cat pee is a good smell in wine?!).

So why so long to write this review?

For starters, the book had landed a whole of two hours in our apartment when D noticed it. “Ooooh, a book about wine? Who sent this? I call I read it first,” and he whisked it away before I could object. For nights I endured queries about wine on topics he now understood and I was in the dark about, was subjected to quizzes on various vintages and regions, and endured nights of chuckles while he read on and I tried to sleep. His last comment as he finally closed the back cover: “You know, you should really read this book.”

It’s what I intended to do all along before it was taken from me! So I read it and enjoyed it, recommending it to everyone I knew with the slightest interest in wine. But still, why no review?

My only defense is that I promised to let two others borrow the book once my review was completed. But I couldn’t bare to part with it. My defense is that this book remains a fixture on my shelf. It is my go-to when I need an answer to a wine question– How could I let this reference out of my site? How could I let it be soiled by others’ hands? Most important, how could I allow others to gain the same insight in wine I now possessed (it was all too fun to prove supposed wine-knowing friends wrong these past few months)?!

But the time has come to pass the torch.

Educating Peter is a fantastically fun read for the novice wine lover looking to understand more about wine. The book will empower the reader with basics to wine regions, vintages, types of wine and their blends, and more. Best of all, Lettie Teague has accomplished this in a totally non-snooty way, making anyone feel capable of grasping wine and turn into an (almost) wine expert.

When it comes to wine, Peter (that is, Peter Travers, movie critic at Rolling Stone) is a bumbling fool. He loves his “fatty” Chardonnays and attributes all other wines to the famous directors and actors he has interviewed. Chianti? Sure, that’s one of “Marty Scorsese’s favorite wines.” New Zealand wines? Peter Jackson (director of Lord of the Rings) thinks the reds of NZ are no good.

Through Peter’s mishaps and misguided senses, we learn about wine right along with him, falling in love with new varietals and regions.

Peter’s gifted cases of wine from years back were stored next to the basement radiator. We learn this is a big no-no because it cooks the wine and ruins it, as does storing it over the stove (a common storage place in most homes for go-to bottles).

We endure Peter’s often silly epiphany’s on how to remember his newfound wine knowledge: the film Citizen Kane is likened to a first growth Bordeaux and Riesling is like a filmmaker who relies on a good story rather than big names. We also put up with Peter’s strange obsession with hail throughout the book.

When I started reading Educating Peter, Peter’s quirks drove me mad. Sure, I thought, I know very little about wine, but this man is an idiot! And all of Peter’s memorization techniques, attributing every movie in his memory bank to something about wine, were inane and bordered on show-offy. Was this man real?

But I soon gave up and took all these idiosyncrasies to heart. I realized everywhere Peter shares his wisdom in wine-movie pairings or makes a lame joke, I was more likely to recall what was discussed. I would walk to work the next day discussing Peter’s silly comments, soon realizing I had an epiphany of my own: I remembered more when Peter had made one of his declarations than not.

The book is a great introduction to most of the wine regions of the world, though some regions seem to be glossed over. For one, the chapter on Italy is in desperate need of more information. Other chapters seem to just open up when the subject suddenly changes. And some regions just list wines to try instead of breaching the topic at all. But in the wines and regions that are discussed, we see Peter’s and our own interest grow as everyone learns more.

The book is organized in four sections. The first, an overview to wine, terms, storage tips and other basics about wine and wine-making. From there, we enter Old World Wines and get a fantastic starter into France and its’ regions and to a lesser extent Italy, Spain and other regions. New World Wines broadens the discussion into South America, Australia and regions in the United States, while the fourth section rounds out Peter’s new wine knowledge (and our own) with first use of this information at restaurants, wine stores and a “final exam” for the reader to test their own knowledge.

This book is a great introductory into wine. I applaud Teague for her efforts in making the topic of wine accessible to so many, while remaining light hearted and funny throughout. Educating Peter is a fantastic book for the wine novice that can easily be reread again and again and passed around to friends who love the subject but are looking to understand more. Which is where my own copy will now go…

Be warned: building a knowledge in wine can cause a great emptiness to the bank account.

Fellow blogger Kalyn, over at Kalyn’s Kitchen notified me that the blogger responsible for “Peninsula Foodnews (@blogspot.com)” stole one of her posts earlier in the day. When she asked him to remove it, he replaced it with my post, in its entirety, photo, back story and recipe of my roasted red pepper and tomato soup. The photograph even has”Just Braise” clearly written in the corner! Sadly, the whole site seems to be cut and pasted from other blogs or websites.

I have asked him to remove it, notifying that it is in violation of my intellectual property and copyright infringement.

There are many bloggers out there stealing work from the community. Keep your eyes open and notify each other when you see something taken! Does anyone else have other shifty bloggers they keep their eyes on?