Much eating was done

I was on the east coast for Christmas week, and did very well at gaining those extra holiday pounds. Saturday I had a huge plate of seafood risotto at Sophie's Bistro, in Somerset, Sunday, my family did a great big chinese restaurant dinner in Denville after sitting around my aunt's eating some great antipasto and other snacks. Monday we made a few racks of lamb after some butternut squash soup.

Tuesday I went into NYC walked and around all day. I had a street pretzel with mustard, as required for visitors. I also had some sushi at Sushi a-Go-Go near Columbus Circle. The sushi was actually very good considering how 'efficient' the place was. Like their name implies, it's about as close to fast food sushi as I've seen.

For dinner, we ate at San Domenico, on Central Park South. The Italian Christmas eve tradition is the feast of the seven fishes and this place did it very well. As an added bonus, Burt Wolf, TV foodie/travel guide was eating there as well. I'll give a full review in a separate post.

For Christmas we had a meal at home, an appetizer of New Zealand Prawns and cockles with some lime and ginger, followed by a wild rice stuffed pheasant with Lingonberries. Again the recipe will follow in a separate post.

Thursday we had a nice meal at a local Italian restaurant, Ý

Trattoria Nicola, in Somerset. I had a 'strudel' as an appetizer (Wild mushrooms & goat cheese encased in fillo dough, served warm with balsamic syrup), very tasty, and a very good seafood linguine with some roasted garlic basil pesto.

As if that wasn't enough we went back into the city to RM, Rick Moonen's seafood restaurant, for an awesome 6 course kitchen tasting. That review will follow as well.

Food links

Some food-related links:

• Cinnamon at Did You Know is teaching us all kinds of things about food. Also you should check out Poise, her crafty blog.

• "Did You Bring Bottles" is a site on the subject of supermarket history and architecture, roughly covering the period from the 1920s to the 1970s. It is not a site about current supermarket issues and locations, except in historical perspective, and it is not connected with nor owned by any supermarket chain, past or present. found via Follow me Here

• A new way to prep your Thanksgiving or Christmas Turkey

• Bottled Water Web "This is the portal for the bottled water industry and where you will find extensive information about bottled water." found via larkfarm

A few notable additions to my foodblog and list. A few are not exclusively foodblogs, but I think they deserve to be included.

• foodolog "This is what went in my belly. Not everything - just the major meals." By Adam Seifer, who's regular blog pointed me to the above turkey link.

• Mise En Place

• Struggle in a Kitchen Bungalow

• Aldoblog

• Playing with my food

• Burke and Wells

Osso Bucco with root vegetable puree

This very hearty, earthy meal contains everything required to satisfy every craving. The veal shank itself settles the craving to gnaw on a big hunk of meat, the marrow satisfies the need for a rich fatty delicacy, the wild yam soba provides the carbs and the root vegetable puree made from beets, turnips and black radish provides a sweet-spicy foil to all the fat and meat. A few butter-fried okra slices give some color and accompanies the puree perfectly.

The only things I wish I had done was to find I use for the beet greens and I would have braised the shanks for much longer if I hadn't been so hungry. Normally I'd cook them until the meat falls of the bone and all the connective tissue dissolved into a wonderful goo, but I stopped just short of that.

veal shanks, as many as you need, I made 4

1 tsp Coriander seeds

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp flour

2-3 small to medium size beets

1 medium size turnip

1/4 of a black radish

ginger root

5-6 okra pods

1/2 stick of butter

wild yam soba

Put the pepper, coriander and mustard seeds in a plastic bag and crush (unless you own a mortar and pestle). Season the shanks with the seasoning, some salt and the flour. Brown in an iron skillet, add water or veal stock, if you can get it, until the liquid comes half way up the meat. Braise in a 350° oven for 1-1/2 to 2 hours. You may want to do it a bit slower and longer if you have time.

Peel the root veggies, cut them up into roughly equal cubes. I added just a slice of ginger root (maybe two US Quarter-sized slices) as to not overwhelm the turnip and beet, and used a piece of black radish, just larger than thumb size to add just a touch of spicyness to the sweet beets. A daikon would probably be a bit milder. Boil until tender, 30-40 minutes depending on the size of the cubes. Drain, melt in 1/4 stick of butter, and puree with a hand blender. I baked the puree for about ten minutes.

Pan fry the sliced okra pods in the other 1/4 stick of butter, and maybe a bit of oil. Pan frying gives you a crisp slightly browned okra, which will suprise any okra hater.

Cook the soba according to directions.

Plate the soba, with a shank on top, puring some pan drippings over both, then put a few spoonfuls of the puree around the plate and top with the okra for a very bright red-green contrast.

Comfort Food

MRK asks in a comment to the last post, if there's such a thing as a comfort food blog. I'm not really sure how to define comfort food, but we know many foods can effect our moods. For some, a mood altering food might be mac and cheese or a slice of chocolate cake. Other obvious comfort foods are hearty stews or warm pies. But other than the requirement that the word "lite" never appears in the recipe, comfort foods are a personal thing, based on early food experiences and ethnic traditions. Soul satisfying food doesn't need to be traditional however, as I'll try to prove with my upcoming osso bucco with root vegetable recipe. Does this type of food need to evoke memories? Or will an overload of carbs and/or chocolate do the trick? Let me know what types of food comfort you, and remember that comfort food is not the same as sick food

Food Blogs

Welcome to those of you coming via MSNBC. I though I'd mention that the site which couldn't be typed in the article is fellow Chicago blog F***CorporateGroceries.

Make sure to visit the other excellent food blogs on my updated list that are not mentioned in the MSNBC article. I messed up that list somehow, replacing it with an older list. I've fixed it and I think I've got all the food blogs I know of on it now.

POST NOTE: I realize I'm still missing quite a few. If you run a food blog please let me know and I'll include you.

One I constantly forget to mention is Tasting Menu, a weblog about some pretty serious food adventures, including some pictures of a recent trip to Charlie Trotter's. Kitchen table of course.