David Lebovitz

It felt a little funny heading over to Porchetta for lunch. I mean, I live right next to Italy and had amazing porchetta there just recently. So why am I taking a lengthy subway trip down to the East Village for lunch?

And I was tempted even further when I was on the way to meet my friend Shira (who I met on a boat trip on the Côte d'Azur last year) for lunch, and I passed a 'San Francisco-style' burrito place that tugged in the pit of my slightly bulging stomach at my sense of nostalgia for the famed tummy-torpedos I remembered so well.

But like the people who told me that that Mexican food and BBQ in New York aren't going to be as good as where they originated (which I find partially true, but I've had great French food in New York and wonderful Italian fare in San Francisco, so perhaps I'm becoming a little too globalized for my own good) I'm going to agree that it's pretty hard to replicate a San Francisco burrito. So in my twisted logic that says you can't get a good San Francisco-style burrito in New York City, but good Tuscan roast pork is a possibility, porchetta it was. And boy, am I glad when my convoluted reasoning works out.

Tradition schmadition. Something I've noticed every time I come to New York is that the bagels keep getting puffier and puffier. (Which happened before everything started going 3D.) When I eat a bagel, I want a chewy exterior with lot of seeds on it and enough dough inside to support a swipe of cream cheese. I don't want a whole loaf of bread in there. Is that too much to ask?

Roaming around the streets of New York, I've seen bagels practically as round as a baseball and others as fluffed up as a burger bun. And I know you're not going to believe this, but I even saw bagels with dried fruit in them. Oy. What is this city coming to?

We came for the burnt ends. But to be fair, when we called the day before to see if RUB Barbeque took reservations, we were told that they sometimes run out of certain items because they take days to smoke. So, of course—with my luck, we arrived at RUB, aka, Righteous Urban Barbeque, to...

I think that sign is the VA (version Américain) of the infamous Fermeture exceptionnelle I've come to know all too well. I asked at the counter, "Are they really as good as they say they are?" and the woman replied, "Yes, they are." When I started to cry, the staff sat me down at the bar and gave me a Country Cocktail of housemade lemonade and a double shot of bourbon.

A few years ago, I was extremely fortunate to meet Gina DePalma, the pastry chef at Babbo in New York City, thanks to the matchmaking efforts of Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg.

Being bakers, we struck up a friendship and she gave me a copy of her gorgeous book, Dolce Italiano. And after we had dessert and coffee together, we ambled the streets of New York City a little and made plans to meet in Rome, where she was moving to work on her second book. Unfortunately we didn't get to have our Roman holiday, but I often thumb through her book and dream about how much fun we would have had lapping our way through the gelaterias of Rome and eating all those pastries with little sips of Italian espresso in between bites.

Appearances

I have a few appearances coming up, and if you're around, please come by and say hi...

-August 5: Borders Books, New York City - 7pm (That's this week!)

-September 25: La Cocotte, Paris - 3 to 5pm

You can find more information about them on my Schedule page. That's all I have planned so if I'm not coming to where you are, hop on the plane and I'll see you here—or there!

Recipe Use and Attribution

Food writer Laurie Colwin once said something along the lines of, "If it wasn't for sharing of recipes, humans would not have survived." Recipes are indeed, wonderful ways not just to ensure that humans will continue to inhabit the earth (although it remains to be seen for how long), and many of us have recipe boxes and notebooks full of cherished recipes.

The fashionable team over at Design*Sponge came by to make a video with me here in Paris...

I hit the market with Anne Ditmeyer of Prêt à Voyager, who is part of the Design*Sponge creative team, to do a little shopping.

(Plus we got a little lesson of how far a seller will go not to sell something to you.)

I'd not heard of Eggplant Caviar (caviar d'aubergine), until I moved to France. I'm not sure why that was—perhaps in the states it's called something different when I was served it? Could it be labeling laws, so I wouldn't confuse eggplant seeds for fish eggs? Or did I just have my head in the sand for too many years and only saw the light when I moved away?

Whenever I had eggplants lying around, I always made baba ganoush or moutabal. But eggplant caviar is even easier to make and less-rich: it's a smoky tasting eggplant purée with a squirt of fresh lemon, some garlic, and a bit of heat from a sprinkle of bright-red chili powder.

If I had to name one food that I couldn't live without, chocolate would be right up there. Salted butter is on that short list, too. Seeded bagels, California dried apricots, black and white cookies, osetra caviar (if money, and sustainability, were no object), lobster rolls, French fries, and really good fried chicken would also be on that list. Not as fancy as some of those things, but just as good, another thing that I can never seem to get enough of is crunchy cornmeal.

And the good thing is that I live next to Italy, so whenever I pop over and visit my neighbors, I always bring back not only good coffee by the kilo, but as much polenta as I can jam into my suitcase as well.

A few years ago I was shamed into only using stone-ground cornmeal, but the locals seem to have taken to instant polenta, which I was told wasn't bad by a well-respected chef. That's what is widely available here, but I just couldn't bring myself to agree when I tried it for myself.