Another kind of jerky

Some fruits are good dried: bananas, grapes, cranberries, mangos, apricots. And, apparently, others are not, such as the persimmon. I've been sitting here eating a bag of dried persimmons for no reason other than the fact that they're within my hand's reach. They're a bit tough and look a bit leathery. And, they don't even taste like persimmon. I'm not sure what they taste like. Toughness, I suppose, if toughness is a flavor. But, they're giving my mouth a workout, up and down my mouth goes, trying to make something that can be swallowed out of these dark orange shapes. I'm going to have one fit mouth by the time I'm done.

Open sesame

Eleanor, Arion, and I had lunch today at the good ol' Shrader House. It had been a while since I'd been there and some of the best meals I've had were at that house. Eleanor packed her cooking goods with her (two types of tofu and all) and she set out to make delicious sesame sauce for our noodles, tofu, and vegetables. The noodles were of a whole wheat variety cooked al dente. The tofu was pressed and then pan fried. And vegetables were mixed salad greens with some green onions, parsley, and nasturtium. We also had some avocado mixed in there too.

The sauce was delicious, and I'm not just saying that because Eleanor may read this. It really was. And it was simple too: ginger, garlic, peanut butter, hot sauce, sesame seeds, soy sauce, rice vinegar, and little bit of hot water all mixed together in a blender. A couple of spoonfuls of that tossed with our noodle mixture, and we set off to have a lovely lunch.

And the cheese stands alone

A good grilled cheese sandwich is hard to come by, and I've been experimenting on various versions to try to create my idea of the perfect grilled cheese sandwich. Today's attempt was one that took me back to the basics of just cheese, bread, and a dab of butter.

It looked like a good sandwich. The bread was just brown and toasty enough with a little bit of a crunch when poked with the spatula, but, of course, looks can be deceiving. Just when I thought I had figured out the right way to get an even distribution of the butter and browning of the bread, the cheese to bread proportion was off. There was simply too much cheese. It was oozing out from the side of the bread. Bites from the crusty edges of the sandwich were fine, but there was trouble in the middle, where there was no extra crust to support all the cheese that had somehow travelled to the middle part of the sandwich. Each bite was just cheese and it was too much cheese for me. However, the consistency of the cheese was just right. No weird separation of cheese and oil. The sharp chedder held its own. Good cheese.

The big apple

Being in New York has been quite a challenging experience for me and this foodblog of mine. I can't keep up with the amount of good food, good drink, and all around gastronomic merriment out here (not that I was lacking of these things back in the Bay, but it's on a whole different level out here). I feel like I'm a minor leaguer trying to strut her stuff with the real pros. Ack! I'm nearly drowning in foodblogging overload. I've taken too big of a bite from that big apple and can't quite chew.

Sweet love

Ryan led me to the discovery of a lover that never fails, each tempting taste as good as the last, and always leaving me wanting just a bit more. Yup, I found my new love in liquid form--a concoction of sake, black currant, and lime. I don't usually refer to drinks as sexy, but this one was sexy. A clear raspberry red color and a curvy twist of lime looked nearly sublime in that angled cold sake glass. But, seriously, how could I pass up asking some strange waiter man in my huskiest voice, "Could I please have the Sweet Love?" I was almost, just almost able to do it without giggling.

Mealtime minions

There's something in New York that doesn't quite exist elsewhere. No, it's not the Empire State Building. Nope, it's not the throngs of pushy people exiting and entering the crowded subways during rush hour. And, naw, it's not even the TV home of the Huxtables, Carrie Bradshaw, and Lucy and Ricky. It's those guys who ride through the streets on slow-moving bicycles going in the wrong direction. It's those guys who have heavy-duty baskets attached to the front of their bipedal vehicles laden with paper bags, tin plates with cardboard tops, and plastic soup containers. It's those restaurant delivery guys who ride through the slick streets on a mission: to bring the people their food.

Or, rather, to bring me my food. I've had more come-to-me food here than anywhere else, and it's not just the pizza and Chinese food variety. And, it's not because it's cold outside and I don't want to leave the apartment nor because I find the act of opening the door to a stranger and exchanging money in my pajamas thrilling. It's because I can.

Let's recount the meals:

There was the grilled vegetable sandwich on foccacia with a side salad and vinegrette from Kate's. The grilled veggies were not the usual lame-o garden variety, but eggplant, zucchini, bell pepers, onions, and who knows what else--all accompanied wtih a tomato pesto. Karen ordered a tasty portobello and spinach salad from them, and of which I had a couple of bites.

There was the Cuban food from the Upper West Side place near Gabe's place, that actually didn't go too badly with the Reisling and watching Clueless en francais. My rice dish with chorizo and chicken came in a tin plate with a cardboard top, the black beans in a paper/plastic container, and the super garlicky garlic sauce in a teeny-tiny clear plastic cup with lid. They all got mixed together into a tasty melange before entering my belly.

And, yesterday, there was the shalafel, a combination of falafel and shawerma from some place not too far away. This came in such a fancy plastic container with separate compartments for the salad, pickels, and rice that Tupperware is looking at some fierce competition.