Obviously, these are not actually teriyaki strips; they’re teriyaki chunks, because the butcher kindly offered to cut my flank steak into pieces for me, and I didn’t realize he’d chopped it into cubes instead of longer slices until it was too late. Quel dommage—or however you say that in Japanese, I guess. Continue reading
Almost a year ago, I proposed that there’s nothing more American than snarfing down monstrous amounts of fat as you criticize the bodies and outfits of people infinitely more athletic than you. Upon further reflection, however, I’ve come up with something that surpasses even that: there is in fact nothing more American than appropriating another nation’s cuisine to make a globular casserole that nixes any authentic seasoning, ups the fat, and treats vegetables as a necessary evil at best—employing only the most basic produce in the most perfunctory way possible. Continue reading
Days after spring allegedly began, it is still blustery and freezing in New York. Though the snowdrifts that still line the streets are no longer stacked toddler-high, they still haven’t entirely melted into murky water; the sky is a stern, White Walker-skin gray; only a certified dummy would dare to venture outside with so much as an ankle exposed (as this dummy personally discovered just hours ago). It is March. The end of March! This is unconscionable and I would like to speak with your manager, sky. Continue reading
I never knew that Italian-Americans had their own language until I started dating one. They use word “macaroni” when referring to any and all non-long-noodle-shaped pasta; they insist upon calling mozzarella just “mozz”—pronounced “mutz.” Somehow, their Mediterranean linguistic witchcraft transforms “capocollo” into “gabagool.” Many—but not all—of them also have the strange habit of dubbing tomato sauce (specifically, tomato sauce spiked with meatballs and sausage) “gravy,” though from this outsider’s perspective, there seems to be no rhyme or reason regarding who calls it what. But hey, I grew up believing that “slippy” was a real word—so who am I to talk? Continue reading
See that, up there? That charred, vaguely carcinogenic square of bone and gristle? That is not, I think, what Nonnie had in mind when writing up her recipe for beef ribs. Beef ribs should look like this: caramelized, glistening, Flintstonian. They should yield meat tender enough to fall off the bone; they shouldn’t be shriveled and tough and sad-looking.
You know what, though? It is nigh on impossible to buy beef ribs in this day and age. Really! I tried! I spent a sweaty summer afternoon trudging from fancy Brooklyn butcher to less fancy Brooklyn butcher, on a quixotic quest to track down the kosher-style protein of my dead grandmother’s Semitic dreams. (Maybe if I’d said that to them, the meat-slingers would have been more accommodating.) I went to four—count ’em, if you happen to have a map of Cobble Hill/Brooklyn Heights handy!—places, all told: two told me I was SOL, one was closed, and one said that it would have beef ribs eventually, but not until the fall. Because… that’s when… a cow loses its baby ribs? I don’t know. Continue reading
What business did my grandmother — a Pittsburgh-born Jew who spent most of her adult life in sunny Los Angeles — have making moussaka, a Balkan/Mediterranean comfort classic that’s predicated on mixing milk and meat and is absolutely the last thing you’d want to eat before heading out for a day at the beach?
Do you know why Neil Armstrong went to the moon?
Oh, I’m sure his desire to make history played a role, as did a thirst for adventure and a deep sense of patriotism. According to my Grandpa Morry, though, there was another reason: Neil had heard there was a deli up there that served the perfect pastrami. Continue reading
I won’t sugar-coat this: Stuffed cabbage is just about the unsexiest thing in the history of unsexy things. It’s not colorful. It’s not texturally interesting. And it’s made of cabbage (duh), a vegetable whose very name connotes drab listlessness and smelly farts. (I’m not going to say that the word itself always makes me think of Austin Powers… but I’m also not not going to say that.)
But if you think about it, you might just realize that stuffed cabbage has all the makings of a trendy farm-to-table mainstay. It’s a classic comfort food; it’s appealingly old-school and fairly labor-intensive; it features a cruciferous vegetable, albeit one much less fashionable than brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, or the almighty kale.
Also, I think it might technically be Paleo — although I refuse to confirm that by actually looking up what things count as Paleo. Continue reading
My darling readers — all 10 of you! — I have a confession to make: Nonnie’s cookbook actually contains more recipes than the ones that appear on this list. Continue reading
Nonnie’s brisket may be the original fusion food: an implicitly kosher, theoretically cheap, classically old-school Jewish piece of meat that’s bathed in a deeply maroon, ethnically agnostic slurry of quintessential American convenience foods.
Of course, she was far from the only grandmother to mix ketchup with powdered soup and call it a marinade. Her recipe is a variation on the very same method you’ll find in all corners of the American Semitic universe, literally from sea (the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles’ online Hanukkah guide) to shining sea (this Massachusetts synagogue’s brisket bake-off). Continue reading
And Such Small Portions! 
