Cookin for Mom in Law

Dara writes:

Here is an easy recipe to impress Mom or Mom in Law. It is for roasted salmon. We got the wild kind from Whole Foods, paired it with fresh parsley and chives, and roasted it for nary 15 minutes before it came out tender and succulent. Add fresh bread, roasted potatoes with vidalia onions, and fresh asparagus, and you have a lovely summer supper. Mom in Law even chipped in with prep, whole thing took one hour or so, including nibbling brie from TJs (Trader Joe's) and drinking rose. Perfect yuppie evening, I say.

One word about Trader Joe's. Love it. But the one near our apartment--the only one in Manhattan, alas--is always ridiculously packed. J and I are lucky enough to a) have a car and b) access to a house in Connecticut. On our way there we stop at Trader Joe's "uptown," as we like to say--that is, in Danbury, Connecticut. Whole thing takes 20 minutes in the store there, which is about how much time we'd spend on line in the TJs NYC.

Tanoreen

Dara writes:

Today it is practically Hurricane Gloria here in New York, so James and I are lucky that we did our driving yesterday. Specifically, we drove to an art opening on Staten Island, where I have not been for decades. I cannot drive over the towering Verazzano-Narrows Bridge without thinking of the suicide scene from Saturday Night Fever. Back in the day I loved John Travolta so. Now, not so much.

Anyway, after the opening, we got on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and exited at the Brooklyn neighborhood Bay Ridge. On 3rd Ave in Bay Ridge is a fantastic Middle Eastern joint named Tanoreen. From Staten Island, Bay Ridge is not hard to reach. From Manhattan, it is the third to last stop on the R train. A trek. The food was fabulous.

Our appetizers of tahini-rich and parsley-laced (I am a fiend for parsley) hummus and sauteed fava and green beens filled us so that we had essentially to cart home our entrees. The homemade lemonade with "secret" ingredients--tamarind, for one--quenched our thirst as alcohol wouldn't (the restaurant does not yet have a liquor license, but you can bring your own bottles of wine).

I ordered baby squash stuffed with ground lamb in a yogurt mint sauce with rice with vermicelli. James got kibbie balls with little doughy lamb pastries in a yogurt sauce with vermicelli rice. I read in my Claudia Roden Middle Eastern cookbook that the broken vermicelli in rice is a typical Arab dish and that the vermicelli stand for prosperity. Delicious.

Oooh, the meals were so fragrant with nutmeg, mint, and garlic. When we re-heated the dishes today there was hardly any oil. The ingredients were quite fine, and everything tasted just as good as last night.

Tanoreen doesn't take reservations for parties of two. We waited from 8:15-9pm sipping Guinness at the Irish pub down the block.

Bruni Out of Tune

Dara writes:

Just when I was feeling badly I had not yet posted on the recent development in the world of New York Times' chief restaurant critic Frank Bruni, Bruni lets loose another gust of bad wind that makes me kind of glad I waited.

To begin: the ranting letter written against him by restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow. Chodorow has opened several successful restaurants, including China Grill and Asia de Cuba, and several disastrous ones, such as Rocco's, the demise of which television chronicled. Chodorow's $40,000 Times' ad opposite Bruni's column responded to Bruni's no-star review of Chodorow's latest venture, Kobe Club. In his rant, Chodorow recoils not from the negativity per se, but from what he considers Bruni's ad hominem attack. Chodorow complains that the "unfair" review hurts not him, as he is battle-worn and tough, but his servers and kitchen staff.

As Mimi Sheraton, former New York Times' chief restaurant critic, brilliantly asserts on Slate, Chodorow is in fact the one hurt--by his own letter. Now, all those unaware of the negative review will be aware of it. Moreover, by attesting to the critic's influence, Chodorow merely served to increase Bruni's power.

Too bad, because I have really started to dislike Bruni. While I may not agree with Chodorow's view--many other critics also panned Kobe Club--I do agree that Bruni tends toward the ad hominem, as I have already made abundantly clear on this very blog. Now, just today, we see that Bruni is also capable of agressing ad feminam.

Witness today's NYT review of the steakhouse inside the Penthouse Executive Club.

“Foxy,” I began, then stopped myself, wondering if I was being too familiar. “Are you and I on a first-name basis, or should I address you as Ms. Foxy?”

“You can call me Dr. Foxy,” she said.

“Is that an M.D. or a Ph.D.?”

“Yes,” she answered.

Now, this rudeness has already been addressed on Gastroporn, but I have to second that blogger's comment assailing Bruni for being so condescending to this Penthouse worker. On the NYT website, a "multimedia" show accompanies Bruni's article, on which you can relish such photo captions as:

Look at that meat. On the plate, I mean.

It's not so much that I think Bruni is demeaning women, as much as I think he is being awkward and dumb. Gridskipper has reported that Mr. Bruni is gay; maybe his being in a straight strip joint made him profoundly uncomfortable and he acted out. Unfortunately, his writing bore the brunt of whatever psychic burden being around nude women loaded on his shoulders. To wit:

You can find bliss in the soulless cradle of a strip mall. Why not the topless clutch of a strip club?

Get it? Get the parallels? I used to like Bruni's puns, but now I find he is precious and annoying when trying to make so many cute literary twists.

I am curious to see Bruni's next move. Many others are now also tuned in, including, my favorite post on the Strip Snafu, Feminist Law Professors.