Saw me mudda last weekend in Vermont. She came over to the in-law’s and brought two apple pies. Dag, were they ever good.

You want great Sichuan in Manhattan? Peep Legend on 7th Ave between 15th and 16th Street.

I’ve been four times in the past two weeks and can recommend almost everything that I tried. I especially liked:

Sichuan Cucumber

The Green Beans with Ground Pork

Sichuan Spicy Ma Pa Tofu

Dry Spicy, Tasty Diced Chicken with Ginger and Peanut.

Photo Credit: Serious Eats, from their fine slideshow of the place.

Three days ago I received a package from Pat Jordan. Twenty pounds of pecans from the pecan trees in his backyard. Unshelled. The son of a bitch didn’t have the decency to include a nutcracker although he had a few suggestive hints how the wife and I could get them open. He did attach a note, however:

“To Whom it May Concern:  Send pralines and pecan-bourbon pie to Susan and Pat Jordan, Abbeville, S.C. ASAP.”

My pal.

[Photo Credit: Simply Recipes]

In 1974, when I was three years old, my grandparents returned from a trip to Florida with a gift for my mother and my aunt. They carried it in a box, a few small branches of an orange tree. My aunt planted hers and it died immediately but mom, who has a way with plants and flowers, potted the branch and it  grew into a small bush. For years, it didn’t produce any fruit. Then, a few, small yellowish oranges appeared, too sour to eat.

Still, mom brought the orange tree with us when we left Manhattan and it survived a divorce, a new marriage, and five homes.

In a recent e-mail, she explained:

I had close-to-death encounters with this one: once going on vacation and finding it all dried up, I put a plastic tent over it and misted it to bring it back to life. Another time one of the cats peed in the dirt and nearly killed it. I had to wash the roots and repot the tree. I kept my fingers crossed on that one, I can tell you. Before we left Croton, a bug infestation, the tree got covered with scales. I hand picked the bugs and spay each leave on the top and on the bottom…

The tree survived and then flourished once mom moved up to Vermont two years ago.

I never knew you could eat the fruits. Then in a catalog recently, I read that a calamondin is a cross between a clementine and a kumquat.

This fall, as by conspiracy, the tree was covered with the biggest fruits ever. (The Vermont air and the Vermont compost…) So I decided to try to make marmalade. I added an orange to brake down the tartness of the calamondin, and bingo. Delicious, tart but nor sour, clementine-parfumed marmalade. The natural pectin in the fruit worked like a charm. All I needed was sugar and cute little pots.

She needed more than that. Patience, devotion, love. Mom’s got it. Got it in spades. It took close to forty years but she never gave up on her little plant, and I can’t wait to taste the marmalade.

My sister’s slammin’ Christmas cookies.

There she is–my twin!–to the right, pictured with the wife and the nephew.

You ate it, Ralph.

How bout you guys? Do any major damage yesterday? I did. Three pieces of pie, and cookies and…plop, plop, fizz, fizz.

Jacques does tarts on the latest episode of Essential Pepin. Wonderful, and he’s charming with his granddaughter, too.

[Photo Credit: Saveur]

Nice piece in the Times on the lost art of buying from a butcher.

My mom was in town and came over for dinner last night. Ted Berg had given me some of the pulled pork he cooked over the weekend so I figured I’d make a couple of sandwiches, and as luck would have it, mom brought a loaf of challah. I’m not sure why, maybe in honor of the Jewish New Year that I don’t celebrate. She doesn’t celebrate it either, though she was once been coerced into “converting” to Judaism.That expired, at least in spirit, well before she divorced my dad. Still, maybe she brought the challah to remember the old days. Or just because she thinks it is delicious.

Anyhow, the bread was ideal for the pork, and we topped it with some homemade coleslaw and a vinegary bbq sauce.  I usually only think of challah for french toast but it’s more than lovely for a pulled pork sandwich too.

Happy New Year, indeed.

[Photo Credit: James Ransom for Food 52]

Couple of days ago guy asks me, “What’s the best pastrami in New York.”

“Katz’s.”

I didn’t know if it was a question or a test but I didn’t hesitate. And that’s part of what it means to be a New Yorker, being certain. Now, I could be wrong, and these things are a matter of taste, of course. Mile End makes a tasty sandwich out in Brooklyn. But it is not like Katz’s. And not only is the food tasty but the ambiance is usually just right. Has always been better than Ratners, the Stage or the Carnegie or even the 2nd Ave Deli, rest in peace.

Any other nominees for the best pastrami in town? Get at me.

[Photo Credit: Joel Zimmer]

Again, from Garden and Gun: the pleasures of a Cuban Sandwich.

[Photo Credit: Serious Eats]

Summer is over but it’s not too late for this story by Allison Glock on the wonders of sweet tea (from the terrific Garden and Gun Magazine):

When you drink sweet tea, your body starts to pump out insulin like water from a fire hose. Then, you have the caffeine. Which stimulates your adrenaline. Which confuses your metabolism. And keeps you from feeling sated, as one normally would after swallowing that much sweetness. Only a select few can eat seven pieces of cheesecake at a sitting, for example. But nearly everyone I know nods and says, “Just one more” when the lunch lady comes around toting the clear pitcher with the rubber band snapped around the handle. Say what you will, but sweet tea is the real hillbilly heroin.

To say Southerners drink sweet tea like water is both true and not. True because the beverage is served at every meal, and all times and venues in between—at church and at strip clubs, at preschool and in nursing homes. Not true because unlike water or wine or even Coca-Cola, sweet tea means something. It is a tell, a tradition. Sweet tea isn’t a drink, really. It’s culture in a glass. Like Guinness in Ireland. Or ouzo in Greece.

(When I was stuck in New York for a stint, a bout of homesickness led me to get the words sweet tea tattooed on my left arm. I could think of nothing else that so perfectly encapsulated the South of my pining. Now that I have moved home, it serves less as a touchstone and more as a drink order.)

Theories abound: Southerners prefer sweet tea because back in the day we used sugar as a preservative and our palates grew to crave the taste. Southerners like sweet tea because it is served ice cold and it is hot as biscuits down here. Southerners like sweet tea because we are largely descended from Celts and Brits, making a yearning for tea a genetic imperative. Southerners like sweet tea because Southerners are poor and tea is cheap. (Cheaper than beer anyway.) Southerners like sweet tea because it is nonalcoholic but it still gives you a hearty, if somewhat diabolical, buzz.

[Photo Credit: WelchOK.com]

What’s your favorite frozen food? These were always big in the special treat department when I was a kid.

[Photo Credit: bitchassbidness]

I won’t abide lousy service in a restaurant, never mind smugness. My wife thinks I’m nuts, even though she’s the same way with clerks in retail stores. I don’t just want a waiter to be attentive, I want them to be warm and knowledgeable.  Earlier this summer, we went a trendy restaurant near Columbia and I asked the waiter what he’d recommend. He pointed at the menu and said, “Well, it’s all really good,  you can’t go wrong.”

Right, then.

On that note, check out this recent GQ column by Alan Richman:

I should long ago have paid attention to this disastrous decline in service. Casualness in restaurants does not automatically make customers feel more relaxed. It often has the opposite effect. Remember how tense my friends became when we received no attention at M. Wells.

I appreciate an atmosphere lacking formality. I love Momofuku Ssäm Bar in Manhattan and Schwa in Chicago, both unpretentious and unfussy—but also attentive. They employ people who know how to take orders, fill glasses, clear plates, drop checks. Neither neglects customers. These days, too many new restaurants do. Their motto might as well be Too Cool to Care.

Well-run restaurants recognize that thoughtful service enhances an evening out, and that a bit of formality might be required in order to reach that goal. Customers these days tend to confuse discipline and manners with arrogance. Perhaps they are remembering the excess stuffiness of decades past. That hardly exists any longer. Arrogance today is exhibited by inconsiderate servers who do almost nothing for customers other than slap plates down in front of them and expect a generous tip. Arrogance is a restaurant believing it can prosper without looking after its customers.

I will tell you what else is extraordinarily self-defeating: We empower popular restaurants, and M. Wells is very much one of them. All we care about is accessibility, getting through the door. Such restaurants are rarely held accountable, no matter how uncaring they might be. I doubt that the people who operate these sought-after spots ask themselves if they are treating their customers properly. They are not obliged to do so.

M. Wells gets the Gas Face.

When you visit my mom–who now lives in Vermont–this is what you get.

Because that’s how she rolls.

What do you get at the ice cream truck? I like the strawberry shortcake jammy. Or a vanilla cone with sprinkles. Or, if I’m really knuts, a bomb pop like we did way back when.

I loved to eat breakfast at my grandparent’s home in Belgium when I was a kid. I spent a few weeks with them during the summer, alternating years with my twin sister and younger brother. Bonmamon and Bonpapa lived in a farm house in a small village between Brussels and Waterloo. Bonmamon made sure that we visited all of our relatives during my stay there so we traveled around the country, but I preferred when we stayed home. The days passed leisurely and were based around lunch and dinner, and late afternoon tea. There was always the potential for something scary to be served at those big meals–and I was expected to eat what was put in front of me–but breakfast was safe. It consisted of a cup of tea, often Earl Grey, and fresh bread from a local bakery. At the time, there weren’t many quality bakeries in New York, not as many as you find today, so good, simple bread was something to cherish.

I ate slice after slice of bread, butter and jam. Bonmamon made all sorts of jams and jellies but red currant stood out. Maybe it was because it was sweet and tart. Back home in the States, my mom also made red currant jelly and to this day, I love it. Because of how it tastes, of course, but also because it takes me back to a far away place where they spoke French and I felt welcome, like I was home.

Our man in Paris, David Lebovitz tries his hand at Red Currant Jam.

Dig it.

It’s Your Density

I was born in New York. I grew up outside the city. Since I moved back over a decade ago, I’ve lived in four different neighborhoods around Manhattan. So naturally when I think of great bagels, I think of … New Jersey.

This is an opinion I usually keep to myself. But I think most bagels in New York aren’t anything special. Going on reputation alone, you’d think you could get a good bagel, like a good slice, just about anywhere in New York. Ever since the puff-pastry style bagel overwhelmed the marketplace, it’s been difficult to enjoy a dense, crunchy, chewy bagel in the city.

If I had to sacrifce either the thin, crunchy exterior or the dense, chewy center, I’d lose the crunch. Where I grew un in Bergen County New Jersey, you can still get both.

Maybe that’s part of the problem. In New York, the bagel is such a menu-icon, every place has got to offer you a bagel. From diners to delis. So that eats away business from the bagel-specific shops. There’s not one within walking distance of my current apartment.

I thought Tal Bagels on 86th street did an OK job of keeping their bagels de-flated, and I liked that they answered “no” if you asked them to toast it. At least eight years ago they answered that way. Now they probably serve you a bagel that looks like a beach ball and will gladly slide it on a belt toaster for you.

A movie and a meal over at Food 52.

Thanks to the good people at Saveur, I found this great site, that is digging through the old Gourmet Magazine archives. Food Porn at it’s (dated) best.