Creamy Evil

I got my first sunburn on Saturday.

I also ate an extortionately priced orange, found a Baby Jesus sausage, bought a racially insensitive cookbook, walked over eight miles and crossed three bridges. It was a great day!

Isaac and I did the “Three Bridges” walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge and Williamsburg Bridge. I had never heard of, or even really thought of, walking over more than one bridge in a day until the other Ann left a comment about it way back in January.

We had kept it in the back of our minds as something we really wanted to do for four months, waiting for the perfect day. It finally came on Saturday. Sunny, but not too hot and delightfully breezy, we haven’t had a more glorious day in about six months.

We started in Chinatown walking over the Manhattan Bridge into Dumbo. The Manhattan Bridge is still my favorite. I know it’s not fair to play favorites, but I just love it. I was in a horrific mood when we started. I’d been woken up by work (on a Saturday!) and my mood had gone from cranky to downright foul in about 2 seconds. But, by the time I was out over the middle of the East River, everything was once again right in the world.

We bumbled about in Dumbo. It really is a beautiful neighborhood, and there’s a fabulous bookstore there, P.S. Books, that all book loving geeks should make a pilgrimage to. They have a terrific selection of books on art and history, a great cookbook and fabulous biography sections and a neat place for kids to play and read. It’s a lovely bookstore, the sort I wish we had out here in Bay Ridge. I found a tiny old pamphlet on the cooking of the Pennsylvania Dutch. The Amish may know a thing or two about pickling and pork, but racially sensitive they are not. A well spent $2.50 if you ask me!

We then walked through the park along the river where I tried to help some very, very lost tourists, breezed past the ungodly long line at Grimaldi’s and headed over the Brooklyn Bridge. This is my least favorite bridge to walk over, which is a pity, because it’s so beautiful, but it’s just too chock-a-block with tourists and bikers.

We walked under the anchorage, past the Brooklyn Banks and on along to the river. It was a quiet day, not many boats or fisherman, and no, no beavers. But Isaac did spot the world’s saddest dead turtle. All it’s limbs were limp and swaying back and forth in the wavelets. It kind of broke my heart, the hardness of the shell, the softness of its neck…

But, we motored on and soon needed a pit-stop, so we headed inland for some pork & chive dumplings at Dumpling North on Essex. From there it was a skip and a hop over to Delancey and onto the Williamsburg Bridge. This is where my legs started rebelling, you finally realize how long the walk has been when you’ve walked and walked, and walked and walked on the Williamsburg and you’re still not over any water yet.

The view on the Williamsburg Bridge is obstructed by a cage of safety fencing, so the real pleasure of walking over this bridge comes from the people watching. The endless stream of hipsters wearing ridiculous “ironic” t-shirts is something I find endlessly amusing and I’m always in awe of the beautiful coats worn by the men in some of Williamsburg’s Jewish sects. But the real reason to walk over the Williamsburg Bridge is to get to the other side.

Williamsburg, to me, is like a Disney World for adults. Our first stop was Marlow & Sons, to pick up some of Steve’s magic beans (we got Goat’s Eyes and Little Horses). This is where I picked up the extortionately priced orange, too. $2.25 for an orange! But, I must say, it was absolutely worth it. It was the best orange I’ve eaten since we have been back from Italy, and that’s saying something.

From there we walked up Bedford to the cheese shop. They have the best pickle selection in the world. It was everything I could do to keep myself from buying a half dozen different types. In the end, all we bought was some farina di ceci, or chickpea flour. I was sad to leave the little baby Jesus sausage where he was lying, but he looked so peaceful. Next time…

Our bellies were rumbling again, so we pushed on the last half mile or so to Greenpoint. It was rough, but the siren call of Polish food made our trip quick and our feet light. We were going to get borscht! On a recommendation from Brooklyn Guy, we went to a place called Pyzy that he praised very highly for its soups. Unfortunately, it was a rare miss in our book. The food was decent, and yes it was very, very cheap, but, Polonica‘s food is vastly superior in flavor and freshness. But Pyzy, hands down, has better atmosphere. What a trip!

And that was it. We walked to the G train, which oddly enough came instantaneously and went home. It was a great walk, and despite keeping ourselves well fueled, it was tiring. While Isaac napped on the couch I concocted dinner. In Rome one evening, Isaac was aced out of a dish of gnocchi di ceci that both he and I kept thinking about. Gnocchi, made out of chickpeas? It sounded so magical!

And so that was what I was thinking of when I bought the farina di ceci. A quick search on the interwebs led me to the understanding that these are not your typical gnocchi. They’re more like the gnocchi alla Romana, made of semolina, than like a traditional potato gnocchi. Making them is like making polenta and then playing with your food. I was very excited!

Most of the recipes I found suggest serving gnocchi of this sort with no sauce, just pure creamy goodness covered in cheese. But me? I’m a sauce girl. I love sauce, almost more than I love stuff the sauce is on, so I whipped up a quick rustic tomato and pepper sauce.

This dish is so gentle, so creamy, so pillowy and decadently delicious that it reminded me of a class of potato dishes we kept running across in Italy that I named “Creamy Evil.” They’re cooked potatoes covered in bechamel sauce, sometimes with other healthy accompaniments like boiled eggs or an additional cheese sauce. They are so good, so insanely, swear-word-worthy-good, that yes, they are in fact Creamy Evil.

These gnocchi aren’t quite as bad for you, but they do have the same sort of mouth feel, and so, since I’m never (ever, ever, ever) going to allow myself to make potatoes covered in cheese and butter sauce, I hereby officially add gnocchi di ceci to the taxonomy of the food family known as “Creamy Evil.”

Head below the jump for the recipe for Gnocchi di Ceci.

Bakey, Bakey

Did you know that Ace Frehely recorded a disco-era paean to New York City?

It’s a giddy, stompy, bizzarly addictive nugget of shuffling guitar-driven goodness. And some kid named Davey decided to load it onto his iPod and listen to it while dancing around on the Brooklyn Bridge on a heart-achingly beautiful New York city day, complete with backup dancers. Don’t believe me? Click here.

Why do I mention this? Because, well, much like Ace, I feel like I’m back in the N.Y. Groove.

I had a wonderful weekend with my aunt and cousin. We had a beer on Stone Street, walked over the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset (if you can’t stand the swarms may I recommend you try the other bridge) and ate dinner at La Maisson du Couscous, possibly the best restaurant in Bay Ridge, and definitely worth the trip from anywhere.

On Sunday morning, bright and early, I bounced around the house organizing and planning. We were heading to the Bronx to see the chrysanthemums and I had to get everyone rounded up and to Grand Central in time to catch the proper train. I sent text messages and left voice mails, I kissed the Boy and left him with a few minor errands to run and then I jumped on the train.

The MTA, for once, was voluminously accommodating in getting me to my destination. I got to Grand Central with almost half an hour to spare, so I got a coffee and wandered around taking pictures, relishing the opportunity to be a tourist in my own town for once. And then I waited, and waited, and waited.

The train had been gone for quite some time when I got the call, we weren’t going to the Bronx after all. Instead we strolled around lower Manhattan and laughed and ate and laughed some more. By the time they left I felt revived, revitalized, more in love with New York than ever and ready to get back into the groove.

When I got home the Boy had two quince roasting in the oven. The house smelled amazing: Flowery, delicate, perfumed with that aroma only a baking quince can release. After a quick kip on the couch I was back in the kitchen chopping and dicing and ecstatic to be there.

I roasted a huge bulb of fennel with a lemon. I pulled smoked turkey meat off of a slippery, cold leg. And then I squished and baked and tossed my way into one of the most exquisite dinners to come out of our kitchen in a very long time. The smoked turkey meat, mixed with golden onions and spices were stuffed into the quince, and the roasted fennel was tossed with radicchio, onions, chiles, mint and fennel fronds and dressed with the roasted lemon juice.

I never could have come up with these combinations on my own. The quince are supposed to be stuffed with lamb, but the Boy had picked up the turkey legs at the greenmarket. The combination of sweet and smoky sounded appealing, so I used them instead.

And the salad? A true team effort. He wanted the fennel thinly shaved and tossed with the radicchio and mint. I wanted it roasted. So we did both. An utterly perfect salad, born out of compromise.

And so I’m back, back in the N.Y. groove. It only took a little stepping outside of it to get back into it.

Head below the jump for the recipes for Smoky Stuffed Quince and Fall’s Perfect Salad.