Graduating

Everything moves on, everything ends, everything commences again.

Fine -- I'll try not to get all teary-eyed and emotional as I write this, I'll try not to sound like a graduation speaker, but it's not easy. Dorm Room Dinner has been at the center of my life for nearly three years now.

And now it's time to graduate.

Take it as a good thing -- it's just time to move on. We can't all bundle up in our dorm rooms forever, drinking beer and writing about mayonnaise and smashing cupcakes with hammers. Everyone goes off into the real world at some point. A blog is no exception. And this is an exciting time, a new beginning, a fresh start, a new loaf in the oven, this is going to be as fresh as baby greens, tender as spring lamb! This is exciting!

As many of you know, I've been working at CookNScribble producing the LongHouse Food Revivals, a series of gatherings of food thought leaders across the US. I now live in Brooklyn, write restaurant reviews for the Brooklyn paper, and cook in my walk-up apartment. A new city and a new life deserve a new blog.

And so I'll now be writing at my new blog, Under the Egg. It's based on my life post-graduation from college, and I'm very excited about it. I hope you all will join me there.

And thank you all so, so much for joining me at Dorm Room Dinner. It's all you, my readers, that keeps the wheels turning on this, that make this so fun and engaging and exciting.

Hope to see you next door at Under the Egg. 

Let's keep cooking, keep writing, keep talking.

xo
Will 

12 Food Highlights from 2012!

It's that time of year, when everyone makes lists from 2012. I ate some Oscar Dogs, helped bring together some great minds in food at FOODSTOCK and the LongHouse Food Revival, ate yet another best-meal-ever at Arthur Bryant's BBQ, drove from Boston to Austin fork in hand, and traversed the streets of New York searching out the tastiest bites.

Here are my top 12 favorite food moments, in no particular order.

Also, check out my favorite bites around Brooklyn for 2012 in the Brooklyn Paper.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

1. Oscar Dogs and Super Tuesday Super Burgers

This year included some American standards -- hotdogs and hamburgers -- in very non-standard form. The year started off with a bang last February with Oscar Dogs, 9 hot dogs inspired by the 9 nominees for best film at the Academy Awards, and was followed shortly after by Super Tuesday Super Burgers, 9 burgers inspired by the Republican presidential nominees. 

2. Okonomiyaki Party at Wesleyan 

When I was little, pancakes for dinner were the best. You know, like, the best. Well, it turns out, they still are -- particularly when you make them Japanese-style. Okonomiyaki are a savory Japanese pancake, often filled with vegetables like shredded cabbage and scallions and seafood like shrimp. My favorite part is finding inventive toppings for the pancakes. In place of maple syrup, these guys get topped with chili sauce, peanut sauce, mayonnaise, soy sauce, plum sauce -- you name it. They also make for a perfect, informal dinner party food. 

3. LongHouse Food Revival 

This summer, I began co-producing the LongHouse Food Revivals with Molly O'Neill and CookNScribble. These gatherings of food thought leaders take place in barns, include a top-notch list of speakers, and are accompanied by some seriously good eats. There are plenty more coming up in 2013, so keep your eyes peeled (and your minds and stomachs as the ready)!

4. Pasta Pizza

I already brought you the pasta sandwich, but baking pasta onto a pizza might be even better carb-on-carb. It's baked pasta you can eat like pizza.

5. Crazy Hat Sandwiches 

Damiano and I continued our sandwich stand Wesleyan's Farmers Market. We also eventually gave our little operation a name: Crazy Hat Sandwiches. While the venture ended after we graduated in May, the memory of one of my favorite sandwiches still lingers long after, our mofongo sandwich, filled with fried plantains. I'll miss Wesleyan, and I'll sure miss those sandwiches.

6. Arthur Bryant's BBQ, Kansas City 

Both my parents are from Kansas City, and I've been eating at Arthur Bryant's BBQ for as long as I can remember. Every meal this is a memorable meal, but one in particular, shared this summer with my grandfather, siblings and cousins, was particularly significant for me. The best KC BBQ beef in the world, the tangy, vinegar-spiked sauce, the perfect fries, the sweet sliced pickles, the towering cups of lemonade and the great company and the timeless setting make this a highlight of 2012. But to be honest, Arthur Bryant's would probably make my list every year.

7. Calvin Trillin Reading in NYC

Many writers have been influential to me as a food writer, but Calvin Trillin ranks among the very top. With his endless wit, his unceasing hunger and his keen insight into the way America eats, he helped set the standard for modern American food writing. This fall, I saw him give a reading in NYC, where just hearing his words made me hungry.

8. Popovers, Jordan's Pond, Maine 

The Jordan Pond House in in Acadia National Park in Maine has a full menu, and everything is good. But everyone in the know understands that you really go for one reason: the popover. Eggy, rich and filling, this steaming snacks are best eaten with a healthy slatering of butter and strawberry jam. One will never do, and making it out having eaten less than three is a challenge.

9. FOODSTOCK

Before producing the LongHouse Food Revival, I was an organizer for FOODSTOCK, Wesleyan's first, and quite fabulous, food writing conference. We had an all-star cast of speakers including Molly O'Neill, Ruth Reichl, Eric Asimov, Dorie Greenspan, Sara Kate Gillingham Ryan and many more. Food trucks, amazing seminars, a pop-up book shop and more made this a one of a kind conference.

10. The Great American Road Trip

I documented part of a road trip I took this summer from Boston to Austin (and back again) via New York, Detroit, Chicago and Kansas City. The open road and a tour of American regional food at its best (and most buttery!) were just a few of the highlights from this great, American road trip.

11. Hunting for good eats in NYC

Every walk down a street in New York City is a chance to come across some fabulous food. Here, 6 dumplings for $1 in Chinatown.

12. Crab Ring Mold, 1942-Style

This summer I made my grandmother's recipe for crab ring mold, an old school recipe complete with gelatinized crabmeat in thousand island dressing. It's an interesting food, and as unforgettable in 2012 as I'm sure it was in 1942.

The Eat Generation: Get It While It's Hot

Alex and I were sitting at the long, white-topped bar of Little Serow in Washington, D.C. and the fried tofu was so damn spicy we were no longer able to carry on our conversation.

"This is nam tuk tow hu," said our server, a young woman with thick rimmed glasses and a darling white summer dress splotched with red and blue, "it means 'running waterfall,' because it is so spicy, you will sweat like a waterfall."

We smiled and thanked her. Nothing so far in the set, seven-course, $45 tasting menu had been as terrifying spicy as the online reviews had mentioned, so we weren't too worried. This is, after all, a Thai restaurant run by white people.

"Got it," we said, picked up our chop sticks, still smiling, and dug in.

"And be careful," she added, "because the dish becomes spicier and spicier as you eat it."

Five minutes later, we were no longer smiling.

The first bite had not been so bad, a well-seasoned mouthful of salty fried tofu, mint, cilantro, red onion, peanuts and an oily sauce which spoke of exotic chilies but not of the wrath of Satan. A second bite brought on more heat but was still manageable. But the spiciness grew, slow and steady, like a tidal wave. Five bites in, we were sweating, red in the face, unable to complete sentences, and chugging our beers for relief from the pain. But it was good -- so good that it proved difficult to stop eating, yet so painful that it seemed unreasonable to go on. Masochistic tofu if I've ever seen it.

It gave me pause, after the plateful of hellishly addictive tofu, that the experience we were having had something to do with more than just tofu. We'd eaten sour fruit, dried shrimp and palm sugar. We'd had pork with lemongrass and sawtooth. They were all good, and all drew from Thai tradition. But it seemed, more than anything, that this tofu was Little Serow's way of showing its muscle, taking out its Thai passport, and saying "Yes, motherfucker, this is for real. You sweating now?"

It reminded me of a conversation between Eddie Huang and Francis Lam published on GiltTaste. The two immigrant sons debate what it means for Americans (white Americans, really) to cook the food of foreign cultures. Huang takes issue with the cultural appropriation he sees in American-run ethnic restaurants, while Lam finds the complexity of immigrant cuisines in America too complicated to throw blame in any one direction.

It was a new experience, to say the least, being served hot-as-hell Thai food ("We focus on Northern Thai food, similar to the food of Laos," our server had specified) in downtown D.C. by a cast of charming white girls, surrounded by D.C. political staffers just out of work on a Friday evening, in a room with pastel-blue walls and modernist restaurant design, sipping an American craft beer.

Is there something wrong about this?

It was a Thai restaurant as far from Thailand as you can get - geographically and spiritually - serving what it claimed to be the most authentic Thai food around. Excuse me, Northern Thai food, to be exact. Not dissimilar from Laos. It seemed to be shouting, "See! If it's this spicy, it's legit."

Legit or not, Litte Serow must be called, at best, a restaurant borrowing from Thai tradition. It's awkward at times -- it's a phenomenon we see in restaurants popping up across the country -- but not an unfamiliar cycle in American food. Little Serow's food is always what American food -- food served in America -- has been: borrowing from other cultures, recreating, adapting, improving, mellowing this time, spicing the next time, at times for better, at times for worse.

And this is where American food, and America, finds its culinary strength. It is where the undefined "American cuisine" has always been well-defined, hiding in plain sight. America is still the great melting pot. The insalta mista. The great vegetable tofu curry miracle.

Thai food may be the food of the moment, but that we're grabbing onto new cuisines, new cultures, broadening, expanding, finding Americans making Thai food, finding Thai immigrants making American food - that is nothing new. Italian food was "ethnic food" a hundred years ago. Americans were literally afraid of garlic. Pizza was borrowed from Italy where it was a food of the poor in slums around Italy, a simple creation of dough with tomato sauce. It came to America, it changed over time. Today, pizza is American as apple pie.

Today, Thai food, like many "ethnic" cuisines, is growing up in America too. It's awkward, we're afraid of cultural appropriation, we're blaming the hipsters, we're blaming capitalism, and yet we're still eating the masochistic tofu. That's just as well. We're still eating pizza, too. Thai food as part of American cuisine isn't going anywhere. Get it while it's hot. 

New Articles for The Brooklyn Paper

It has been a little quiet around here, but fear not! I've been busy scribbling in my reporter's notebook all over Brooklyn for some new material. 

Here are 3 recent article I wrote for The Brooklyn Paper. Read 'em up! 

Bunna Cafe Pops Up at Brooklyn Night Bazaar 

When life gives you Ethiopian lemons, make lemonade! Sam Saverance moved to Africa with a background in design and development, and hoped to start a business incubator there — but failing that, he started an Ethiopian food pop-up in Brooklyn [read more...]

Krescendo Hits All the Right Notes

With a blood-orange facade and Edison-style bulbs hanging inside rusted industrial whisks in the tall and welcoming front windows, the decor of the new Neapolitan pizzeria Krescendo in Boerum Hill is much like the joint venture that brought it to life — a combination of old school Brooklyn and authentic Italian passion [read more...]

New Tasting Room Treats Olive Oil Like Wine

You know you prefer a Pinot Grigio to a Chardonnay, but do you know your favorite varietal of olive oil? A new olive oil shop O Live Brooklyn has bottles lining its shelves and sitting in crates like a liquor store, and the owner hopes enthusiasts will be talking about extra virgins like they would a single malt or an old Bordeaux [read more...]

Top two photos by Stefano Giovannini, bottom photo by Elizabeth Graham, for The Brooklyn Paper

A Supermarket in California

A gas station in Louisiana, 2011. 

On this rainy December evening in New York City, I thought I'd leave you with one of my favorite poems - food themed or otherwise - by Allen Ginsberg.

Enjoy, you quick-tongued cooks and pancake-flipping poets.

A Supermarket in California
by Allen Ginsberg

         What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for
I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache
self-conscious looking at the full moon.
          In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went
into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
          What peaches and what penumbras!  Whole families
shopping at night!  Aisles full of husbands!  Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what
were you doing down by the watermelons?

          I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery
boys.
          I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the
pork chops?  What price bananas?  Are you my Angel?
          I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans
following you, and followed in my imagination by the store
detective.
          We strode down the open corridors together in our
solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen
delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

          Where are we going, Walt Whitman?  The doors close in
an hour.  Which way does your beard point tonight?
          (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
          Will we walk all night through solitary streets?  The
trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be
lonely.

          Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
          Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,
what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and
you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat
disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

Berkeley, 1955  

From Collected Poems 1947-1980 by Allen Ginsberg, published by Harper & Row. 
Copyright © 1984 by Allen Ginsberg.

Grain Mains: Warm Farro Salad with Roasted Beets, Leeks, Orange and Yogurt Dressing

Last night, after meeting my cousin in the West Village for dinner, I came away with the thought that the best thing I'd had that night was toast topped with potatoes, melted cheese and prosciutto. Talk about a balanced diet.

Fine, I'll admit it. This season has been a season of indulgences -- food wise at least.  I've been giving into fat. I've been cooking with butter. I've been eating a lot of pork. The night before Thanksgiving the dinner I made included both buttermilk biscuits with sliced country ham and a soup with pork lardons. And that was the night before Thanksgiving for God's sake!

When given the option, I order "with cheese." Need I mention my favorite food?

I've been craving carbs like a pregnant woman craves chocolate. And I don't even like chocolate. If that Atkins thing catches on again, I'm screwed.

Whole loaves of bread with a short, square stack of butter have become my companions at NYC coffee shops. Pasta, per usual, is my go to dinner when nothing else comes to mind. Eggs on toast for breakfast -- the toast being key.


I'm not sure what it is about this year that has turned this kale-loving-kid into a grease feind. I still eat lots of kale. But as soon as I feel I've reached my vegetable intake, it's right back to the fat. What harm could a small piece of cheese do? A big piece?

Perhaps its the oncoming cold, which does drive us towards richer, more filling foods. At Wesleyan, where most of my friends were vegetarian, cooking vegetable-filled meals was the only option. But New York opens up a world of possibilities. And some of those possibilities have 29% of your daily fat intake in one serving.

But there are some dishes that are healthy, vegetarian and hit all the right spots (filling, rich, satisfying!) without breaking the caloric bank (not that I'm counting...).



The rest of the world seems to have caught on to wholesome grains in a bigger way than the Uunited States has. Quinoa, farro, cous cous, barley and bulgur wheat are just a few that come to mind, though none are staples of the American diet. A few weeks ago I reported on a warm barley salad. I made that again for Thanksgiving and I think it caught on. So this week, I thought I'd try another warm grain salad, this time with farro, beets and yogurt. What I love about these is they're a meal on their own, but also work well as a hearty side -- to accompany cheese, pork and bread.

Warm Farro Salad with Roasted Beets, Leeks, Orange and Yogurt Dressing 
Serves 4 as a main

Roasted Stuffed Pumpkin

"You know," said the worker at the grocery store, eyeing the pumpkin in my cart, "you should really stuff and roast that pumpkin." 

"In fact," I replied, "that's exactly what I'm doing!" 

He was wearing a brightly colored, striped sweater beneath his grocery store uniform, and the high-pitched lilt in his voice came from someone who had clearly spent more than one shower belting out musicals while shampooing his hair. 

"Yum!" he said. "So de-lic-ious." 

My sister and I smiled. "Well I've never done it before," I continued, "so it should be fun." 

"You've never done it before?" he stammered back with the incredulity of a 17 year old homecoming-queen-hopeful who'd just been told prom had been cancelled. "Oh my." 

Our pumpkin enthusiast proceeded, with some enthusiasm, to walk us around the store, handing us a bag of stuffing here, and red onion, some thyme, a bag of cranberries and a container of chicken stock there. By the time we were done, my cart loaded with a pumpkin and it's many stuffings, he looked pleased. 

"Now" he said, "do you have a recipe?"

"Well, not exactly. But I've read a few recipes and I'm going to improvise my own version." 

"Good then," he said. We thanked him for his guidance, and he left us, smiling. 

Only to meet us about 30 seconds later while we were waiting in the check out line. 

"I usually start with the oven at 400 degrees," he chimed in. "I'd hollow out the pumpkin first. Tell me, do you know how to roast the seeds?" 

"Oh yes, I love roasting them." 

"Good then. I usually spread them on a baking sheet with butter and cinnamon." He explained in full pumpkin seed roasting process, and then got back to the stuffed pumpkin. 

By the time we'd paid and our groceries were in bags, he'd finished explaining his steps for stuffed pumpkin, and bid us goodbye one more time.

"Oh it's going to be amazing!" he yelled as we exited the grocery store doors. "So de-lic-ious. Come back and tell me how it is." 

Grocery store guy, if you reading this: It was de-lic-ious! 

The Process

Hollow out your pumpkin (and save those seeds) and place on a nonstick baking surface.

After baking the pumpkin on its own, stuff it with your stuffing! 

I layered roasted button mushrooms, cranberries and red onions in between layers of traditional stuffing. 

Bake once more, stuffed and capped. 

It really isn't difficult to see why these are so fun.

And served with roasted chicken and gravy, they're also quite de-lic-ious.

Roasted Stuffed Pumpkin 

Makes 1 stuffed pumpkin 

You can really stuff your pumpkin with anything that you'd like - traditional stuffing, cornbread stuffing, roasted vegetables, rice dishes - you name it. I ended up stuffing mine with traditional stuffing layered with cranberries, roasted red onion and button mushrooms. Along with some roast chicken and gravy, it was quite a meal. 

Get yourself a good pumpkin. Some pumpkin varieties are better than others for eating. I used a "Cheese Pumpkin," so named because it's shaped like a wheel of cheese, but you can use whichever pumpkin your heart desires. But some pumpkins can be bitter, so be careful when choosing yours.

Hollow out the pumpkin and bake that thing. Just like you would for a Jack-O-Latern, cut a circle at the top of the pumpkin using a paring knife. Remove the lid. Scoop out the guts and seeds (save seeds for baking!). Place your pumpkin on a nonstick baking surface on a baking sheet (a silicon baking mat or parchment paper work well), lid only partially covering the pumpkin. Place in oven and bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes, until it is just becoming soft. Remove from the oven. If there is liquid that has collected at the bottom, carefully remove it by pouring it out using tongs or heatproof gloves.

Stuff your pumpkin. Prepare a filling to stuff your pumpkin. I'd recommend a traditional Thanksgiving stuffing recipe, or this fabulous warm barley salad. Anything of this nature that will bake well in a casserole will work, though make sure everything is cooked before stuffing it into your pumpkin. Make enough to fill your pumpkin. Remove your pumpkin from the oven, take off the lid, carefully stuff with the stuffing, and replace the lid.

Bake it again. Place back in the oven and bake another 45 minutes or so, until the pumpkin is easily pierced with a knife (but don't wait until the pumpkin collapses!) and the stuffing is warmed through.

Eat that pumpkin. Remove the pumpkin from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Place on a serving dish and eat it up! I served mine with roasted chicken and gravy. I'd recommend serving it by cutting slices from it as you might from a large cake, though any way you want to tackle that pumpkin works just great! 

This Tastes Like Home

I was sitting at the heavy antique dining room table at my great aunt Carol's farmhouse in Western Massachusetts. She runs an apple orchard and cider press on her farm, and stepping past the stone walls from the street towards the farm is like stepping into another era. As you turn away from your car, you arrive into an older, quieter, stunningly beautiful New England. A time and place where apples come first, where they are grown and treated with care and love and transformed into apple cider, apple butter, apple cider vinegar, apple sauce and superior apple cider donuts. 

When you step away from the farm into the farmhouse, you seamlessly enter the kitchen of a centuries old homestead with stone floors, worn wooden walls and aged windows. There is usually a pot of something bubbling on the stove, a box of something sweet on the counter, and a collection of jars and wooden spoons and speckled ceramic bowls near the stove. It smells like Thanksgiving, regardless of month.  

The historic farmhouse, built in the New England "saltbox" style.

If you are so lucky to be invited over for a meal -- lunch on a cool fall day, you can only hope, when the cider is in season -- you'll find the food fits the farm and the house with seamless grace. When I visited this fall with some family, we were greeted with a meal of kale soup from the garden, salmon and avocado pressed sandwiches, salad, apple sauce, horseradish hummus, cornbread and, of course, apple cider. It's not that the food is old-fashioned, like the house. It's not that the food is based solely on apples, though they do make an important appearance. It is that the food, like the house and the sturdy stone walls and the orchards and the old red barn, is rustic, for lack of a better word. Simple, wholesome, and well placed in the New England countryside. (It is also perhaps the envy of every dimly-lit restaurant in Brooklyn.) And the food fits the place. 

The table at Carol's farmhouse. 

The truth of the matter is that many homes have foods that fit their personality, if not as apparent -- or perhaps unique -- as the food at Carol's farm. For me, it's hard to place my finger on exactly what tastes like home for me. And I suppose that, in this time of transition in my life, moving from college to New York City to upstate New York City, Boston and now, finally, back to New York City for good, "home" isn't always an easy thing to define.  But when you enter someone else's home and are a guest at their table, you can look on their style of cooking and the way it fits the home with a better frame of reference. Your grandma's food always taste like -- being at grandma's house. Your food at your neighbor's totally disorganized house is always prepared a bit -- extemporaneously. Food, as it should, tastes like home -- and it tastes like the home where it's made. 

When I'm at my home in Boston, home cooking means one thing. It often involves big bowls of pasta, lots of vegetables, and a slightly nicer version of parmigiano than I'd use when I was at Wesleyan (the recipe below for shrimp and radicchio pasta fits that bill). Sometimes it involves juicy steaks, which I love, but which I rarely cooked at school or on my own. To be honest, I'm not sure I can place my finger on what makes my home cooking "home" to me. I can tell for other people, but it's harder for me to say for myself. 

I guess I'll just have to invite you over for dinner, and you can tell me.

Shrimp and Radicchio Pasta

Serves 4

When I'm at home in Boston, I love shopping for unlikely produce at the grocery store and finding a way to combine it into a big bowl of pasta. Here, lemony shrimp and sautéed radicchio pair up -- and taste just like home. 

The Kitchen and the Good Life, Revisited

Sandy is picking up to a steady pace now. The maples outside my bedroom window (I'm in Boston for a few days) are being plucked clean of their foliage and the winds are setting the fallen leaves into great swirls and bursts of color. At the very least, it's something colorful against an otherwise grey and intensely rainy day. And at least the electricity is still on -- "hunkering down" during a storm with no power isn't my idea of a good time. In fact, "hunkering down" for anything has never been my cup of tea.

Let's hope that by the time I finish writing this post, the power is still on.

Exactly one year ago today, I sat in my room at Wesleyan as a wintery storm brewed outside my window, and wrote a post The Kitchen and the Good Life. A foot of snow was predicted then for Connecticut, and we ended up losing power for a week, which we spent restfully in Boston. I finished that post by saying: If you give cooking a little effort, it will give you a lot back. Today, a year later, contemplating food and cooking and writing and brewing storms from a different bedroom window, it's still as true today as it was then.

That's because cooking and eating together becomes more than the sum of its parts.

I'm thinking back to a lobster dinner I made with my family and some friends in Maine this summer. We heated large lobster pots atop a wood fire outside, mixing the water with plenty of salt until it tasted like the sea and came to a stormy boil. Squirming lobsters, which we'd bought down the road from a Tracy's Lobster Shack, were dunked in one by one until the lid was closed and the last of the lobsters' legs quit jerking. In just a few minutes, they were bright red, scratched through with streaks of orange and grey and speckled in spots with black -- as lobsters are. It's that shade of red that I associate most with Maine, not solid cherry red, but red infused with the coming colors of fall.

Next to the lobster, on the hot embers surrounding the fire, we place unshucked ears of fresh Maine corn wrapped in aluminum foil. We turn each ear slowly, the corn roasting between the foil and their husks. When they are ready, the are sweet and tender and smoky -- almost a meal in themselves though nothing has been added.

People come and go from the fire, sitting for a moment to watch the lobsters boil, adding their two cents on whether or not the lobsters can feel it, running inside to grab a beer, making sure the other fixings are in process.  The night begins to swarm.

Finally, we pile the lobsters and corn upon a simple stone table next to the fire pit, accompanied only by boiled potatoes and large bowls of melted butter, which is slathered on the lobster and the corn and the potatoes. We eat it all with our hands. The only roof over our heads is a fabulously starry sky, and besides the dozen or so of us around the table trading bits of conversation between bites -- "oh the lobster is so sweet this year!" and "there's nothing like summer corn" and "who wants to split a second lobster" -- there is little else to think about and few worries in the world, mosquitoes not included.

A few people and a few very simple ingredients become much more than the sum of their parts. The only sights in the world become hungry hands and a dinner table. The sounds reduce to a few familiar voices, the cooing of loons and the cracking of lobster claws (again, mosquitoes not included). Butter, by this time, covers your fingers and the smells in the air -- a mixture of lobster and butter and smoke and cool Maine air -- only feed your appetite. The tastes? Lobster and fresh corn and potatoes covered in butter. Need I say more?

When I wrote my post a year ago today, I said the following about home cooking:

Cooking at home is about a lot more than the time involved it takes to prepare a meal ... First, it's about eating healthy food that comes from real ingredients, ingredients that haven't been overly processed, preserved or loaded with artificial ingredients ... Second, cooking is about being with the people in your life. Home cooking allows people to come together, with your family and friends at home or college or wherever you live. It's about finding a way to connect with your community... If you give cooking a little effort, it will give you a lot back.

When I think back over the past summer and early fall, I think of how often a few ingredients and a few good people have made for such wonderful meals. Lobster, corn, potatoes and butter, cooked on a wood fire: that's real food from real ingredients. Sharing it around a stone table beneath a starry sky with friends and family:

I think about how much cooking can give, how true it is that cooking and eating together become more than the sum of their parts. Food cooked with love tasted better (and damn that lobster was good), and let's be honest, friends and family with food just seem better too.

For now as Sandy continues to brew, I have potatoes in the oven, and steaks ready to hit the stove. I figure I'll make some pumpkin dumplings with my cousins who just came over -- they lost their electricity earlier today. While we still have ours, who knows -- tonight's dinner may be candle lit. But the food and the people will be just the same.

National Food Day: Chili Caramel Popcorn!

Well, it's that special time of year again: NATIONAL FOOD DAY!

In celebration of this holiday, we make Chili Caramel Popcorn. It's real yum. And real fun. Watch on!



Convinced that this chili caramel popcorn is the most scrumptious, sticky, spicy, sweet, snack ever? Well then go ahead and make some for yourself already!

Chili Caramel Popcorn
makes 4 cups

-1 cup sugar
-3 tablespoons butter
-1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
-dash salt
-4 cups prepared popcorn

1. Heat a thick, sturdy saucepan over medium heat. Add sugar and whisk continuously until sugar becomes liquified and light golden brown, about 5 minutes. Be careful as melted sugar is extremely hot. Remove from heat when ready.

2. Add butter, cayenne and salt to the melted sugar and whisk until butter is melted and incorporated, and the sauce is thick and creamy, and luscious.

3. Place popcorn in a large serving bowl. Using your whisk, drizzle caramel onto popcorn and mix popcorn with a spoon to incorporate. Serve at once, or store in an airtight container for a few days. 

The Great American Road Trip, Part 3: The Road and Lake Erie, Ohio

This summer after graduating college, I took a road trip from New York City to Austin, and back again. It was the Great American Road Trip. That is, I think that all American road trips have an element of greatness to them, and this trip was no exception. Read up on the New York City, the Shanghai Mermaids and a very hungry Will Levitt in Part 1, then  check out Pennsylvania pastries and motel-gas stations in Part 2. 

Part 3: June 12

I can't stand when people say, "Live every day like it's your last." 

Seriously, who can live like that? 

-Friend.

Live now, tomorrow will always be. 

-Drummer in the NYC subway.

We are playing music and it is mid afternoon, the time of afternoon when you begin to forget how many hours you've been on the road and how many hours you have left to go. When you're traveling on the road, nothing seems too long, too far, too close, too short. Eight hour days seem not so different from three hour days. Often the three hour days seem longer. Then again, nothing seems so long, nothing seems so short. Only when you have a final destination does anything seem long. Only when you drive through the entire state of Ohio in a few hours does anything seem short.

I'm playing Ho Hey by The Lumineers, a song I'd become attached to in the way a toddler clutches a new blankie. DJing from the passenger's seat as Damiano drove along Route 2 in Ohio on our way from Pennsylvania to Detroit, I'd play the song as often as I could slip it in. I love the way the song starts out with that strong, addictive drum beat. I'm a sucker for music with a catchy beat.

"HO! HEY!"

"Didn't we just listen to this song like an hour ago?" Damiano turned to me and asked.

"Um, I don't think so," I'd replied to Damiano, eyeing me doubtfully. "Not sure though, everything looks the same out here. Hard to keep track of time. Can't say, really."

We'd been driving since early morning and besides a break for lunch in the kind of town Obama and Romney reference when they talk about "a middle-class, working town in Ohio," we had been winding between highway and interstate and highway for some hours, trading scenery for speed for scenery with each switch. We weren't far from Lake Erie -- The Great Lake -- so as any two twenty two year olds with no particular agenda would do, we headed towards it.

Lake Erie is far and long, far and long like the road before us and the road that was yet to come. It was clean and clear and stable, and we did not know where it ended. It offered us welcome, anonymity, and silence.

We'd ended up in a small, lakeside town, void of any human activity when we drove up except for a babysitter with two kids playing in a public green next to a stone walkway along the lake. The water was blue and grey and a steady wind blew in from all directions, carrying like-colored clouds along with it. The lake seemed endlessly deep and impossibly far.

We walked along the water and took off our shoes to feel the large, smooth, round stones along the beach beneath our feet. We walked along the stone walkway out into the midst of the lake. We dipped our toes into the water. It was refreshingly cold.

We watched the sky stew until the wind seemed to blow us back towards the car, back towards the road.

"HO! HEY!"

"Turn this off! You're going to ruin the song," blurted Damiano.

"It's a great song though, right?" I replied.

"It was until about 30 seconds ago when you decided to ruin it."

"It just kinda feels like the right moment for this song, though," I replied to Damiano, eyeing me again and this time with more force.

"It just 'kinda feels like it' does it?"

I switched the music to local radio stations and the Beatles came on. Hard to argue with the Beatles.

"You say Yes, I say No. You say Stop and I say Go, go, go. Oh no."

We wound our way back through the streets of the sleepy town. From streets to Main Street. From Main Street to the highway. Back to the America's endless avenue of gas stations and exit signs and speed limits and tractor trailers and, smooth, solid yellow lines.

"You say Goodbye and I say Hello, hello, hello."

The thing about the highway, about driving through America, about the endless roads and interstates and ubiquitous Jesus billboards and Motel 8 signs and long, endless fields - corn fields and wheat fields, pastures and fields with cows or hay bales, some field with nothing at all - is that it's all kind of the same, and yet at the same time each mile is so wonderfully unique, so totally different and so completely unrepeatable, that driving through it all makes time stop. The road seems endlessly deep and impossibly far.

Which makes road trips -- which makes the road -- an endlessly fulfilling experience. It blurs yesterday and today and tomorrow. It makes obsolete the goal of "living like today is your last," because each day is somehow, wonderfully, equal.

At 65 miles per hour, surrounded by fields and a song with a good beat, equal feels a lot like forever. And forever, for that moment, feels real good.

LongHouse Food Writers Revival: A Look Back

For a look back at the LongHouse Food Writers Revival, the event I co-produced with Cook N Scribble last month, check out my article and slideshow on the Huffington Post.

"On September 15, 2012 many of the nation's leading thinkers in food media gathered in a restored barn in Rensselaerville, New York to explore the idea of "Old Media, New Media and the False Divide" and discuss the challenges and possibilities of how food stories are told.

Speakers and participants ranged from representatives of leading networks and publications including The Food Network, NPR, Edible Communities, Epicurious, Gourmet Live, and many of the top food magazines, blogs and cookbook publishers to first-time writers and bloggers, independent documentary makers, eager college graduates, and enthusiastic home cooks." READ MORE . . . 

And for more reactions to the event, read "Letters Back to LongHouse" on the LongHouse Blog.

Photo by Brian Samuels

Warm Barley Salad with Sweet Potatoes, Brussels Sprouts and Chard

For me, it is autumn, not spring, which speaks to new beginnings. 

We often speak of foods that take us into our past -- the roast chicken on our grandmother's table, the first time we tasted a just-picked tomato, the feel of cookie dough in our second-grade hands. We reminisce about the way a certain dish recalls a certain place and time. The lobster bake which invokes  sand in your toes and the taste of sea spray in the air. The way turkey salad sandwiches taste like college. The way the right kind of BBQ can taste like home.

But food can also bring us to the future.

I'm not talking about freeze dried ice cream or Willy Wonka's food pills. At least I hope I'm not. Food -- good food, the right food -- can sweep us towards things to come. Food anticipates the changing of the seasons. Food forecasts moods. It anticipates relationships. It envisions things to come. Food not only remembers, it predicts.

Dishes that predict.

The right meal can set off the next chapter in someone's life. The right soup has the potential to heal, to predict better things to come. A good coffee can turn around a day (let me tell you, a Frappachino's  ability to turn around a day is quite remarkable).  A long lunch can predict a new friendship. A dinner party can commence a new story, a new beginning. A perfectly baked loaf of bread might forecast good things to come. And a new dish which comes together serendipitously and with little planning, which has all the qualities of a well thought out meal but which was created with little planning or forethought -- which, when finished, is hearty and filling, balanced and bright, calm, smooth, sweet, and bitter -- that is a dish which foretells. That is a dish which sets a rhythm. That is a dish to get your steps in stride. Put your marbles in order. Set your cats meowing. Whatever.

It's exactly the dish that came to be as I slowly added ingredient after ingredient into an old wooden mixing bowl until I had myself the most delightful warm barley salad I ever did see. I was making dinner for my mom, my sister Laura and her friend Mattie. Laura helped me chop as I searched through the pantry and fridge finding ingredients to throw her way. The oven sat quietly roasting. Pans filled all four burners, working away to separately cook the many ingredients. There were thinly sliced brussels sprouts lightly caramelized on the stove, tender cubes of roasted butternut squash, smooth and bitter chard, toasted hazelnuts crushed beneath a knife, slices of red onion and radish, a light soy vinaigrette with cider vinegar.

I cannot tell you precisely what this dish foretold except that it spoke to the coming together of things. To the gentle and harmonious way in which many parts form a whole. The way in which, for me, it is autumn, not spring, which speaks to new beginnings. The way the falling of the leaves and the chill in the air, and sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts, set things in order. That is the power of food, not only to speak towards the past, but towards the future.

Warm Barley Salad with Sweet Potatoes, Brussels Sprouts and Chard
Serves 4 as a main

The Great American Road Trip, Part 2: Somewhere, PA

This summer after graduating college, I took a road trip from New York City to Austin, and back again. It was the Great American Road Trip. That is, I think that all American road trips have an element of greatness to them, and this trip was no exception. Read up on the New York City, the Shanghai Mermaids and a very hungry Will Levitt in Part 1.  

Part 2: Morning, June 11

Somewhere, Pennsylvania - We were hungry for pastries. We'd stayed our first night after leaving New York City at a TA Gas Station and Motel off the side of the interstate somewhere in Pennsylvania. The first thing we did when we woke up was take the vouchers we'd received when we checked in for a free coffee and pastry to the clerk at the gas station counter. If you've ever stayed in a TA Gas Station and Motel, you know that the gas station counter doubles as the motel's front desk. It might sound strange to have a gas station attendant hand you your room key. It kind of is.

"You seem to be out of pastries," I informed the gas station attendant, flashing her my prized "One Free Pastry" voucher. Damiano and I had searched the gas station and were at a loss. There were no pastries. The free morning treat seemed to be one of the major perks of staying at a TA Gas Station and Motel, and we are not people to miss out on a promising opportunity, food or otherwise.  

The attendant stared at me blankly. "I just refilled the pastry shelf five minutes ago, honey. There's plenty there," she said, effortlessly motioning to a rack in the middle of the shop piled high with jelly-filled, cream-drizzled Hostess brand pastries, all glimmering in their neat plastic wrappers. 

"Oh, got it," I said. The woman raised her eyebrows as I smiled politely before heading back to the pastry rack. Apparently, the word "pastry" to Damiano and me conjured images of freshly baked coffee cake, buttery croissants and still-warm loaves of poppyseed-lemon bread, hopefully accompanied by those cute single-use jars of jams and jellies. At the very least it implied a good muffin.

We looked over our selection of Hostess goods with slow and careful careful contemplation. Breakfast is the most important meal fo the day. There were raspberry danishes, Ho-Hos, Ding Dongs, Suzy Q's and a variety of donuts, which Hostess spelles d-o-n-e-t-t-e-s, apparently to lend the them a French-like quality.

I have always associated the great American maker of Twinkies with France. Particularly with their pastries.

We each reached for a package of Crumb Donettes and headed back to the counter where we exchanged our vouchers and motel key cards for the Donettes and tall, styrofoam cups of steaming coffee.

Mission accomplished.

"Have a great day, boys," chimed the attendant, standing full smile in her red TA cotton vest, as we headed out the door. It was still early but the sun was hot and direct -- summer sun -- and the air was clear. Cars swooshed by on the interstate just beyond. We had a full tank of gas, 10 Donettes between us, a true-blue day, and about 5,000 miles to go. 

The Great American Road Trip, Part 1: New York City

This summer after graduating college, I took a road trip from New York City to Austin, and back again. It was the Great American Road Trip. That is, I think that all American road trips have an element of greatness to them, and this trip was no exception. 

Part 1: June 8-10

NEW YORK CITY - To arrive into Grand Central Station and ascend from its depths into the New York City air is to arrive into a layer time and space all its own. New York City very much exists on its own dimension, and nowhere does that feel so immediate and so real as when you open the doors of Grand Central into the humming midtown air.

Now you are being cradled in your train car, snug in your seat as the city's outskirts roll by. Now you are free to the beasts of the metropolis. Now the hum of the train car. Now the endless orchestra of the city -- the charging busses along the avenues, the chatter of women and men deep into gossip, cell phones, billboards, walk signals, colors, gum, shoes.

I am late getting to the city to meet Damiano and so I never ascend from Grand Central when I arrive, I never come up for air. Instead I charge towards the downtown 6 train to get myself to the East Village where I'll meet Damiano. I have to meet him by 7. I wait at the platform, the 6 arrives, I get there by 7.

Damiano tells me we're going to a TV pilot shoot in Brooklyn. There will be free booze and free food. We grab a slice of pizza on the way - I haven't eaten in hours. It's bad pizza but in the good way, the way that reminds you that you are in New York. We board the L and head for Brooklyn.

We ascend from the L. We're disoriented, it is just getting dark and I'm hungry again. When I get hungry, I get hungry. I don't stop talking about it. I don't focus on anything else but satiating that hunger. People get annoyed.

We crawl city blocks and make our way to the pilot shoot. It is a nondescript brick warehouse with a small black door next to a quiet apartment complex. Children are playing on the sidewalk. Their mothers and grandmothers watch from plastic chairs. We approach the building.

"There better be food in there," I tell Damiano. "Nondescript buildings don't always have food. And I'm hungry - I'm still very hungry." I had skipped my mid-afternoon snack getting into the city. A single slice of pizza was was doing nothing to quiet the growls my stomach was making every few seconds. I do not skip snacks. 

"Get in here," he said and tugged me towards the door. "We have to get in by 8 or something. That's what the person said. You just ate pizza! You're fine! Stop complaining!"

Now in the calm of a Brooklyn summer night. Now in the world of the Shanghai Mermaids, a private 1920s-decorated warehouse cum event ballroom cum informal television studio. Red velvet furniture, hanging Chinese lanterns, turn of the century circus pieces, peacock feather, votives burning in every nook and cranny, a long, worn wooden bar. Now the calls of children on the street. Now lanky men in black t-shirts calling out to their production assistants, amateur camera men, lofty lighting, strange and extravagant costumes.

We were the extras, there, I guess, to enjoy a party in the background.  We never found out the name of the show but I can tell you that it contains Indian men singing opera -- loudly, and not particularly well.

"I heard there was food," I informed a woman inside who appeared to know what she was doing, "and I'd like to know where that is located."

"Outside. Up the stairs in the garden outside."

Only in New York City does a "garden outside" refer to a cement covered slab between two buildings covered half with sand and surrounded by chain link fencing. The only living thing was an inflatable plastic palm tree. That's considered real nature in Brooklyn. The food came in the form of hamburgers and hot dogs yet to be cooked. They sat in shopping bags next to a charcoal grill yet to be started. I stared longingly.

God I was hungry.

We grabbed a beer and sat on a bench in the "garden." We spoke with a woman visiting from Australia. We spoke with a woman who started a jewelery business in Brooklyn. We watched the hipsters and the minglers and the loners. There was a woman in zebra stripe leggings. We tried to get her attention, but she would not speak to us. Too cool, I guess. 

We waited for the food.

By the time the food was ready, the crowd which had congregated outside was like a pack of Jewish hyaenas about to break the fast on Yom Kippur. You'd think none of us had been fed in days. I had staked a spot at the front. When the burgers were served, I quickly and without sympathy for those less dextrous snatched one up.

I ate it too fast. It was gone so fast. Like the pizza, it was bad but so, so good. 

I was still hungry. Damn.

We went back inside, we mingled, listened to the music playing, watched the pilot taping, felt the buzz of people, the way a room slowly heats up during the night when liquor is poured.

We returned to the garden. We saw a middle-aged woman smoking a cigarette with a clip board and two cell phones.

"She must run this place," said Damiano. "Let's talk with her."

"I do run this place," she told us, texting in one hand and tending to a cigarette in the other, "and I'm getting carpel tunnel from texting. I still have a flip phone. Who the fuck still has flip phones? No one."

"Yeah that's serious 1990s status."

"I'm Juliette Campbell. Juliette as in Romeo and --. Campbell as in the soup."

We didn't need the clarification but clearly this was her line. She seemed like the type to have lines.

She was middle aged and pretty in the way that when she was younger, she was gorgeous. She had once been on Broadway, and now she ran Shanghai Mermaids. Apparently the operation consisted of an "underground, speak-easy cabaret" in which she threw huge 1920s parties every month in this old Brooklyn warehouse - complete with period costumes, music and, of course, that irresistible 1920s vibe. She rented the space out to pay the bills. Tonight was paying the bills.

We thanked Juliette Campbell, left and slid back into the soft city night. The children were gone but their mothers and grandmothers still held court outside the building in their plastic chairs. We walked back to the L. Back to the East Village.

Met strangers on the subway. Followed them to a bar.

Four hours later, to sleep.

New York City is a city of contrasts. Now you are in one dimension. Now you have entered another. Now the calm Brooklyn street. Now the dazzling circus of the Shanghai Mermaids.

No where captures this sensation of transport better than the tucked away restaurants and bars of New York City. It is a sensation I feel over and over as I make my way through the city. The escape from the city street to the interiority of a bar or restaurant.

The good ones have soft lighting and soft voices murmuring over warm food. Some serve $2 falafel, others long and expensive meals. Some serve burgers in "gardens." If you have ever eaten in the escape of a New York restaurant, you know how it can take you away. You know the warmth it can bring from the sometimes cold and inhospitable city. You know how something so simple - a room, a plate of food, and hopefully a few good people - can transport you far, far away. 

LongHouse Food Writers Revival and Molly O'Neill's Rose Water Pie with Summer Berries

The LongHouse Barn and a trial-run of the pig roast. 

Two nights ago I was up until 1:00 a.m. planning a Pop-UP Food Magazine.  The day before I spent the bulk of my afternoon procuring a 1912 copper-sided washing machine to be converted into a vertical spit roast for a Mexican pig roast on September 15. The day before that I visited an artist named Earl whose office is in a fried chicken shop in downtown Hudson, NY. The fried chicken looked real good, but the art - a collection of playfully painted sneaker-wearing roosters, floppy-eared dogs and a cigarette-smoking frog - looked even better.

Everything's lovely in Rensselaerville -- even the graveyard. 

These are just a few of the activities that have filled the past six weeks of my life spent coproducing the LongHouse Food Writers Revival with Molly O'Neill and Cook N Scribble. LongHouse is a gathering of food media thinkers from across the country - food writers, bloggers, cookbook authors, television producers, radio correspondents, and so on - in Rensselaerville, New York on September 15. It's a day-long discussion on "Old Media, New Media and the False Divide" featuring stories of Mexicans living in the Hudson River Valley - chefs, famers, tortilla-makin'-grandmothers, writers, artists, and more. It includes a generous helping of fabulous food, too: an on-site espresso shop, a pizza lunch cooked in a copper-domed wood burning pizza oven and a fabulous Mexican 3-Pig-Roast that night cooked by pit master Neftali Duran.

Dinner in Rensselaerville in preparation for the event. LongHouse dinner, here we come!

This is not your grandmother's food writers conference (unless your grandmother is a Oaxacan immigrant named Marghartia who makes tortilla from scratch). In fact, it's not really a conference at all - it a Revival and a day-long journey exploring the wonderfully complex and evolving world of food and food media. 

The Revival will include a farm-to-table dinner in a restored barn, a Pop-UP Food Magazine featuring presentations by some of the nation's food media leaders like Katherine Alford of The Food Network, Shauna Ahern of Gluten-Free Girl, Francis Lam of GILT Taste, Brian Halweil of edible Communities, Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan of TheKitchn.com, Kathy Gunst of NPR, Tanya Steel of Epicurious, Corie Brown of Zester Daily, Molly O’Neill and more. 

Along with Molly and a dedicated team of hard-working interns, videographers, content creators, designers, farmers, builders, and community members, I've spent the last six weeks planning out every last fork, knife and spoon for of this one-of-a-kind gathering. Sorry that's it has been quiet around here at Dorn Room Dinner -- there are a lot of forks, knives and spoons to be organized. 

My days have also included a healthy dosage of time on Google Docs and fuzzy cell phone calls. They've included hours of driving around this beautiful countryside, conducting oral histories and sampling Mexican food (tripe tacos anyone?).

My days have included setting foot in what is easily one of the most beautiful towns in America: Rensselaerville, New York, a small town of about 100 people in the upper Hudson River Valley that seems to exist in a time and place all it's own. A quiet Main Street contains a cascading row of lovely homes, a restaurant, a bed and breakfast, a wood shop and a charming historic library. People know each other intimately here, they leave their back doors open and drop by fig tarts to neighbors at opportune moments.

My days have also included pie. Lots of pie, filled with the tart summer berries, blueberries, and ripe, juicy peaches. You find in these situations of endless planning and organizing and coordinating that certain things sustain you late into the night when a busy excel sheet becomes a blur of lines, and sleep, or at least the thought laying on the couch and watching Mean Girls, feels so perfect yet so far away. Coffee, of course, makes frequent and much needed appearances - a warm mug in the morning by my computer and a tall glass of the stuff iced and loaded with milk and sugar (just how I like it!) by midday. Short walks in the late afternoon help clear my mind before setting back to work for much of the evening. And Molly's pie, a generous slice after dinner, sustain me well into the night. As anyone planning a Pop-UP Food Magazine at 1:00am can tell you, pie sustains.

(More on the LongHouse process at the fabulous, new LongHouse Blog!) 

Molly O'Neill's Rose Water and Berry Pie 

Makes 1 pie

A pie made with rich custard and the summer's ripest berries is already a decadent offering, but the addition of rose water transports this pie to a time and place all its own - just like Rensselaerville, NY, where I first enjoyed it.