Some days are like that, even in Australia

What do you do when you've had a bad day? Maybe you woke up at 6:45 and got halfway to an audition before you realized you'd left your headshot and resume at home. Maybe your grad school letter didn't arrive even though it was supposed to and when you called to ask about it, the office was closed. Maybe you had to mail off a check for several hundred dollars to the government because it was tax day. If all these things happened, there's really only one thing to do: make some old fashioned feel better soup.

Lazy-Ass Matzo Ball Soup

at least 2 cups chicken broth
leftover/rotisserie chicken
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
1 onion
dill
pepper
1 large matzo ball

It's called lazy-ass soup because of all the prepared ingredients like these:

But sometimes, you just don't have three hours of simmering time but you still want soup and canned soup is gross. Plus, buying prepared matzo balls stimulates the economy. Maybe. If you don't think about it too hard. Let's just move on.

1. Chop your veggies. If I wasn't in a crabby mood, I might have chopped them smaller (which actually I ended up regretting later), but I didn't.


2. Put them in a pot, cover them with the chicken broth and simmer until the veggies are soft (I left them in there for about 20 minutes, got hungry and skipped to the end. I kind of wished the veggies were softer (and hey, if I'd cut them smaller, they probably would be by now) but oh well).

I should probably clean my stove. Hmm.

3. This is where you use your prepared chicken. I bought a "simple rotisserie chicken" from Whole Foods. If I'd bought it from my neighborhood grocery store in Queens, it would have been 4 dollars less, but I wasn't in Queens, I was in Whole Foods and that's how it goes.


Don't get the "herb" or "bbq" kind - those will add weird flavors to your soup. But maybe you're into that.

Tear off a bit of the chicken (I used one breast) and shred it with your hands.


4. Dump it in with the veggies. Throw the matzo ball in there too (I got my matzo ball from Zabar's, remember? If you don't, look here). Add some dill and pepper to taste. You can use fresh dill if you have some, but I didn't and I wouldn't expect you to either.


5. Leave it simmering a few more minutes (you can cover it, that helps) until the matzo ball is heated through.

6. Pour it all into one bowl because your boyfriend is working late (again. And every other night for the next week. Gah). Eat it on a tv tray while you watch Dreamgirls on DVD and think about how even though you're crabby, at least you're not having Jamie Foxx's illegitimate child and being upstaged by Beyonce even though you're way more talented than she is.


There's not much broth left. Whoops. It's more of a "stoup" as Rachael Ray would say. If you add more broth, that won't happen to you. But it still tastes good, so you don't really have to worry too much. Enjoy!

Everything's comin' up......

There are Muppets in this video and Harvey Fierstein sings. If that doesn't appeal to you, I'll post a real post about cooking later.

A meal three months in the making

Three months ago, I read a recipe on The Amateur Gourmet that I wanted to try. It was called Braised Duck Legs for Idiots and I thought, hey, I could make that. I went to Whole Foods to get duck legs and found that they didn't have any. So I went to a butcher shop in Astoria. They didn't have any either. I went home, called a butcher shop, verified that they had some, went there, and they didn't have any. It got pretty frustrating. I posted a query online, asking where a New Yorker could find duck legs for sale or trade and finally ascertained that the Fairway on the Upper West Side was the place. I've always found the Fairway to be overly crowded and kind of overwhelming, so I avoided it for quite some time. But, yesterday I was on my way to Zabar's anyways, and I walked right by it. So, I turned around and went back in.

I was not convinced that the Fairway really had duck legs - after all, I'd been misled before, but I asked the butcher and he pointed to the wall, next to the turkey necks and chicken gizzards, and there they were.


I brought them home and finally got to try this recipe. Here it is:

Braised Duck Legs for Idiots, adapted from The Amateur Gourmet (You're welcome to click the link above and use that recipe as well - but I'm writing it out in case you don't want to)

4 duck legs
1 knob of ginger
1 onion
1 stalk celery
1 carrot
canola oil (or some other light flavored oil - not olive)
soy sauce
scallions - I used three
salt
Chinese 5 spice powder
cooked rice (to serve with the meal)

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. Chop up your onion, celery, carrot and ginger (peel the ginger first, otherwise it will be gross).


3. Put the duck legs on top and sprinkle with salt and Chinese Five Spice powder.


4. Put in the oven for two hours (or so the recipe says).

Interjection - I checked the food at and hour and forty five minutes and the duck legs were done - here they are:

- but the veggies were burning! I felt pretty annoyed. I've been waiting to make this recipe for months! Argh! I considered throwing them out, but they still tasted kinda good and crispy, so I left them. Looking back, I think I just needed more of them. My onion was kind of small, so maybe that had something to do with it. Anyhow, here they are:


(I might not have been so mad if I haven't been trying to do my taxes all day with varying degrees of success. That probably added to it - but back to the recipe)

5. (Oh! And then pour off the excess fat from the pan. There's gonna be a LOT of fat and that's bad. I forgot that part and I went back and added it just for you.) Pull the skin off the duck legs. Here's my naked duck legs:


Now here's the skin I pulled off (minus the bits that Miriam ate):


You probably should just throw this away. I'm not sure why I took a picture of it.

6. Shred the meat from the bones, put it back in the pot with the veggies, throw in some chopped scallions (I used the white part and a bit of the green part too for color), then add some soy sauce until it tastes good to you (I used tamari, which is kind of aged soy sauce - I didn't have the regular kind).


7. Put it in a bowl over some cooked rice (I made brown, because it's healthy) and serve.


It tasted really good even with the burned veggies. Miriam says they weren't burned, they were deep fried. And delicious. So that's good enough for me.

A New York Institution

There's something about the Upper West Side that makes me feel like I'm in a movie about New York. Have you ever noticed that so many New York movies take place on the West Side? It's very odd to me. Whenever I go up there, I feel like I'm in a cleaner, fancier version of my life. I expect to run into Woody Allen or Jerry Seinfeld at any moment, but instead yuppie parents (ok, really yuppie nannies) push their toddlers along in strollers and young professionals walk their dogs and eat brunch. And then I see a homeless man hack up some phlegm and spit it on the ground, and I'm reminded that New York is kind of the same wherever you go.

Yesterday, I was at the Lincoln Center Library of Performing Arts, copying sheet music, and I thought, hey, it's a nice day. I'm going to walk up to Zabar's and finally use the gift certificate that Josh gave me for my birthday last year (which granted, seems like a very long time ago, he didn't actually give it to me for several months after my birthday, so it's not as long as you think). I stopped at the Fairway on the way to get some duck legs (more on that another day) and continued my walk up Broadway until I finally reached Zabar's.

For those of you who don't know, Zabar's is classic New York. They're touted to have the best lox, the most authentic knishes, they even sell a Zabar's New York Treasure Chest, filled with rugelach, black and white cookies, babka, coffee and more. I've never actually been there, so I was excited to make an inaugural visit to one of New York's most beloved Jewish food institutions.


I had $25 to spend. I wanted to buy as many "classic" Zabar's things as I could. I started with Zabar's "world famous smoked salmon." The man who sliced it for me (who told me that he'd been working behind this counter for 14 years) made me wait while he talked to an old man about his wife's recent surgery (I didn't mind, I wasn't in a rush) and when he finally turned his attention to me, he started going on about how our generation didn't stay married anymore, how this man and his wife had been together for fifty years and were so lucky to have each other, because when they got sick, they had someone to take care of them and how we were going to be all alone when we were old and frail because we can't make marriages work. I suspect that he had some personal issues going on there. He sliced the lox paper thin though, so that's really what I'm looking for from a fish counter worker.

I grabbed a bag of Chocolate Rugelach as well (I've tried to make my own, but I've yet to actually master the recipe) and some Matzo balls (ditto), since they both seemed very Zabar's to me. Then I strayed from my original mission a tad and got some freshly grated Parmesan/Romano mixed cheese (hey, it said Zabar's on it and I needed some cheese). For my final item, I grabbed a Zabar's coffee mug, which was on sale for a dollar! I figured when my food was gone, I'd still have this mug to remind me of Josh's nice present.


Then I decided, I've got lox, I need a bagel. I was right next door to H&H bagels, so I went inside, dug around the bottom of my bag searching for enough change to buy one, came up victorious and purchased one perfect everything bagel. Here it is:


Yum! Here's my lox, all unwrapped and lookin' pretty.


This was truly great lox, very thin and flavorful, soft and oily and delicious. I tried to take a picture of my lox on the bagel, but my camera died and I didn't have any more batteries. Then I got hungry and decided to just eat it. Whoops. I don't regret it though. It was good.

Someone's in the kitchen with Meredith.....

...and it's me! Not that I actually helped with the cooking (unless eating little bits of cheese and pancetta counts as helping...which I don't think does). Last night, I went over to Casa de Meredith y Gwen in the East Village (I remember when I could walk to her apartment....good times) to help eat Meredith's amazing homemade pizza. I've always meant to make my own pizza (now that I have a baking stone from my sourdough - see here), but I haven't quite gotten around to it. So Meredith went ahead and beat me to the punch! Argh. It's okay though, she's really great. Here she is, cooking away:


We ate some great food and watched Galaxy Quest - best movie spoof of a sci-fi tv show (and maybe the only one). Then Meredith and Gwen watched Battlestar Galactica and I went home because I live far away and I get tired. Plus I don't watch sci-fi tv shows (except Star Trek: Voyager. When I was twelve. And my dad made me. Sort of).

To read a more detailed post about the pizza, click here to go to Meredith's blog and get a recipe and lots more pictures. Here's one that I took though - Yum!

Everybody's got a job, everybody's got a dream

I've been burned by Charles Isherwood before. He's loved things that I've found mediocre (The Receptionist? Really?) and he's hated things that I've really enjoyed. So I've come to take his reviews in The New York Times with a grain of salt. However, last night, I think we finally found something that we could agree on: In The Heights.

I first saw In The Heights off-Broadway with my dad. We both enjoyed it, but as soon as the lights came up, we turned to each other and said "I wish Mom was here." For those of you who don't know, my mom (and her brothers) grew up in Washington Heights, where this show takes place. I remember (this was at least ten years ago), my mom and I got in a cab and the cabbie asked us where we were going and if we were from here. "Oh yes," my mom replied happily. "I grew up on 156th and Broadway." The cabbie stopped short. "You're not going there now, right? Cuz I won't go there at night." As far as I know, the cabs go there now (gentrification is spreading further and further uptown), but that's always stuck with me.

My mom has always identified strongly with the culture associated with Washington Heights. I remember as a child, she would tell me, "Oh Lena, I know Dominicans, because I'm a Dominican" (which would really confuse me, since she's Chinese and Yugoslavian). This musical is so steeped in the music of Latinos, I just know that she would love it. I can picture her, dancing around in her seat as the beats wash over the audience.

That's actually one of the things that makes me love this show - the music. It seems to me that a lot of musical that try to bring in a "different" sound (like rock, rap, whatever) seem to do so at the expense of the musical form. Just because you're trying to pull away from the stigma of "musical" does not mean that you still don't have a story to tell. What I love about In The Heights is that the composer so clearly loves musicals and understands the form very well. He can bring his own sound into the mix and still tell a story clearly. It's really great and refreshing to hear.

Which brings me to the thing that I love the most about In The Heights: Lin-Manuel Miranda, the show's composer, lyricist and star.

My love for him is two-fold. One - I have a huge "career crush" on him, meaning that I want to be him and write musicals and star in them on Broadway (there was an article on him in the NYTimes, titled "You're 27, here are millions to stage your musical" which I read not knowing anything about the show, hoping it was more of a "how-to" guide). Two - (Zack, stop reading this post now) He's so adorable and I love him. Ana and I saw him speak at The Dramatist's Guild with Jeanine Tesori and he was so humble and sweet. He seemed amazed that any of this could be happening and so happy to be a part of it. Plus, he called himself a geek and said how much he liked musicals. Thankfully, I've never actually met him and he has a girlfriend, so I can safely be in love with him from a distance (and of course, I really love Zack. Don't worry).

I recommend this show very highly. It's not necessary the best show I've ever seen, or the most intellectually stimulating. But there's something about the music that makes my heart fly out of chest and start fluttering around. I can't help it. Even if you don't like musicals, I think you'd like In The Heights. At least I hope you would. And so does Charles Isherwood, so if you don't like it, blame him and not me.

I feel just like Meg Ryan

I've had a craving for a corned beef sandwich for at least a week now. It's been very distracting, I'm typing, I'm playing with kids, I'm singing, and suddenly I think "if only I had a corned beef sandwich, my life would be complete." So yesterday, I went to what I consider the world's best place to get a corned beef sandwich, Katz's Delicatessen. I've been there many times over the years, with my dad, with my Uncle Rafael who spent the whole time complaining that there were no Jews behind the counter, and with my Uncle Steve and crew (that was the most recent time, I believe). I convinced Meredith to come with me (not that it took much convincing, she's pretty easygoing).

The first time I went to Katz's, my dad noticed a hanging sign that he has since referenced every time I've brought up Katz's. Here it is:


When I told him in a text that I went to Katz's, he texted back: Send a salami. He's very predictable sometimes.

Here's the famous corned beef sandwich:


It's really good. the beef is nice and lean, but very flavorful. Meredith and I split a sandwich, which I would recommend to anyone who's not a linebacker for the Patriots or some sort of beef fanatic with a large stomach. We each got our own egg cream though - vanilla for me (that's what I remember my mom always getting back when I was a kid) and chocolate for Meredith. Here she is!


It's lots of fun at Katz's (probably less fun if you're a vegetarian though). It feels very New York. At one point, I said to Meredith, "It feels just like we're in a movie, doesn't it?" to which she replied, "Yeah, like When Harry Met Sally?" and then rolled her eyes at me. It was with done with love though. I could tell (way down deep).