Fresh muesli

Impromptu shepherd's pie

2007-06-05T09:34:00.000-04:00

I had a rather belated clear-out of the freezer the other day and found in it a slab of minced lamb that I bought a month or so ago. Not sure what I had in mind for it, but yesterday, with the rain hitting the window-panes and the summery heat replaced a something distinctly chillier, I decided to plump for shepherd's pie. I had only some of the ingredients that I really wanted, but with no desire for shopping I decided to see whether I could make the best of what I had.

The result was actually rather good - not fantastic, but a perfectly respectable supper. It lacked maybe the texture that some fresh mushrooms would have brought. Will add those next time.

This is not a five minute recipe, but it can be done slowly in stages over the course of a day.

10g dried morel mushrooms (porcini would, I'm sure, be just as good)
50g sun-dried tomatoes (not a huge fan of these, really, but they'd been lying in a cupboard for ages)
1 onion
2 small carrots
1 clove garlic
knob of butter, plus extra for potato topping
1 tbsp of oil
450g minced lamb
1 dessertspoon plain flour
squeeze tomato puree
dash of Marsala
dash of double cream (optional)
1kg potatoes
generous splash of milk
salt and pepper
nutmeg

First put the morels and the tomatoes in two separate bowls and cover with water from a kettle that has recently boiled. (As an aside, I've always read that the water you add to dried mushrooms should be just off the boil - I'm not sure what disaster would befall if it were actually at boiling point. Perhaps some day I shall find out. And I can't swear that it would do any harm to put both the morels and the tomatoes in the same bowl). Leave to soak for a good old time, in my case about 4 hours.

Chop the onion and the carrots very finely and sweat them for about 7-8 minutes in the butter and oil until they seem glistening and fairly soft, then add the garlic and continue cooking for another couple of minutes. Then tip all the vegetables onto a plate.

If the pan seems very dry, add a little more oil before tipping in the minced lamb. Give this a good bashing about with a wooden spoon or fork to break it up, then cook until the pinkness has gone.

In the meantime, take the morels and the tomatoes out of their soaking liquid (but don't throw this away), and chop them quite small. Once the lamb is done, add the onions, carrots, garlic, mushrooms and tomatoes to the pan, along with the the flour, and stir for a minute or two. Now add the reserved soaking liquid, a blob of tomato puree, and some Marsala (or any other booze you fancy). Add salt and pepper, and leave to cook gently with the lid not quite tight for about an hour. Check from time to time to see that it hasn't boiled dry - if it has, add some water from the kettle.

After an hour I found that I had rather badly oversalted the dish, and as a solution I added some double cream, which did the trick. Actually, the cream, although not, I think, traditional, did add a rather nice richness to the end product. Might try it again.

For the potato topping, peel and chop the potatoes into roughly equal sized pieces. Then boil in salted water for about twenty minutes or so until absolutely soft. Drain, then add the milk, about a quarter of a nutmeg, grated (or less or more depending on your taste) and mash the potatoes with a masher, a fork, a ricer or (my favourite) a hand-held mixer.

Put the meat sauce in a 20cm-square oven dish (or similar) and cover with the mashed potatoes. I find it best to start adding the mash at the sides, and filling in the centre at the end. This minimises (but does not eliminate) the risk of your potato topping becoming totally mixed up with the sauce underneath. Dot the top with butter.

The pie can now be left for a little while if you're not quite ready to eat. In any case, it needs to be heated in a 190C oven for maybe 20-30 minutes, depending on how cold it was when it went in.

Serves four people with a separate vegetable. In my case, a pile of green beans.

Chicken with tarragon and mustard

2007-05-10T12:38:00.000-04:00

I'm always on the look-out for quick weekday meals that cause few headaches but yet still offer a complexity of flavour. Bit of a winner, this one, adapted from a recipe I found in a magazine.

2 tbsp olive oil
350g boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into bite-size chunks
salt and pepper
170g button mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/2 small onion, chopped very small
100ml white wine
150ml chicken stock
150ml double cream
1 heaped tbsp wholegrain mustard
small bunch chopped tarragon

Colour the chicken in half the oil, then transfer to a plate. Wipe out the pan roughly before adding the rest of the oil. Cook the mushrooms on a high heat until they're nicely coloured, then add the onion and continue for a couple of minutes. Add the wine and let it reduce until it's pretty much all gone. Add the stock, cream and mustard and cook, uncovered, for about 5 minutes until the sauce is thick and about half its original volume. Return the chicken and its juices to the pan and cook for only as long as it takes for the chicken to cook through, perhaps a minute or two. Season with salt and pepper, then add the tarragon. Good with plain boiled rice.

Serves 2.

Lemon curd

2007-04-26T09:49:00.000-04:00

There's something very nostalgic for me about lemon curd - a childhood memory of something I didn't particularly like as a child. Now it pleases me much more, and it's easier to make than I had thought.

juice of 2 lemons
zest of 1 lemon
2 eggs
170g caster sugar
110g unsalted butter
1 tsp cornflour

Break the eggs into the heaviest small saucepan you can find, and beat them lightly. Then add all the other ingredients and put on a medium heat, stirring the whole time. I was a bit timid as to how high I could put the heat - the idea of lemon scrambled eggs never being far from my mind. But the mixture proved robuster than I thought. After a good 7-8 minutes, the mixture will start to thicken, after which let it simmer very gently for a minute or so.

In the meantime, in a very low oven (about 120C) have a suitable jar (I have old-fashioned spring topped ones) sterilising for around 5 minutes. Then put the hot curd in the jar and seal immediately. Leave to cool, then store in the fridge.

Tasty, fresh and just great on toast. I tried the same recipe replacing limes for lemons. Somehow not quite as good. Lemons certainly have the edge.

Cashew nut loaf

2006-11-21T15:19:00.000-05:00

Like many of my generation, I imagine, I went through a bit of a vegetarian phase in my teens. I have few fond culinary memories of those days - the food always seemed to be missing something (like dead animal flesh). But a few recipes have stuck with me, and last night I pieced together one of them - a good old-fashioned nut loaf. This one is rich and moist - the addition of parsnips gives it a very satisfying sweetnesss. Nut loaf always has a tendency to taste like stuffing, but I am rather fond of stuffing.

1 onion
a little butter and oil
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
4-5 parsnips
250g cashew nuts
80g breadcrumbs
dried herbs - about a teaspoon in total
1 large egg
250g mushrooms, sliced quite thinly
salt and pepper

First, peel the parsnips and chop them into large chunks. Boil until completely soft. This took me around 25 minutes. Mash them. Then chop up the onion very finely, and sweat in butter and oil for five minutes, after which add the garlic and continue for another two or three minutes.

In a food processor, grind the chasew nutes until they're almost flour-like, then put them in a large bowl with the breadcrumbs. Add the herbs, the onion and garlic and the mashed parsnip. Mix well and add salt and pepper. Then mix in the egg.

In the meantime, cook the mushrooms in some butter for a few minutes until they're nice and soft. Then put half the cashew mixture in a large greased loaf tin, cover with the mushrooms, then the rest of the cashew mixture. Bake at 180C for an hour.

This is quite rich - so I found that the mashed pototoes, sprouts and onion sauce that I made to go with it were a bit much. Next time, just some salad, and maybe a light tomato sauce.

Banana cake

2006-11-08T17:22:00.000-05:00

Arriving back from DC, I found a pile of bananas on the point of turning totally inedible. Drastic action was needed, and I scoured my recipe books for some way of using them up. One option was banana muffins, but the problem with muffins is that they go stale so quickly. Delia Smith offered me a loaf with bananas, but I lacked all the ingredients. I modified it, and it turned up trumps. This is a lovely treat. It keeps for a long time and is very little bother.

4 ripe bananas
150g pecans
pinch of salt
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
225g plain flour
zests of 1 orange and 1 lemon
110g butter
120g prunes and dates, chopped
175g light brown sugar
2 large eggs

As always, everything needs to be at room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 180C, then roast the pecans for 7-8 minutes until nice and toasted, then chop them up quite small. I actually chopped them before roasting, and nothing bad happened (although I imagine they would be more prone to burning like this).

Mash three of the bananas, and chop the other one very finely - you could probably just mash them all. Sift the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl and add everything else apart from the fruits and nuts. Whisk just until the flour all disappears, no longer. Then fold in the fruits and nuts. You might need more milk (I didn't) if the mixture doesn't fall off a spoon reasonably easily.

Butter a large loaf tin, and pile in the mixture. Sprinkle with sugar if you want. Then cook for a good hour, probably a bit more, enjoying the wonderful smells that will emanate from the oven. The cake will be bouncy on top.

This cake keeps for a good long time, and is wonderful with virtually anything, from cheese to ice cream.

Basic beef stew

2006-11-08T17:12:00.000-05:00

Lots to catch up on. I've been in Washington for a few days, enjoying the autumn sunshine, the astonishing colours, and some protein-heavy restaurant food. Still, some cooking has still gone on back in New York, mostly trying to make the most of tired vegetables hanging around.

Jamie Oliver has a recipe for a beef stew that does not require the beef to be browned in advance. Since browning is a real pain, especially if you're in a hurry, avoiding the process is a particular boon. So I tried out his idea, and it works. Definitely a good, hearty meal.

olive oil
butter
1 onion
herbs
750g beef for stewing, chopped into big chunks
salt and pepper
flour
pile of root vegetables - a kilo or so in total
2 tbs tomato puree
375ml red wine
300ml stock

Chop up all the vegetables coarsely. Soften the onion in the oil and butter for a little while with some herbs. In a bowl, toss the meat in seasoned flour. I put in a good handful of flour, which turned out to be too much. So I had to shake off a lot of the flour in the end. Perhaps a tablespoon or two would be enough.

Then put everything into the pot with the onion, bring to the boil, and transfer to a 150C oven, lid on. I left it in for a good four hours.

Lovely, substantial, unsubtle stuff.

Celery soup with blue cheese

2006-11-01T09:12:00.000-05:00

Just a quick supper last night - out to a concert at Carnegie Hall. No shopping involved, just using up some tired dregs lurking in the fridge.

500g celery, chopped
6 shallots, chopped
1 large baking potato, chopped
butter
garlic oil
150g blue cheese
600ml shop-bought vegetable stock
120ml cream
salt and pepper

The vegetables do not need to be chopped in any particularly tidy fashion. Just sweat them off in a little butter and oil (no need for the garlic oil really, I'd just run out of olive oil) for about 10 minutes. Then add the stock, bring to the boil, and simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes until everything is very soft. Off the heat add the cream and the cheese and liquidise with one of those hand-held liquidisers. It takes quite a lot to get rid of all the chunks of vegetables, but it does get there eventually. Add salt and pepper (it needs more than you might think - despite the cheese).

This soup is not going to change your life, but it's a decent way of using up some cheese that was on the brink of walking out. I think next time I will try it with better stock - as the shop-bought variety tends, if anything, to have too much taste.

Lamb shanks in red wine with mashed potatoes

2006-10-31T09:34:00.000-05:00

After a Sunday spent entirely out of the kitchen, it's back to the stove on Monday. The fridge was full of odds and sods after Saturday's marathon, so I tried to use up what I could to make a proper meal. I bought a couple of lamb shanks from the butcher's to provide the protein. I thought they looked a bit big as a single portion, so I put one in the freezer. One lamb shank at around 600g provided just about enough meat for two people.

1 lamb shank
handful of small onions (the squashed ones that look like flattened shallots)
3 sticks celery
3 cloves garlic, crushed
250ml chicken stock
250ml red wine
handful of mushrooms
sprinkling of dried rosemary
1 tbs wholegrain mustard
salt and pepper

The inspiration for this recipe comes from Nigel Slater's very evocative Kitchen Diaries, although I have modified it to take account of the ingredients I had.

I cooked the meal in our large copper pan, which comes with a lid. It's one of the best things in the world to cook in. I love it. I covered the meat in a generous dose of salt and pepper, then browned it on all sides in a little bit of very hot oil, then I put the meat on a plate. I chopped the onions and celery into chunks and browned those for a few minutes in the pan. Then I added the garlic for a minute or two

I added the rosemary, the wine, the stock and a bit more salt and pepper, put back the lamb, and brought the whole thing to a rolling boil. In the oven with the lid on at 160C for 35 minutes, after which I stirred in the mustard and turned the lamb over before giving it another 40 minutes or so.

The end result was very pleasing. The lamb was nice and tender (could have done with another 20 minutes or so, I think, without coming to much harm) and the sauce full of interesting flavours. I strained the sauce, returning the mushroom and some of the onions to it afterwards, then reduced it quite a bit on the stove top.

Notes for next time: the dried rosemary really needs to be removed at the end as it's a bit inedible. So maybe fresh rosemary or ground rosemary or even rosemary wrapped in cheesecloth for easy removal. And a spot of creme fraiche to make it a bit richer?

Mashed potatoes were ideal with it, because there's lots of sauce to be soaked up. Two large baking potatoes, peeled and chopped into chunks, were just right for two. The best way to mash them is, in my experience, to add butter and lots of soured cream, and then have at them with an electric mixer.

Pork with lemon potatoes; treacle sponge

2006-10-30T09:24:00.000-05:00

Saturday night - good but exhausting day. Another guest coming for dinner so yet one more meal to cook. My enthusiasm levels had waned, and the meal rather reflected that. I bought a loin of pork - tied without bone. About 1.5kg, which I surrounded in the roasting tin (having first browned the meat on the hob) with halved small potatoes and quartered lemons.

Twenty minutes at 220C followed by an hour or so at 200C. Bad result all round. The potatoes cooked - or rather charred - much too quickly, so I had to take them out of the oven and let them get soggy while the meat continued to cook. And I overcooked the meat - so it was dry and uninteresting. The only saving grace was a tub of shop-bought apple sauce. The lemons added an unattractive sour note. Not my finest culinary hour.

Next time? Not sure there will be one on this particular combination - but I would try to be less nervous about undercooking pork, and would definitely be a bit more watchful about roasting potatoes.

Pud was a bit more of a success. An old-fashioned British steamed sponge, complemented by the ice cream I made the other day. I'm a huge fan of traditional recipes, and this one is a winner. The first thing to remember is that all the ingredients must be at room temperature.

1 tbs molasses (in place of black treacle, which I could not find)
3 tbs golden syrup
175g self-raising flour
1 rounded tsp baking powder
175g butter
3 large eggs
175g light brown sugar

I started by buttering a 1.4 litre Pyrex dish - it should really have been a slightly smaller dish, but needs must. I poured the golden syrup into the bottom of the dish. I whisked together the rest of the ingredients until the flour had all disappeared - just a few seconds with an electric mixer. Then I just piled it all on top of the syrup.

The only tricky part is covering the dish. A sheet of greaseproof paper and on top of that a sheet of foil. Put it over the dish, fold down the edges and tie it firmly into place with string. I discovered at the last minute that we were out of string, so a piece of rather weedy thread had to suffice.

I put about 6cm of water in our largest saucepan (the one I use for pasta), and put the steaming insert from our rice maker at the bottom. I stood the pudding dish on that, brought the water to the boil, put on a lid and let the whole thing steam for two hours. Checking perhaps more often than was needed that the water had not all boiled away.

I love the comforting taste of this pudding, and it combines well with the creaminess of the ice cream. But its size, especially after a substantial meal, is a bit daunting, not to say off-putting when presented on a serving dish - almost like half a football. So I think I'll try making it in individual pudding basins or ramekins next time. Not sure what that will mean for the cooking time. And perhaps a little vanilla and/or lemon would give it a different lift. We'll see.

White chocolate chip cookies

2006-10-29T11:15:00.000-05:00

More cooking to catch up on from yesterday. The afternoon saw many people coming and going, so I baked a batch of classic American cookies to keep people happy through the packing, the hellos and goodbyes. This recipe comes, again, from Ina Garten, a US cookery writer, although I have slightly reduced the amount of white chocolate she calls for (for no better reason than simple lack of chocolate).

110g butter
100g light brown sugar
100g granulated sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
30g unsweetened cocoa powder
140g plain flour
Half tsp bicarbonate of soda
Half tsp coarse salt
300g white chocolate

The first thing was to make sure that absolutely everything was at room temperature, ie, that the butter was nice and squidgy. Otherwise making the batter is nigh-on impossible. Then I chopped the chocolate into squares - anything between 0.5cm to 1cm. This was easier than I had thought.

Then I beat the sugars and the butter together with an electric mixer until the mixture quite fluffy and the colour of very milky coffee (two minutes or so). I had to press little lumps of the brown sugar down with a spoon every now and then, as they seemed unwilling to get incorporated into the mixture.

Then I sieved in the cocoa powder and mixed until it was combined. Then in went the flour, bicarb and salt. I mixed here just until the flour had disappeared into the mixture - any more and there's a risk the batter will get too tough. Then the mound of chocolate squares, again mixed until just combined.

I had two baking sheets ready, one lined with greaseproof paper, and one with a sheet of Silpat, a French invention I bought recently which is a kind of reusable baking sheet liner. The results were quite different - the cookies stuck to the paper and glided off the Silpat, so definitely worth the modest investment.

I put the batter onto the sheets using an ice-cream scoop, which produces large golf-ball size blobs. I then wet my fingers and patted the batter down just a little. These cookies expand astonishingly on cooking, so I put no more than six cookies, well spaced, on each sheet (I got ten in all). Into the oven at 180C for exactly 15 minutes. At this point, they looked scarily undercooked, positively liquid. However, having cooled for a few minutes on the sheets, then transferred to a cooling rack, they are lovely, squidgy and chocolate-y. They are also the size of large saucers, so not for the faint hearted.

To my taste, they were a little on the sweet side. But the general view was that the sugar level was just right. This morning, I tried one that was left over. Not as moist and tender, but still perfectly respectable. This recipe will be tried again - perhaps with plain chocolate chunks next time.

Cranberry and orange scones

2006-10-28T15:42:00.000-04:00

Another mixed success this one. I like scones, and was tempted by the American practice of adding double cream to the mixture. But the result was a bit cakey for my liking, and the baking powder seemed not to have cooked through, giving a bit of a chemical aftertaste. Also, the size I chose, 7.5cm, was a bit too big. I'll try again soon with a more classic British recipe - omitting the cream. But the American one is still a good option, but I'd cut back on the baking powder, and reduce their size.

300g plain flour
50g granulated sugar
1tbs baking powder
1tsp coarse salt
zest of one orange
100g cold butter, cut into small pieces
120ml double cream
60g dried cranberries

Mix the flour, sugar, zest, baking powder and salt. Then rub in the butter until it looks like messy breadcrumbs. Add the beaten eggs and cream, then mix in the cranberries. Move quickly, because the dough does not like being warmed up.

At this point, I put the dough in the fridge, wrapped in cling film and in a plastic bag, overnight. It didn't seem to do any damage. This morning, I rolled it out into a 2cm-thick circle, and cut out seven 7.5cm circles (in future I think I would do more like 5cm circles and 2.5cm thick). I brushed with egg wash (a beaten egg with some water added) and put in the oven for 23 minutes at 200C. They could possibly have done with an extra few minutes, but they looked good, so I took them out.

I'm not sure the egg wash is worth wasting a whole egg on, so I'll just brush with a little milk next time.

This recipe is my tweaked version of one by Ina Garten, a tv chef here.

Hollandaise sauce

2006-10-28T15:24:00.000-04:00

The flat is full of people - some staying, some just stopping by for an hour or so. The weather is autumnally dreadful. The rain and the wind clearly want me to stay indoors. So a real cooking marathon today. We start with eggs Benedict for breakfast, with hollandaise sauce, only the second or third time I've ever attempted it. The results are mixed. I use Delia Smith's recipe for a foaming version of the sauce that will keep in the fridge over night.

2 large eggs, separated
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
100g butter
salt and pepper

I put the egg yokes with some salt and pepper in a liquidiser and added the vinegar and lemon juice which I had brought to a boil in my very smallest saucepan (which was still too big). Do this while the liquidiser is running on low - as I discovered, high is not a good idea as the whole thing just splatters.

Then drizzle in the melted butter as slowly as you can with the engine running. When it's ready, put it in a bowl and fold in the egg whites, which should be whipped to the soft-peak stage. I made this last night, and reheated it this morning in the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. I was not quite careful enough, though, and there were definitely gobbets of scrambled eggs by the time the temperature was hot enough. The taste was okay, but not really luxurious enough - the egg whites make the whole thing pallid and more diluted. And the lemon and vinegar was a bit much, making the sauce a little bit too sharp.

In future, I shall make this sauce just as it's needed, rather than the night before, and add maybe just the tiniest squeeze of lemon juice and leave out the vinegar. And I need to be a bit more generous with the pepper. Of course, the chance of me going to all this bother more than once or twice a year are slim.

Vanilla and brandy ice cream

2006-10-27T09:06:00.000-04:00

Somewhere just on the right side of smug is the feeling one gets from preparing something that most of the time is bought ready made, like bread, jam or ice-cream. An ice-cream maker does make the job rather disappointingly easy, but still quite worth the minimal effort. And this recipe, an adaptation of one I saw on telly here recently, is easier than most, as it involves no eggs or custards.

750ml double cream
140g granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
seeds of 1 vanilla pod
75ml brandy

Just put the cream, sugar, vanilla extract and seeds in a small saucepan and heat until the sugar has totally dissolved. This happened much quicker than I had expected; the cream was hardly warm at all. To check, I just rubbed a (clean!) finger and thumb against one another in the liquid to make sure there was no sandy sugar feeling. Then, strain it into a bowl and leave to cool completely - several hours covered in the fridge did the trick. Finally stir in the brandy and churn for half and hour or so in the ice-cream maker. Because of the uncooked alcohol, the ice-cream remains much more liquid than most - more like thick milk shake (although it does firm up afterwards in the freezer).

The ice-cream has a good texture and, unlike most home-made versions, can be served pretty much direct from the freezer without softening first. But for my taste it was a little too sweet - so next time I shall try it with just 100g of sugar. The vanilla seeds add a depth of flavour and those pleasing little black flecks. But, to be quite honest, I'm not sure they're worth their astronomical price. They pretty much double the cost of the ice cream.

One US-specific comment. Double cream is known as 'heavy cream' here - and seems to me a little runnier than its British counterpart, which is often verging on the buttery. So back in the UK, I might try this with whipping cream instead, or at least make sure that the double cream was of a good pouring consistency.

Why fresh muesli?

2006-10-26T16:14:00.000-04:00

Well, I had to give it some name. And fresh muesli sounded as good as anything.

But the inspiration comes from a small hotel we stayed at in Switzerland over the summer, where every morning we were served with fresh muesli. Not anything I'd ever eaten before, and something of a revelation. Smooth and creamy, without being too heavy. And sumptuous enough to keep us going until the afternoon.

I found a recipe for fresh muesli in a French recipe book called Cuisiner sans stress - but the list of ingredients it gave was daunting, and I doubted I would have the stamina to prepare this in the groggy hours of the morning. So, I drastically simplified the recipe, and was surprised to discover that it really hit the mark. It's very simple, very wholesome, and you can prepare it in one large batch to last quite some time. So here goes:

270g rolled oats (I use Quaker oats)
1 large (400g or so) carton Greek yoghurt
500ml orange juice

Just put everything in a big tupperware box and stir it around to combine. It takes quite a bit of stirring to get rid of all the big clumps of yoghurt. Now, and this is crucial, leave it in the fridge for at least 12 hours. If you try to eat it straight away, you'll probably never eat it again unless you have a fondness for cardboard. But overnight it transforms into a wonderful, unctuous, almost porridge-y delight.

In the morning, I put it in bowls and add a splash of milk just to thin it a little. You can then add fresh fruit, such as sliced banana, or, my preference, raisins and sliced almonds. Best not to add these the night before, as they tend to get soggy.

The quantities above yield six very generous portions. I've tried it with plain yoghurt, which also works, but Greek has the edge. Eat it and your insides will love you.

Starter course

2006-10-26T16:00:00.000-04:00

So, here I go with a blog about cooking. I love writing and I love cooking, so it seems to make sense to combine the two.

Cooking is one of the things I enjoy doing the most. Although on average I cook for about an hour a day, there are many days when I don't cook at all, just as there are lots of occasions when I spend luxurious amounts of time in the kitchen creating things. Cooking for me is about receiving and giving joy, about home, about comfort. About family and friends, about love and nurturing. Cooking can both bring back memories and create them. It defines the time of day, the time of year, the time of life.

This blog will help me record the way I cook - the things I get right and the things I get wrong. It will stop me from repeating my mistakes and from losing the ability to recreate those dishes that hit the mark. And it will also say a thing or two about the life of a foreign food lover in Manhattan.

If anyone else reads this and gets some pleasure, then all the better.