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The Squid and the Kid

“Dad, can we get some calamari? And can you make the way you do with the stuffing?” Are the wonderful words that fell out of my son’s mouth while we were at our small, local Carroll Gardens farmers market. I mean, how good is that?

“You want some mussels too?”

“Yeah!”

It is with great pleasure I am able to feed my son. From an early age he has been rather adventurous with food. Loves fried oysters. Although it was quite a hoot watching him try a raw one, that didn’t go over so well. Everyone sitting at the Oyster Bar counter seats in Grand Central got quite a kick out if too. Sushi, he’s more than good with it, and will badger us for days to get some. As long as it is not a green leaf or peanut butter and jelly, we can usually get him to try it. And the kid is picky. He knows what is good and won’t take anything less.

Of course, this does bite us in the ass. He has refused to eat pasta at his friend’s house, his friend’s mother being a very good cook, but she just happened to overcook it. Even after the fatherly talk about why you politely eat something at someone else’s house without an attitude. He just refused to eat the overcooked pasta. The mom ended up making him a breaded chicken cutlet that he deemed superb. He will only consume the mozzarella from Caputo’s on Court St. Granted it is the best in the neighborhood. Olives have to come from there too. When I cook something that is not quite up to par, he has no qualms telling so. And why…

So I made him the stuffed calamari. Just a simple bread crumb, oil, garlic and parsley stuffing. Broil it for 10 minutes, turning to brown on each side. Although my broiler sucks and I’ll pan fry it next time. We got an extra big bag of the mussels from the fish guy, something about the captain of the boat not having it together that morning after a late night at a wedding and “did I just want the rest of them?” I steamed them in water, sherry, garlic, green scallion tops and butter. Steamed a few ears of that nice bi-color corn I got on my trip to the Union Square market.

The kid was happy dunking the mussels in the pot liquor and butter. He inhaled two of the stuffed calamari and his mom made him eat a half an ear of corn so after he only took a few bites and said he was full. Moms do that.

I always ask him how the meal was. “Pretty good dad.” I guess I’ll settle for that and try better next time.

Baaaaacon

Had some real nice ol' bacon. Getting time I had to use after defrosting. Thick cut. If you know where to look in the Fairway in Brooklyn, it is really extremely cheap. Like $3.00 a pound. It's left over from the whole smoked, cured, pork belly they sell. It's back in the packaged meat section, near the expensive bacon, far right hand side. It's not bad, (although after having some from a butcher in Allentown, PA, from the farmer's market at the fairgrounds, it don't reeeeealy compare. Hard to beat the PA Dutch for good smoked, cured meat.) Real thick, almost like a slab of real meat compared to the thin crap one usually has to cook with.

My Boy wanted eggs, a frittata to be exact. I'm blessed with a kid who likes food. Bacon, scallions. nice fresh eggs from my local farmer Market in Carroll Gardens. I added some Heirloom Tomatoes to mine, he is not real keen on cooked tomatoes unless it's sauce. Yeah, yeah how many times can we mention those damn tomatoes on this blog. Well hell, it's August, they're here and mostly rather great! A nice breakfast with my little man while the wife away. Big chunks bacon, didn't cook the scallion, just chucked in with the egg. The heat on the Toms on mine just really rounded it out, got to work on that kid. The whole meal just searching to for that perfect bite, with all of it coming together. Can't have it every-time I guess. But once you find it......

So this was a strange combo lunch of soppresatta, Sweet Emotion cheese, heirloom tomatoes, basil, sweet corn and scallops.

It was all from the Union Square market except the soppresatta from Emily's on Graham and cheese from Saxelby's in Essex st. Market. Ann there kicks ass. Oh, and new fave cheese, Trefoil. follow the link for Saxelby's writeup of it... personally if it were reasonable i would roll around in it for a day.

http://saxelbycheese.blogspot.com/2008/07/t-is-for-cheese-thats-good-enough-for.html

So the lunch was a total throw together, but since I was eating alone I went for it all on one plate. Everythign worked well with eachother so no flavor issues, just a bit crowded. but next time i'd def do it for dinner, and split it into a couple courses...

Well, well well…nothing like a rather overwhelming trip to the Union Square Farmer’s Market to start a day. Defiantly need to be caffeinated next time. As you can imagine it is ALL in season and the booths are more than chock full delectables. All that fruit and veggies, it’s all there. I bought apricots because they looked and smelled so damn good. I don’t think I’ve ever bought apricots that weren’t part of a spreadable in a jar. My partner in crime on this blog, Cliff, and I got to float on through looking, touching and smelling. (Which Cliff usually reserves for the lady folk, but he of was making an exception on this morning.) Our mission was Tomatoes, heirloom Tomatoes. We scoped out them all, found a great price, $3.50 a pound, and did our damage. A baguette later purchased and we had lunch. Good bread, the toms and a little salt. Done, done, done…

We were good, didn’t go crazy. Didn’t over buy what we couldn’t reasonably use. My family sponged a neighbors CSA box when they told us we should take their share, because they were away. I had plenty at home already, just needed to round it all out. Some real, real nice small skinny little eggplants to go with the white eggplants I had at home. A nice big bunch of insanely nice parsley, scallions with looooong greens attached. Some this and that and just a little bit of the other thing.

Last night I got to make a real nice sauce with corn, the eggplants, squash and some real ripe plum tomatoes. I pulled out my magic pot, (a 7 ¼ quart Le Creuset dutch oven I had to beg my mother to get me for Christmas, and what remains the most expensive thing that I get to cook with,) and browned the corn just a bit with a little crushed garlic, added the squash, a little wine to steam it in a bit, the eggplant and let that cook down a few minutes. I made a little hot spot and chucked in some minced garlic and shallots and let it move over to translucent before mixing in and then adding the five seeded, peeled tomatoes. Put the pasta in the water, when that was done within an inch of its life, that hit the magic pot with a little pasta water.

Just fresh, fresh. My kid wasn’t too enthralled, not a big eggplant fan. He “doesn’t like the texture.” Damn NYC kid. But the wife liked it. And that is enough for me…

Number One

Hey, hey Cliff. What do ya think this here blog should be?  I got the first post btw!! What do you think, should it be a eat'in, cook'in, drink'in and maybe a little restaurant'in sort of extravaganza?

Ok first real food type post coming in a bit...