Crazy delicious. They are only 60 calories a piece but I eat four every time.
Category Archives: Food
Party Like a Rock Tsar
The massive influx of Russians into Brooklyn over the past fifty years has brought New York one of my favorite imports – The Russian Restaurant.
Genius.
When I first saw these photos I was sure they were photoshopped. When I dug a little deeper I found out that yes, square watermelons do exist! Apparently Japanese watermelon farmers faced resistance at retail where the oval fruits were difficult to stack and took up precious real estate in Japan’s limited-space stores. Additionally Japanese refrigerators are much smaller than their U.S. counterparts, so buying and storing watermelons was quite a production. The savvy Japanese farmers discovered that if watermelons are placed in a box when growing, they will mold themselves to the shape of the container, producing square melons.
One website insightfully pointed out that there is a lesson to be learned from the square watermelon. When approaching the problem of stocking watermelon, most people would automatically resign themselves to the fact that these fruits just grow round and there is nothing to be done about it. Japanese farmers took a different approach. If the supermarkets wanted a square watermelon, they asked themselves, “How can we provide one?” It wasn’t long before they invented the square watermelon.
Doling it Out
I have three words for you. Dole. Fruit. Parfaits. I bought a bunker’s supply of these for the kids on Tuesday. Matt and I proceeded to inhale them all in the past 48 hours. I have no idea what goes into this stuff (and as “Refrigeration is Not Required” I’m not sure I want to know,) but every 123 grams of crack-in-a-cup is an express ticket to sweetness-induced delirium. Sort of a cross between two of my favorite childhood tastes (syrupy fruit-from-a-can and tapioca pudding) these taste best chilled. The Apple Caramel Cream is mindblowing. Put your computer to sleep and get some now.
Cuban Aisle
I’m Cuban, and no matter how far I travel or what type of Bruni-vetted restaurant I try, nothing ever tastes better to me than some home cooked Cuban food (preferable made by made by a guy who looks like this.)
I recently made the mother of all discoveries. For a small delivery fee you can have a little Camaguey delivered straight to your door. At CubanFoodMarket.com I can get everything from my grandmother’s churros to the Royal Violets baby cologne I love. You can even buy awesome La Lupe CD’s, Poetry by Martí, and vintage Cuban school yearbooks. Below, some greatest hits… Dale!
Roe House
My first experience with caviar was at age ten at my uncle’s thirtieth birthday party in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The excesses of the eighties had even made their way down into the tropical, politically unstable third world, with the country’s top wives donning Claude Montana suits and Maud Frison pumps. Don’t ask me how they got anything from the icy depths of the Caspian Sea to the barely-paved 115-degree captital of this Central American republic, let alone prized Russian sturgeon.
Maybe it was the way my lesser-traveled relatives curiously spread it on their homemade tortillas, or the way the glistening black pearls stood out amongst the pork tamales and dulce de leche, but I knew right off-the-bat this was something special. Twenty years and endless culinary adventures later, I still find myself hypnotized by the most trite symbol of luxury attained, the heavenly Sevruga. And nowhere can I relive the experience of caviar in the 80′s more vividly than at Petrossian.
The impossibly chic New York restaurant was opened in 1984 by the caviar czars that founded the Petrossian house in the twenties (and introduced the delicacy to the West at none other than Cesár Ritz’ aforementioned Place Vendôme hotel.) Petrossian is housed in the fabulous Alwyn Court Building and boasts (I swear on my children) Lalique crystal wall sconces, bronze sculptures from the 1930′s, etched Erté mirrors, Limoges china, and a Lanvin chandelier. Sure you can get Petrossian by air in awesome thermo-freeze containers but nothing beats snuggling into one of their pink Finnish granite banquettes and ordering up some Tsar Imperial, Fresh Truffles, and a bottle of just-popped champagne. After a few glasses, if you listen really carefully, you can hear Leona Helmsley laughing at the poor people.
My Favorite Place in the World
Last year on our first trip to Paris together Matt and I stayed in the spectacular Hotel Ritz on the Place Vêndome. Everything about the Ritz is incredible – from the spectacular suites named after the likes of Coco Chanel, Chopin, and Marcel Proust, to the Bar Hemingway where you can sip cocktails in the same room as James Joyce and Jean-Paul Sartre once did, to the perfectly rose-infued body lotion in the bathrooms (which I stole from the maid’s trolley), to the insignia emblazoned shoehorns and ashtrays (which Matt stole from our room.)
With more impressive footnotes and expensive chintz than you can poke a stick at, the Ritz is still NOT my favorite place in the world. In fact, I could not get out of there fast enough to make it over to 18 Rue Royale, where a simple mint green can become a lifelong obsession.
Ladurée, the legendary Parisian tea salon is more than a magnificent French pastry shop. Ladurée is to macaroons what what Philip Treacy is to hats, what Mary Quant was to color, what the Taj Majal is to mausoleums. I’m not exaggerating. For weeks I tried unsuccessfully to paint our bedroom the same color as Ladurée’s lovely little napkins, but I ruined Matt’s shorts and we ended up with a room better suited to Beth Israel’s ER ward. It’s white now. LADURÉE. Go there.
