Happy Monday adventurous cooks! While I certainly missed you all last week, a much-needed vacation and some travel was just what this cooking-soul needed. Thank you, as always, for clicking your way to my little corner of the internet. If you’ve landed here by happy accident, feel free to subscribe here. Cheers and happy cooking!

Newsletter #11: Eating New York

William Doran — Mon., June 7, 2021

If I’m going to call myself an adventurous cook, it seems only fair that I go on adventures. Here was one.

As the title suggests, how does one go about eating a place like New York City - one that far outweighs and outpaces most of its contemporaries? Much like consuming an elephant, I would argue, it must be done one bite at a time - one day at a time. A proper taking-in through all the senses: to take the very substance of an inhabited place into the mouth, eyes, ears, nose, skin, muscle, and bone – for life, growth, and excitement. Are these not the real reasons we travel? We take in a tour, imbibe an afternoon, stop and smell the carnations … chew the fat of our lives.

The thing about adventures is, they can change us - especially if taken with good bourbon in a plastic cup from a neighbor.

Or perhaps it’s a late-night slice of greasy pepperoni pizza at Stella’s to people-watch with someone special. They say you are what you eat. For me, this includes the places and people we visit and bring into our lives. Life has a funny way of pointing us towards the right places (and perhaps the right people) at the right times to give us a bite of something unexpected that perhaps we didn’t even know was needed to nourish us or propel us forward.

As I hurtled up above the clouds of New Orleans towards the Big Apple last week, the afternoon sun slid past cool shadows under a great American Elm in Brooklyn’s Backyard, Prospect Park (above).

New Yorkers lounged away another Thursday cocktail hour – while I anticipated my time in a new place, with new friends (and old ones). Sometimes it takes moving one’s body 1,300 miles to appreciate where we are, what we have, and where we might go …

My local tour guide and adventure partner, Gregory Sundahl, joined me to meet new friends (and chefs) Mikhail Carto and Priyam Chirawawala of the food blog Partners in Curry for some Thai at Fish Cheeks (55 Bond St., NY). Mikhail and I are taking a food writing class through the Gotham Writers Workshop, also based in New York. A special thank you to Gregory, who is neither a fan of seafood nor spice, and to Mikhail and Priyam for sharing this hidden gem.

Pass the spicy meat, they said. It will be delicious, they said. It won’t send your tongue to the 9th circle of hell, they said.

Khua Kling is a southern-style, wok-roasted minced beef striploin with Makrut lime leaf, green peppercorn, red finger chili, and bitter beans (description from the menu); served with a little rice. It was, to say the least, the spiciest, most flavorful thing to hit my tongue in my 36 years (the three pepper rating is not a joke) and the hottest thing we ordered at Fish Cheeks. Mikhail and Priyam know spicy food (and flavor). They also run a small business from their home, selling fresh homemade food through a unique service called Wooden Spoon.

Crunchy, perfectly fried chicken wings, glassy noodles, delicate bites of crab, piles of fragrant rice, tiny savory mushrooms I didn’t recognize … all joined the table for us to share (between plastic Covid-partitions).

Small plates don’t have to be spicy. This time we skipped the city for Italian fare, closer to our home base in Long Island.

Barrique Kitchen and Wine Bar (69 Deer Park Ave., Babylon, NY) introduced us to Grandma’s Pizza, a delicately charred, Neapolitan-style thin-crust pizza dotted with pools of soft mozzarella and tomato sauce with a dusting of crunchy breadcrumbs. Grandma’s is a common style of pizza in the New York area, and I think my grandmother would approve. A series of other small plates kept us eating - like balsalmic braised short ribs served over a bed of creamy polenta, some veal meatballs dolloped with little hats of whipped ricotta, and a harmonious salad of salty prosciutto ribbons weaved around juicy chunks of cold watermelon.

In the beginning of the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, the city felt unusual and surprising in a way that was somehow unsettling and reassuring.

Masks still abound, as well as plastic partitions between dining tables in nearly every restaurant. Train stations offer free vaccinations and pedestrians keep their distance. People, however, are in the streets, quietly cheering to themselves - thankful that they are still here, still breathing. They are eating out. They are braving a new world that feels both familiar and alien. It will take much more than a pandemic to stifle the lifeblood of a place like New York City. It touched my bones as I strolled from meal to meal, park to pedestrian crosswalk, amongst her resilient people.

As I slipped back to my previous reality, across the skies, and down into a hot, humid New Orleans International Airport; I carried a little piece of New York in my pocket (or perhaps it permeated more deeply into my being than that). It has only been four days, but I think I already miss you, New York, and I know I will be back.

Happy eating, cooking, and traveling!

-WD