An Embarassing Confession. Fiore Again. Peeves. Kosher Babka
Dear Friends and Family,
Driving to Fiore in Williamsburg Saturday night I was telling my friends what a wonderful meal I'd put together from Fairway for my honey when he was feeling poorly Friday night.
 "You have to write about it in your newsletter," Vicki urges.
"No, no, no," I protested, "I don't want the world to know how pitiful I am since I stopped cooking."
"It would make you seem as loveable and human as Arthur Schwartz," she assures me.
I'm not loveable? And I'm all too human, alas. But people want to think I bake my own bread.
Even Steven had no idea that I'd spooned up the last dregs of Fairway's cooked macaroni from the steam table to get enough for two mac 'n' cheese freaks after early bird customers has snagged all the crisp topping. Even Steven could not have guessed that I'd laced the modestly rich elbows with no-fat cream cheese - I was hoping he would think it was crème fraîche - and then sprinkled it with five-year-old Italian bread crumbs I found in the freezer, gambling the green specks were oregano bits and not mold. Of course I didn't want to take the time to remove everything stored in the oven to warm up take out pasta - there isn't enough floor space in our tiny kitchen for all my fabulous cookware stacked in there anyway. So I baked it in the ancient toaster oven my Mom gave me when I went to college. That makes it older than George Clooney. I had to crush the front edge of the aluminum pan to make it fit. Oh, it was wonderful. Wasn't it fabulous Steven?
About this newsletter's outrageous color scheme today. I couldn't help it. I did it instead of dying Easter eggs.
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Well, Pull My Daisy
Fiore, the trattoria of many virtues just off the Williamsburg Bridge, was wonderful too, just as I remembered from our first visit, except now it's so busy they'll only do reservations for six or more. Our pals tonight have been five times while we were in Mexico, and they are now friends of the house. So even though the place is packed to super high decibels on a Saturday night, a four-top with Patrick from Verona, their favorite waiter, is miraculously open. Before we have a chance to even look at a menu, the house's namesake thin-crust pizza wafting the perfume of truffled robbiolo cheese is parked in front of us.
I happen to be sitting next to a glass divider where I can watch bread being cut to order all night - a sign of how seriously professional Chef Roberto Aita is. Feeling lucky to be there, so cheap, so good, tonight we're sharing spinach salad, a Himalaya of deep fried calamari and zucchini, fusilli with just a touch of pesto and curls of perfectly cooked shrimp - I always say "rarish" and hope for the best. Well yes, the linguine con vongole might be less cooked and the kitchen has a heavier hand with salt tonight than I remember. But the wild striped bass topped with a buttery turf of chopped parsley and smashed green peppercorns is beyond expectations: a huge cut, precisely cooked, exquisitely fresh. It would be impressive at twice the $15 price.
But listen up, Roberto: Your dessert cook is spilling half a box of confectioner's sugar on the desserts. Stop it now. The confectioner's sugar syndrome is definitely one of my big peeves. Cash only and no reservations are two more. But that doesn't keep me away from Celeste on Amsterdam and it isn't going to stop me from hitting the road for Fiore. (At least not until I find myself waiting more than 15 minutes for a table.)
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Peeves, a Sampler
Last week I was complaining about the bread jockey at  South Gate who asked me, "How are you today?" Isn't it bad
enough that the server and captain feel compelled to stop by with every course to take your temperature? "Are you enjoying everything?" I smile, forcing my companions to respond (since I am not a restaurant consultant).
"Are you ready to order?" and "May I clear?" is all the conversation I need when we're deep in gossip and innuendo at our table.
I asked you to send me your big restaurant peeves. "After reading the Peeves catalogued on Insatiable Critic this week, Michael Brown emails: "My biggest peeve that went unmentioned: Any use by a server of the first person plural pronoun, as in 'How are WE this evening?' I promise that one day a server in going to catch me in just the mood to respond - 'This part of we is looking forward to your part of we serving dinner to us.'" A collection of responses is posted now on InsatiableCritic. Go to BITE, read about the special pleasure of discovering a chef at the top of his form with no previous hint or warning at Olana. Then scroll down and exorcise your peevishness by sharing the peeves of others. (email me peeves.) And don't miss our Insatiable Reporter's guide to pastry shops on the Upper West Side. Sylvie Bigar and I agree. We love Magnolia's style and hate the cupcakes. Click here for a sugar fix
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The Babka Surrender
In the middle of a philosophical phone call about bread, Eli Zabar suddenly gasps,"Oh wow. This is wonderful. It's our first glatt kosher babka."
Well, foodies who've been around a while all know Eli has
his flaws. East Siders will tell you his prices are near larcenous, "$125 a pound for lobster salad," they'll tell you only slightly exaggerating, as they scoop up their snazzy red-and-white E.A.T. shopping bag with their lobster salad tucked inside. Still what I can't help loving about Eli is his unabashed enthusiasm. The man is 64 years-old - he opened E.A.T in July 1973 - and he still gets passionate about a new babka!
"We've been working on it for a while," he confides. "But this is it."
"Send me one," I say. "If I like it, I'll write about it."
The day's production happens to be chocolate babka. I prefer the standard cinnamon. But this chocolate-and-raisin filled babka is dangerously good. It's stuffed with  pareve (kosher) Callebaut chocolate in a secret mixture "to make a schmear," says Eli's glatt kosher baker, Ross Breen, discreetly evasive about the specific ingredients. I taste it Saturday at breakfast instead of my usual kibbles and bits. And then again Sunday, realizing I must give the rest of it away that day if I'm planning to eat again. Eli expects to be selling the babka at his 81st Street store and at the Zabar family estate across town on Broadway. (Check first please. Babkas are a transient item)
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Photos of the room and the wild striped bass at Fiore, and Olana's hamachi crudo may not be reprinted without permission from Steven Richter. The Magnolia cupcakes photo is by Sylvie Bigar.
Fork Play by Gael Greene, Copyright pending 2008
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