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FORK PLAY NOVEMBER 12, 2008
Health Crisp Campaign. Downtown Deal. Sexy Salami. Sunday at Waldy's. Bargainista Chic. Cookie Chase.
Dear Friends and Family,
We asked for change and we got it. Eli Zabar and the pricing  elves at Fairway have reassessed the cost of Eli's Health Crisps. I watched in horror as a 7 oz. package went from $2.99 to $5.39 and finally called Eli and Fairway to ask why. Soaring commodities, flour, oil - and chutzpah - was the answer. Then last week I noticed the price had dropped to $4.49. What joy! What victory! I felt the power of the internet, how one woman taking on the titans of industry can make a change. Then I noticed the box now holds 6 oz., an ounce less. Drat. Okay, so it's a small triumph. But, as you might guess from the blue on this newsletter, our candidate's win was sheer triumph.
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Downtown Deal
A lot of us are numb from 401K shock, shrinking IRAs and the lurchings of the market. We're cutting back, making do, eating cheaper. For some it means canceling a $60,000 trip to India. For others, it's giving up organic greens or marching past Pinkberry feeling like a warrior. For a few folks I know it may mean pretending you bought a $6,000 handbag from a street peddler for $79. In every category, friends are staying home for dinner these days.
Recently, our good pals, Fred and Penny - our unbridled passion for great eating first brought us together - were downtown having lunch at Momofuku. Fred asked the waiter if he knew a local butcher. "East Village Meat Market, at 169 Second Avenue," the waiter said. "Martha Stewart shops there." Fred emailed me, amazed to find New York strip steaks for $20 a pound versus $32 he'd pay uptown at Citarella, hanger steak for  $10 compared to $15 at Citarella, and chicken at $2.25 a pound against $3.50 at Dean and Deluca. Alas, it doesn't work if you factor in cab fare.
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Sexy Salami
Indeed, some New Yorkers are saving on taxis by eating local. We can walk to West Branch, Tom Valenti's new bistro on Broadway at 77th. The Road Food Warrior loves the crusty pressed "Cuban" panini, just $14, and the $16 bucatini all'Amatriciana. With a salad, that would be a non-working dinner for us. The small café at Salumeria Rosi, steps from my office, could be a haven for budgeters with its heaped up generosity of salumi, "the grande selezione for $21" and $3 to $7 tasting plates. If you can get a table. Chef-partner Cesare Casella sees the café energy and bon ami driving customers to the counter. Dinner hours are already booked weeks ahead. To read more on my romantic Saturday night at Rosi's sexiest table, please click here.
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Sunday at Waldy's
Have you been painfully frugal? Reward yourself with the $44 Sunday Supper at Beacon and a bottle of wine from a list with thirty selections under $30. The $19 Rioja, El Coto '04, surprised our fussy grape nuts and was perfect with a seafood, chicken and pork-heaped paella ordered by the Rood Food Warrior and our friend Ted. Seconds on request gave more than enough for all four of us. I liked my organic chicken better than Barry's wood-roasted salmon, overcooked, alas. But after four starters served for the table, a side of fabulous garlic fries and the paella diggings, we could barely do justice to family style multiples of dessert.
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Deals. Deals. Deals!
The headlines in the Times business section are ominous. No one is spending money, it seems. You do realize that this  penny-pinching panic may be pushing us from recession to depression. Take it from a congenital tightwad - I can barely economize because my life style is so frugal I have little left to give up. Except dinner.
Please don't give up dinner. The chain that links us -- the short rib or crisp skate and $14 cocktail we buy -- keeps 25 people employed and able to feed their families and pay the mortgage, generating tax money that finances programs that help feed the home-bound elderly. Oh boy. We are all in this together. Scary as it is.
Go to BLT Steak, just the two of you. Share a Caesar and a hanger steak. Devour the fabulous popover. But don't give up on your favorite steak house. On Monday we posted two new guides to eating well on less on my web site. Click here for a roundup of dining deals. "Where I Go When I'm Pinching Pennies" - is especially timely. And two self-styled Insatiable Bargainistas - my young assistants - confide their discount style in "Cheap But Not Chintzy."
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Chasing Cookies
Alexandra, my friend in Texas who sells cookies on line at Alexandra's Cookie Dreams.com has dreamed up a contest with a Q & A we created together. She calls it "Feast Your Eyes on This Life" and you'll find it on her web site today. One of the answers is missing. To find it, adventurers need to go to a Vintage Insatiable I wrote when Le Bernardin first opened in New York, "Le Bernardin Beguiles Our Crocodiles." The missing paragraph competitors will need is "hidden" there.
Email the paragraph to Alexandra@AlexandrasCookieDreams. If you feel compelled, go ahead and buy cookies now. Jump start the economy. The contest ends on December 10. Three winners, to be announced December 11, win an autographed copy of my memoir, Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess, and samplings of Alexandra's cookies: Three dozen for the first name chosen, two for the runner-up and one for third place. I am definitely internet-challenged. My computer responds to my two fingered tapping whenever it feels like it with a mind of its own. And the internet makes me dizzy. But Alexandra says this is a good way to win friends and readers. Or, as she would say, visitors. And everyone loves cookies.
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Photos of Waldy Malouf serving paella at Beacon, Beacon's wood-roasted oysters, Salumeria Rosi's grande selezione, crab cake sandwich at Sea Grill's Bar and Michael Jordan's burger may not be used without permission from Steven Richter.
Fork Play by Gael Greene. Copyright 2008
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