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FORK PLAY January 20, 2010
Salt-free @ Beacon. Parky Pig. Tacos Time. Compass Conundrum. Tweeting Caviar. Butternut Squash
Dear Friends and Family,
Launched with a salvo from Mayor Bloomberg, the city's crusade to cut down salt in restaurants and packaged foods
 absolutely has my vote. It may seem quixotic, I agree. Can a local health department move giant multinational corporations to rejigger their precious recipes? Will star chefs and journeyman cooks stop oversalting the frites? I want to believe the more thoughtful and creative among them will examine their salt reflex. Recently in a favorite trattoria I sent back swordfish so oversalted it was inedible. At the same meal, the pasta vongole was too salty too - given clams, clam juice, garlic and lemon for flavoring, the dish didn't really need more. "I just switched to Sicilian sea salt," the chef confided with an apology. "Perhaps I need to taste more."
I love salt. I sometimes hear myself in restaurants saying, "Whew, this has way too much salt but it's so good." Sometimes I rub excess salt crystals away. I don't have high
 lood pressure. No doctor has told me to cut down on salt. But I don't need further research to believe that I'd benefit from eating less salt. And when I can't get my ring on next day I know I've eaten too much salt the night before.
Saturday night we had a date for dinner with a friend for whom life means no salt. I called Waldy Malouf - both Steven and I love his Beacon -- to see what he could cook with that dictate.
"I cook without salt all the time for some of my regulars," he said. There was actually a printed menu of salt-free options on the table when we arrived, in the same size and format as the regular menu. Steven and I had not planned to give up salt for the night. He ordered the wood oven pizza, thick with cheese and wild mushrooms for the two of us to share. "Boy, that's salty," I thought.
The unsalted watercress-endive-pear salad was a bit of a flop - too much watercress, too much vinegar - it tasted
 like penitence. But no-salt grilled lamb chops were full of flavor.
Frustrated that we weren't really challenging his seasoning sweep, the chef sent out more, all of it unsalted. Oysters with slivers of shallot on top, the butter glistening. What's not to love? I tasted pepper and herbs, notably tarragon. The secret was verjus, the tangy pressing of unripe grapes. Big unshelled shrimp took on flavor from the oven's char. Our marrow fan could find no fault with the long steak of marrow. And since I was the lone kidney and chicken liver lover at the table, I was left to devour every juicy caramelized morsel. 25 West 56th Street. 212 332 0500
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Parky Pig
Is it the Year of the Pig or the Decade? One way to feel
 young is to join the gen-Xers and the après-moi-le-delugers in their passion for meat, most specifically pig. I love pretending fat doesn't matter (except around one's own hips of course). Danny Meyer's timing with Maialino (little pig) in the Gramercy Park Hotel is luck or genius or both. A big platter of crispy-skinned suckling pig for two or three to share is the come-on of his David Rockwell-designed homage to Roman cooking. The baby artichokes with anchovy bread sauce are a must and so is the chocolate wrapped tartufo. Click here to read my Pig Off the Park in BITE.
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Tacos Time
True, Cascabel Taqueria is officially dedicated to Eat. Drink. Love Tacos. But on my third outing there, I discovered sensational puerco en adobo, Berkshire pork butt with tamarind. You pile it into the corn tortillas kept warm in a brown paper bag that comes alongside. Cascabel is friendly and fun and cheap. The line is already forming on Second Avenue. I'm hoping the partners will find a dream space to seed a clone in my neighborhood. Click here for the unfolding saga of Cascabel.
My friends and I had an orgy of excess at The Breslin, newest hottie from chef April Bloomfield and her partner Ken Friedman, who expresses himself unashamedly in flea market clutter. It has turned the Ace Hotel into a kind of hip Grand Central Station and shabby West 29th Street into a modish destination. For more on what we ate and why it's worth some effort to get a table, click here to read This Little Pig Spotted Again.
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After a Flick
Compass is one of our local after-movie hangouts. Clearly
 many of our neighbors on the Upper West Side have discovered the polished service and tasty cooking of chef
Milton Enriquez too. It's usually crowded. Or maybe they
come for the three pound $39 lobster - I watched a grey fox at the next table polishing off every morsel with relish in an hour of attack. We had walked in after 9 with no reservation.
"It will be 15 or 20 minutes for a table," the hostess told Steven.
"Tell her we'll eat in the bar," I called out from where I was checking my coat.
The woman looked up and saw me. "Oh, how nice to see you again," she said. "Just a minute." She disappeared into the dining room, returning a moment later. "Would you like a table or a booth?" she asked.
"That was a fast 20 minutes," I muttered.
I tried to figure out what happened. Was she trying to make Compass seem even busier? Was she only checking the room at 15 minute intervals and the next checkup wasn't due for awhile? Or did she suddenly recognize a restaurant critic (or whatever I am these days) and decide to find me a nice booth. It had a wide column that shut off a view of the room. We loved it and the chopped salad, Steven's cioppino (from the $35 dinner) and my truffled lobster and rabbit with marscapone starter that was so luscious it transcended its undercooked cavatelli. Have I ever complained that anything was troppo al dente before? The gift-wrapped muffins to take home have thrown my normally austere breakfast into carbo freefall.
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To Tweet or Not to Tweet
Could I possibly kick the Twitter habit? I'd need a Twitter patch or a powerful anti-depressant, maybe even medical marijuana because, make no mistake, Twittering is an addiction. I might have to join a book club to make up for my loneliness.
Actually Twitter has been very good to me. Besides bringing me pen pals who laugh at what I find funny and support my obsessions - we're not rid of gastro pubs yet but we tried - one of my "followers" invited me to a dinner cooked by Michel Bras. Of course I accepted. There I met New Orleans chef Scott Boswell
 and his wife who invited me to visit their revived city and let them show me around. And lately my tweet followers have been plying me with caviar.
First it was California Caviar; they sent six small jars and a tin of pressed caviar by Jacques Pepin, my all time favorite. It was a little stiff, not the voluptuous muddy sludge I remembered from Irongate days. But I loved their Russian Osetra, and the classic malossol farmed white sturgeon eggs.
Then came an email from a marketer for Kaviari. "My friend who follows you on Twitter says you are tasting caviar. Is it to late to send some?"
What a preposterous question. Caviar knows no curfew. That's how I discovered the briny gold and greenish eggs of their Kristal, farmed from a type of sturgeon raised in China. I have one jar left. Tomorrow for breakfast now that the Compass muffins are gone. Click here to follow me on Twitter. And to read some of my favorite tweets, click here.
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Ava's Butternut Squash Casserole
My friend Ava brought this flavorful casserole to my pot luck birthday party. She got the recipe from her friend Zora and added the roasted seeds to serve on the side. Zora thinks she found it in Food & Wine. If we stole it from you, please forgive us.
Serves 6 to 8 as a side dish
Preheat oven to 400
Peel and dice a butternut squash about 1 1/2 lbs. (4 to 6 cups)
Drain and rinse a can of chick peas
Slice a medium sized onion into thin half moons (1 cup)
3 Tablespoons of good curry powder
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
Toss all in a bowl until well oiled and mixed. Scrape into a baking dish.
Roast an hour or so until onions blacken and squash is tender, turning once.
Wash and roast lightly salted seeds to serve on the side
Yogurt Sauce
1 cup or more Greek yogurt
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
2 tablespoons lime juice
dash sugar to taste
Combine well, adjust lime & sugar to taste
| Photos of Beacon's oysters, lamb and other dishes, Maialino's artichokes and Compass' cioppino may not be used without permission from Steven Richter
| Fork Play copyright Gael Greene 2009.
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