Fork Play February 3, 2010
To Salt or Not. Colicchio & Sons. Lobster Deal. Whimsical Valentines. Heavenly Cakes.
Dear Friends and Family,
Cutting down on salt seemed a cinch just two weeks ago when I wrote about the amazing salt-free dishes Waldy Malouf drew out of his wood-burning oven at Beacon for our
 friend on a salt-free diet. Mayor Mike had just singled out salt as the city's new public enemy. I thought once talented and determined chefs stirred their imaginations, they too could cut back on salt. Many food processors and fast food chains were already focused on how to boost flavor with less.
It will be easy, I told myself. If Kellogg's cuts down on the salt in my All-Bran and the yogurt people join the campaign, I can enjoy bacon on my burger and the chowders I love so much. Does cream have sodium? I haven't a clue. I never dreamed that a large clam chowder might have 3,100 milligrams of sodium - as Ariel Kaminer reported in Sunday's Times after she sent a baggy load of the Oyster Bar's best to a lab for a tally. As for Shake Shack's double burger with fries and a shake: 1980 milligrams. Katz's corned beef
 sandwich with mustard and pickles was the killer at 4490 milligrams. The new terror.
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Tom's New Reality Show
I liked the macho industrial look of Craftsteak and I like whatever subtle changes architects Bentel and Bentel have conjured to "warm" it up for a new life as Colicchio & Sons. When it's full, as it was the fourth night of its re-incarnation, it has snap and energy and doesn't need to be intimate, though I'd prefer a contented hum to this ricocheting din. What counts most though, I liked everything we ordered - from exquisite poached hamachi and splendid sweetbreads to gnocchi with an esculent entourage of marrow, chestnuts and black truffle. To read more about Colicchio & Sons and what I ate that missed the mark in the less expensive Tap Room, click here.
La Mangeoire has been on Second Avenue so long, I've stopped seeing it. But hearing that Christian Delouvrier had moved into the kitchen to tweak the house's Provencal cooking reminded me of his great triumph at Lespinasse in
 the St. Regis. The legend of Gray Kunz perfectionism still haunted the kitchen after he was forced to leave in a snit over the union. Somehow, the act of stepping into Kunz's four star shoes inspired Delouvrier to discover depths of talent he didn't know he had. I wrote "Born-Again Christian" for New York in November of 1998 and posted it recently on my web site. Click here to read it.
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Stalking Martha
My Twitter addiction only gets more obsessive. In the last few weeks I seem to be attracting a flutter of followers. Closing in on 10,000. You who are immune cannot imagine
 the simple pleasure I get from these anonymous pals who laugh at my jokes, re-tweet my twitterings to their own followers and occasionally tell me how brilliant I am. I'm still trying to catch up with Martha Stewart, whose following is fast approaching two million. Don't worry. This fixation does not consume me. It amuses me. Does Martha feel me breathing hot behind her? Last week she tweeted her determination to reach two million followers this week. She has 1,881,714 right this minute. I will not be discouraged. Tweet on!
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Lobster Deal
These are uncertain times for writers. Publications are disappearing. Print is in peril. Magazines are anorexic and shrinking further. On the Internet everyone wants us to write for glory and a link rather than money. I am amazed how many writers rush to throw their words into the blogosphere
 without pay. The good news is that at my website, InsatiableCritic.com, I am seeing signs of a recovery: Prestigious new advertisers and renewals from our faithfuls. How do I handle the precarious emotions of reviewing or gossiping about an advertiser? Just as I always have, I hope. A pat when it's good and a pan when it's bad. And when an advertiser does a promotion or a product that is brilliant, I'll let you know. Uncertain times for writers happen to coincide this week with good times for lobster lovers. Ed's Chowder House is offering my readers an "exclusive" - a 2 lb. lobster with the fixings, red bliss potatoes and cole slaw for $29.95. It's not on the menu. You must ask for "Gael's lobster deal." Click on the ad in the left hand column for more information.
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Whimsical Valentines
If your Valentine covets vintage kitchenware and old grocery tins, come check out what I'm de-accessioning from a lifetime of insatiable collecting. Some of the items in the photo (click here) have already been sold but I have unpacked two more boxes that went into storage when I sold the little church on the hill in Zena. There is also a rusting iron rooster weathervane and a whimsical iron watermelon slice - both of them mounted. And a Steuben apple engraved "David N. Dinkins, Mayor." Email me.
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More is Just Enough
The cover of "Rose's Heavenly Cakes" by Rose Levy Beranbaum (Wiley $39.95) actually looks like a Valentine
 pastry. Those of us who first dared to layer a cake or sharpened our baking skills with "The Cake Bible" will be hungry for more. Devil's Food Cake with Midnight Ganache. Mud Turtle Cupcakes. Apple Caramel Charlotte. One hundred cakes. One hundred color close-ups. I have been using it myself as food porn. Just turning the pages can be satisfying if you're watching carbs anticipating your next appearance in a bikini. At which point I should mention dermatologist David Colbert's book, "The High School Reunion Diet: Lose 20 Years in Thirty Days" (Simon & Schuster $23). In the voice of a coach/cheer leader, the book charts the way to healthier eating. I have a school reunion myself this year. Perhaps I could alternate a week on chocolate with a week of
 Greek yogurt and stun my classmates.
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The Road Food Warrior
And for the readers who asked to see what the Road Food
Warrior looks like, here's a photo I took on the houseboat we rented to explore Lake Powell. Well, yes, that was a few years ago, but when I squint, he still looks almost the same.
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Photographs of Beacon's salt free dishes, sweetbreads at Colicchio & Sons and La Mangeoire may not be used without permission from Steven Richter
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Fork Play copyright Gael Greene 2010.
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