O.K. – It’s been a while since Mrs. Cheffer and I returned from New York, and I’m finally hungry.
We ate like it was a competition. We ate like the planet was running out. We ate like someone was trying to take it away.
We started eating before the wheels of the plane were up. After scrambling to get packed, deposit the children, finish work, and cross the border, we found ourselves with about an hour to kill before our flight. In Western New York. Pizza and wings anyone?? We bee-lined it to The Hacienda for a little blast from the past. Mrs. Cheffer and I both remember ‘The Hac’ from the ’80’s. The decor hasn’t changed, the uniforms haven’t changed, and thankfully the food hasn’t changed either. Loaded up on pizza, wings, and a few bottles of ‘Molson’s’, we were bound for the airport. No longer food grumpy, with a fine Western New York care package for Travis and Eleve.
As long as I’m chronicling food, the Dorito’s Snack Mix and Sprite courtesy of JetBlue was lovely.
Hello New York!
Monday…
10 am – coffee and cobbler courtesy of Travis and Eleve – (cobbler imported from West Lorne Ontario courtesy of Eleve’s mom)
1 pm – four slices of foccaccia ‘pizza’ from Mario Batali’s ‘Eataly‘ – one pea and tallegio, one roasted onion, one prosciutto and ricotta, one tomato and garlic. We took a few bites and passed to our right, looking like a bunch of jazz musicians passing joints, they were all delicious but the roasted onion emerged as the winner.
1:45 pm – girls are shoe shopping (Michael, don’t be jealous like that…) – Travis and I are hiking.
1:55 pm – papaya dog. What’s a trip to NY without a ‘two for a dollar’ boiled hot dog? One with onions and ‘papaya dog sauce’, one with ‘kraut (bite, bite, pass…)
2:15 pm – Kalustyan’s spice emporium. Didn’t eat anything, but almost fell over at the overwhelming selection of spices, oils, and ginger beer (Moscow Mules and Dark and Stormy’s are both in our future)
2:45 pm – ‘sloppy bao’ – Baoguette Bakery’s version of a sloppy joe bahn mi with curried ground beef. Mmmmmmm – this is a sammy that drips down your forearms.
4:00 pm – Warehouse wine and liquor – bought only as much as we could carry. Thankfully that turns out to be lots.
6:30 pm – enter ‘Fette Sau‘ (read: Fat Sow) a BBQ dive (and I mean dive in the nicest of ways) for smoked brisket, ribs, pulled pork and Berkshire sausages. BBQ man literally puts a cookie sheet on a scale and stops filling it when you say ‘when’. Sides included squishy white buns, German potato salad (awesome) and homemade 1/2 sour dills (less awesome, but still awesome) and the bar serves ice cold micro brews by the pint, quart, 1/2 gallon, or by the 1 gallon ‘growler’. “What’s a growler” you may ask? Picture a moonshine bottle from the old ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ days. You bring it all to bench picnic tables randomly studded with bottles of BBQ sauce and rolls of paper towels. I have found heaven – it’s just off of the L train in Brooklyn.
8:30 pm – 2 slices of super Sicilian pizza from the joint a few doors down from Fette Sau – I’m sorry pizza man, but I dodn’t record your name. You’ll be forever lovingly known as ‘that pizza place a few doors down from Fette Sau’ – I’ve been referred to by worse. Not that we were hungry, but this pizza looked sooooooooooo good that I knew in about 3 hours I’d wish I were eating it, so we took it to go.
11:30 pm – see ‘pizza’ above. Also see ‘Moscow Mules and Dark and Stormy’s from above’. Good Night.
Tuesday
10 am – coffee
10:05 am – bubbly, bread, cheeses, cured meats, olives. From NYC and abroad
1 pm – Lunch at the ‘Red Rooster‘ in Harlem. lobster salad, crispy chicken caesar (being blatantly ripped off for my lunch this coming Saturday at Thirty Bench) cornbread, shrimp and dirty rice, Cajun catfish, lamb with sweet potato and beets, fried yard bird, and truffle fries followed by sweet potato doughnuts and some coconut ice cream (bite, bite, pass). The hits of the day were the sweet potato doughnuts and the honey butter for the cornbread. Now, I don’t know if it was the best honey and the best butter on the planet, it may have been, but the combination of the two was one of the most spectacularly sweet and rich things I’ve ever eaten. The cornbread was simply the vehicle with which I drove the honey butter into my mouth. Thank you Red Rooster – the roots of American soul food taste gooooooooooooood.
4 pm – Cappuccino in Brooklyn after trying to burn off lunch by walking across the Brooklyn Bridge (bucket list item crossed off)
8 pm – Veuve Cliquot
8:30 – more Veuve Cliquot
9:45 – WD-50. Game On.
10 pm – 1 am – 1 – Fluke with black sesame, parsnip, green beans. 2 – Everything bagel with smoked salmon threads, crispy cream cheese. 3 – Foie gras with passionfruit, chinese celery. 4 – Poached egg with the shell (yes-ish), caesar dressing, pumpernickel, lily bulb. 5 – King oyster udon noodle with sweetbreads, banana-molasses, pickled ginger. 6 – wild card – added a tasting menu portion of Wylie Dufresne’s Eggs Benedict compliments of the kitchen. Now I feel like royalty. 7 – Tai snapper with onion tart, coffee, asian pear. 8 – Beef and bearnaise. 9 – Lamb loin, red beans and rice, chayote squash. 10 – Buttermilk ice cream with cumin, orange blossom. 11 – Grapefruit curd with hibiscus, campari, sorrel. 12 – Soft chocolate with beets, long pepper, ricotta ice cream.
How many mortgage payments was dinner for 2? 1.36 to be exact. Was it worth it? Hell yeah.
Wednesday
12 pm – coffee.
12:30 pm – coffee
1:30 pm – Goat tacos, Barbacoa tacos, chorizo tacos, shrimp tacos, Guacamole and Jarrito’s ‘pop’. (Bite, bite, pass) at Los Girasole’s in the Bronx.
2:30 pm – Arthur Ave, Bronx New York. The original Little Italy. Bought fresh pasta from Napoli Pasta Company – $2.49/lb, they cut it when you order it. Salami(s) from the Calabria Pork Store as well as fresh sausage (spice or no spice?), fresh mozzarella and ricotta from the marketplace, produce from a street vendor, pizza dough from the pizza shop.
4 pm – Pistachio and tiramisu gelato (lick, lick, pass).
7:30 pm – In the kitchen at Travis and Eleve’s in the Bronx – Pizza with tomato, fresh mozzarella, roasted ricotta, and basil. Pizza with clams and fresh sausage. Pizza with roasted onion (thanks for the inspiration Eataly). Sangria and Vino Blanco is flowing.
9 pm – Fresh pasta with sausage, wine, arugula and San Marzano tomatoes. Chianti begins to flow.
10 pm – 1 am – Watch marathon of Top Chef Masters on Bravo, eat leftovers from dinner.
Thursday
10 am – Coffee
12 pm – JFK airport – 1/2 lb cheeseburgers from ‘Cheeburger, Cheeburger, Cheeburger’ at the airport. Ate them on the plane much to the jealousy of the other passengers. Noted that each ‘cheeburger’ was 800 calories. Did some math. If I’m on a healthy adult male diet of 2700 calories a day, I could have one of those burgers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and still have room for a shake. No?
3 pm – Home. Craving a salad, I’m not gonna lie
Chow.