Posted by Jenn Sit, July 23, 2008 at 3:00 PM
Meeting up with friends for food and drinks in the city always seems to end with me bemoaning the state of my ATM balance the next morning. Last weekend, my solution to going out without going broke was to skip the wine bars and take advantage of the beautiful weather by having a wine and cheese outing in Central Park. With wine from Trader Joe's and cheese and bread from East Village Cheese, it was a great way to catch up with friends, people watch, and most of all, relax.
Trader Joe's love is not an unknown sentiment on the pages of Serious Eats, but you can never sound enough praise for their three-buck-chuck. If you've never had it before, go out and buy a case—now. It goes for cheap, but doesn't taste like it, and will put your $10 Barefoot wine to shame. I met my friend in front of the NYU dorms on 14th Street, conveniently located next to the Trader Joe's Wine Shop. After picking up a bottle or two, we turned the corner at 3rd Ave and headed down to East Village Cheese to complete our Friday afternoon picnic.
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Posted by Ed Levine, July 26, 2006 at 8:16 AM
A good, bountiful cheese counter at a store like Fairway can sometimes produce cheese-choosing rigamortis, as there are just too many cheeses to choose from. So it's easy to end up with cheeses you know and love. Lately I've been bringing cheese to friends who invite us to their houses for the weekend, and I feel compelled to bring cheeses they haven't tried before.
Tucked away in the near right-hand corner of the Fairway cheese counter I discovered Lancaster County Bouche, which is a fantastic English-style cheddar from Pennsylvania.
Here's what Mr. Cheese himself, Steve Jenkins, says about the cheese on the computer-generated label: "Made from raw cow's milk, artisan, European style, cave-ripened cheddar type, from Wakefield Dairy in Pennsylvania. Outstanding flavor, butter, an American winner. Cheesemaker: Henry Lapp."
This is a great cheese to have for lunch with a Balthazar or Le Pain Quotidien baguette, or melted and grilled between two slices of a good Pullman loaf.
Fairway
Address: 2127 Broadway, New York, NY 10023 (map)
Phone: 212-595-1888
Website: fairwaymarket.com
Posted by Ed Levine, July 20, 2006 at 9:35 AM
When I brought my great white apricots to my friends on the east end of Long Island I also brought out some sensational cheeses, a wonderful, crusty loaf of bread, and some lomo, cured Spanish pork loin that is so satiny and flavorful it could give prosciutto de parma a run for its money.
In the middle of our third meal assembled from what I brought, my friend Tom said, "Man, we have eaten so well, and the great thing is we haven't done much cooking. All we did is assemble what Ed brought."
I guess that's my thing. I can cook all right, but I can assemble and forage better than just about anyone else I can think of.
Assembling in the summer in New York is easy. Our local fruits and vegetables are ready to be harvested, we get great West Coast stonefruit that if you look hard enough you can find tree-ripened juicy cherries, peaches, nectarines, and plums, there are so many first-rate cheese stores and departments around; and there is good bread to be had in virtually any big city in this country.
So here's what I've been using to assemble impromptu and delicious dinners:
1) lomo: That great Spanish pork loin that we served last weekend with quartered fresh figs. Fantastic!
2) Rare-Breed Smoked Ham: It's a slightly salty smoked ham that could go with a fresh melon or on a Balthazar baguette with a little French sweet butter.
3) French Feta: French Feta Cheese is flavorful, creamy, and much less salty than its Bulgarian or Greek counterparts. And there's no different brands to choose from. All French Feta is made by one company. Serve it with some vine-ripened tomatoes from the greenmarket. The tomatoes have been delicious this year.
Posted by Ed Levine, May 17, 2006 at 1:30 PM
I started thinking about this last week. Everyone loves the idea of a good, cheap neighborhood Italian restaurant, and we all like to believe we have one in our midst. But most often the neighborhood Italian restaurant we claim as our own really doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Either the ingredients used are sub-standard or the cooking is sloppy or the service is lousy. And just because the owner smiles at you and tries to make you feel at home doesn't make it a good restaurant.
But I do have one on the Upper West Side: Celeste. At Celeste the frying is deftly done, more than creditable Neapolitan pizzas come out of the woodburning oven, pastas are properly al dente and lightly sauced, and salads are made with good ingredients, especially given the modest prices. And they have one of the best Italian cheese courses in the city, thanks to the obsessive cheesemongering of Carmine, one of the owners.
Celeste's executive chef and co-owner Giancarlo Quaddalti also owns another good cheap Italian restaurant, Bianca, in the East Village. There he makes gnocco fritto, impossibly light pieces of fried dough he serves with prosciutto or stracchino cheese, his excellent lasagna, and an assortment of pastas and main courses that more often than not show a high degree of precision and skill.
My third good, cheap Italian restaurant is Franny's in Brooklyn. Husband and wife chef-restaurateur team Andrew Feinberg and Franny Stephens have justifiably become known for the terrific pizzas Feinberg and company turn out from the wood-burning oven, but Feinberg's crostini and salads show a skilled hand and a reverence for quality ingredients you don't often find in restaurants this moderately priced.
What about you? Do you have a good, cheap Italian restaurant in your neighborhood or town or city?
Celeste
Address: 502 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10024 (map)
Phone: 212-874-4559
Bianca
Address: 5 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012 (map)
Phone: 212-260-4666
Franny's
Address: 295 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217 (map)
Phone: 718-230-0221
Website: frannysbrooklyn.com
Posted by Ed Levine, May 11, 2006 at 5:44 PM
My friend John T. Edge was in town last weekend, and after a walking brunch in Chinatown (less than stellar dim sum at Jin Fong, great ribs at Big Wong and exceptional soup dumplings at Goodie's) we wandered into DiPalo Diary to see if Louis DiPalo was around. We walked into the store, and there was Louis behind the counter. Amazingly, there wasn't the usual sea of people crowded into the small space waiting to buy the wonderful array of cheese, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salumi that Louis and his family have been selling for almost a hundred years.
Louis said he was right in the middle of making a batch of mozzarella, and would soon return to take care of John T., who was looking for some Italian cheeses that would travel well enough for him to serve them to his wife for her birthday party in Mississippi. Five minutes later Louis came over to see us, washed his hands, and proceeded to give us a half-hour class on Pecorino Romano cheeses he had on-hand.
I am always transfixed by Louis' mastery of his subjects. His passion is infectious, and his knowledge and experience are equally impressive. Louis' prices are incredibly reasonable. He sells real balsamic vinegar for way less than other shops and on-line sources. He has about ten kinds of Italian canned and jarred tuna on-hand, and he can tell you more than you might want to know about every one of them. Louis is a national treasure, and I urge all of you who can to go down to the store. Call first to make sure Louis is there, and also make sure you are not in a hurry.
When you go to DiPalo's you aren't just shopping for food. You're taking a master class in artisanal Italian food products. DiPalo Dairy is at 200 Grand Street in NYC, ph: 212-226-1033. They will ship and take phone orders. They just don't have an on-line catalogue.
Posted by Ed Levine, March 23, 2006 at 12:45 PM
Someone e-mailed me asking about the expiration date on the Point Reyes blue cheese I raved about the other day. The package I currently have in my fridge (which I bought two days ago) has an expiration date of October 24, 2006. Not bad at all for such a good product. There's really no need to worry about the expiration date, because the stuff is so fine it never lasts in our fridge longer than three days.
