Ironic Cookies

I’m really getting into this whole “doing nothing” thing. So far I’ve seen A LOT of TV, played some mindless games on the Play Station, did a bit of reading and some organizing of things around the house.
I should also get back to baking, and do something with yeast maybe… In the meantime, while I was organizing things I found a whole bunch of M&Ms that were leftover from a game that was played during my baby-shower. I decided to put them into cookies, and looked for a recipe that would work well. Inspired by Baking Bites, I thought that a chocolate cookie might work better (or at least be tastier) than a regular chocolate chip cookies. I found a good recipe for triple chocolate cookies in Cook’s Illustrated which resulted in what I called “Ironic Cookies”: The batter itself is way chocolaty and indulgent, but then, instead of good quality chocolate chips, you have the M&Ms. It’s a weird combination, but when the cookie is hot it works well since you have the crunch of the M&M shell, and then the chocolate inside is completely melted.

THICK AND CHEWY TRIPLE-CHOCOLATE COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (10 ounces)
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt
16 ounces semisweet chocolate , chopped
12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (about 2 cups)
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons instant coffee or espresso powder
10 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/4 sticks), softened
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar (10 1/2 ounces)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (3 1/2 ounces)

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl; set aside.

2. Melt chocolate in medium heatproof bowl set over pan of almost-simmering water, stirring once or twice, until smooth; remove from heat. Beat eggs and vanilla lightly with fork, sprinkle coffee powder over to dissolve, and set aside.

3. In bowl of standing mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat butter at medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 5 seconds. Beat in sugars until combined, about 45 seconds; mixture will look granular. Reduce speed to low and gradually beat in egg mixture until incorporated, about 45 seconds. Add melted chocolate and chips in steady stream and beat until combined, about 40 seconds. Scrape bottom and sides of bowl with rubber spatula. With mixer at low speed, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Do not overbeat. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature until consistency is scoopable and fudgelike, about 30 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, adjust oven racks to the upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Leaving about 1 ½ inches between each ball, scoop dough onto parchment-lined cookie sheets with 1¾-inch ice cream scoop.

5. Bake, reversing position of the baking sheets halfway through baking (from top to bottom and front to back), until edges of cookies have just begun to set but centers are still very soft, about 10 minutes. Cool cookies on sheets about 10 minutes, slide parchment with cookies onto wire racks, and cool to room temperature. Cover one baking sheet with new piece of parchment paper. Scoop remaining dough onto parchment-lined sheet, bake, and cool as directed. Remove cooled cookies from parchment with wide metal spatula and serve.

Free Time

Amazingly enough... I have lots and lots of free time now.

Trying to avoid using it all flipping channels on the TV, I decided to try to delve into the TED database and see/hear some interesting talks.

I'll try to avoid posting all the interesting ones, and maybe just post a list of the ones I liked the most. However, I do want to share this one. I think both the artists and the scientists among you will like it, and I'll say right now that there's a punch line at the end, so it's worth sticking around for the entire 13 minutes.

Merry Christmas

It hard to convey just how much Christmas has been all around us for the last couple of weeks. The closest thing I can think of is the amount of Passover hype you get in Israel. In fact, it dawned on me during Hanukah that the dissonance I’m feeling from all the Christmas hype (conveniently referred to as “The Holiday Season” to be non denominational) is probably how Arabs in Israel feel before and during Passover.

The main problem with the analogy is that unlike Christmas, Passover doesn’t have its own unique colors, scents and flavors, so the hype around Passover blunt but limited. Christmas hype is not: Not only do commercials refer to “Holiday Sales”, but also all the merchandise is suddenly either green or red, and every chain store offers things that are cinnamon and/or eggnog scented or flavored.

Another difference is the extent to which people embrace holiday symbols. Starting about two weeks ago you could already see women with tree broaches and ornament earrings. Can you really imagine anybody walking around with a necklace with a silver matza as a pendent? Maybe it’s because Christmas is a happier holiday (celebrating someone’s birthday is nicer than celebrating exile and a 40 year hiking trip) or maybe it’s because the Jewish people are just naturally more cynical (see “Shit Happens” for a comprehensive comparison of world religions).

But, just as in Thanksgiving (and during black Friday) we decided to embrace the culture around us. The problem was we were unclear as to what Jews in the US do at Christmas. A short quantitative study which included both focus groups and one-on-one interviews led us to the conclusion that Jewish tradition is to order Chinese take-out.

So that’s what we did last night. We had some friends over, ordered too much Chinese food (i.e. We’ll be eating Chinese on Christmas day, not just Christmas Eve) and enjoyed the night. We were also planning on watching Bill Maher’s Religolous (did someone say cynical?), but since one of the guests already saw it, we ended up watching someone else. Overall a fun night. A tradition we can likely embrace.

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Happy Festival of Lights

Since we didn't really celebrate Hanukkah, we took the time in NYC to note the celebration of the festival of lights:

To follow up on yesterday's promise, here's some pictures from our adventures in the city:

And finally - some pictures of us, just in case you've forgotten what we look like :)

The longest post ever

Being Big Apple veterans, we decided that this time we want to explore a different side of the city – the outer boroughs. The idea was prompted by an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservation where Tony visited restaurants outside of Manhattan. It all looked very yummy, like a more sophisticated and less greasy episode of Diners Drive Ins and Dives. The decision was then solidified by the fact that being in Manhattan means that we never spend enough time with our friend Boaz who lives in Queens and by the fact that our friend Eitan just moved into an apartment in Brooklyn. And last but not least – the last nail in the Manhattan coffin (or the last planet to align, for those of you who want to go with the more positive metaphor) is that we weren’t able to stay with marc and Wolly in their apartment in Manhattan, and had to opt for cheaper accommodations.

We found those accommodations on a website called AirBnB.com. The site connects between people willing to rent out their apartments or rooms in their apartment for short term stays with those looking for such accommodation. All in all pretty cool – the place was very reminiscent of what you would picture an apartment in Florentine to look like. Though staying in a stranger’s room, without them really clearing it out for you is a bit bizarre. In hind sight, we might be getting a little old for that kind of stuff, but in the whole “one last hurrah” thing, this is certainly the last time I’ll be willing to take on an adventure like that in order to save a few bucks.

I chose an apartment that was 20 minutes walk from Eitan’s place, which he told us is in a very nice part of Brooklyn. But as in every big city, 20 minutes can make a big difference. Apparently, Williamsburg Brooklyn is divided between north (nice, rich newly renovated apartments, with a lot of artists hanging out in cafés) and south (a little dingy, older apartments with a lot of ultra-orthodox Jews walking the streets). After 2 nights staying in the apartment we were in, I think I found the perfect analogy: that picking the apartment we did was like randomly picking a place to stay in Neve Tzedek in Tel-Aviv, without knowing if you’ll get one of the new rich houses or a an old man’s dump.

Living in Brooklyn meant we had whole new subway experiences – one highlight was riding on the 7, which runs above ground from Brooklyn to Queens. During the ride we got a glimpse of an entire lot (I don’t know what it actually was, maybe warehouses) that was full of super cool graffiti. It was like being in the 80s.

As far as what we actually did – well, it wasn’t all in the boroughs, and most of it wasn’t very touristy:

We went to a taping of The Daily Show (you can see the episode here)

We walked around midtown to see the festival of lights in Rockefeller Plaza and the area. This is a bit touristy, but still very pretty. The only thing that took away from our enjoyment was the fact that it was FREEZING!!! Seriously – by the time we got back home I had frost bite on my legs and taking a warm shower actually hurt!

We also spent an entire day with Eitan & Racheli in New Jersey at the IKEA and at an awful outlet mall that had so many Israelis, it was scary. This included a young couple I spotted in the Tommy Hifiger store, that had an amusing conversation about the fact that since there were handbags on sale there for $10, they would buy 10, so as to resell them in Israel.

As always, the biggest part of our trip was the food – the list is long, so you might want to take a brake:

1. Momofuku – a cool novo-Asian place, headed by a Korean chef that now has about 3 restaurants across town. We ate lunch at Momofuku Ssam, the most casual of the bunch. It was delicious. Asian flavors, but with a lot of originality and some non-Asian ingredients. The pork buns there are very well know, but we also really enjoyed the apple kimchi salad and the rice cake entrée (the combination of the two was fantastic).

2. L’Ecole – a restaurant run by students of the French Culinary Institute. Our money would have probably been better spent elsewhere, despite Eitan’s 15% discount.

3. Sachis Arepas – This is a place I found on Yelp, and I was pretty excited since I had heard of arepas a few times in the past few months, but I had no idea what good arepas tasted like. They are corn-flour based bread that are stuffed with various things (sort of like pita bread). The corn flour used is very fine, so they don’t have the rough texture that’s usually associated with corn. The restaurant fulfilled every expectation I had. It was absolutely delicious – very simple, and not very expensive, but flavorful and just yummy.

4. Sea – This is a night-club like Thai restaurant that has an atmosphere that was way too cool for us, but food that was really good and fairly priced. The fairly priced part was especially nice, because we ordered a large variety of small dishes and could really enjoy all kinds of dishes without thinking too much about it.

5. Temple Canteen – this was the place we (well, I) chose to go to from Bourdain’s show. It’s an Indian Restaurant located in the basement floor of a Hindu temple. Of course the signs caused us to walk around the block once before finally asking someone were the place is. I thought it might be a screening process or a ritual that outsiders had to do (sort of like in Buddhism one must circle mountains to become more divine). This was a surreal experience, partly because the place was virtually empty. The food was good; though I think the dosa, which I was most looking forward to, wasn’t fresh (otherwise I don’t know how to explain that it wasn’t crispy). Everything was super spicy, but good enough to be worth the heartburn.

6. Jefferson Diner – Lucky thing Uri’s cell phone fell out of his coat pocket at the IKEA. And equally lucky that we were stuck for a whole hour in the 2 miles between Mott and the entrance to the Holland Tunnel driving back to IKEA to get the cell phone before heading back to Ithaca. If it weren’t for these two things, we would have been half way to Ithaca by diner time. But since both those things did happen, we were only about an hour away from Jersey, close enough to a diner that appeared on Diners Drive-ins and Dives to detour a bit from the highway to try another place. From the outside the place looks like a million other diners (so much so that Uri and I spent several hours arguing whether we had been there before or not – I was right, we weren't). Just like many other diners, Jefferson has a super long, all over the place menu that doesn't seem too promising. BUT (notice, it’s a big but) the food was really good: Uri had a hamburger that was very juicy, while I ordered the mousaka (see it being made here) that was good in itself, but was also served with fantastic salad (I ate the salad and took the mousaka home).

And that’s it – from there we were on our way home…

Tomorrow: This post will be updated with pictures. Now I'm going to sleep.

One Last Hurrah

The semester finally ended (Yey! Only one more to go!). A few weeks from now, nothing will be the same, so we decided we want to take a final vacation that’s “just us two”.

Business before pleasure – we headed from Ithaca to the Boston area to visit people down in Cranberry Land. Why make a 6.5 hour drive to say hello? Well, when looking for a job offer, it’s always good to remind people who you are, how great you were and how perfect it would be if you worked at a company full time. And it’s always easier to communicate all of those personally than via email. This is not to say that I told anybody that I came especially for that. That would seem pathetic, or at least really desperate. (It’s still TBD whether I am that desperate).

Small side-note here on the fact that the 6.5 hour drive was actually an 8 hour drive due to stormy weather conditions. And at this point in time I’d like to say that Uri is an awesome driver.

A few tales from our time in New England:

We were there all of two nights, so we stayed over at a friend’s house in Tiverton, RI. This friend, who I met over the summer, recently bought a terrific house on the shore. It was pretty amazing waking up every morning, with the sun raising and boats going back and forth in the harbor. It was like a scene from some movie.

Food wise it was a great success: The first night we had diner in Providence, RI at a place recommended on yelp called East Side Pocket. We’ll second the recommendation – very good dolmas (stuffed grape leaves), good falafel very nice atmosphere. The owner, who seemed to be Lebanese (they were Christian Arabs) recognized our Hebrew, and spoke with us a bit in Hebrew (BeTeavon and all that). Providence is really scoring high with us on the foodie scale. If anything comes through with the cranberry folk, it might just be a serious contender for a living option.

Lunch the following day was bought at a little sandwich place in the heart of cranberry land that we discovered during the summer.

The next diner was in Boston, with our friends Ashley and Dan who have a passion for food very similar to our own (Check out the link in Dan's name, it's the blog he's writing about his experiences in culinary school). We trusted them to make the decision as to where to go, and they did not disappoint. They did say though that it was a bit stressful having that weight on their shoulders. Anyway, we went to a restaurant in Chinatown that was likely one of the most authentic that I’ve been to in the US. It’s called the Gourmet Dumpling House, though they make much more than just dumplings. Some of the dishes really had that “China Flavor” that is everywhere in China. Since Dan is very adventurous with food, and Uri never says no to food, we ordered some pretty strange stuff, including fried intestines (the most Chinese tasting dish) and a spicy fish stew for which a whole live fish was fished out of a fish tank that was near us. We had dessert at a place called Finale.

Lunch the following day was in Providence too, through technically it was on the “on the way to New York City” leg of the trip. We went to a place called Louis’ Restaurant, which Uri saw on one of his favorite food shows – Diner’s Drive-ins and Dives (you can see a the clip from the show here). It was ok, nothing more nothing less. The place certainly has a lot of character, and I could see how some locals might make it their local hang-out, just because the people seem nice and the food is American-comfort food )i.e. lots of tomatoes sauce and cheese), but the food itself is nothing to write home about, so I won’t.

Tomorrow – Part 2 of our vacation – NYC like we’ve never seen it before.

Brrr

I’m sitting at a local café called Mate Factor. Interesting group of people that I haven’t completely made my mind up about. I’m here supposedly studying for my final final. Subject: Macroeconomics and International trade.

I don’t know if it’s the subject matter, the pregnancy, the hour or what but it seems I’ve completely lost my ability to concentrate on studying for more than 30 minutes. It’s a good thing there is no free-wi-fi here, otherwise I wouldn’t have studied at all. As it is, I’m just getting around to writing a post.

Events from the past week:

(1) Winter has finally arrived. It started with a snowstorm the night between Monday and Tuesday. We woke up on Tuesday to a totally white Ithaca. However the snow melted pretty quickly because Tuesday wasn’t actually that cold. Then today, the cold arrived.

It’s amazing how I managed to forget just how cold it can actually get here. I guess it’s sort of like how women forget how painful labor was.

(2) Sunday a few friends at school through me a baby shower. It was actually a pretty big event, as showers go apparently – about 30 girls in all. It was really fun, getting everyone together, getting gifts… I didn’t realize before hand, but apparently part of the whole shower tradition is that is thrown by friends of the mother to be in honor of the woman, so she is not expected to do anything of it. In fact, it is often thrown as a surprise party. That “don’t be involved” part was a bit strange for me. I have a hard time with people doing that type of stuff for me without me helping at all. I finally convinced the organizers to let Uri make muffins, and, unknown to them, I helped him out. (pictures will be uploaded at a later time)

Events for next week:

We’re heading out of Ithaca for the week. First we’ll head to Boston, mainly so that I could have a chance to meet with some people at Ocean Spray (if any of you have forgotten, I am looking for a job for post-graduation). Then we’ll head down to NYC to visit friends, eat in some good restaurants and just generally be in a city with more than 1 high-raise.

After that we’ll head back to Ithaca and we’ll be here pretty much the entire time. I hope I’ll be able to bring myself to leave the house when in get cold.

Thanksgiving, belated

Procrastinating as usual, I put off writing a post during Thanksgiving day. I told myself that I might as well let the whole weekend pass and then put something up that covers the whole 3 days. Sure enough, I not only let the entire weekend pass, but also the entire week that followed.

Some of you might remember last year’s Thanksgiving post. It was already snowing outside and we attempted to host a Thanksgiving dinner. Uri made a beautiful big bird, as well as a ton of other food. We invited people over, but in the end almost no one came. It turned out that “Thanksgiving Dinner” is actually Thanksgiving lunch, and that if you invite people over for 6 pm, they’ll all cancel because that’s just about the time they pass out due to the enormous amounts of food they ate.

This year we decided, in the spirit of the holiday, to see how the natives do it. We accepted an invitation extended by some friends. Uri still made the bird (again it came out beautiful and delicious – thank you Alton Brown). Tamar made a cranberry coffee cake with rosemary strusel, a variation on a blueberry coffee cake from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from my home to yours (recipe at the end).

It was a very nice and international meal. The hosts were the only Americans. Guests included: 3 Cambodians, 3 French people , 3 Japanese people and 3 Israelis.

Why 3 you ask? Well… because Eitan was here! Last time Eitan was here, Uri and him got a little crazy in the kitchen. This time, they got a little crazy in the living-room, spending a ridiculous amount of time playing with the Playstation. By the end even Uri admitted that it was a bit like being 16 and having a sleepover. All in all it was a very fun weekend.

Now, a week later, I'm done with classes, I have one final and a few papers and then - that's it! The semester will be done, and I'll be free to nest (and blog).

Last but not least - as promised, the recipe for the coffee cake

Cranberry crumb cake

Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From my home to yours

For the crumbs:

5 tbsp unsalted butter at room temp

1/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup light brown sugar (packed)

1/3 cup all purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1 tsp chopped rosemary (my addition)

For the cake:

3 tps cranberry sauce (originall:1 pint (2 cups) blueberries (preferably fresh, or frozen, not thawed))

2 cups plus 2 tsp all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

2/3 cup sugar

grated zest of 1/2 lemon or 1/4 orange

3/4 stick (6 tbsp) unsalted butter at room temp

2 large eggs, at room temp

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup buttermilk

preheat oven to 350. butter an 8-inch square pan and put it on a baking sheet.to make the crumbs: put all the ingredients except the nuts in a food processor and pulse, then add nuts and pulse again just until the mixture forms clumps and curds and holds together when pressed. piece of plastic wrap against the surface. refrigerate until needed. (covered well the crumb mix can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.)

to make the cake: whisk together the remaining 2 cups flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

working in the bowl of a stand mixer or in another large bowl, rub the sugar and zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and aromatic ( I didn’t do this). add the butter and, with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat the sugar with the butter at medium speed until light, about 3 minutes. add the eggs one by one, beating for about 1 minute after each addition, then beat in the vanilla extract. don’t be concerned if the batter looks curdled — it will soon smooth out. reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture and the buttermilk alternately, the flour in 3 parts and the buttermilk in 2 (begin and end with the dry ingredients.) you will have a thick, creamy batter. If using berries: with a rubber spatula, gently stir in the berries.

scrape the batter into the buttered pan and smooth the top gently with the spatula. Dollop cranberry sauce on batter and, using a sharp knife of toothpick, make swirls in batter. pull the crumb mix from the fridge and, with your fingertips, break it into pieces. there’s no need to try to get even pieces — these are crumbs, they’re supposed to be lumpy and bumpy and every shape and size. scatter the crumbs over the batter, pressing them down ever so slightly.

bake for 55 to 65 minutes, or until the crumbs are golden and a thin knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. transfer the cake to a rack and cool just until it is warm or until it reaches room temperature.