Lisa Gross

SPICE WORLD--Tasty Vegetarian on Curry Hill (NY PRESS)

2006-06-07T20:52:00.000-07:00

Vegetarian dining shouldn’t mean eating under-seasoned, undercooked food. And yet, many vegetarian restaurants suffer from a fear of salt and a love of dried out brown rice. Not so at Saravanaas, a South Indian vegetarian restaurant in “Curry Hill,” where everything is bursting with flavor, and you don’t feel like you need a second meal after you’ve eaten.

Saravanaas is the first East Coast franchise of the Chennai-based chain Saravana Bhavan. In order to claim this name, a branch must hire a team of cooks trained at the Chennai headquarters, making Saravanaas one of the most authentic South Indian restaurants in New York. The proof is in its clientele: Young, chattering Indians pack the place at all hours.

The space is bright and open and the walls are hung with fuscia and saffron cloths studded with fake flowers. The shiny, blond wood tables are constantly rearranged to accommodate the large groups flowing in and out. Much of the menu consists of a variety of bread-like items that come with a soupy lentil dip and three types of chutney—cilantro, tomato and coconut. The plain idlis ($3.95) are small, round, spongy patties made from lentil and rice flour. They’re soft and chewy—perfect for sopping up the dipping sauces. The dosas, thin crispy crepes, are some of the city’s best. For a dramatic presentation, try the potato and onion filled Masala dosa ($7.50). Your friends will be impressed when a two-foot long dosa in the shape of a large cylinder arrives before you. Or try the vegetable dosa ($8.25), a flattened crepe in the shape of a triangle filled with seasoned mixed vegetables. This is finger food, so don’t be afraid to eat it with your hands. The tomato onion uttappam ($6.95), a thicker pancake dotted with tomatoes and onions is a bit too oily and bland for my taste, as is the Adai Avail ($8.95), yet another kind of lentil pancake.

Ordering the thalis is the best way to try a range of South Indian dishes. A thali plate consists of a large bowl of rice surrounded by a variety of curries, chutneys and pickles. The South Indian thali ($13.95) comes with a bowl of rice and 11 small dishes filled with two kinds of yogurt, several kinds of vegetable curry and a sweet desert dish—usually something flavored with cardamom. It also includes two chappathis—flat Indian bread, and a fantastically crispy pappad.

If you don’t order a thali, it’s worth getting a side order of pappad for $1.95. The dishes in the thali balance each other nicely, and it really feels like a feast. The Business Meal ($11.95) is similar, but smaller, and features a poori (fried fluffy whole wheat bread served with mashed potato gravy) instead of a chappathi. The Mini Meal focuses on three different kinds of rice (yogurt rice, sambar rice and a special rice of the day) with a curry and a dish of pickles for accents. The Mini Tiffin ($8.95) features a mini Masala dosa, a mini sambar idli and rava kichadi, a semolina porridge.

Conclude your meal with a hot beverage. The milk tea is a well-spiced authentic chai (you have to sweeten it yourself), and the Masala milk is a soothing cup of warm milk seasoned with cardamom, honey, ground almonds and pistachios. The Madras coffee comes in a small metal cup that sits in a metal bowl. It’s a strong brew mixed with cream and topped with a dollop of milk foam. Put a few packets of sugar in the bowl, pour the coffee in, then pour it back and forth a few times to mix in the sugar and to cool it down, and it’s ready to drink.

You don’t have to be a vegetarian to fall in love with Saravanaas. If you appreciate fresh, tasty food, you’ll feel right at home.

Saravanaas

81 Lexington Ave. (at 26th St.)

212-679-0204

SCREAMING FOR ICE CREAM-Five of the best places to score the cold stuff (NY PRESS)

2006-05-24T20:28:00.000-07:00

Nothing says summer like an ice cream cone melting down your wrist. A scoop or two will turn any dour adult into a squealing child, and it’s no coincidence that ice cream is the most commonly cited comfort food among both sexes. Ice cream epitomizes easy pleasure. But there’s no reason to settle for average, tasteless glop or hard supermarket fare when New York is home to some of the best homemade ice cream around.

Il Laboratorio del Gelato on the Lower East Side is the place to go when you’re craving some black sesame in your life. If you’ve never had such a craving, it’s probably because you’ve never tried it. Owned by the founder of Ciao Bella, this tiny, immaculate, white shop is truly a lab for creating unique and unusual flavors of gelato—the Italian version of ice cream that’s frozen at a lower temperature and made from whole milk instead of cream. Their flavors change daily, so you can never be totally sure what you’ll get. The milk chocolate tastes like frozen hot cocoa. The malt is like a box of Whoppers and the green tea has the subtle bitterness of powdered matcha tea. Skip the blackberry, mint chip and vanilla; all are a bit too prosaic, especially when there are so many other exotic and delicious options. The fruit sorbets are robust and potent, though a little too icy for my taste. Tangerine has a concentrated citrus punch with just a tad of bitter zest. Honeydew is fresh, sweet and juicy, and the black grape actually tastes like a bunch of grapes, not “purple flavor.” The shop sits adjacent to the Tenement Museum, and you can bet that none of the building’s former residents would ever have imagined a gourmet gelato shop squatting next door.

Australian Homemade looks like it should be selling snowboards or sunglasses, but don’t let the surfer decor turn you away. Their ice cream is rich and creamy, and their sorbet is silky smooth. Their pear sorbet perfectly captures the taste and texture of a ripe pear, and the lychee flavor is like eating a bowl of the cold, juicy fruit. Their chocolate ice cream is a rich, dark chocolate, and the macadamia crunch is a more sophisticated pralines and cream. They also sell gourmet chocolate bon bons if you feel you haven’t indulged enough. The shop is right next to Tompkins Square Park, which makes it a perfect place to grab a cone to take on a stroll.

If you’re looking for some good old-fashioned American ice cream, check out Ronnybrook Farm Dairy in the Chelsea market. All their ice cream is made from fresh premium milk and cream that is produced in small batches at the Ronnybrook Farm Dairy in Ancramdale, N.Y. This is the best place to get the classic, hard, creamy ice cream of your childhood. But stick to the basics: vanilla or chocolate. The “Hudson Valley Vanilla” has a strong flavor of real vanilla bean, not just a cheap flavoring, and “Sid’s Chocolate Silk” is the perfect balance between milk and dark chocolate. The other flavors are all a bit too sweet or a bit too mild. The shop itself is an odd combination of farm kitsch and fluorescent-lit utilitarianism, so it’s best to take your scoop to go.

If straight up vanilla or chocolate just doesn’t do it for you, walk a few hundred feet to L’arte del Gelato (formerly Jimmy’s Gelato), a tiny stand hidden in the back of the Bowery Kitchen Supply. They make fresh gelato everyday, and it’s real Italian-style: each tub is topped with the flavoring ingredient (fruit, chocolate, coffee, etc.). Try the dark chocolate with chili pepper and get ready for some Aztec heat. The coffee tastes like a good cappuccino and the coconut is fruity, smooth and flavorful.

Cones is conveniently located a few doors down from Murray’s Cheese Shop, Amy’s Bread and Faicco’s Pork Shop in the West Village, making it the perfect place to get a snack when picking up a few gourmet goodies. The glass-fronted shop has an ’80s futuristic look, complete with large, fading light-box photos of grotesquely ornate sundaes and ice cream cakes. Thankfully, the gelato they serve doesn’t resemble the photos. The zabaglione is addictive and tastes exactly like a colder version of real zabaglione—rich egg custard with sweet Marsala wine. The Mate tea tastes like bubble tea without the tapioca pearls. Corn has the flavor of sweet, canned corn and the strawberry is pleasantly fragrant and tangy. Their chocolate, vanilla and coffee are all solid renditions of these classic flavors.

Though these five shops may be cursed with bad lighting and bizarre décor, each one offers a little taste of pure, unadulterated, frozen pleasure. And who sits in an ice cream store anyway? Ice cream cones are the most mobile of foods, meant to be eaten while strolling down the sidewalk on a hot summer afternoon, or perched on a park bench on a warm summer evening. So take your favorite flavor on the road—before it melts.

Il Laboratorio del Gelato
95 Orchard St. (at Broome St.)
212-343-9922

Australian Homemade
115 St. Marks Pl. (betw. 1st Ave. & Ave. A)
212-228-5439

Ronnybrook Farms Dairy
75 9th Ave. (at 16th St.), in Chelsea Market
212-741-6455

L’arte del Gelato
75 9th Ave. (at 16th St.), in Chelsea Market
212-366-0570

Cones
272 Bleecker St. (at Morton St.)
212-414-1795

BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE-Sinus-clearing at Grand Sichuan (NY PRESS)

2006-05-10T16:21:00.000-07:00

Grand Sichuan NY flirts with the feel of a suburban Chinese restaurant. Order from the “American Chinese” menu and the fantasy is complete. But order from the Sichuan half and your tingling taste buds will shake the reverie and plunk you down into Sichuan province (or at least, into one of the best Sichuan restaurants in New York). Part of the citywide Grand Sichuan empire, this modest Murray Hill branch stands a step above, even though it often falls into the shadow of its better known Chelsea sibling.

Since it’s not a destination restaurant (though it should be), you never have to wait in line. The crowd ranges from large groups of noisy Chinese men to middle-aged couples eating egg rolls and lo mein. The staff is friendly and attentive, but don’t expect them to explain the menu. It’s best to jump in blindly, which happily tends to work out.

Many Chinese restaurants purport to serve Sichuan dishes, but few prepare them the way they’re supposed to be made—laden with chilies and infused with the tongue-numbing smokiness of the Sichuan peppercorn. Chinese Five Spice, a fragrant mixture of star anise, cinnamon, fennel, cloves and the aforementioned peppercorn, is another favorite seasoning. Throw in some ginger and garlic, and you have a good sense of the pungent flavors of Sichuan food. Beware: It’s not for the timid.

Begin by sampling the whole spinach with fresh ginger sauce ($6.25), or the cucumber with fresh garlic ($6.25). Both dishes are served cold and offer a nice refreshing start to a spicy meal.

When ordering the main course, the path diverges in two—hot pot or an assortment of entrees. Hot pot is a wonderful dish when group dining. A large boiling pot of liquid is brought to the table and set on a gas range. You then order a variety of ingredients, which will all be cooked at the table. I suggest ordering the “half and half” pot—it’s the perfect yin and yang of cooking liquids. The pot is split in two—one side is chili oil seasoned with Five Spice, the other is a mild clear broth. For a group of four, seven to eight dipping ingredients is a good number.

Next you pick from meat (called “pork” on the menu), seafood ($6.25 an item) or vegetables ($3.00 a plate): the thinly shaven beef and pork cooks almost instantly and melts in your mouth; the dried Chinese sausage has a sweet, fruity flavor and the yolk of the tiny quail eggs turns molten in the broth; the fish balls have a nice, firm texture and subtle fish flavor; the Napa cabbage and pea shoots turn sweet when cooked, and the black fungus, a slippery and slightly crunchy mushroom, is a novel textural contrast. Other options include sliced lamb, beef balls, sea cucumber, shrimp, squid, clam, tofu, bamboo shoots, loofah, spinach, leek and winter melon.

If you’re feeling courageous, try the pork kidney, duck tongue, pork intestine or the truly mysterious “Luncheon Meat.” Choose a few dipping sauces ($1.95 each) like the garlic sauce, which is made from fresh-grated garlic and sesame oil, or the Sha Cha sauce, a spicy and fishy barbecue sauce. Ordering rice is a wise investment. Hot pot often feels like a feast, but on a recent night with three friends the dinner totaled $14.50 per person, including tip. There’s nothing better than a cheap gustatory extravaganza.

Even if you choose to forego the hot pot route, you won’t be disappointed. Braised beef fillet with chili sauce ($10.95) features thin, velvety slices of beef, simmered in chili oil, garlic and peppercorns, resting on a bed of cooked Napa cabbage. The tangy spice is addictive. For a milder dish, try the double-cooked pork with sweet bean sauce ($9.95) or the Guizhou spicy fresh chicken ($12.95). Both dishes are slightly sweet. Any chicken dish can be ordered with “fresh” chicken, which means freshly killed. Choose that.

Ma Po Tofu ($8.95), a classic of Sichuan cooking, is a comforting and tender tofu dish topped with chili oil and ground pork. The sautéed and dried string beans with minced pork ($8.95) is made from long, thin, Chinese-style string beans that are cooked to a chewy perfection. Sautéed pea shoots ($12.95) are mild and fresh.

Though you may not want to eat here before a hot date, a visit never fails to clear the sinuses or wake up the palate. Just make sure you have a beer or cup of tea in hand before you start. You’ll need it to extinguish the flames.

Grand Sichuan NY

227 Lexington Ave. (betw. 33rd & 34th St.)

212-679-9770

SUGAR, SPICE & EVERYTHING NICE-Tough gals turn sweet by baking brownies (NY PRESS)

2006-03-29T22:11:00.000-08:00

As soon as you enter the Sweet Things Bake Shop, the enchanting smell of baking cookies envelops you in its grip. There’s an old-fashioned feel to this tiny shop on Avenue C: glass vitrines stocked with cupcakes and cookies crowd the counter, an old enamel stove squats to one side and handmade aprons flutter in the sunny window.

Peek in the kitchen on a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon and the place takes on an even cozier picture. Girls ages nine to 17 weigh butter, crack eggs, mix batter and wash pots and pans—not a single Y chromosome to be found in the place.

The Girls Club of the Lower East Side owns the shop, which opened in 2004, and they use it to teach local girls about baking, cooking and running a small business. The heart of this program is a course called “Cooking Academy.”

Valerie Galindo, a former Girls Club member and a student at the Institute of Culinary Education, teaches the baking aspect of Cooking Academy.

She wears a white chef’s jacket and moves through the tiny kitchen with speed and confidence. On a recent afternoon, she showed her five eager students how to read a scale, how to prevent salmonella and, most exciting of all, how to make chocolate chip brownies from scratch.

Jodi Morrisson, a program volunteer and a business consultant for artists and nonprofits, teaches the business aspect of the course. She’s tall and young with dyed red hair and electric blue eyes.

“We sell a lot of brownies here at the bake shop? Why is that?” she asks the girls.

“Because they’re familiar,” answers Annise Ventura, a tough and articulate 13 year old with a baby face. “Everybody knows what goes into them. They know they’re good.”

“What can we do to sell more?” asks Jodi.

“Explain our product,” says Ventura. “Explain why it’s good.”

Morrisson teaches the girls about marketing, packaging, sales and customer relations. “Being nice is good business,” she explains.

The girls, in their hairnets and white, plastic aprons, nod their heads in agreement.

They are drawn to the program for a variety of reasons.

“Baking helps me release anger,” says Angelina Rosato, 13. She stands with her arms crossed and her lips pursed. “Instead of screaming or hitting something, I just bake at home.”

“I like the different tastes and ingredients you put into it—and the touch and the smells, “ says Christina Valentin, a shy 16 year old with kohl-rimmed eyes.

“I like being able to help own a business,” says Ventura. “As a little girl, I used to go to my cousin’s house everyday and we’d be bored, so we’d go out and make lemonade. We didn’t ask for money; we just gave it away. It was fun having a little place like that, and now I get to redo the experience without being that creepy 13-year-old still selling lemonade. Instead, I’m selling cookies at an actual, stable store.”

The club pays each girl a small stipend for finishing the course, and many graduates of the program go on to work in the shop during holidays, after school and over the summer. Lippy Khair (21, a former club member), Danyel Garcia (20, a baker in training) and Miladys Ramirez (the manager of the shop and the program) run the place from day-to-day. All profits go towards the organization, which is raising money for a new building.

The bakery is open Tuesday through Saturday, and neighborhood residents stream in and out at all hours of the day. Taste any one of their offerings and you’ll see why: The brownies are rich and chewy, the frosted cupcakes moist and flavorful and their whimsically decorated cookies melt in your mouth. Who says that learning can’t be sweet? And delicious, too.

The Sweet Things Bake Shop
136 Ave. C (betw. 8th & 9th Sts.)
212-982-1633

DAWNING OF A NEW AGE-Colors brings harmony, bliss to the restaurant biz (NY PRESS)

2006-03-29T22:03:00.000-08:00

With it’s dark mahogany walls, crisp white tablecloths, double-digit prices and art deco decor, Colors seems like any other upscale Manhattan restaurant. But underneath its veneer of luxury, a revolution’s brewing.

Colors is one of the first worker-owned co-operative restaurants in New York. Every employee at this brand new restaurant—from the busboy to the executive chef—owns an equal percentage.

Salaries start at $13.50 an hour and all decisions are made democratically. The name itself represents the diversity of the staff—which comes from over 25 different countries—and the menu, an elegant sampler of fusion recipes, is built around organic, seasonal produce.

I can almost imagine the activists panting and drooling at the windows, but they aren’t dining there because—hey, let’s face it—they can’t afford it. But that’s exactly what sets Colors apart from your average dirty-hippie co-op. The restaurant shows that progressive values don’t have to clash with luxurious living.

Colors is a project of the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York (ROC-NY), an organization that advocates for restaurant worker rights. The group was formed after 9/11 to provide support to displaced restaurant workers and their families; in particular, those who worked at Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center. Very quickly the organization evolved a larger mission—to improve labor practices across the board within the industry.

“It’s a very high exploitation industry—very low wages, very poor working conditions,” says Saru Jayaraman, the executive director of ROC-NY. “One percent of workers are unionized, 60 percent don’t make proper overtime wages and 90 percent don’t have health insurance.”

According to ROC-NY’s research, workers wages have stagnated at a median annual income of $19,500 over the last 20 years, while profits have simultaneously soared. Many workers are forced to work up to 80 hours a week in unsafe conditions and are forced to work when sick.

To make matters worse, discrimination is rampant throughout the industry. Seventy percent of restaurant workers in New York City are foreign born, yet the majority of high-paying “front of the house” jobs are filled by Whites, while the majority of low-paying “back of the house” jobs are filled by immigrants of color. Promotion from the back of the house to the front of the house is virtually impossible.

“The co-op is about showing that you can treat your workers well and pay them well and still make a profit. And also that workers can be owners and be successful” says Jayaraman.

“We want this to be a model for the rest of the restaurant industry,” says Stefan Mailvaganam, the stylish Sri Lankan-American general manager. “We are trying to establish a different way of doing things.”

In fact, ROC-NY’s research has shown that poor labor practices actually hurt profits. “[Frequent] turnover because of low wages and poor working conditions ends up costing employers,” says Jayaraman. “It also costs employers when workers are forced to come to work sick, which leads to sanitation and health issues. Our research shows that the same restaurants that egregiously violate labor laws egregiously violate the health code.”

Despite all the talk, Colors is still a long way from making a profit (though it’s only been open a little over a month). But its innovative practices are already making a difference in the lives of its workers.

“When I was working at T.G.I. Fridays,” says Alphonse Nzengui, a dishwasher originally from Congo, “I was doing my job, but sometimes it was very hard to be motivated because the salary was very low. I was doing what I had to do. Now it’s different. As an owner, I am very excited and motivated. Here, it’s something else.”

“Around here, everybody respects each other,” says Raymond Mohan, the executive chef. “At other restaurants, we had a front-of-the-house thing, back-of-the-house thing; everybody was separated. Here, it’s like we’re all in it together. So that helps a lot, when everybody’s in the same boat.”

And yet, the process of creating Colors hasn’t been all love, peace and good times. It took the group two-and-a-half years to find the necessary start-up capital, and a portion of the original group left the project because they felt the process was taking too long. Eventually, an organization of Italian co-operative restaurants decided to put up a large chunk of money, and a non-profit finance fund contributed the rest through a variety of different social purpose lenders.

“It’s been long and hard and challenging,” says Jayaraman. “I think most of us are happy, but the challenges continue. It’s not like we’ve been able to stop and celebrate. Now we have to keep a restaurant open, and we have to do it democratically, and that’s a huge, huge challenge. Already issues have come up about being a manager in a situation when the people under you are owners. It’s difficult. It’s a difficult balance.”

“The bottom line is that there are so many good things going on about this restaurant,” says Mailvaganam, “but really what we have to focus on is providing good food, great service and wonderful ambience. We need to get people to really love us just for what we are, as opposed to all the other things going on because that’s the only way you can survive.”

And that’s the big question: Can a restaurant like this survive? Only time will tell. But in the meantime, executive chef Raymond Mohan is serving up some Congolese seafood stew and some slow roasted pork; and Raphael Duran and Edgar Gutierrez, two eager and elegant waiters, are waiting to pour wine. Expect to spend a pretty penny for a taste; the warm and fuzzy feelings are on the house.

Colors
417 Lafayette St. (betw. Astor Pl & 4th St.)
212-777-8443

EATING OUTSIDE OF THE LINES-Chinese is much more than moo goo gai pan (NY PRESS)

2006-03-29T21:58:00.000-08:00

The Chinese New Year came and went, the last of the streamers swept off the Chinatown streets long ago. Maybe you ventured into the throng, watched the dragon dancers and ate dinner in Chinatown. Or you may have celebrated at your favorite neighborhood restaurant. Either way, odds are you ordered something Cantonese. But Cantonese cuisine is not the only option in this teeming city of immigrants. It’s merely one choice among many.

With all the options—Fujianese, Shanghainese, Sichuan or Hong Kong-style, to name a few—it’s hard to know where to start. To demystify things a bit, I’ll arm you with enough knowledge of Chinese regional cuisine to navigate a menu and, more importantly, impress your companion.

The history of Chinese food in America mirrors the history of Chinese immigration. The first Chinese who came to the U.S. arrived in the 1860s. At the time, China forbade emigration, and only those who lived in the British-controlled area of Guangzhou (commonly known as Canton) in Guangdong province were able to leave. Necessarily, Chinese food in America became synonymous with Cantonese cooking.

Things began to change, however, in 1965, with the lifting of the Asian immigration quotas. Immediately after, a new group of professionals from Taiwan and Hong Kong entered the country. Chinese refugees from Vietnam arrived in the late ’70s, and the next big wave of immigration occurred in the 1980s with the opening of the mainland. Large numbers of immigrants from Fujian settled in New York’s Chinatown, and other groups from Shanghai, Chongquing and Beijing, among others, settled in Flushing, Queens.

New York’s restaurant scene now features a happy amalgam of food from all over China, although most menus are still dominated by Cantonese fare. At the same time, most Chinese restaurants in New York serve a combination of regional favorites, acting much like diners that offer both linguine with clam sauce and bagels and lox.

“That’s what customers expect,” says Jacqueline M. Newman, the editor and founder of Flavor and Fortune, a magazine devoted to the study and appreciation of Chinese cuisine. “They’re in business to make money, not to be purists.”

And yet, understanding the strengths and specialties of different regions can lead to a much more exciting and rewarding dining experience, keeping in mind, of course, that every chef always has his own variations.

In general, Chinese cuisine can be broken up into four simple regions: North, South, East and West.

In the North—where wheat is the main staple—noodles, breads, dumplings and buns feature prominently. Beijing, of course, is known for its duck. But Mongolian hot-pot and Chinese-Muslim dishes such as grilled lamb with cumin and knife-cut noodles also originate in the North.

The province of Guangdong dominates Southern cuisine, and is the home of the aforementioned Cantonese cuisine. These dishes are often stir-fried or steamed and seasoned mildly with a touch of sweetness. Barbecue is popular, and many Cantonese restaurants hang their roasted meats in their front windows. Other common dishes include chow fun, chow mein, lo mein, pork spareribs with salt and pepper and congee (a rice-based porridge). The ever-popular New York brunch alternative, dim sum, with its many dumplings and small dishes brought around on carts, also originates in Guangdong.

Fujianese cusine, which hails from the Southeast, has spread through much of Chinatown, especially the area along East Broadway. Soups and soupy dishes are especially popular in Fujian, as is a red, fermented rice-mash, which is made from red brewer’s yeast and glutinous rice. A thick, sweet soy sauce is another common flavoring.

Hong Kong-style restaurants tend to feature large aquariums filled with fish and shellfish from which you can pluck your dinner. XO sauce is a Hong Kong specialty. The exact recipe is unknown, but its spicy and pungent flavor is thought to stem from garlic, chili pepper, dried shrimp and dried scallops.

Cooking from Jiangzhe, China’s Eastern coast, which includes Shanghai, tends to be sweeter and oilier than food from other regions. “Red Cooking” is one of the most popular ways to prepare food. It entails using soy sauce, rock sugar and star anise as a red glaze. Xiolongbao, or soup dumplings, are probably the most famous Shanghai dish. Other Eastern specialties include Lion’s Head (a large pork meatball cooked with napa cabbage, tofu and cellophane noodles) and Dongbo Pork—a sweet dish cooked with rock candy, cinnamon bark, soy sauce, star anise and rice wine.

Sichuan cooking, which comes from the West, is the second-most common Chinese regional cuisine in America. It’s known for its use of chili peppers and Sichuan peppercorns, though most Sichuan restaurants here don’t serve their dishes in their authentic, mouth-numbing glory. Beef filet with chili sauce, also known as water-boiled beef, is simmered in a bright red broth and served on a bed of nappa cabbage. Mapo Tofu is topped with fried ground beef in chili sauce, and Double Cooked Pork features a sweet, black bean paste.

This list, by nature, can only be a starting point. As the longest continual food culture in the world, Chinese cuisine is like China itself—vast, varied and constantly evolving. But ultimately, the best way to learn about Chinese regional cooking is to eat your way through it. It may take a lifetime, but it’s a tasty pursuit.

NORTHERN

Islamic Chinese:
Li Yuan Chun
133-43 Roosevelt Ave., Flushing 718-939-7788

Dumplings:
Fried Dumpling
99 Allen St.
212-941-9975

Dumpling House
118 Eldridge St.
212-625-1023

SOUTHERN

Cantonese:
Cantoon Garden
22 Elizabeth St.
212-964-2229

Big Wong King
67 Mott St.
212-964-0540

Dim Sum:
Dim Sum Go Go
5 East Broadway
212-732-0797

Oriental Garden Restaurant
14 Elizabeth St.
212-619-0085

Fujian:
Happy Fuzhou House
135-33 40th Ave., Flushing, Queens
718-358-1919

88 Reach House
88 Division St.
212-625-8099

Hong Kong:
Ping’s
22 Mott St.
212-602-9988

Gum Fung Restaurant
136-28 39th Ave., Flushing, Queens
718-762-8821

EASTERN

Shanghai:
Joe’s Shanghai
9 Pell St.
212-233-8888

Yeah Shanghai Deluxe
65 Bayard St.
212-566-4884

WESTERN

Sichuan:
Grand Sichuan
227 Lexington Ave.
212-679-9770

Spicy and Tasty
39-07 Prince St., Flushing, Queens,
718-359-1601

MOTHER STILL KNOWS BEST-The Korean at Kunjip Feels Just Like Home--in Seoul (NY PRESS)

2006-03-19T22:06:00.000-08:00

As my mother never fails to tell me, those who like soup will catch a good husband. Maybe back in Korea, but it’s a little bit trickier here in New York. Luckily, for those in search of a mate, the soups at Kunjip give you plenty of excuses to test this old adage for yourself.

Whenever I crave a home-cooked Korean meal like the kind my grandmother used to make, I get myself to Kunjip, a small traditionally decorated Korean restaurant on West 32nd Street. Young Korean transplants, with their artsy glasses and Burberry scarves, pack the place at all hours of the night, so clearly I’m not the only one who finds a taste of home.

One reason all us Korean (or half Korean) kids can’t resist the place is the banchan—the bevy of free dishes that crowd the table at the beginning of the meal. A cross between condiments and side dishes, you nibble on them before the entrees arrive (but as my mother has also told me a million times, don’t eat the spicy stuff on an empty stomach). You also eat them with your meal to keep things interesting.

Most Korean restaurants in America serve three or four dishes of banchan. Kunjip serves seven, including a stone bowl of boiling hot steamed egg topped with slivers of scallion. A good rule of thumb to keep in mind: The more authentic the restaurant, the more banchan they serve.

On my most recent visit to Kunjip, an exciting constellation of little dishes graced the table: one with dried squid coated with a sweet chili sauce; another with sesame seasoned summer squash; a third with thinly shaven lotus root in a sweet soy sauce marinade; and another with clear noodles sautéed with vegetables. Two others filled with kimchi—Napa cabbage and turnip kimchi—reminded me of the kind my grandmother used to make sitting on newspapers on the floor of our kitchen.

She used to mix it all together: salted cabbage with red chili powder, sugar, fish sauce, garlic and scallions in a large plastic tub wearing yellow kitchen gloves. I always liked to eat it within the first week because it was still sweet and crunchy. Most restaurants serve their kimchi sour and fermented, but kimchi at Kunjip is fresh and, therefore, pleasantly sweet.

After sampling Kunjip’s particularly tasty banchan, you won’t be surprised that the rest of the menu is equally enjoyable. For starters, try the pa jun, a large egg, scallion, and squid pancake that you dip into soy sauce ($8.95), or the jap che, a dish of translucent noodles mixed with vegetables, shredded beef and egg ($6.95). Several excellent varieties of the crowd-pleasing bibimbob are available. Bibimbob features a large bowl of rice with a colorful topping of seasoned vegetables and a fried egg. The gobdol bibimbob ($11.95) comes in a piping hot stone bowl, which makes everything sizzle together. The result is a thin layer of crispy brown rice at the bottom which is a great textural contrast.

To switch things up, go for the sanche bibimbob ($9.95). It comes in a metal bowl and is topped with fresh lettuce and room temperature vegetables, making it a good spring or summer dish. To give it a kick, mix in a dollop of red gochujang, a spicy sweet sauce that’s often called Korean ketchup.

The duk mandoo guk ($9.95), a dumpling and rice cake soup with an eggy broth, is a simple, soothing dish that is perfect for first timers, as is the dolsot sulungtang ($7.95), a mild beef broth filled with noodles and pieces of boiled beef. The daegu jiri ($12.95), a clear fish broth with tofu, cod, turnip, clams may sound like it has a little too much going on but, couple with its subtle smoky flavor, the dish proves both refreshing and substantial.

Probably more than anything, the deonjang chigae ($8.95) epitomizes down-home Korean cooking: A hearty miso stew filled with tofu, clams, zucchini and greens. If you’re yearning for that mouth tingling heat, order one of the spicier soups like daegu maewoon tang ($12.95), a fiery fish soup, or yook gae jang ($9.95), a bright red beef soup. It’s not the kind of spiciness that incites panic—but it’ll certainly get your nose running.

As the table is cleared, the waitress brings out small cups of soo jeong gwa, a sweet cinnammon punch. While it won’t do much for your garlic breath, it’s a refreshing way to cool your mouth off and end the meal.

My Mom always says that Koreans are addicted to Korean food. If she’s right, then the secret’s in the spice. But then again, trying to get a husband while steeped in the scents and smells of Kunjip may make it much harder to snag that hubbie. So choose your addictions wisely.

Kunjip

9 W. 32nd St. (betw. 5th Ave. & Broadway)
212-216-9487

BELMONT WINNER--For fantastico Italian Goods, the Bronx is up (NY PRESS)

2006-03-01T19:34:00.000-08:00

For those who mourn the death of Little Italy and its resurrection as a parody of its former self, Arthur Avenue is a place of salvation—you just have to get to the Bronx to get a taste of redemption.

The Belmont section of Arthur Avenue in the Bronx is home to some of the best specialty food shops in the city. Italian immigrants settled the area around the turn of the century, and the neighborhood hearkens back to New York’s good old days when you knew all your neighbors and bought your bread from the bakery next door.

It may seem like a long way to travel for groceries, but once you’ve tasted the bounty and checked out the prices, you’ll never go back to shopping at Citarella.

Shellfish lovers, Randazzo’s Seafood is your first stop. Sure, you can pick up a salmon filet for dinner, but the best part is the no-frills raw bar right outside the front door. For $4 suck down six Cherrystone clams shucked right in front of you and tossed onto a plastic plate for your enjoyment. The clams are fresh, large and briny and, topped with a squeeze of lemon or a dash of hot sauce, they make a fortifying snack for the rest of the journey.

Moving up the food chain, pork products galore pack the aptly named Calabria Pork Store across the street. Hanging sausages of all sizes crowd the ceiling, creating a smoky, gamey scent of drying meat that permeates every inch of the place. They specialize in homemade sopresate, hot and sweet sausages, capicollo, prosciutto and raw Italian sausage links. Try the sweet dried sausages for their perfect balance of salty and sweet and that musty flavor so particular to air-dried meats.

Further up the block, you can buy some fresh crusty bread to accompany your sausages at the Madonia Brothers Bakery. Their prosciutto bread, which is shaped like a large thin bagel, is a wonderful find: The outside crusty, the inside soft and dotted with chunks of prosciutto and a generous sprinkling of black pepper. Try to get one that's hot.

Many would call the Arthur Avenue indoor market the heart of the area but, call me a heretic, I disagree. The produce is ordinary and the shops are often empty. Mike’s Deli is a standout from the crowd, a shop that sells a wide variety of meats, cheeses, olives, sun-dried tomatoes and overstuffed sandwiches, along with other Italian specialties. Samples are generously handed out, so feel free to ask for a taste.

As I walked into Casa Della Mozzarella, the line snaked all the way back from the register to the door, but don’t be discouraged, there’s good reason—some of the best mozzarella in the city awaits. Choose between salted and unsalted, smoked or fresh; it’s all prepared on-site (they make it in the back, stretching it into long white ropes). The unsalted is a favorite with its light, pillowy texture and nice, fresh tang. Go all out and buy a large—you’ll regret it if you don’t.

I’ve saved my favorite store on Arthur Avenue for last—Borgatti’s Pasta. It’s a small shop with a tin ceiling where the clerks wear white coats and the signs are written by hand. They sell their pasta cut to order so choose a width and they’ll cut it in an old-fashioned, hand-cranked pasta cutter. It costs $1.70 per pound and it beats the hell out of De Cecco any day. Handmade ravioli and sheets of pasta for lasagna are also available.

End the shopping day with a cannoli and a cappuccino at Egidio’s Pastry. All that old-fashioned market hopping is hard work. You deserve a reward.

Randazzo’s Seafood, 2327 Arthur Ave., 718-367-4139

Calabria Pork Store, 2338 Arthur Ave., 718-367-5145

Madonia Brothers Bakery, 2348 Arthur Ave., 718-295-5573

Mike’s Deli, 2344 Arthur Ave., 718-295-5033

Casa Della Mozzarella, 604 E. 187 St., 718-364-3867

Borgatti’s Pasta, 632 E. 187 St., 718-367-3799

Egidio’s Pastry, 622 E. 187 St., 718-295-6077

All located in the Belmont section of the Bronx.

WORLD TRAVELING VIA SHOPPING CART--New York’s place for Asian groceries? (NY PRESS)

2006-01-25T19:27:00.000-08:00

Whenever the New York Times or Gourmet runs a recipe that calls for an unusual ingredient, they almost always direct the reader to Kalustyan’s, a small shop in Murray Hill that stocks a mind-boggling number of products from around the world. This excess of choice is exactly why I usually walk out of Kalustyan’s empty-handed. I just can’t force myself to choose.

I have always dreamed of having an Indian aunt or a Lebanese cousin to guide me through the maze. But Aziz Osmani, the smiling Bangladeshi proprietor, is a good substitute. I visited with him recently and asked him to show me what he considers to be the best items in the store.

Our first stop is the spice section.

“Once you use our spices, you don’t use somebody else’s spices,” he says. “We clean them here and we grind them according to our consumption.”

Besides offering over 800 different kinds of spices, Kalustyan’s sells special homemade blends like Barbere, an Ethiopian mix; Rasel Hannout, a Moroccan spice blend; and Garam Massala, the classic Indian seasoning.

Next, we move on to the wall of home made chutneys. He recommends the lime-mango and ginger-mango varieties.

We tour the front of the store with its overflowing containers of dried fruit and nuts. He hands me a fat, juicy Medjool date that’s at least twice the size of your average supermarket specimen.

Then he points to the Turkish pastries in the glass case near the register.

“The difference between the Turkish baklava and the Greek and Lebanese baklava is that the Turkish filo dough is handmade,” he says. “Every single layer, you feel the juice. The other kinds, you feel the juices only at the bottom and the rest is all dry.”

He points to the fresh, handmade South Asian breads in the adjacent case. “Spinach paratha and fenugreek paratha are very special items,” he says.

He motions towards the second floor. “We also have prepared Middle Eastern foods upstairs. It is all prepared here, daily.”

Arpiar Afarian, who learned to cook from his mother in Lebanon, makes the food. Aziz recommends the mujadhara, the falafel and the giant baked beans.

And last but not least, he leads me to a wall of beans and grains—staple foods the world over. There are over sixty varieties of beans and fifty varieties of grains—way too many to choose from. And yet, this no longer seems such a problem.

Kalustyan’s
123 Lexington Ave. (Between 28th and 29th)
212-686-3451

A FRANK ACCOUNT-Where to get a good hot dog in New York (NY PRESS)

2006-01-04T18:24:00.000-08:00

New York is a hot dog town. According to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, New York spends more on hot dogs than any other city. And that figure doesn’t even take into account the plethora of sidewalk vendors and indoor hot dog establishments that dot the streets. But how does one separate the rubbery, tepid disappointments from the snappy and savory masterpieces? I figured that the answer couldn’t be more than fifteen hot dogs away. And so, nitrates be damned, I devoted an entire weekend to finding the perfect hot dog.

My first stop was Crif Dogs, the nouveau-dog emporium in the East Village. I ordered their four most outlandish dogs: the Chihuahua, a bacon-wrapped dog covered with avocadoes and sour cream; the Tsunami, a dog, wrapped with bacon and topped with teriyaki sauce, canned pineapple bits and diced green onions; the Good Morning, a bacon-wrapped frank smothered with melted cheese and nestled in a fried egg; and a Sourcheese dog, a dog served with thinly sliced half-sour pickles and melted cheese.

“Hell, yeah,” said my waitress.

The Good Morning dog was a revelation—the best breakfast sandwich ever. The bacon was crisp and flavorful, the hot dog was meaty and not too salty and the slightly runny yolk and melted cheese melded together perfectly. The Tsunami was a close runner up. The salty bacon mixed with the sweetness of the pineapple, the tanginess of the teriyaki and the onion bouquet of the scallions made for a unique and interesting flavor combination. The Chihuahua, with its bacon, avocado and sour cream, was just a bit too mushy, and the Sourcheese, with its pickles and melted cheese, just too ordinary. But overall, Crif Dogs’s signature hot dog—a deep-fried frank made from a mixture of pork and beef—was pleasantly sweet and mild in its flavor, and the bacon-wrapped dog was possibly the best thing I’ve ever eaten.

Though I was pretty stuffed, I walked over to Dawgs on Park to try “The Mexican,” a hot dog topped with Chipotle mayo, Jalapeno relish and bacon. I could have easily skipped it. The whole thing was a greasy, salty mess. And, it was five dollars. Any hot dog that costs five dollars better be made by God himself.

Later that day, I went uptown to the Papaya King, that old standby that’s always as crowded as Grand Central at rush hour. I stood at the counter by the window, elbow to elbow with my fellow hot dog lovers, and gobbled my hot dog right down. The meat was nicely charred, not in the least bit greasy, and its taste was fresh and pleasantly salty. The toppings were also fresh and flavorful—not gooey in the least. It was the Honda of hot dogs—dependable, but not particularly exciting.

The next night I headed down to the Lower East Side—the location of several new boutique-style hot dog establishments. First I tried Broome Doggs, Harry Hawk (of Schnack fame)’s newest endeavor. I ordered their Black Angus Beef Dog. I asked the guy behind the counter how it was different from an ordinary hot dog.

“It’s like the difference between an Outback Steakhouse steak and a Ruth’s Chris steak,” he said.

“Does that mean you can you taste the difference between the two hot dogs?” I asked.

“Definitely,” he said. “If you do a Pepsi challenge and taste them side by side, the Black Angus tastes meatier, more beefy.”

I took a bite of my Black Angus Beef Dog, and frankly, I couldn’t taste the difference, though it did taste saltier than I would have liked.

I topped my dog with some of the many condiments laid out in bowls on a counter against the wall. They included the basics—ketchup, several mustards, relish, barbecue sauce—and a few more unusual ones like pineapple relish and potato-chip dust. There was also a dish of sad, cold, stringy sauerkraut.

I then walked over to Dash Dogs, a new take-out establishment catering to the late-night bar crowd. I ordered my hot dogs with avocado salsa, cilantro salsa and corn relish. The freshness of the toppings were a nice foil to the smoky hot dog. The salsas were a bit too chilly, however, and the extreme temperature contrast was unpleasant.

And then I went to Katz’s, the epicenter of the old-school frank. From the moment I walked in, the long, cavernous, crowded room seemed cheerful and inviting. The hot dog was steaming hot, as was the sauerkraut, and it snapped like a hot dog should snap. It was the first hot dog I tried to do so. The outside was just a bit blackened and the meat was juicy and flavorful. The sauerkraut was perfectly sour with a good bite. Finally, I had found the perfect hot dog in its most classic incarnation.

Crif Dogs—113 St. Mark’s Place,
212-614-2728

Dawgs on Park—178 E. 7th St.,
212-598-0667

Papaya King—179 E. 86th St.,
212-369-0648

Broome Doggs—250 Broome St.,
917-453-6013

Dash Dogs—127 Rivington St.,
212-254-8885

Katz’s Delicatessen—205 E. Houston St.,
212-254-2246

PAANING FOR GOLD-The new hot treat from India (NY PRESS)

2005-12-14T17:19:00.000-08:00

My first experience with paan was at the Mavalli Tiffin Rooms, a famous old restaurant in Bangalore. I was there alone, and because the place was crowded with noisy families, both seated and waiting to be seated, the waiter led me to a table already occupied by a respectable middle class couple in their early sixties. I soon found out that their son lived in New Jersey and worked at Merrill Lynch.

After we finished eating, a waiter handed each of us a little plastic bag holding a small triangle of aluminum foil. It was about the size of a thin mint cookie.

“This is paan,” the woman explained. She unwrapped the foil, revealing a dark green leaf folded into a triangle. “It’s good for digestion,” she said, “and for your breath. It sweetens it.” She popped hers into her mouth and began chewing. “You don’t eat it. You chew it for a while and then spit it out at the end.”

“What’s it made from?”

“Oh, lots of things. Lime paste, spices, and it’s all wrapped up in a betel leaf.”

I was trying to follow my doctor’s advice and only eat food that was served piping hot. A cold, raw leaf filled with who knows what did not seem to fit the bill. But curiosity won out, and I inserted the small packet into my mouth. A rush of unfamiliar flavors flooded my tongue. After a few moments, I got nervous and spit it into my napkin. While I hoped that I wouldn’t later be punished by days in my hotel bathroom, part of me regretted the fact that I hadn’t had the full paan experience. I doubted that I’d have another chance to try this popular after-meal treat, since I was soon returning to the U.S.

You can imagine my surprise and delight when I stumbled across a paan shop just around the corner from my apartment in Manhattan. I enlisted my boyfriend Dan into the expedition.

After excellent dosas at Saravanas, the newest outpost of the international restaurant chain based in Chennai, we walked around the corner to the Kenara Paan Shop, a tiny, fluorescent-lit convenience store sitting near the corner of 27th Street and Lexington. The store, owned by two middle-aged Pakistani brothers named Dnyal and Shuab Ahmad, also sells South Asian DVDs, phone cards, coffee and newspapers.

I ordered two paan and asked Shuab if he could name the ingredients as he put them in. He took two betel leaves from a large metal bowl on the counter and explained that they were grown in Florida. He then painted them each with a chalky white liquid. “It’s lime,” he said. As in the mineral. He laid the leaves on the green marble counter top and proceeded to squirt them with a bright red syrup from what looked like a former hand soap dispenser. “Rose syrup,” he said. Then a swipe of menthol goo, a dollop of some brown, wrinkled rose petals in syrup, a sprinkling of fennel seeds, both plain and candied, a pinch of cardamom pods, one of grated coconut, and then a few betel nuts. He rapidly folded the leaves into fat elongated triangles and then wrapped them in foil.

I turned to Shuab’s brother Dnyal and asked him who their customers were.

“We have all customers” he said, “American, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian. Everybody loves paan. My little nephew can eat like ten sweet paan in a row.”

“What’s its appeal?” I asked.

He looked at me as if I were crazy, like I was asking him why people liked chocolate.

“It’s good. Everybody likes it.”

Shuab handed us our paan in a little paper bag and we handed him a $1.50 each. Back home, we sat on our couch, carefully unwrapped the foil, counted to three and popped them simultaneously into our mouths.

The first taste was one of overwhelming sweetness—from the rose syrup—and then I got a tang of menthol. The contents were crunchy, and the rose petal scent was strong. As I continued to chew and as the sweetness subsided, I began to taste the licorice flavor of the fennel and the warm spiciness of the cardamom. The flavors were surprising and unfamiliar, and I almost wanted to spit it out. The betel leaf and the betel nuts are both mild narcotics, and after about fifteen minutes of chewing, my mouth started to feel somewhat numb.

It was strange and jarring, kind of how I remember very dark chocolate or Marmite tasting when I was a kid. But it wasn’t just the taste, it was also the mix of unusual textures—the feeling of chewing some mulch, twigs and gooey gel wrapped up in a leaf. Yet there was something exciting about such a startling gustatory experience; paan is pure flavor and scent, and it woke up my tired nose and jaded taste buds, like a walk through a crowded market in India where sounds and smells overtake you with a stirring ferocity.

Kenara Paan Shop
134 E. 27 St.
212-481-1660

A MOM-AND-POP AFFAIR--The Tasting Room (NY PRESS)

2005-11-16T18:35:00.000-08:00

Between 10 and 11 every morning, chef Colin Alevras heads to the local Greenmarket to pick out that day's ingredients. But first he drops off his three-year-old son Lincoln at the neighborhood nursery school. Then, with bursting bags in hand, he heads back to the Tasting Room, the tiny East Village restaurant that he and his wife, Renee, built with their own hands six years ago. Renee is usually there by then, paying bills, fielding reservations and generally managing things, all with their newborn baby, Beatrice, strapped to her chest in a harness.

In the notoriously high-pressure restaurant business, couples working together are the exception—the mom-and-pop restaurant model is an old one, but a hard one to follow. Yet Renee and Colin Alevras have managed to carve out a life that includes both a thriving restaurant and a growing family. "Not everybody is prepared to work with their spouse," says Colin, a tall man in his mid-30s with a shaved head, wire-rimmed glasses and the air of a slightly goofy teenager. "Working with your spouse creates new joys and new pressures. It brings grievances, petty and otherwise, to the forefront." He holds his daughter Beatrice in his arms and rocks her back and forth. "But we really love doing this. It's a life. Our jobs aren't separate from our lives. This is it. This is what we do."

"You lose your ability to do anything else," says Renee, a small woman, also in her mid-30s. "This is all we talk about." She looks at Beatrice, who's staring at the ceiling fan. "Actually, now that we have kids, we do have something else to talk about. I am that person now, the one who's always talking about her kids."

The two met at cooking school in 1993, while washing dishes in the pantry. Renee was 23 and Colin was 21. Renee had graduated from Columbia a year earlier with a bachelor's degree in architecture. Colin came to cooking school by way of construction work, a year studying photography and a year at one of "the last real hippie schools," as he calls it, traveling by school bus and studying environmental education.

After working at several restaurants in New York, the couple flew to Paris "to go see what people were doing over there," Colin says. They spent several weeks traveling and eating before ending up as apprentices at Arpege, which had just received its third Michelin star.

"That whole trip was also an experiment in cohabitation," says Colin. "If we could spend four months in a country where we didn't speak the language, didn't know anyone else and didn't kill each other, we knew we had a chance."

Soon after, the couple returned to the United States and got married. They knew that they eventually wanted to open a restaurant, so they started to plan. Rene moved into management so that she could run the front of the house and the business side. Colin studied to become a sommelier, and her worked at Daniel as the cellar master and as a private chef to a UN ambassador, which taught him "how to please people." In the fall of 1999, they opened the Tasting Room.

"We had nothing to lose," says Renee. "No money, no apartment, no kids. Now the stakes have gotten much higher."

The restaurant sits near the corner of 1st St. and 1st Ave., across from a playground where their young son plays with his preschool classmates. The seating area is fronted with glass, and the interior walls are made from red brick. Crumpled pencil drawings of Irish landscapes hang on walls above sleek-yet-simple chairs and tables, enough to seat 25 people. The restaurant, including the basement kitchen and the ceiling wine loft, measures just 750 square feet.

"It's hard to escape in a restaurant so small," says Colin, "You can only lock yourself in the bathroom for so long." And yet the diminutive scale of the restaurant is what gives him the freedom to change his menu daily, depending on his mood and what's available at the Greenmarket. On a recent night, the menu included honey-cap mushroom soup with raw goat-milk cheese, scallions and popcorn; and Montauk scorpion fish with green zebra tomatoes, leeks, crosnes and Rocambole garlic.

The intimate nature of the space also allows Renee to shower their guests with personal attention. "Our guests know us," she says. "They become our friends."

The best part of running your own restaurant? "We can do what we want, when we want to," says Renee. "We're closed four weeks a year, and we're open only five nights a week. When we first opened, we were open six nights a week. Then we cut back to five. That's how I got pregnant," she says with a laugh.

"I could just lock the door, if I wanted, and stop," says Colin. "It's a bizarre comfort. I could just make it stop."

Renee looks surprised, and then laughs. "That's so funny," she says. "Because I think it's the exact opposite; because we run it, we can't quit."

Colin shrugs. "I'm the apocalyptic one."

"I think what makes it work," he says, "is that we have separate areas of expertise—there's a clear division of labor."

"But because we've both cooked and worked the floor, we have empathy for one another" says Renee.

Colin smiles and passes the baby. Beatrice is hungry, and so Renee grabs a shawl, throws it over her shoulder and commences to nurse.

The Tasting Room72 E. 1st St. (betw. 1st & 2nd Aves.)212-358-7831

FRESH FOOD CHEAP--How the Bronx is eating well. (NY PRESS)

2005-11-02T21:28:00.000-08:00

Every Thursday afternoon, in a small community garden in the South Bronx, long-time local residents and recently transplanted bohemian types gather together to fill their bags with vegetables. They pack them with leeks, French radishes, green tomatoes, acorn squash, Savoy cabbage and a bevy of other autumnal items, all organic and many with dirt still clinging to their roots and leaves. Everyone stops to greet one another, share news of their families and discuss the proposed new Yankee Stadium and what it will do to their neighborhood. Kids run through the garden chasing the resident rabbit, and both Spanish and English echo through the group. They're here to pick up their weekly share of vegetables from their CSA, supplied by Zaid Kurdieh of Norwich Meadows Farm in Norwich, New York.

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture—an alternative model of food distribution that has started to gain popularity all across the United States. The term is used to describe both the movement and the individual organizations from which one gets his food. In the CSA model, a small group of people work directly with a local farmer to get fresh organic produce throughout the growing season. Members pay an up-front fee in the fall, giving the farmer a guaranteed market and the necessary start-up capital (which he or she usually needs to borrow) to buy seeds and make repairs. In return, the members receive a weekly share of freshly picked, locally grown, organic produce throughout the harvest season at a significantly reduced price compared with a supermarket or even a farmer's market. The CSA model cuts the element of financial risk for the small-scale farmer and makes farm-fresh organic produce accessible to a greater percentage of people by cutting out the costs of marketing and long-distance transportation.

"CSA is a good way to bring fresh, local and usually organic produce into a neighborhood that otherwise wouldn't have access at a reasonable price," says Paula Lukats, the CSA manager at Just Food, an organization that works to equalize access to healthy food in New York City.

The CSA in the South Bronx, sponsored by Friends of Brook Park, Just Food and For a Better Bronx, works to do just that. "Our members are mixed income and multi-ethnic," says the young, bespectacled Molly Culver, the AmeriCorps/VISTA–sponsored coordinator of the CSA. Members of the CSA pay their fees on a sliding scale, she explains, and have the option of paying in installments or using food stamps.

"In the Bronx, all our vegetables are covered in plastic," says member Anita Antonetty as she flips her dreadlocks over her shoulder. "The CSA is great, because every week I get fresh vegetables and it's not expensive."

"I really like the quality of the food, how fresh it is, how good it tastes and its high nutritional content," say Marian Feinberg, a long-time local activist, former health-care professional and CSA member. She shakes her head indignantly. "It's so important to have access to better-quality food. Look at the amount of processed food on the shelves. It all contributes to obesity, diabetes and other illnesses."

She joined a CSA when she was first diagnosed with cancer. "I wanted to eat healthy, I wanted to eat vegetables and I wanted to eat organic. But affordability was a big issue." She motions at the garden and the packing crates filled with vegetables. "We're doing our little bit to help keep our families and communities healthy. Food, health and community go together, the same way a family comes together around a holiday table."

This "coming together" is what attracts many people to the CSA. People don't just rush in and out as they might at their local supermarket or bodega; they linger, sitting on logs and chairs, discussing neighborhood politics; they chat about their children while picking out their vegetables. "It brings together different segments of the neighborhood," says Vincent Russo, a shy, twentysomething with a punk-style political patch safety-pinned to his hooded sweatshirt. "I've met lots of new people and it's pleasant to have an excuse to spend time outside, talking." In addition to providing a weekly meeting place for its members, the CSA also sponsors potluck dinners, trips to the farm and the occasional yoga class.

Nutritional education and raising environmental awareness are also large components of the CSA. "For me, it's really about helping people renew their relationship to nature and food," says Culver, the coordinator. The CSA and Just Food often sponsor cooking demonstrations to teach members how to cook unfamiliar produce, and the monthly newsletter often includes recipes and instructions for canning, pickling and freezing leftover produce.

"I like how it gives us a closer connection to our food source," says Russo, "and how it brings us closer to our natural environment. I can go to the store and buy anything at any time. But here, I can only get what's seasonal. And so being a member, you become aware of how far things have to travel to get to you out of season and how much energy that requires."

Most people forget that in order to buy a box of strawberries in January, it must first be trucked in from California or flown in from Chile. With fuel costs rising, buying locally grown produce and supporting the creation of small-scale agriculture in areas like the Northeast has become not only an environmental issue, but also an issue of safety and economics. Many experts worry that if an energy crisis occurs, many highly populated areas will suffer from food shortages, since most food in the United States is grown on large commercial farms far from population centers and must be distributed on trucks and airplanes. The CSA model offers an effective counterapproach.

Approximately 37 CSAs operate in New York City. "Groups are pretty autonomous," says Lukats at Just Food, an organization that has had a hand in starting almost every CSA. "They build on a similar model but adapt to the members' needs and preferences." Each group offers slightly different products at slightly different prices. Some offer only vegetables; others offer fruit, meat, dairy or eggs. Some, like the 6th Street Community Center CSA in the East Village, even offer a winter share made up of organic produce grown in warmer climes.

"We like to support the organic industry worldwide during the off-season," says Annette Averette, one of the coordinators of the 6th Street CSA.

Citlalic Jeffers, the bouncy intern at the 6th Street CSA, offers perhaps the most practical reason to join a CSA: "I went to Whole Foods the other day and bought an organic apple, and I couldn't believe the price; I've never felt so robbed in my entire life." She looks around the room at a young mother picking out carrots with her son and a man with a long beard weighing his bag of apples. "You shouldn't have to be a billionaire to eat a good piece of fruit." n

For more information on joining a CSA in NYC, visit justfood.org/csa.