Pet Peeve: Late Night Music

Last night I remembered why I don't see live music more often: Because the headlining band often doesn't play until 11:30pm. I'm sorry, but can someone tell me HOW this became the stupid standard of the music industry? In most cases, the thought of traveling across town for the show and back again to get home after 1am on a weeknight really does NOT appeal to me. Not to mention that I'm so tired by the time the band I'm there to see comes on that I can't enjoy it.

Take last night. I went to see a funk band at a venue conveniently only a short walk from my apartment. Since the flyer said the show started at 9, I got there a little before then, but then proceeded to sit in an empty dark club for an hour. The DJs playing were good and I thought about dancing, but wanted to save my energy for the real thing. It was too loud to chat, so there wasn't really anything to do but just sit there bored out of our minds. Finally, I found out the headlining band wasn't coming on till 11. So I walked back home where I could actually pass the time pleasantly. But by the time I returned to the show at 11, then still had to wait, as the band didn't come on till 11:30, I only stayed for 3 songs and then left because at that point the whole experience of the night and being drunk and tired had just dragged me down. What a disappointment.

Anyone else think it's insane that headliner bands don't play until 10, 11, or 12 at night?

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Pulled Pork

For inquiring minds who want to know how to make the pulled pork that inspired my easy barbecue menu - it's true that pulled pork in the crock pot couldn't be easier. It won't have that truly smokey flavor that traditional pulled pork gets from being smoked over low heat for several hours, but it will still be moist, tender, and delicious, and the barbecue sauce adds plenty of flavor.

You can use pork shoulder or pork butt to make pulled pork, and I would look for a small size (about 2-3 pounds) for dinner for two with leftovers, or on the larger side (4-6 pounds) for a party. If it's frozen, make sure to defrost it before cooking.

Chop an onion into long, thin slices. Lay half the onions on the bottom of the crock pot. Brush the pork in barbecue sauce on all sides. (If you can't find good storebought barbecue sauce, you can make your own). Place the pork in the crock pot with few more dollops of barbecue sauce, salt, and pepper and scatter the remaining onions over and around it. Add water to the crock pot up to about a quarter of the height of the pork. Cook on low for eight to ten hours.

The cooking time will depend on the size of your roast. If it's not looking close to done after six or seven hours, and I don't have a lot more time till I need to serve it, I will sometimes turn up the heat for an hour or two and that usually does the trick. It's done when the meat is no longer pink and shreds at the touch of your fork. If the meat has not already fallen apart in the crock pot, use two forks to shred it for serving purposes. Serve pulled pork with hamburger buns and extra barbecue sauce.

PS. I highly recommend getting a slow cooker (aka crock pot) if you don't already have one. It's great for making soups, stews, beans, and roasts because it does all the cooking for you while you are out at work or having fun.

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It's Hot

But it's not THAT hot. It's around 80 degrees on my office floor today and it's all anyone can talk about is to complain about the heat. Come on people, suck it up. I'll take this anyday over AC blasting so hard that all I can think about is wanting to wear my warm fuzzy socks and our damage to the environment. Don't get me started. Rarrrrrr! I for one am happy that winter is finally over and we can enjoy warm weather now!

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Baby Steps

I'm skipping work today and am off for a long weekend with to middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania for a baby shower, with this pink and blue confection in tow.


I had a fun time shopping for the baby gifts at a few stores in Brooklyn. My favorite store was an independent baby boutique with organic and handmade goods in Park Slope, which makes sense since that neighborhood is the baby mecca of Brooklyn.

I've never remotely thought about baby stuff before, but I'm pretty happy with what I ended up with:


rattle from here


organic onesie from here


sweatshirt from american aparel

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Self Catering a Southern BBQ

I went out for barbecue at Blue Smoke last night with friends, and was reminded how much I love making pulled pork for parties because it's so easy to just throw a pork shoulder in a crock pot with some bbq sauce and onions for a day and let it do its thing. Same thing goes for chili. Which led me to the idea of how easy it would be to self-cater a big barbecue with a menu like this:

A crock pot or two of pulled pork
A crock pot or two of vegetarian chili
A crock pot or two of grilled shredded chicken breast (to accommodate all the health nuts I know who think pork is too fatty - i'd grill chicken, shred it, and warm it with some honey mustard sauce in the crock pot)
Fluffy whole wheat rolls (ok i can make bread but it's so time consuming and finicky that i would wimp out here and just buy it from a bakery)
Cornbread
An array of homemade mustards, ketchups, and barbecue sauce (I do want to learn how to make my own condiments)
An array of homemade cucumber, carrot, and pepper pickles
Trays of lite mac 'n veg 'n cheese (again, my family would think typical mac n cheese is too unhealthy, so I'd go light on the cheese and incorporate finely chopped broccoli)
Coleslaw
Corn on the cob
Some sort of light tomato salad

The great thing is that you can make most of this a day or two or week ahead, and the flavors will only improve with time. I could totally pull this menu off with the help of a few friends and borrowed crockpots, and I don't think it would be too expensive either. Perfect for a summer get-together, graduation party, or casual wedding.

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A New Red Hook Ritual

Once or twice a month I delight in taking a shopping trip to Fairway in Red Hook, where I can stock up on bulk goods for cheap, like organic coffee, beans, rice, and so on.


Now I may have found a new ritual to tack onto my Red Hook trips: A stop at Rocky Sullivan's for beer and a snack outside. I'd been to this bar on an assuming corner before and hadn't thought much of it, just a normal working class neighborhood bar. Then I found out about its roof deck, but I wasn't able to take advantage of it until the first nice weather hit this weekend. Now I have truly seen the light.


The bar neighbors Sixpoint Brewery, so I was able to get two of my favorite Sixpoint beers, Bengali IPA and Righteous Rye. And ogle all the Sixpoint kegs lying around. Rocky Sullivan's has a bar menu, but I'm guessing their best food is their brick oven pizza, made fresh to order. I had the margarita pizza, complete with homemade pesto sauce, and it was delish. The crust had a slight buttery flakiness to it, a little like pastry crust, but not too much.


I enjoyed my afternoon snack on their roof deck. We were the only ones up there, and I can't imagine it ever gets too full, so it certainly lives up to its reputation as "serene" I highly recommend checking it out if you're in the hood, although don't tell all your friends because hidden gems are always better when they remain that way!

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Breakfast Pizza for Dinner!

It's ramp season folks. And what do ramps go with better than bacon and eggs? Nothing!

After reading about Motorino's amazing breakfast pizza which "delivers a beautiful pool of gooey cheese, runny yolk, pancetta drippings, and fruity olive oil", I was inspired to make my own version. The original plan called for goat cheese ricotta, bacon, ramps, and sunnyside eggs, but my sister Lisa did the shopping and some of the cooking, so she also added in broccoli raabe for a contrasting bitter bite.

First, you need to make the dough. I really prefer my recipe for pizza with a puffier crust, but out of laziness I went for the thin crust recipe that just requires a whizz in the food processor and a wait in plastic bags in the fridge overnight. It makes six dough balls, so I stuck three in the freezer, to leave us with three personal pies for the three people in my household. About two hours before I wanted to cook dinner, I took the dough out of the fridge to let it warm up.


Next, Lisa fried up a few pieces of bacon and let them drain on paper towels. She poured out most of the bacon fat (to reserve for future use), while leaving enough fat in the pan to sautee the greens.


After preheating the oven as hot as it will go (520 in our case), Lisa finely chopped ramps and broccoli raabe. She sauteed them in bacon fat until softened and then continued to cook covered for another ten minutes until wilted.


Next I assemble the pizzas on cornmeal-dusted baking sheets, slowly building them with crumbles of goat cheese ricotta, bacon bits, wilted greens, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper. Finally, I broke an egg into the middle and put them into the oven for about 10 minutes until the crust browned on the bottom and the eggs firmed.


Unfortunately, the crust took longer to cook than the eggs, so the yolks had already firmed by the time the pizza was done and alas, there was no runny yolk to coat the pizza in golden flavor when biting into it. But it was still f*in good.

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