Restaurant Burnout, or, "Can't we ever have just like a salad?"

Y'all, it has been about three forevers since I last wrote up in this piece, and my reason is this: People keep coming to visit and wanting to eat out, or taking me out on dates and buying me dinner, or wanting to catch up over a meal. AND it's New York Restaurant Week. (Which, by the way, week? I don't get it. It lasts for a month.)

Not that I'm complaining. I thoroughly enjoy eating out, and frequently--especially when other people are paying for that action! But the past couple of weeks have been an onslaught of restaurants and bars...and sometimes I might get a little tipsy. Not enough to do something like bake bread, just enough to come home and not blog (read: pass out in various states of undress). The upshot is I've just been eating too damn much, because I'm not trying to go to a new restaurant and order a salad, you know? I just feel like, "why would I spend 8 bucks on something I can do better myself?" So now, I'm burnt-out on restaurants, my wallet feels flat, my ass feels fat, and I just want to eat some leafy greens and get my vitamins, b'okay?

In zealous observation of this vegetable inclination, I'm instituting Salad Days (bahaha!), during which I will present an interesting and delicious salad every day this week. Starting with this one:

Watercress Salad with Lemon-Shallot Dressing

This is a lovely fresh-tasting salad. In the middle of winter, it brings a little summer snap to my palate, without requiring a lot of ingredients that are way out-of-season. The cress is nice and spicy, with a hint of bitterness, and the fresh parsley adds a nice bright, clean flavor. It is excellent served with fish, or just by itself.

Ingredients

Salad:

1.5 c. watercress

1 head of lettuce (red leaf lettuce looks lovely, but whatever you prefer)

1 cucumber

1/4 c. fresh flat-leaf parsley (aka Italian parsley)

pine nuts (or walnuts)

Dressing:

1 medium lemon

1 shallot

2 Tbsp heavy or whipping cream

3 Tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

Wash the watercress, lettuce, and parsley--even if they're organic. They are grown in sand. Nobody likes a mouth full of grit. note: The amounts of the greens are approximate. Use whatever looks like enough for the amount of salad you want to make. I used about 3/4 of the head, and made 3 good-sized salads. Tear the lettuce into forkable (snicker!) pieces, and chop up the parsley a bit. Peel and slice the cuke. If you are using nuts, you can either leave them raw or give them a quick toast in a dry skillet--but they will burn quickly so just toast them until they start to show a little color. For the dressing, juice the lemon through your hand or a strainer and discard the seeds. Whisk in salt and pepper to taste. Dice the shallot and add to the lemon juice mixture. Give it a shot of the heavy cream and add the olive oil, give it a good whisk, and its done! Keep in mind, cream is about 60% water, so this is not a particularly thick dressing, but it is crazy delicious. I made it for dinner with Gige and she was eating it with a spoon after we'd killed the salad. Just before serving, toss the cucumber and greens with the dressing and sprinkle on the pine nuts. If you toss it earlier the acid from the lemon will wilt the lettuce. Then you, um, well, eat it. note: If it doesn't look like enough dressing, just keep adding a little more juice, oil, or cream. You can adjust the proportions to taste. I happen to like it pretty tangy, myself. The longer you let the dressing sit, the more flavor will emerge from the shallots.

You can also substitute another slightly bitter or spicy green for the cress, such as curly endive(frisee) or arugula. I just had a bunch of cress in my crisper--I saw it at Whole Foods for $2 and was like "yes, yes I will." And I'm glad I did.

Watercress. English-type people like to put it in sandwiches. I like to put it in my mouth.

Try it out. Let me know what you think!

Recession Special: Moshe's Falafel

Location: SE corner of 46th and 6th. In a cart.

The deal: 4 falafel balls, tahini, hot sauce, and pickles--$2.00

Falafel sandwich with all of the above, plus lettuce and tomato--$4.75

Moshe's is awesome. The falafel balls are crispy-crunchy on the outside and steamy inside, and the sauces are great. Definitely get the hot sauce though--the tahini on its own can be a little bland, and since they are kosher, no tzatziki. Ask for extra pickles. Mhmmm.

The Splendor of the Chicken, or, January is a Tease

Winter 2010 is on, pigeons, and she is a Stone-Cold Bitch. Mid-January we had those three or four gorgeous days, when everyone was outside without a jacket on, walking their kids and playing with their dogs, and we all sort of thawed out and people were smiling at each other on 8th avenue, and then WHAM! 7 degrees. And you know you don't want to leave your apartment when that happens. But you also don't want to order Thai and watch Heroes alone in your undies--again. So what do you do? Call your friends/lovers/roommates, make them come over (suckers!) and cook a chicken.

On Saturday Gige and I hung out at Cafe Amrita until we started getting dirty looks from the people waiting for tables, and then we took our party to the Hungarian Pastry Shop to sit and drink coffee and do work. Hungarian is a great place to hang out if you like to listen to pretentious grad-students (or if you are one), or if you need a place to work on your latest novella/screenplay/manifesto. They have some really tasty pastries (almond horn!) and also some less than delicious concoctions(weird chocolate ball thing--Sasch loves it), good coffee, and you can just sit there for hours. Which we did, until I started to vibrate from the 7 or 8th refill. We decided to meet up with her mom and make some dinner. The consensus: Chicken And Maybe Like a Salad or Something.

I swear to whatever deity is listening, nothing slaps a band-aid on Winter Madness better than the smell of a roast chicken. Think about it. All the crispy salty brown goodness, the juicy plumpness, the schmaltz dripping down onto various root vegetables. It makes everything just. a little. bit. better. And it's also the kind of dish that looks impressive without actually being that labor-intensive.

You can look up how to do this online, so I'm not gonna repeat it here, but note this: one thing no one ever tells you is that you have to dry the chicken off or it won't brown. Use a few paper towels, get it good and dry, and then rub some butter or olive oil into it. It's foolproof.

Rubbing in the butter. Oh yeah.

Gige does not have a roasting pan, so we used an aluminum thing from the grocery store. Be advised: it is wicked easy to cut through the bottom of these things, and then the juice goes all over, so be careful. Anyway, then we ate it, and I know you're jealous. Deal with it.

We made a gorgeous chicken roasted over turnips and sweet potatoes, and a salad with watercress. The whole thing was fantastic. And we had so much fun cooking together. There's something about cooking as a communal act that is deeply compelling. I think it's the shared responsibility of providing nourishment. Some of my best memories from college are of giant breakfasts we'd make together, of JP grilling salmon he caught himself on a little tailgating grill in the back of his truck, of making blue-cheese stuffed burgers and seared pineapple on the crappiest charcoal Weber in a front yard littered with party-wreckage. And then of eating these things together......as much as I love restaurants, this is the best argument I know for a night in with a (few) bottle(s) of wine, and the people I like. Winter can just suck it, like I sucked the meat of those chicken bones Saturday night (sidenote: I'm not allowed to eat roast chicken in front of people who don't know me. It is Not Cute.)

But tonight I'm definitely watching Heroes in my underwear. Let's not pretend.