New York, Walking, Dancing, Squab and Soujouk

And so the eating continues.
Just back from a handful of days in New York. Official reason for going was to attend the Golden Festival, an annual overload of Balkan music and dance. But as with most of my travels of late, eating was an important part of the itinerary.

Jerry and I arrived early Wednesday morning after taking the red eye. We knew a nap was in the offing but first there was a task at hand: cooking 40 pounds of soujouk, a Turkish beef sausage.

Last year Paul, our host was the soujouk chef de cuisine, but since he was in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electric Show, the job was left to his wife Nancy, Jerry and me. We hauled out Nancy's crab pot and set to work.

We crammed as much sausage as humanly possible into the pot and waited for it to boil. Once it finally did, we waited the prescribed 10 minutes for it to be done. Then, that batch went into the sink where the next task was to pull off the skin while the next batch cooked.

After the first batch Jerry discovered that if you immediately doused the sausage with cold water the skin practically slid off by itself. It was incredibly satisfying for the casing to just peel off the sausage.

Three batches later we were done, and we loaded the sausages into coolers, topped them off with ice and then Jerry and I headed to our basement room for a nap.

Not sure what the rest of the week would bring, we decided that night would be dinner at our favorite Park Slope restaurant, Al di La. Al di La takes no reservations, so we headed down to 5th Avenue to arrive in time for its 6 pm opening.

We were quickly seated at the same table we sat at last year, and once again, I had no idea what wine to order. I'm pretty good at California wines. I've even expanded my repertoire beyond Napa and Sonoma into Lodi and the central coast, but Italy is still a complete mystery. Nancy suggested a bottle she had tasted during a previous visit, and she picked a good one. It was a nice peppery red with an interesting aftertaste, that admittedly took a bit of getting used to, but after a few sips and a little air, went down easily.

Though on any other day of the year I don't eat beef, I generally make an exception at Al di La and I order the medallions of beef liver. I pretty much assumed I would do so again, but the specials were enticing. One was a squid risotto and the other squab with wild mushrooms. I had never had squab before,and with a little coaxing, I went for it. I was not disappointed. The plate was an orgy of richness: delicious meat surrounded by more rich mushrooms. I don't think I will order squab again because I'm not sure it could live up to the wonderful dish I experienced.

No trip to Al di La would be complete without at least one order of Malfatti-- a Swiss chard dumpling filled with a blend of ricotta and herbs, topped with fried sage. We always order it and are never disappointed. We also shared a farro salad. It was okay, not my favorite, but Nancy loves it.

We decided to skip dessert because I had brought cookies with me. We went home and I brought out my tins of biscotti and brown butter shortbread topped with fleur de sel.

The brown butter shortbread is my current favorite cookie to make and to eat. It is incredibly easy to make and the brown butter gives it a rich nutiness. The fleur de sel makes each bite explode with flavor.

After cookies, Nancy wanted us to try some liqueur called Domaine de Canton. It was a rich, sweet ginger liqueur and was fantastic. We drank way too much and slept incredibly well that night.

The next day brought a light rain, but Jerry and I headed into the city and spent a good chunk of the day at the Museum of Modern Art. Earlier that day we went to the half price ticket booth and got tickets for "Seminar," a play with Alan Rickman. I have loved him since I saw him in "Truly Madly Deeply" in 1990.

Last year before we went to the theater we had found a really good Chinese restaurant, and through a little detective work, we managed to find it again. We were a bit smarter this time and ordered only one entree-- a very nice chicken and vegetables. I found it interesting that the restaurant had no condiments on the table, but in reality, we didn't need any. The seasoning was just right in both the chicken and the hot and sour soup.

Friday was a trip to my favorite Brooklyn store: Sahadi's. A trip to Brooklyn would not be complete without buying some halvah, dried herbs, and maybe a jar of ajvar, or this time, some grapefruit marmalade. After Sahadi's, we had lunch at a diner-y sort of place. I had a smoked salmon scramble and more good coffee.

Friday night, we grazed on cheese, good bread and wine for dinner. Nancy said Paul would never accept something like that for dinner, but Jerry and I do it all the time.

Saturday we made another trip into the city to Soho. We window shopped and had lunch at another Italian restaurant. More wild mushrooms, this time with pasta.

We got home in time to get ready for the Golden Festival. The day before we left for New York I found a pair of gold shoes, so I was all set.

Food at the Golden Festival has not changed in years. People are always reminded that the food is for snacking, not dinner, but since the event starts at 6 pm and people use a lot of energy dancing, there is an incredible amount of food, including several kinds of sausage, feta and kasseri cheese, baba ghanoush, ajvar and hummus, vegetable trays and a hot bean dish. Normally there is a beet salad that I make, but if there was any this year, I didn't see it. There was a cash bar with not very good wine, but the music and dancing more than make up for any shortcomings in the wine.

I remember the days when I not only stayed until the end of the Golden Festival, I helped with clean up and carting things out, but I'm not as young as I used to be so after Slavic Soul Party played at around 12:30, we called a car service and headed back to Nancy and Paul's.

While the "official" festival ends Saturday night, what is perhaps my favorite part of the event is on Sunday. Emerson, whom I've known since I was a teenager, lives in Brooklyn and people start arriving at his house around noon for an all day and well into the evening "brunch." It's the best time to have a good visit with friends, many of whom I don't see from one year to the next. My friend Kathleen, who lived in Montana the same time I did, was in from New Mexico, and we had a great visit.

So it was another day of eating, drinking a little wine and slivovitz, and spending time with great friends.

Now that I'm back home I'm determined to start to have a more healthy diet, although today was the Fancy Food Show, full of great cheeses, salted caramels and basamic ice cream, and later this week I'm going to San Antonio, tagging along with Jerry to a conference.

So maybe next week I'll go back to my two vegan meals a day. But who knows what adventures next week might bring.