Breuckelen Gastronaut

Food related musings of a NYC photography gallerist.

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Tea Eggs on the Fourth of July

The weather for this year’s Fourth of July really sucked, wind and rain made for a cozy stay indoors watching World Cup football, Wimbledon, and the Nathan’s Hotdog Eating Contest—holiday armchair athletics require much snacking. A quick survey of my refrigerator’s contents pointed to eggs! On this rainy day I chose to make a batch of spiced Tea Eggs—similar to the ones sold by Chinatown street vendors. A common everyday Chinese snack, Tea Eggs are especially devoured during the Lunar New Year, promoting wealth and prosperity for the coming year. Tea Eggs are a beautiful thing to behold, as you peel away its damaged shell, the ivory colored whites reveal a delicate crackelature pattern, stained to a deep mahogany by a lengthy bath of tea and spice. A good Tea Egg is a balancing act of savory and sweet—grounded by soy sauce and earthy black tea, playful sweet notes linger on the tongue from a healthy dose of cinnamon, star anise and fennel, with black pepper and chili adding a subtle fruity bite.

To make Fourth of July Tea Eggs: Place a dozen medium sized organic eggs in a large sauce pan, cover with cool water by an inch, bring to a boil, remove from heat, cover and let sit for 5 minutes, drain. In a separate sauce pan, simmer a brew made from 1 cup of soy sauce, 2 cups water, a half cup of sugar, 2 cinnamon sticks, 2 Ty•phoo tea bags, 3–4 star anise, a teaspoon of red chili flakes, and a tablespoon each of whole black peppercorn and fennel seeds. With the back of a spoon, crack the egg shells all over, being careful not to break the shells all the way through damaging the whites. Drop the eggs one by one into the sauce pan of simmering spiced brew—they should be completely submerged. Cover and let sit, heat off, for at least 4 hours, they can continue to marinate in the refrigerator overnight. The flavors will intensify the longer they marinate, remove from spice brew when desired taste is achieved. They will keep for up to a week refrigerated. Delicious eaten warm or cold served with some of the marinade if you like, they make tasty garnishes to steamy bowls of ramen or salads. Tea Eggs nestled into asian braises like pork adobo until just warmed through are splendid, and deviled eggs are elevate to spiced edible jewels when made from Tea Eggs.

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A Sunday Roast of Red Snapper

Brooklyn's Church Avenue has become one of my go-to food shopping haunts—sometimes gritty, but always an adventure of unusual ingredients and good fish stands. For tonight's meal, I picked up a superbly fresh red snapper from one of the Avenue's fish markets—the snapper's clear eyes, crimson gills and glistening skin meant that no other fish would do for this Sunday meal.

After cleaning, I scored the fish with a few deep diagonal cuts on both sides of the fish. To flavor, I rubbed a simple marinade of olive oil, thyme, pimento peppers, a little salt, garlic and grated lemon zest—massaging the marinade into the slits, pushing as much of the solids into them as possible. The marinade ingredients were bought at a grocer near the fish market—specializing in Latin American, Jamaican and Haitian foods.

The snapper was then generously salted inside and out with kosher salt, it's belly stuffed with thyme and lemon, then popped in into a 450 F oven for 18 minutes. Done!

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Lea: Wood Burning Oven Pizza in Ditmas Park

Yesterday we enjoyed a pleasant Saturday afternoon meal in Brooklyn, sharing a Pizza Margherita [$14] and a couple of Kelso pilsners [$6 pint] at a new Ditmas Park brick oven eatery called "Lea"—on the corner of Cortelyou and Stratford. The space is casual and modern, the wood burning oven visible from most of the room, with lots of dark wood, flowers, antique chandeliers, and ample light from the huge glass windows that wrap around this cozy well designed little restaurant. The enthusiastic and knowledgeable staff of Lea serves a hungry crowd composed [on this day] of hip, young gentrifiers and neighborhood foodies—the young and the beautiful.

Our Pizza Margherita arrived from the wood-burning oven—if Neapolitan is your thing, this is a very decent pie, made of quality ingredients with a pleasing chew to the crust, dressed with lots of torn basil and splashes of good olive oil. The pizza would have benefited from another minute in the oven to lend it more char on the crust and a bit more color on the upskirt, and perhaps a lighter hand with the olive oil.

It's a brave endeavor to open a Neapolitan pizza joint in NYC these days, with Neapolitan being the last decade's regional variation of choice for upscale incarnations of pizza. In 2004, Anthony Mangieri had set the gold standard for the NYC Neapolitan pizza scene, with his glorious pies, from his now closed Una Pizza Napoletana on East 12th Street—a mere 5 minute walk from my apartment back in my East Village days. What set Mangieri's pizzas apart from the rest, was the personality and character of his pies—they had soul! Lea certainly has the ingredients and oven to finesse their good pies into very good to excellent ones.

I'm pleased to have another good spot in the neighborhood for a pizza fix, in addition to the legendary Di Fara on Avenue J.

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Will Steacy: A Product of Our Environment

Three images from Will Steacy's project A Product of Our Environment, of which he says:

There is no greater disparity between rich and poor in America than in New York. Evidence of this divide becomes apparent in statistics comparing New Yorker’s socioeconomic status with self-reported health records. Reports show that low-income households have the highest reported rates of poor health and illness, while high-income households report the lowest rates. This disparity has become one of the biggest debates in public health and in efforts to bridge this gap, programs like New York City’s Green Cart Initiative have emerged, providing access to affordable and healthy food options in underserved neighborhoods. In an attempt to illustrate the relationship between illness and socioeconomic status, I set out to create a visual record of the food options where the highest reported instances of poverty, obesity, diabetes, and people living without health insurance overlap with the placement of the Green Carts. When looking at our nation’s current health care system, the conversation often turns into a fiscal debate as the health and well being of American citizens are somehow only seen in dollars and cents. What doesn’t make sense and what is continually left out of this conversation, is a serious look at the root of these problems. There is a major health crisis in our country right now and those who find themselves on the bottom rung of the economic ladder face the greatest risk to their health.

For print sales, Will Steacy is represented by Mazzeo Projects. There will be an opening reception and gallery talk for No Job No Home No Peace No Rest: An Installation by Will Steacy on Friday, September 14, 6:30–9:00pm, at the Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh.

Top: Closed Grocery Store On Block Lined With Vacant Buildings, Looking South From Fulton Street & Garvey Avenue, Brooklyn, 2009. Middle: McDonald's Cup, Phone Cards, Ants Eating Banana Peel & Napkins, Looking South From West Burnside Avenue, Bronx, 2009. Bottom: Neighborhood Residents In Front Of Tony’s, Looking West From Knickerbocker Avenue & Dekalb Avenue, Brooklyn, 2010.

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Who's Your Daddie?

Daddies Ketchup, 2001, a fun and wacky, 30-foot-high inflatable sculpture by Paul McCarthy that I came across a couple of weeks ago in City Hall Park, NYC.

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Pork. Advertising. Chris Buck.

Last year the National Pork Board took a gamble in adopting a new slogan, ridding itself of the famously catchy “Pork. The Other White Meat” coined in 1987 by ad firm Bozell, Jacobs, Kenyon & Eckhardt [also responsible for "Got Milk" and "Corinthian Leather"], in favour of the broader appeal tagline “Pork. Be Inspired,” developed by Chicago-based Schafer Condon Carter.

Below is photographer Chris Buck’s inspired portrait of Bill Buford and the other white meat—shot for Entertainment Weekly, June 9, 2006—of which he says:

A portrait that I did of Bill Buford as his book HEAT was coming out. One chapter deals with him buying a whole pig at market, taking it home by taxi and carrying it up to his New York apartment, to systematically break it apart and prepare different dishes with it. That inspired me to make a portrait with Buford with a live pig—and we shot it at my apartment (luckily my wife has a fondness for the swine).

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Quahogging: “Doing the Twist” on Fire Island

The arrival of this Labour Day Weekend brings back fun memories of a clamming [Quahogging] expedition with friends on Fire Island back in 2003. It all began with my friend Anna and her quirky desire to go clamming. After some conspiring, procrastination, and selective recruitment of willing clammers, a plan was in place. The clamming crew consisted of Anna and her friend Nadja, my friend Denise and me. We met on the designated morning, setting out on the LIRR from Penn Station, with the plot to invade my former beach house on Fire Island, in search of the little Quahogs.

We got to the beach house [a.k.a West House], just a stones throw from the ocean situated in the Davis Park section of Fire Island. On the deck was coffee and getting reacquainted with some old friends, who were that summer’s occupants of the house, while strategizing our hunt. Anna, the clamming expert amongst us, made it out to be such a simple endeavor—it seemed all you needed was a bucket. A quiet stretch of beach, on the Patchogue Bay side of Fire Island was our chosen hunting grounds. Following Anna’s lead, the technique involved wading bare-feet into thigh-deep water and “doing the twist,” until the balls of your feet dug into the sand, with hopes of the elusive mollusks revealing themselves. At first, we encountered red herrings of rocks, seaweed and unidentifiable bay guck—channeling Chubby Checkers—clams began to show, as well as our feet receiving instant pedicures from the pebbles and sand. After a while, feet become sensitized enough to distinguish bivalve from smooth pebble. It was hard work, but we were intent on searching with eager feet until capturing an adequate bevy of the hard shelled creatures!

After a few hours of clamming, salty-wet, legs and hips tired, shoulders slightly sunburnt, mosquito bitten, we stopped. Our reward, an afternoon’s haul of forty-two pristine Quahogs, left to sit in a bucket of seawater to purge themselves of sand and grit, before being cooked. We then relaxed with drinks on the deck, shucking a few to be eaten on the half shell with lemon wedges, near the bucket containing our harvest from the bay. Off to the kitchen!

Fire Island Quahogs with Linguine Cook the dried linguine in a pot of generously salted boiling water. Meanwhile, over a medium-flame in a well-heated deep saute pan or Dutch oven, add a good splash of olive oil, minced garlic and onion, Bay Laurel, red chili flakes, sizzle for a few of minutes until the onions become translucent. Then add a large local tomato that's diced, chopped Italian parsley, cook the mixture down for a couple of minutes. Next, add the clams [rinse them first] along with a glass of white wine, cover the pan—pour yourself another glass of wine to drink as you cook, you know you deserve it. As the clams begin to open, remove them one by one to a large bowl, discarding those refusing to open, even after politely knocking on their shells with a wooden spoon [thankfully our catch all opened!]. Test the linguine for doneness, it should be al dente by now, drain pasta reserving a cup of the pasta cooking liquid. When all the clams are opened, taste the sauce, adjusting with salt if needed, a squirt or two of Tabasco® if you like, adding some of the reserved pasta water to extend and bind the sauce a little. Now add the drained linguine to the pan, incorporating it well with the sauce, tossing in a handful of chopped basil—there should be enough sauce to loosely coat the pasta, you want it wet, but not swimming in the sauce [pasta will absorb some of the sauce]. To serve, empty the sauced pasta into a serving dish, nestling all of the clams into the pasta, garnish with some chopped Italian parsley and basil.

A good sunset meal of pasta with foot-caught Quahogs on the deck, after the dishes were washed, we all headed back to Manhattan. We came, we clammed, we ate.

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Brian Finke: Summer BBQ

Brian Finke’s food photography, is playfully direct and in-your-face, I can virtually taste and smell smoke and pork fat from these, snapped from an under-your-nose vantage point. Finke's work can be nostalgic, festive or ironic—his food related still life, portraits and environmental shots have a welcoming immediacy, in how he lights and composes an image. For me, the ideal farewell to the end of summer is BBQ and some cold beers in the hot sun—here are two of Finke’s shots, of which he says:

 …it’s my regular Sunday afternoon BBQ, spare ribs marinated in the Bone Sucking dry rub for a day, then finished off with after 2 1/2 hours on the smoker with a hefty lathering of Dinosaur's original BBQ sauce...

To savour some good post-Summer photography, Brian Finke: Construction will open Thursday, September 6, 6–8pm at ClampArt in New York City, and will be on view through October 13. The exhibit coincides with the release of his book on the project, published by Decode Books.

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Papaye Restaurant in the Bronx

Though now residing in Brooklyn, at times I feel like a displaced Manhattanite—phobic of long subway journeys, crossing rivers more than once in one direction, or trips involving too many transfers. To me it’s often easier to get to JFK for a flight, than to navigate the MTA from Brooklyn, on weekends when the tracks are being worked on.

Last weekend my cravings for spice and desire for a new experience took me via the Q and D lines to a Ghanaian restaurant in the Bronx called Papaye, 196 McClellan Street—located in an off-the-beaten-path area of the Bronx, dotted with a few interesting African grocery shops among the discount stores, check cashing and hair salons.

Papaye occupies a nondescript corner—a small restaurant with homey service. At the counter where you order, stood a little heated display case, filled with an array of fried meats and fish—reminding me of the Puerto Rican cuchifrito establishments that are increasingly hard to find in New York City.

I ordered the Fufuo & Goat Meat Soup with Okro [$12], a massive bowl containing pieces of goat, a dense softball-sized fufu [ubiquitous West African ball of starch], boiled okra—with a bold, incredibly flavourful soup of spice and chili pepper ladled over it. The texture of the soup was seductive—velvety from the okra and sticky from gelatin released by the goat’s skin. A single fried chicken drumstick [$2], aggressively seasoned with chili pepper before frying, was a bit dry but delightful when dunked into my fiery cauldron.

Eating with fingers, in Ghanaian tradition, is how I devoured my food—the manner in which everyone else there ate. Finger food is a pleasure I’ve always enjoyed—BBQ ribs, crab boils, South Indian Thalis, Hawaiian food, sushi, deviled eggs—taste sensations become exponentially heightened. When using chopsticks or a fork, food bypasses the lips—with fingers, the lips become more involved as spice and oil coats and make them tingle. Even before food enters the mouth, fingers inform you of the food’s texture—dry, cool, chewy, soft, sticky, crumbly, hot, firm, slimy, tepid, tender, wet. I just needed to be mindful of not burning my fingers in the hot soup, while dunking my fufu in it—there is probably a proper technique I’m unacquainted with. The hand-washing sink in the restaurant proved useful both before and after the meal.

At the end of the meal I headed back to Brooklyn—hunger satisfied, a lingering capsicum buzz, and a new found fondness for a cuisine that I was not too familiar with. Twenty-one traditional Ghanaian dishes grace the menu at Papaye, including many I would love to sample in the near future—now that crossing the East River twice in one direction doesn’t seem so bad.

Dishes on the menu that looked good: Emotuo & Peanut Butter Soup [$12]; Boiled Yam & Palaver Sauce [$12]; Fufuo & Adwene [Dried Fish] Soup; Jollof Rice & Meat [$10]; Fufuo & Abunabunu Nkwan Soup [$17]; Fried Fish & Yam & Turkey Tail [$12].

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Angela Moore: Spilt Cream

Angela Moore’s food photography is inventive, smart—done with a designer’s sensibility and a good nod to theatrics. Moore’s work is full of the unexpected, whether shooting a cookbook for Nigel Slater or Heston Blumenthal. Of her serendipitous shot of steamed syrup pudding for Canteen: Great British Food [Ebury Press, 2010], she says:

When shooting this shot, stylist Sarah May and myself wanted to animate the image slightly by pouring cream from a jug onto the plate. When we first tried it, the cream missed the plate and spilt on the surface, which gave us the idea to pour cream on the whole surface.

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The Haitian Cookie

Bought a cookie last Sunday from the Haitian bakery on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn—hard, crumbly and bone-dry, dissolves to a pleasantly semi-sweet paste in your mouth, would be nice with tea/espresso. The unusual flavour/texture makes me think it's made from cassava flour—a traditional staple in Haiti. Also purchased a savoury Haitian beef patty—different from the pervasive Jamaican patties—not as spicy as Jamaicans, slightly tart from the addition of vinegar to the filling, encased in flaky/crunchy puff pastry—reflective of French culinary influences.

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An Old Cookbook

Thrilled to find this beautiful leather-bound edition of The Successful Housekeeper: Manual of Universal Application, wedged under a stack of my old books, it's a book I've possessed for well over fifteen years—can't be certain if it was a gift, picked up at a stoop sale, or left behind with me by a friend. As much as I love good food photography—there is magic in old food illustrations, where colour palette and form sensibilities describing standards of deliciousness, belonged to a different time. I've included this recipe [illustrated top left] from the book, in case you have the good fortune of finding fresh mutton. Roast Leg of Mutton Get a leg of about eight pounds, which has hung at least a week, weather allowing. During hot summer weather this joint gets quickly tainted. Rub it lightly with salt, and put it at once into a hot oven for the first few minutes, then allow the oven to cool, and roast more slowly until done. Baste continually with a little good dripping until that from the joint begins to flow. When within twenty minutes to being done, dredge it with flour, and baste with butter or dripping; and when the froth rises serve on a hot dish. Make a gravy and pour around the meat, not over it. The Successful Housekeeper: Manual of Universal Application [Especially adapted to the everyday wants of American Housewives] Published by: M.W. Ellsworth & Company, 1884