All the Things I've Been Eating

Hi everyone! Well here we are at Sunday again--where does the time go? Why aren't weekends ever long enough? Sigh. Well, I guess I should stop moping--I mean, it's still only Sunday afternoon, so I still have a few hours to do whatever I feel like. Anyway, right now, I feel like sharing some of the things I've been eating lately, in lieu of any content containing recipes (hey, it's Sunday after all!) First, the weather has finally cooled just enough for me to turn my oven on. HOORAY! The first thing to emerge from the oven is these plain shortbreads. I cut them with a pie-pastry cutter which has a vein pattern stamp built in and then dusted them with some green sugar I found lurking in my freezer. (I went through this phase a while back where I discovered how easy it is to tint sugar with gel paste.) I quite like the way they came out!


And of course, green leaves made me think of Yatta and now I can't get the song out of my head. (In fact, I just rewatched that video AGAIN.)


I had dinner with my girls this past week which is always a blast. We went to Ouest on the Upper West Side (because I had been meaning to try it out for ages) and had a delicious meal. We did show up a little late for our reservation and thus were banished to a table by a waiter station, but I suppose that's our fault! Anyway, the important thing was the food, and our favorite thing all night (well, mine, anyway!) was this apple frangipane tart with caramel sauce and cinnamon ice cream. I wanted to lick the plate (I didn't, you'll be happy to know). But we also had delicious braised short ribs and a gorgeous piece of pork belly and soft shelled crabs...I walked home. It put the smallest dent in the number of calories we consumed, but hey! It's the effort.


About a week ago, my family and I had dinner at L'ecole, which is run by the French Culinary Institute and staffed by its students. They have a pretty good value dinner menu of either 4 or 5 courses (depending on what time you go) for $42. And the quality of the food is pretty good (although I thought the service was a bit patchy). Plus, you get a little treat to take home; ours were these crumbcakes, which made a nice breakfast the next morning. I only took a couple of photos because of the lighting, but the two below were my favorites: roasted shrimp and my chocolate tart.




I can't remember what type of ice cream the tart was served with (perhaps coconut, judging from the garnish) but what I do remember is the disk of caramelized bananas the tart was set on. Oh boy! They really made this dessert and I would definitely not have enjoyed it nearly as much without the bananas.

Oh dear, well, look at the time. I have to go get some Guinness cupcakes into the oven. Don't worry, I'll tell you about that next time (and about the zongzi we made this weekend, yum!) Hope you had a great weekend!

Ouest
2315 Broadway
New York, NY 10024
Tel: 212-580-8700

L’Ecole
462 Broadway
New York, NY 10013
Tel: 212-291-3300