Adam Kuban: Kublog

This photo is part of my attempt to take at least one photograph a day in 2011.

Inspired by SE’r PoorOldMama, we declared January 8 International Serious Eats Day and tried to spark a series of distributed, autonomous meet-ups of SE’rs across the U.S. and around the world.

At the NYC meet-up at Radegast Hall & Biergarten, we had easily more than 100 folks show up. At one point, we pretty much OWNED half the hall,* taking up three-plus tables.

These two women were sitting at one of the SE tables, and I sat down across from them, attempting to be an affable host. They had a box, which I began pawing. “What’s in here?!?”

“Cupcakes. It’s her birthday,” says the one on the left.

“Oh, wow! Happy birthday!”

How cool, I thought, that an SE’r would choose to celebrate her birthday with us during ISEDay.

“Did you make them?!?”

“Um, yeah. Do you want to see them?”

“Sure.”

The one on the left opens the box, and I start shooting pictures. I thank them and leave.

About an hour later, I’m chatting with SENY editor Carey Jones and her boyfriend. Carey’s like, “Um, did you know those two women with the cupcakes weren’t here for the meet-up?”

I AM MORTIFIED.

“It’s OK,” Carey’s BF says, “I explained to them what was going on. But they were pretty freaked out at first.”

So, if you’re reading this, ladies, I’m sorry for bugging you and freaking you out. My birthday gift to you is the weird story you had to tell your friends later that day.

* Many thanks to Radegast, whose hospitality in the face of such unexpected numbers was impeccable. The beer and food were great, too!

To say that this is not the most glamorous Date Night would be an understatement, but Claire had a craving for Mexican. We tossed around the idea of doing Taco Night at home with a box-taco mix, but we were slow getting out of the house. So down to the local Chinese Mexican place we went.

That’s a Mexican joint run by Chinese folks. I guess I’ve been in NYC long enough that that does not sound weird. In fact, there are quite a number of these places now. The hallmark of a Chinese-run Mexican joint (besides the unconventional ethnic mashup) is the fresh tortilla machine. All these places have a tortilla press that spits out thin rounds of flour dough onto a griddle, a process you see happen before your eyes after you order.

The first such instance of this now-classic NYC restaurant genre seems to have appeared in 1991, when De Shi Zheng and his wife, Rose, opened the first Fresco Tortilla at 24th and Lexington. The New York Times has a good history of the place in this 1997 story by Anthony Ramirez.* The Zhengs own the original (which appears to be there still) and maybe a couple others (though the one on 42nd Street closed when the B of A building construction razed the block in the mid 2000s). But a legion of imitators has sprung up in the years since. Sounds kind of like the Ray’s/Original/Famous Ray’s pizzeria mystery. (You’ll notice, for instance, that the one near us is Fresca Tortillas whereas the Zhengs’ chain is Fresco Tortillas.)

Anyway, the thing I love about Fresca Tortillas (and the others like it) is that it pretty much tastes like the taco nights my mom used to do. I’m pretty sure they’re just getting a Lawry’s taco-seasoning mix (or, more likely, the industrial food-service equivalent from, say, Sysco) and flavoring the ground beef with that. And the shredded cheddar cheese, iceberg lettuce, and flavorless tomato is straight out of the white-Midwesterners-make-tacos playbook. So is the hard-shell taco. Gotta get it in the hard shell.

Once we finally get our house organized and cleaned so we can entertain, we’re going to do Taco Night here at the homestead. I want to serve it on our good china. Until then, we’ll have to be content with Frescas Tortillas.

* It’s somewhat remarkable in and of itself that Fresco/a Tortillas managed to get this much ink — the 1997 story I linked to above, and also a 1991 mention in the “$25 and Under” column by Eric Asimov, which is reprinted on the menus and hangs on the wall of the one I go to. These days, these places are fairly unremarkable and are shunned by “foodies,” but at one point — maybe just because of the unusual ethnic mashup — they warranted coverage. Then again, the Times is often pretty good about noticing quirky offbeat stories.

The Citigroup Center building (on the left, with the sloped roof) has a fascinating story. I’d explain it, but you can just go to Wikipedia to read it.

On the right, the oval-shape building is the Lipstick Building. It was designed in part by Philip Johnson and is where Bernie Madoff schemed his schemes.

OK … so I didn’t actually take this photo — but I art-directed it, so I think that counts. (Claire took it.) Plus, I took other photos today that I could have subbed in to this slot, so I’m still within the spirit of the project.

Here, I’m using the mini grater that Claire got me for Christmas from a cool little store in Soho called Kiosk. Here’s the description of the grater from the Kiosk site:

Ah…Italian invention! We were actually introduced to this grater by friends in Berlin. Brilliant. Great for those nights when you have to cook something but can’t even reach for the metal grater. Too much effort! We store our Parmesan inside of it in the fridge so it is always on standby. Our student life would have been saved with this one, it is never too late!

I’ve been doing the same — leaving it in the fridge with a chunk of cheese in it. I use it up fast enough that it doesn’t A) smell up the fridge or B) take on other fridge smells.

Has a sort of Star Wars feel. Or a very sinister Space Mountain vibe.

Inspired by the semi-dried cherry tomato topping at Di Fara, I did a trial run of semi-dried grape tomatoes (my market didn’t have the former in stock). Lesson learned here? Shoot before-and-after photos under the same lighting conditions. Duh. The top photo is shot under our range’s built-in fluorescent cooktop light, while the photo just above was shot under the incandescent oven bulb. I’ll make these again, at which point I’ll normalize the lighting in both shots.

I know Christmas is over, and New Year’s is already a thing of the past, but I liked this Christmas scene in the lobby of the Citibank building in Long Island City. Very corporate.

Impromptu pizza night tonight. Just two pies. This is one of them. (Didn’t bother shooting the other; it sucked.) Made with the fennel sausage recipe I posted today on Slice.

It’s like this … I found some Italian type “00″ pizza flour last week at Rosario’s Deli in Astoria. Made dough with it Sunday night and fridged it off for a cold-ferment/retarded rise. It was pretty much use it or lose it tonight. I really wanted to see how the “00″ stuff would work. First pizza sucked. Again, it was “creepy bagel.” This one was better. Think because I stretched it thinner. Might start making the dough balls a little small. These were all between 230 and 240g. Might go for 200g and see where that takes us.

Figured it was time to push down the Christmas-music posts. Heard this at dinner on the 23rd. Love this song. Oh, Minnie Ripperton. That squeal … very Mariah.