Category: Food

The Secret to a Good Meatball

Posted on by kenwheaton in Brooklyn, Food, Recipes, Reviews

I’m not going to pretend to be a master of spaghetti and meatballs, but a quick note to the folks who run the Classic Diner on Smith Street in Cobble Hills: meatballs taste better when they contain a secret ingredient I like to call … MEAT.

Wife and I went there last night after having a few drinks at the office of my literary agency. It was cold, rainy and upon exiting the Bergen Street stop, we thought a diner would be a nice, cheap choice. After having our wallets raped by (The New) St. Clair on the corner of Smith and Atlantic, we decided on Classic. Susan had been craving spaghetti and meatballs. Well, the meatballs consisted of two things: 95% bread crumbs and 5% apathy. The sauce made an expired jar of Prego seem like Grandma Scungilli’s ancient gourmet secret.

To quote Forrest Gump: “That’s all i got ta say about that.”

Ken’s Crawfish Etouffee

Posted on by kenwheaton in Cajun, Crawfish, Food, Louisiana, Recipes

In the comments on the gumbo recipe, Caro asked about crawfish. Crawfish is almost always the first thing to come up in a discussion with non-Cajuns about Cajun food — unless it’s Thanksgiving, when the talk turns to Turduckens or Deep-fried turkey.

Let me say first that Crawfish Etouffee has little to do with crawfish boils–in which people stand around in the backyard drinking beer and getting their hands messy cracking those little buggers open and eating all the tail meat. Unless you have an outdoor space, the proper equipment and access to live crawfish, you can just forget about boiled crawfish. It’s only good fresh. And though you can get live crawfish delivered in season (generally February through June), it’s ridiculously expensive. And take it from someone who boiled crawfish in a New York City apartment — just don’t. The horrible ditch-water smell will be with you for weeks and stray cats will come from miles around to investigate. At any rate, if you want the great taste of crawfish, go with etouffee. (Ay — too — fay)

Continue reading “Ken’s Crawfish Etouffee” →

Gumbo for Dummies

Posted on by kenwheaton in Cajun, Food, Recipes

I’m the sort who makes vast pronouncements about Cajun cooking. As I am from Opelousas, Louisiana, and most people outside of Louisiana think a Cajun is either a) a mythical being, b) Emeril or c) Adam Sandler in “The Water Boy,” I’m not exactly shy about telling most people they don’t know what they’re talking about and they likely haven’t had Cajun food. The sad reality is that in most places, Popeye’s red beans and rice is the closest thing to authentic you’ll find (and it’s actually pretty good). After an exchange about gumbo on Twitter, I figured I’d quit mocking people for not knowing any better and provide you with a roadmap to true gumbo bliss.

Continue reading “Gumbo for Dummies” →

Park Slope Co-op’ers not so bright after all

Posted on by kenwheaton in Brooklyn, Food

Let me be clear. I’ve lived near Park Slope (Windsor Terrace, Prospect Heights). We’ve also put two bids on two separate places in the Slope in the last two months. I’ve got nothing against the Slope in general. But just as I’ve sworn up and down I will never set foot in the office of a couple’s counselor, I will also never set foot inside the Park Slope Co-op. Organic food’s fine and all, but I’m too damn old to be working part-time is a wee fascist grocery store for the pleasure of eating organic food and being subjected to the sort of political thinking (and talking) that would cause me to slay someone with a giant root vegetable.

So I was more than delighted to see this piece on a NYTimes blog in which the Cream of the Food Police Crop consistently guessed the calorie count wrong just because the words “Trans-fat free” were added to a photo: “The other half of the Park Slopers were shown the same salad and drink plus two Fortt’s crackers prominently labeled ‘Trans Fat Free.’ The crackers added 100 calories to the meal, bringing it to 1,034 calories, but their presence skewed people’s estimates in the opposite direction.” (And, yes, I find this funny precisely because it validates my world-view.)