The Best-Laid Plans Of Octopi And Men / Go Oft Awry...

Baby Octopi -- So primitive, so delicious. Fer Sher...

Chef Lynn McNeely taught me to boil them with a handful of corks for just 2 minutes so they don't get rubbery.

Apparently this is an old-school Mediterranean trick, as confirmed by a local Greek yaya (granny) here in Astoria...



So, you boil 'em, drain 'em and mix them into a marinade of lemon slices, olive oil, salt, pepper, smashed garlic cloves, chopped parsley, and a pinch of fresh basil, if you like.



Let the little tentacled fuckers sit in the marinade and think about what they've done wrong while you fire up the grill. Grill them with little slices of lemon (charred lemon slices are GOOD) for about 3 minutes (they are just babies, after all!)

Oh Come On.... WHO doesn't want to take these wee fellers home and adopt them???

Then, serve them up to the slavering masses...

Dapper Dan gets his baby octopus on!

In this instance we served them up with some tzatziki and grilled pita. Just like in old country but with the - how you say - indoor plumbing!



The set up-- pickled shallots down front left-- awaiting marriage to some hot wilted kale at the last second...



...green tomatoes for a delicious bread salad...

...bitter cress salad with shaved radishes and matchstick celery root waiting for a fabulous mustard/sherry vinaigrette whipped up by Clamshack,



"...frying" eggplant to drop into the lamb for the last 15 minutes of caramelization in the oven.



"Whoa, whoa, whoa..." I hear you say, "...but you said you were making grilled fish wrapped in Prosciutto!" Yeah. I said it. And then it got cold -- finally, and it just felt like summer was over and I should pack it in. The minute it snaps cold my evolution buttons light up and I want to get out the extra quilt and braise some meat. Which I did.

Hi-tech ZipLoc® Marinating Device.

Busted out some Lamb Shoulder... Tunisian Style, yo. I have not yet been to Tunisia, but it's on the list. The end result of marinating anything with garlic, chili, cinnamon and allspice... Well, it just makes you want to cry. Then you cook the whole business down for 4 hours with tomatoes and veal stock... I mean, COME ON.

Hello, ladies...

Karl made a whole bunch of delicious Brown Veal Stock on Saturday night. And he made LOTS of it, so look forward to its incorporation into the next few meals...

Tomatoes were not really Ready For Prime Time anymore so I skipped the butter and salt idea. Next summer.

Instead we had a tomato/potato gratin with saffron.



The lamb dish had cumin, caraway, cinnamon, allspice, garlic, cayenne, smoked paprika, and a bunch of different chilis in it, but no saffron. So, what could be better than a hint of saffron melted into the cream in the gratin? With caramelized onions, of course.

...and Karl's special Grappa Pear cake, which was a brilliant save using cooked down pears that were supposed to be turned into ice cream. Don't ask. Remember what I said about best plans?




The Butcher's Bill: 22 hungry faces, turned a bunch of people away, which felt terrible. A whole new crop of diners, resulting from the WNYC interview, and one gal brought her dad.

Note the big foreground bowl of insanely hot Harissa sauce. Use only as directed.
Karl says: "It'll burn the hair right off your hoo-hah from the inside!"





Sunday Night Dinner: Uniting the world, one delicious plate at a time!

Queen's Hideaway In Gourmet Magazine!

A bit late in reporting this, but Greenpoint's crown jewel The Queen's Hideaway has a mention in Gourmet this month. The copy appears below:

QUEEN'S HIDEAWAY Liza Queen is a great chef, but she's an even better shopper. The menu for her small, funky restaurant—in a Greenpoint, Brooklyn, neighborhood that is sprouting small, funky places at an alarming rate—is written at the farmers market every day. A lettuce, pea shoot, and baby pea salad was the only dish with an attributed ingredient: The cheese shaved over it was Ouray, which is made at Sprout Creek Farm, in Poughkeepsie, New York. Queen works hard to source beautifully fatty skirt steak, which she slow-cooks and then grills (pesky city regulations shut down her beloved smoker, but she is nothing if not adaptable). 222 Franklin St., Brooklyn, NY (718-383-2355)

— Gourmet, October 2007

Nuff said.

This Week's Menu and SND in today's NY Post

Quickly, as I am at WORK and unable to really take my time on this.......

Below is this week's menu, along with the invitation that went out. Zora also did an interview with the NY Post that is available here. They misspelled her name, but otherwise it looks good.

This week will be a mix of old and new... and one of our last outdoor menus for awhile, although maybe we can sneak in one more... Check back.....

Hello again, Hungry Kiddies--

If you missed me on WNYC last week, you can still catch it here:



If that doesn't float your boat, you can open this Wednesday's NY Post, and read a feature story featuring the eminently quotable Miss Zora. She's discussing Sunday Dinner and our campaign to conquer the world, one well-cooked dinner party at a time... If that STILL isn't enough, well... you'll just have to get your ass on the subway, and roll out to Queens this Sunday, won't you?

Come on out for what is likely our final backyard meal this season, and share a drink and a laugh. We kickstart the grill at 4pm, and the menu is looking to fall out like this:

grilled lemon garlic octopus
grilled pita and tzatsiki
*******************************
Grilled fish wrapped in prosciutto

last of the summer tomatoes melted butter and sea salt

lettuce, radish and celery root salad- maybe grain mustard dressing? maybe green goddess dressing-

sauteed kale with pickled shallots

maybe that tomato casserole of Edna Lewis but with green tomatoes?

turnip potato gratin

pear or plum upside down cake with pear or plum ice cream. See: Karl

VERY IMPORTANT: This is limited to the first 20 people who respond to this email. Or I will find myself in divorce court. Truly.

We don't care what you do or how much money you do or don't make or who you voted for, we just want to you to love to eat! Some come on -- rub elbows with a stranger and get a little grease on your hands; you will thank me later.


In love and Garlic--

(Mrs!!) Tamara

SND On WNYC!

Hey, all you hungry kiddies, out there in Radioland!

Tamara and The Sunday Night Dinner were featured on WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show today. (Zora was out of town. snif!) Tamara and the proprietors of NY Bite Club and The Whisk And Ladle Supperclub rapped with Brian about the emergence of underground supper clubs in New York.

Check it out here, or play it here:

Zombies, Yo! And Crispy Grilled Lamb....

Postprandial viewing on the wall next to our house, courtesy of Zora and Peter's PROJECTOR.
Aim for the head!



Oh jeebus...

It always starts with bacon, doesn't it?... Well, it always seems to, at our place. This week it started with a slab cut of bacon, which cooks up much nicer than yer regular packaged, commercial, machine-sliced variety. That is, unless your regular commercial variety involves a local farmer who raises and butchers pigs, and slices and packages delicious bacon for you.

I, personally, am on the lookout for that kind of arrangement. Tricky in Queens...

This week's Sunday Dinner fell on a Saturday, (keeps people on their toes!) and featured an outdoor showing of Shaun of the Dead. I couldn't really subject everyone to "zombie food", so I decided instead on:

Charcoal Grilled Leg of Lamb Marinated In Pomegranate Molasses With Herbs
Late Summer Tomato Bread Salad
Au Gratin Corn, Butter Bean & Summer Squash Salad w/Basil & Chili Flake
Bastardized Ratatouille
Grilled Escarole In Anchovy Dressing
Lemon Coconut Bundt Cake

Think of it as a celebration of late summer veggies. With a movie. In a parking lot. Next to the house. Like a drive in without the tight sweaters.

Here's the lambiekins marinating. 2 full legs boned, butterflied, and rubbed down with a rough paste of garlic, pomegranate molasses, salt, pepper, lemon, olive oil, tarragon (just a little!) basil, parsley, oregano and sprigs of rosemary resting on top to finish. Rosemary would have ordinarily been inside, but I forgot it. I like to let it marinate for around 24 hours.

Here are the beasts on the counter, "resting" before we grill 'em

We learned the hard way, a few years back, that grilling chilled meat = a tough piece of lamb, charred outside/raw inside. Not a crowd pleaser. Lamb sat out at room temp for about an hour before grilling.

Here is a little mezze platter I put together, with ingredients courtesy of Greek House on 30th ave. Dates, grape leaves, olives and these insanely delicious sundried hot peppers with sugar and olive oil (!!!).

Just a nibble to distract the zombies while I am furiously finishing dinner and everyone is getting drunk. Plate courtesy of a small town in Portugal.



So, while Karl was grilling the lamb....




...I made Bastardized Ratatouille. Made from memory of an Eggplant La Tavernetta Style that appeared in Mark Bittman's NY Times column a few weeks ago. At the time I couldn't find the recipe, so I winged it. Here's how I roll:

Cut up 7 medium eggplants and sautee them in garlic and olive oil, then pull them out of the oil and set them aside. Rinse a few anchovies of their salt, and add to the same skillet with some capers, and fry. Then add a few chopped tomatoes, and sautee until soft. Then add canned tomatoes; I busted out 3 pints of the ones I canned myself a few weeks ago, but you can use canned from the market. When this boils, reduce heat and simmer about 15 minutes, then add the cooked eggplant. Stir, pour it into a serving bowl, squeeze a little lemon over it, and serve. Can be served at room temperature, if you prefer-- that's the beauty of it. Gorgeous. Tastes like Summer.

Delicious little eggplantusses...

K.T. Loves Cake...

This was dessert. Lemon Coconut Bundt Cake, that eats like pound cake. Cream cheese AND butter. Yeah, baby... Finished with a glaze of sugar, lemon juice and water (photo below), heated to the point of boiling, and then fresh mint added. You pull the mint out before pouring it over the still warm cake. Mmmmmmm... Katie's Birthday (Belated) Cake. She was lucky enough to be born on Sept 11th, so we like to celebrate whenever the ruckus dies down.

Delicious, minty cake glaze...

These chopped tomatoes are waiting to be nestled in a baking dish among hunks of toasted, crunchy bread, then lightly tossed with a mixture of melted butter, salt, and pepper. Then, you melt another stick of butter, dress the whole business and bake for 30 minutes at about 400º.

Another bit of brilliance from our patron saint, Edna Lewis. Then...

The only thing that scares Karl more than zombies... Eek!

I confess, I don't like okra. Never understood it. But I keep at it, because I really want to like okra. This round went pretty well, also thanks to Saint Edna. I took the little stems off, and left the caps ON. Then I shanghaied a poor unsuspecting guest, and had him snap a bunch of beans-- green and yellow wax. I tossed the veggies with roughly smashed garlic, red onion, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a few oil cured olives. Roasted on Silpat® (Edna says it makes the okra crispier, which I couldn't make happen) on 450º for about 20 minutes. I think the oven should probably have been hotter to achieve the crispy. When it came out, it got the bits of fried, chopped SLAB BACON that you saw first in this post.

You knew it was coming, didn't you?

Let's just say, that it went so fast, i didn't even get any. I must assume it was good.

22 hungry people. Few leftover veggies, quite a bit of leftover lamb. Made some late revelers very happy by sending them home with some. I had brief dreams of using mine to make harira, but it was still too hot outside. Maybe next week.

The movie was a grand success-- Rachel kindly provided copious movie candy for the crowd and an aerobed for herself and her friend. Highly dedicated.

Perfect end of summer, food and activity wise.

Cornetto!

Here There Be Monsters...

We've Got Crabs...

Hideous? Yes. Pinchy? Nasty? Yes, and yes.

But so fucking delicious.

MENU: Summer Corn Salad • Salt Boiled Pertaters (lord have mercy) • Bawled Scrimps • Big Ol' Pot Of Crabs • Peach Pie with Buttermilk Cayenne Ice Cream



So, we decided to do a smaller event, just six of us, this time, and cook up a whole mess of bugs. Karl busted out dessert, and after the potatoes and corn salad were done, Zora, Karine and I set to work on the crabs.

Loading the crabs into the steamers and seasoning them was the fun part. We had a couple of minor crab skirmishes:

"No, no... but, you would be better the other way..."

As it turned out, Karine was really good at dealing with the more aggressive, snappier crabs, and she knew how to serve the crustacean smackdown. We sent her in as the enforcer, just to show the little monsters that we were smarter and tougher.

"They're ugly, and they're food..."

Once she had eliminated all pockets of resistance, we covered the beasties with a whole lot of Old Bay® and salt, and steamed them in vinegar, beer and water for about 15-20 minutes. Just for the record, all of the online recipes I could find recommended 45 minutes, but that seemed waaaaaay too long. Peter and Zora acted as final arbiters of when they were done.






We cooked up the shrimp in a delicious old school shrimp boil broth. Pickling spice, yellow and black mustard seed, green cardamom pods, a whole head of garlic, large quartered onion, lots of kosher salt, water, beer, whole allspice and star anise. Oh -- and a lot of bittersweet smoked paprika, which I can only ever find at Kalustyan's, and now I am out.


Then, we took the party outside to the yard, and dumped the crabs out on a newspapered table.



Finally, we beat the hell out of them with hammers and picks and ate them.






















We anticipate a torrent of angry "Crab Meat Is Murder" emails.

There was also pie.

Following dinner, we retired to the Parking Lot next door to watch Peter's inspired performance as Doody in Grease!, Clamshack's equally inspriring turn as Marty in Grease! (though at a different college), and Tamara's gung ho go as a country singing nun in Sister Amnesia's Country Jamboree-- Nunsense 3. Oh yeah, baby. The power of vhs, a projector, a white wall and an empty parking lot. We are still waiting on Zora's "porn" debut.....