NEW YORK STATE OF MIND

Why, hello. I've been in New York, hence the silence of late. But I wanted to get a post up before the beginning of the Christmas season (yikes).

Above is a view of Manhattan from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, and this is the park in Dumbo (an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). 

Manhattan was work, Brooklyn Heights was play. Stately brownstones, cobblestone streets named Willow, Poplar, Pineapple and Orange, and a quiet that couldn't be found anywhere else on or off the island. Getting lost in Dumbo at night, and the river's edge is calm and the skyscraper's windows far enough away and glittering with promise to believe New York might offer some kind of magic, but Brooklyn will deliver down-to-earth goodness. 

And the number of quality restaurants and bars on Court St, Atlantic Ave, Montague St, and Smith St do. By far, my favourites: the River Deli, on Joralemon St – small, intimate, and dishing up unpretentious Italian with a Sardinian edge, and Brucie on Court St.

Catching up with old friends, the greatest discovery was Sunday brunch, a New York institution served straight up in Brooklyn. A dear friend of mine lives in Court St, and took me to two brunch venues that nailed it, and us. She got sozzled on bellinis, and I discovered the Bloody Mary. The New York state of mind: work like hell all week, and then rise to the midday Sunday surprise of vodka and eggs. The places she took me were light filled, laid back, and packed: Colonie on Atlantic Ave, and Buttermilk Channel. Colonie's featherweight leek and gruyere scramble is the closest rival I've tasted to Bill Granger's legendary scrambled eggs. Buttermilk Channel does a killer Eggs Benedict, and buttermilk pancakes made from a batter that pillows up and sops up the maple syrup. Yes, we had not one, but two breakfasts, over a course of three hours, sitting next to a woman dressed as a tree spirit (she was on her way to trick or treat for Halloween).

   

Williamsburg, allegedly hipster central, was also on the agenda. A visit to Bedford Ave, via the G line, and at midday it seemed less hipster, more community vibe, with its small pubs, organic grocers, secondhand furniture places, and delis. Apparently it comes alive at night, but I'll have to leave that for someone hipper to verify.

If you're a into jewellery don't miss out on Catbird, and Norbu.

Back in Manhattan, and an in no way exhaustive list of other cool things that one might do while in town: go see War Horse at the Lincoln Center, eat at Gramercy Tavern on E 20th St, or Annisa on Barrow St. Visit the International Center of Photography. And make sure you see Sleep No More in Chelsea. An immersive theatre experience channeling Macbeth into trippy, sexy physical theatre, it was how I imagine stumbling through the Looking Glass might feel, only finding a 1930s jazz club and the Last Supper on the other side... and a dance party rather than a tea party. 

And then there's the High Line. An elevated railway for the transport of goods in the early 20th century, the High Line has been transformed into a park snaking through Chelsea and down to Gansevoort St.

From there it's a hop skip and a jump to Bleecker St and several more years of economic slavery. Visiting Occupy Wall Street in a freakishly unseasonal snowstorm balanced the scales... a tad. Have a great holiday season.

SPRING SIMPLE

David Tanis adapts Coco Chanel’s fashion edict: Take a look in the mirror and take one thing off, to the plate. Twenty six years as one of the head chefs at Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse in California, two cookbooks later, and now the head New York Times food writer, Tanis is leading the quiet revolution back to simple, sustainable, seasonal. I say quiet, because at Crave, Sydney’s annual international food festival, there was a surplus of technical genius on display with dozens of the world’s top chefs in town.

But this particular showcase was a “foam free zone”, as declared by Gabrielle Hamilton, owner of Prune, and this year’s James Beard Award for Best Chef, New York City. A custodian of old traditions – French technique, Italian traditions, American upbringing – Hamilton is also a writer. Her book, Blood Bones & Butter, cited by Anthony Bourdain as the best memoir by a chef ever (and it is), reminds in the truest and most authentic way that we are we what we eat, historically, culturally, geographically, generationally. Her culinary roots are planted in a party held by her family when she was a child. Spit roasted lamb. 

Without a food memory, one you can call your own, a couple of simple techniques like how to roast a chicken, and make a soup, plus unfettered access to ingredients flown in from Anywhere, All The Time, then it’s a quick unravelling into a culinary wasteland where we eat to live, rather than live to eat. Food with no history loses all but its most basic function as fuel. Enter fake food, fast food, obesity, health problems. 

Both David Tanis, and the legendary Jill Norman (Elizabeth David’s editor) also speaking at Crave, believe something got lost for a generation: how to cook, and how to be with people. 

Lucky then, that memory can be replenished one meal at a time, and simple is, as Tanis says, sometimes a whole lot better. His cookbooks, The Heart of the Artichoke, and A Platter of Figs, are all about this clarity. He mentions his Italian friend’s belief that a dish is best composed of only three, maybe four elements, and even then “of four, I’m not so sure”. 

In honour of David Tanis then, these seasonal treasures. Goat’s cheese, honey, walnuts. Drizzle the honey on a sliver of goat’s cheese, top with a walnut. A small morsel of savoury, sweet, cream and crunch. It’s home style, without any cooking at all. I’d forgotten, being currently in awe of the 8-12 year old Junior Masterchef prodigies gracing our screens, that fresh, seasonal, letting the produce work it, almost always compensates for a lack of cooking skill.

Or if, like me, you’re competent, but aren’t shooting for exceptional, I just try to stick to the routine of trying one new recipe a week, with a seasonal ingredient to at least ground me in the here and now of a spring day. Today, it’s broad beans. 

Chorizo, Broad Beans and Manchego

It adds to the memory bank, so that one day, rather than having to slavishly follow a recipe, I don’t need to look at it all. It’ll be intuitive. 

Because at its purest that’s what cooking can be: intuition, creativity, recall, identity. Home.