Friday, August 22, 2003

Okay, so how’s this for a quintessential New York moment?  It’s morning rush hour, and you’re running down the stairs to catch the subway, or would be if you weren’t, inevitably, stuck behind a fat woman with the gout who nevertheless would make an excellent addition to a football team’s defensive line.  She steps into the nearest car just before the doors shut, then plants herself irrevocably in the middle of the doorway, even though the subway car is miraculously uncrowded, so that you have to ram her with your shoulder while being crushed between the closing doors in order to get in.  And you’re so hyped up on adrenaline that it take you a couple minutes to realize just why the car is so blessedly empty – no air conditioning.  It’s a fucking sauna.  You are under the East River, at least tem minutes from the next subway stop, and within seconds you are absolutely drenched with sweat, so that you will inevitably look like a drowned rat when you get to work. I love that shit. So then, whatever, work.  Went out at lunch to the Village to pick up some veal kidneys at Ottomanelli’s for the Rognons de Veau Flambes (Veal Kidneys Flamed in Brandy – with Cream and Mushroom Sauce.)  The guy there asked if I was the one with the article in the paper last week, and said that as a result of my mention of them, they’d been flooded with requests for various offal all week.  Lamb’s tongue, anyone?  I’m proud. Since the kidneys don’t take that long to cook, while I cleaned and sliced mushrooms last night we watched the end of “Ringu.”  It was okay.  It was only after it was over that we discovered that “Disturbing Behavior” was on the Sci-Fi Channel.  Eric has been talking this movie up for years, and I’d kind of blown him off, but you know what?  It’s pretty fucking great, actually.  I mean, I don’t buy Katie Holmes as an alterna-teen, but other than that…. I was watching it on and off while browning the mushrooms in butter and trimming the fat off the kidneys.  The kidneys worried me a little.  The last kidneys we’d gotten had not smelled of anything at all – these smelled, just slightly, ammoniac. I browned them in butter for ten minutes, then poured on some cognac and lit ‘em up with my Nascar Bic, which is just a Final Destination Scenario waiting to happen, but whatever.  When the flames, which were impressive, died out, I took out the kidneys and set them on a warm plate in the oven.  I poured in some Better Than Bouillon broth thickened with cornstarch, and some Madeira, into the pan and let it boil down a bit.  Then added mushrooms and cream, and boiled down some more.  Finally stirred in some butter mashed up with mustard and, since I didn’t have Worcestershire, Pickapeppa sauce.  (What?  It comes in a little bottle!  It’s brown!  What could happen?)  Sliced up the kidneys and let them warm back up in the sauce.  Served a sad wilted mesclun salad with parmesan on the side, and some good French bread. Something was wrong with the kidneys.  They tasted, oh so slightly but unalterably, of piss.  Ohhhhhh.  This is why my mother hates kidneys!  I don’t think they’d gone bad, exactly, they just weren’t exactly at the peak of freshness.  It isn’t Ottomanelli’s fault – I blame the long subway ride home, punctuated by trips to grocery stores and Petco.  All I can say is, thank god they didn’t taste this was when Amanda Hesser was here.  And the cream sauce did nothing at all to mask the flavor, if anything it made it more disgusting.  Maybe the mustard sauce from last time would have been better.  Oh well. So here we are, almost done.  I’m not going to write my goodbyes yet, though.  After all, I’ve still got Pate de Canard en Croute to tackle.  In the meantime, several people have been asking about Kristin’s Georgian Relish.  This recipe is from Georgia the country, not Georgia the state.  It tastes like dill and is quite spicy.  This is all I know on the subject.  Kristin, if you’re out there – can you throw us a bone? 9:58:05 AM    comment []