cider surprise

there's nothing like picking out a fancy beverage and settling down with it at home after work. unless that fancy beverage is doc's hard pear cider:



as soon as i took a sip of this seemingly delicious drink, i realized that it tasted familiar. it did not taste like cider... nor did it taste particularly like pear... no, it tasted exactly like a mcdonald's cheeseburger:



i'm not crazy. casey agreed with me. are the taste profiles of pear cider and cheeseburgers supposed to be at all similar? something tells me no. do yourself a favor and spring for the chimay like i wish i had.

Ranch

Ranch and I had a very brief love affair a while ago, but we've since grown apart. It's heavy and strong, and I think I am moving towards light and delicate (which I'd like to say is different from weak, but I'm not sure if it is). However, I know that there are some ranch-heads in our ranks, so I thought I'd post this link to a homemade ranch recipe I recently stumbled across. It looks remarkably simple and might be interesting if you can get past the obvious grossness of one of it's major ingredients.

An Alarming Discovery

Last night I made beets with my gnocchi (and a thyme butter sauce). I should disambiguate the 'with': at Z's insistence I dumped the chopped beets into the pot of hot water with the cute lil potato dumplings. Now, the water promptly turned that wonderful beety hue that you green-pointers should probably remember from all of the ukranian borscht you've had (without sour-cream which gives is a opacity not present in my potted water). I decided to look into how awesome beets were since I was under the impression that anything deep purple had polyphenols which are super awesome only to find out :

"Although spinach and other green, leafy vegetables contain significant amounts of Vitamin K, the high oxalic acid content in spinach or other sources such as rhubarb, Swiss chard, beets / beet greens, and parsley, etc., promotes vascular degeneration and increases the risk for bleeding in prone individuals". (from here)

That's right, beets'll make you bleed to death!!!!! (Spinach too, I guess. I wonder why the cartoon never showed Popeye all bruised up because his vascular system was so weak. Probably some communist plot.) Happily all the Eastern Europeans around the area that eat a lot of beets also drink a LOT, thinning out their blood and hopefully putting less stress on their already weakened vascular walls.

I might have found a way out of the problem that doesn't involve my not giving up my favorite 'root that ruins whatever you're wearing if you try to prepare it on account of its propensity to dye everything deep purple.' these folk seem to be telling me that if I just blanch my beets long enough they will destroy neither my clothing nor my vascular system (If I understand the abstract). I just hope blanching doesn't destroy the wonderful taste, because anyone who has had house salad 1 from the lunch menu at Roebling Tea Room (RIP?) knows, a tasteless beet is not a nice thing to have on a plate.

Consumer report

Flavored Wheat Thins are not good! I know, it seems like there is no reason they wouldn't be good, but they really aren't. Normal Wheat Thins are great, and so are flavors; especially ones like cream cheese & chives, tomato & basil, and parmesan basil.

But no, pretty gross. They are, however, really easy to eat, especially when there is nothing else around. So just keep your distance from these sly bastards.

No Gene-ie in a Bottle

I usually don't waste my time posting about bad food and restaurant experiences on SPF. Instead, I prefer to focus my energy on writing about the many delicious places I've discovered. However, while my dinner last night was not abysmal, I still feel the need to speak out about my mediocre dining experience.

Gene's Coffee Shop, located on 60th St. between Park and Madison, was recommended to me by co-worker. I was meeting my friend L. for dinner before we headed to a movie theater on 64th Street and Second Avenue, and we both love diner food. This place was in an ideal location, seemed to charge reasonable prices, and boasted raves and high ratings on many different restaurant Web sites, so we gave it a shot with high expectations.

When I arrived there were a few crotchety diners already chowing down, and the man at the register was welcoming and friendly. He told me to sit wherever I liked (again, an underrated detail of a good dining experience), and I was immediately plied with a glass of cold water.

Unfortunately, this is where the good service ended. My father once told me about a (supremely snobbish) woman he had once met who traveled extensively and had dined all over the world. When she and her husband were seated at a restaurant, they would count backward from 60. If someone hadn't arrived to greet them, give them drinks, or take their order by the time they finished counting, they would get up and leave.

Now, I certainly don't have standards this high, but the service at Gene's was pretty inattentive. It took at least 10-15 minutes for the waiter to take our orders, and he didn't seem to be busy at all. In addition, we had put down our menus and folded them, an indication that we were ready to order. I don't think I'm a prima donna, but part of good service is paying attention to customers. Normally I wouldn't have been so agitated about it (I am a brunch girl, after all, which means I like to linger), but we had pre-ordered our movie tickets and needed to get to the theater on time.

When my order, an Italian panini (with grilled chicken, mozzarella, mushrooms, tomatos and greens), arrived, it was the appropriate temperature and at least looked delicious. However, the bread was soggy to the point of deterioration, the tomatos looked a little past their prime, and the mushrooms reminded me of what you might find on a Pizza Hut pizza back in the heartland. I would hypothesize that they were straight from a can. They were a bit of an odd color, chewy, and a reminder of why I didn't like mushrooms until I reached adulthood and tasted them as they were meant to be served.

Two bright spots were my fries (crisped to perfection and delicious with and without ketchup, an important criterion) and L.'s French Onion soup (slightly greasy, but still yummy and topped with cheese). L. also seemed to enjoy her meal, although I imagine it's difficult to ruin grilled cheese.

The waiter took his sweet time clearing our plates, and he brought me a very inappropriately-sized box in which to transport my leftovers (yes, I understand the irony of not enjoying my dinner and then taking it home anyway...it's a recession, people!). The box also promptly broke, and we were forced to take our own check to the counter because we were running so late.

The final straw was the fact that the jelly mints were (gasp) a bit stale. L. and anyone else who has ever accompanied me to a diner knows that I LIVE for the jelly mints on the way out the door. Otherwise, what's the point of going? A combination of stale jelly mints and unimpressive mushrooms, even when paired with good fries, do not make for a pleasant dining experience.

The conclusion here, folks, is that my meal was merely passable. It wasn't horrible, but it also wasn't worth $12. I probably could have gotten something more satisfying at McDonald's, truth be told. I'm not trying to harp on this or nitpick, but I thought it was important to note that not every eating experience in New York is mind-blowing. Would I go back to Gene's? Perhaps. I don't like to judge based on one experience, and it's possible their breakfasts are better. Still, the beauty of this city is that I never have to settle for anything less than MMMMMM.