Taking Woodstock Wrap Dinner

I've been upcountry for the past couple of months working on the new Ang Lee movie, Taking Woodstock. It's over now and in my time of unemployment I'm left with tons of food pictures and some stories. If you like this one and if the Beatles don't sue me for using their song, I'll make more.

Voter Fraud Begone!

I'm really glad to be back in the city so that I can vote, but I just got a case of anxiety listening to a radio show about election fraud. This morning started out great though. My dentist said my teeth were boring, there were no cavities and he gave me an election day discount. The sun was shining, birds were singing. When I got to the polls, kids were crying, there were lines. There was yelling. Miraculously, I didn't have to wait, it took me 2 minutes to vote, but I walked out a little disappointed. I wanted to get to know the people in line, make faces at the babies. Talk about the excitement. Then there were no stickers that said I voted, so I couldn't get any of the free stuff that's being given out to voters. Starbucks coffee, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Krispy Kreme donuts, vibrator at Babeland! Now I'm back at my messy apartment trying to figure out how to organize all the pictures I've taken of food from my last job this summer.

Oh wow. I didn't realize that so much time had gone by since my last post. I started a new gig in the oh so glamorous town of Yonkers. The movie should be good as the director is one of the best in the business, but we're all kind of scared of the impending actor's strike. I took a week off to assist a food stylist on some print ads. The experience was fabulous and as I was eating the celebratory cream puff and drinking a plastic glass of champs, all I could think was, this is the life! Do I have to go back to Yonkers?
The industry I work in is all lies, but it's also funny and beautiful. A portion of my job this week was sorting through huge plastic bags of frozen prepared foods that make up a certain brand of Weight Loss frozen food meals. Here's a picture of the more perfect grilled chicken chunks next to the rejected chunks. The rejects went into the trash. A lot like life, right? Needless to say, when our lovely catered lunch from D'Orazio on Cornelia St. came into the studio, I just couldn't eat the grilled chicken breast on greens salad. However, almost everything else from D'Orazio was really delicious. Well, except this one peach tart that looked gorgeous, but the peaches were too tart and the marzipan tasteless. I still ate that beautiful lie. The other desserts they sent us were yummy, though. Angel food cupcakes with pistachio cream and a cherry on top. Their apple tart tatin was simple and delicious. We had several nice salads of asparagus and avocado, green beans and roast potatoes, beet and endive, but my favorite dishes they sent were the tomato tart, crust was deliciously buttery and the tomatoes rendered sweet from roasting. I also enjoyed their terrific eggplant parmigiana. D'Orazio goes on my vendor list for catering. No pictures of their food though. I was the newbie of the group, so I felt a little shy. I did snap this photo of my boss turning her heat gun on some pesky American cheese. It wouldn't melt the way the client wanted it. We went through 20 rounds of this Canadian bacon and about the same pieces of cheese. I was happy to slice it up, though. Using a meat slicer is fun! I can't wait to update my resume and put that in my skills section.

Five Guys Burgers and Fries

Fast food is bad. The last time I ate at a McDonald's, it was the year 2000. McD's was right around the corner from my office. I had a burning hunger in my stomach and 1.07 in my pocket, just enough to get a dollar double cheeseburger. The burning hunger quickly turned into a burning pain, and I didn't think I'd make it on the 20 minute subway ride in time.
I will never forget that pain, so as a result, I only eat burgers from places that have fresh meat. Like Five Guys! I know it's a chain. Those places are all about profit not nourishment, but 5G seems different to me. The product is good and it's not too expensive. The employees don't seemed disgruntled. The interiors are clean. While you wait for your order, they provide peanuts on the shell to munch on. It's a nice touch. The ingredients are real. I saw whole potatoes in bags, ready to be cut for the fries. The patty is thin, but the meat tastes fresh and it's cooked on the griddle using the smash method. The price isn't dollar menu, but it's still under ten bucks.
I've been to Five Guys in DC and was always glad that they weren't in NYC, because I love Burger Joint and Shake Shack. But those places are always soooo crowded, and if I'm alone and craving meat, I just can't wait that long! Besides, I'm usually looking for something quick before seeing a movie, it's nice to have the option of the midtown and downtown Five Guys.

Located at 55th St. bw 5/6th Ave in Midtown, this 5G is perfect if you're going to see something at the MOMA, the Ziegfeld or the Paris. If your movie is at Lincoln Center, go to Burger Joint because it's closer. I'm sure Five Guys is a mob scene at lunch, but I've only been there on off hours, and they still cooked the burger to order and the fries were fresh from the fryer. In my opinion, the burger at Burger Joint is tastier because it's better seasoned, but Five Guys has the benefit of free toppings like jalapenos, sauteed mushrooms and onions, green peppers and a choice of condiments. Be careful if you get the "little" single patty burger, though. I ordered too many free toppings and they overpowered the meat, but if you slide them off the burger it makes for a sort of salad. As for fries, BJ has the thin shoestring type for 3 bucks, while 5G hand cuts for a meatier fry and it's a quarter cheaper. The fries are dumped into a styrofoam cup and then into a brown bag, so there are actually at least 2 servings in there. For price, 5G wins because their one patty "little" hamburger is 4.25. Burger Joint's one patty is $7. Pictured is Five Guy's cheeseburger. It's 2 patties for 6.25. Downtown at 496 Laguardia Place between Houston and Bleeker, that Five Guys location is good for a quick bite before a movie at the Angelica or even Film Forum. I revisited an old technique for getting hamburger taste without the actual ham. Back in the day at the Dobie Theater in the mall, we were right across from the Burger King. Our cleaning guy, Alberto worked there, so we would get food there, but we would never order the meat. They thawed the frozen patties and kept them in water before they threw them on the grill. Nasty. So we'd order a cheeseburger without the meat. Essentially a processed cheese sandwich it was not terrible tasting and very cheap.
Last night, I really only wanted the fries, but then I saw the veggie or grilled cheese option. Grilled cheese on a bun sounded boring, but melted cheese with the sauteed mushrooms, peppers and onions sounded good! I'm a big fan of melted American cheese, it acts like a glue that keeps the veggies in the sandwich. Ordering a sandwich is key because it's wrapped in foil. You can use that foil to top the cup of fries to eat later. There's enough fries in the small order that falls into the brown paper bag to eat with the sandwich. Then the next day you can have french fry salad! Yes folks, for health and frugality, reheat the fries in the toaster oven and throw them in your salad at lunch. That's literally what I ate today. Kind of like a salad Nicoise without the tuna, olives, greenbeans, tomatoes all I had was lettuce, hardboiled egg and carrots (yeah, i know no carrots in Nicoise) in the fridge. Sad but true and still kind of good. Heehee!

Froggy Bottom

This big guy is a Smokey Jungle Frog. He's got big thigh muscles (hamstrings?) that allow him to jump, but that's also what makes him so tasty. I saw the National Geographic frog exhibit in Washington DC and the reference to mountain chicken reminded me of the first time I had frog legs at Raoul's. This particular kind of frog is native to Central and South America. According to the exhibit info, a species from the Caribbean island of Dominica is now endangered because of frog leg lovers. I just don't think about frog that much because I don't eat them much?! I see them in Chinatown during the summer months, and when they're purchased, they're just stuck in a plastic bag. Cooking them live is probably annoying because they could be noisy unlike lobster. Perhaps if frog legs were mainstream, Red Lobster might have a sister restaurant named Green Frog. Thinking about frogs reminds me that Carissa's friend's documentary, Manda Bala came out on DVD last month. It's a fascinating look at Brazilian society set against my favorite Brazilian pop songs from the sixties by Jorge Ben and Os Mutantes.