The Out of Towner's Guide to Lunch

My wife and I did some long term traveling last year, and now that I'm home I often find myself wondering what someone totally unfamilar with this country would do visiting. And then I wish I could meet them on the street and give them some tips on where to eat lunch. Not the fancy places, but the cheap, everyday new york lunch-break places that you don't find abroad. So here is where I would tell them to have lunch:


1) Dirty Water Dog - Yes, it may give you a disease, but it is delicious. And the way to eat it is with mustard. Just mustard. NO KETCHUP. Maybe get a pretzel there while you're at it. And have that with just mustard. But stay away from the knishes.





2) The Gigantic Every Food on Earth Available Deli Place - These places are crazy. The place to go if you feeling like having a bowl of gumbo, a turkey wrap, stir fried veggies and krab and a california roll on the side. You can go to the sandwich counter, the tossed salad counter, the hot regular grill, the mongolian grill, the cold salad bar, the hot salad bar, the sushi cooler, the pizza counter, and the smoothie counter. And probably more. So none of the food is fantastic, but most of it is not bad, and the variety of stuff available is wild. A good one to visit (though sort of out of the way)is Deli Grandville on 10th ave. Stop by after shopping at B&H.

3) Popeye's Fried Chicken - OK, I know, not New York. But I used to live in Lousiana and discovered its joys there. Whenever I am needing a nice does of greasy deliciousness for lunch this is my standby. And I think if you come to the US, you need to try some fried chicken, and Popeye's is just the best there is, especially in New York. And make sure to get a biscuit. Map to New York Locations.


4) Pizza Slice Place - I place these in a different category than the "full pie" pizza places. Pizza generally is so so (so so for New York, great for much of rest of country), but quick and cheap. By the way, most of them are named Ray's, but there is only one real Ray's, the rest are imposters. A good one is Maffei's on sixth ave.


5) Full Pie Pizza Place - Now this is strongly debated thing in New York. I won't even get into it except to say that I used to live in Brooklyn Heights, so Grimaldi's is tops for me. If you are an out of towner, you need to take the train the Brooklyn, eat at Grimaldi's, then walk back over the brooklyn bridge. Such a great afternoon and so few visitor's do it. For the real pizza enthusiast, here is
some further reading.

Smoked Turkey Strikes Again

That last soup was so good I decided to try again. Well that and the fact that I still have not gone to the grocery store, so I scramble for things to cook for myself and my pregnant wife. So soup again is the verdict.

This time I decided to stay away from the indian/morrocan thing. Instead I looked in my spice drawer and found I had some packets of Sazon. So I decided to make a pseudo-Caribbean/Italian soup type thing. And it turned out great! Is this just the way making soup is? I feel like I have discovered the holy grail. A recipe that can use anything you have in the kitchen and taste great while being really healthy at the same time. Amazing.

Secret ingredients this time that you could really taste: adding slices of lemon to the soup as it cooked, a bit of white wine, and a splash of balsamic vinegar at the end. And as with the previous recipe - the tomato paste adds great body. Plus, I am loving this smoked turkey thing. The flavor of ham without the ham. Not that I have any problem with ham, but my wife doesn't like it. I married her anyway.

Pseudo Carribean Smoked Tukey Soup

salt and pepper
olive oil
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 small diced red onion
three cloves chopped garlic
four slices ginger
three slices lemon
1/4 cup white wine
tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup diced smoked turkey
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 cup pasta (I used shells cause I had them)
1 can great northern beans

Get out the soup pot. Heat up some olive oil and add the onions. Let cook until browned around the edges. Add the smoked turkey and garlic. Cook until turkey gets just brown at edges (but don't let garlic burn). Now add the tomato paste and "sazon" seasoning and cook for just a few minutes. Next add water and the wine, maybe 4 cups or so (fill the pot up 2/1 to 3/4 full). Add the ginger slices and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil then reduce to simmer and let go for 1/2 hour or 45 mins. Then add the frozen corn and pasta and cook until pasta is tender (10 - 15 min). Last add a splash of balsamic vingear and stir though.

I served with toast.

Morrocan Style Smoked Turkey and Sweet Potato Stew (Orange Soup)

So this is the recipe that started it all!

Cooked it last night and was so pleased with the result that I wrote up the recipe and sent it to the few people I know who might care (ie - sister, mother, grandmother). Then today couldn't resist telling friends about it. They suggest I start a "food blog" since I often talk about the thing I cooked the night before (if worth talking about -- making tuna noodle casserole again does not warrant a conversation). Clearly this is a ploy to divert me from boring them with my recipe stories. No matter, I was intrigued by the idea of a "food blog". Because maybe, just maybe, there is a person or two out there in internet land who might be interested. And it lets me try out this whole blog business that's all the rage.

Back story to the recipe: Came home last night. Hadn't been to the grocery store for a week. Needed dinner and looked to see what was around. Just had a great soup out a my mom's house, so decided to try for that. I noticed I had a lot of orange colored ingredients (sweet potatoes, orange bell pepper, carrots, orange lentils). "I'll make an orange soup!" I thought. That led to using morrocan style seasoning (actually Indian seasonings - and I mean Indian Indian, as in we got them when we were in india earlier this year). Below is the final concontion, and, I must say, "damn it was good."

Moroccan Style Smoked Turkey and Sweet Potato Stew

1/2 diced red onion
1/2 diced orange beel pepper
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 cup diced cubed sweet potato
1 large chopped carrot
1 squeeze of honey
2 dashes of garam masala (indian spice blend)
1 small stick cinnamon
a few cloves
few sprigs dried thyme
1 cup smoked turkey (cubed)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 can whole tomatoes (crush up when adding)
Water or chicken stock
olive oil

In a stew pot, heat up the olive oil. Add diced onion, pepper, and carrots and cook with pretty high heat. Add garlic and cook for a bit. Next add tomato paste, stirring to coat everything and let it cook for a few minutes. Next add canned tomatoes with juice and the water or stock, total should be maybe 4 cups of liquid. Also add the cinnamon, cloves, thyme and garam masala. Let boil away for a few minutes. Then add the diced sweet potatoes, reduce heat to simmer and cook until the sweet potatoes are done, maybe 20 minutes.

Yeah - I know I left out the orange lentils. I decided mid way through that they would be excessive considering that there was already sweet potatoes in there. Plus I'm still a little fuzzy on how long to cook them for. They will have to be saved for another recipe.