Archive for March 2009

EVENT: Hoboken St. Patty’s Pick Me Up Brunch; Post-Party
VENUE: Adam’s Apartment, Chelsea
PARTY SIZE: 50-60 Green American Apparel T-Shirts Wearers; 30 Recovering Daytime Drinkers
TYPE: Brunch Buffet; Evening BBQ
MENU: Green Eggs and Ham i.e. Phoebe’s McMuffins with Farm-Fresh Eggs, Prosciutto and Pesto; Post-St. Patty’s Patties i.e. Adam’s Famous Man Burgers

One day a year, us New Yorkers get the a chance to be the “Bridge and Tunnel” crowd, as degenerates young and old flee the island of Manhattan across the gray yonder to a land called Hoboken. And it is on this day, granted one week early, that …

EVENT: Meeting Swathi’s Man Friend
VENUE: Phoebe’s Apartment, Flatiron
PARTY SIZE: 5
TYPE: Casual Weeknight Dinner
MENU: Carne Asada with Chipotle-Mango Salsa

My friend Swathi never had a serious boyfriend in college. Well, this can be debated. But I liked to think of myself as the closest she ever came to it, evidenced by our intimate two week road trip cross-country. That said, being the pinnacle of maturity that I am, when it came time a few weeks ago to meet her mysterious (yet real) new boyfriend, Bobby, I took it upon myself to make a meal reminiscent of something …

EVENT: Sunday Supper
VENUE: Cara’s Apartment, Park Slope
TYPE: Simple dinner
PARTY SIZE: 4 total
MENU: Spicy black bean dip; Rice noodle salad with vegetables and cashews; Asian baked tofu; Thai cod; Minted fruit salad and cookies

One of the excellent perks of my neighborhood is the fact that it’s really easy to park on the street. This numbers among the reasons it’s easy to convince Jill, my older sister who lives in Gramercy and is now the proud city driver of a car, to come for dinner over the weekend. Since she hadn’t seen her friends Nate and Callie …

Asian Baked Tofu
Serves 4

Read the original post here.

Ingredients
1 package firm tofu
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
2 tablespoons grated or finely minced ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons mirin or other white wine
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons soy sauce.

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Cut the tofu into 10 even slices and use them to line a baking pan with edges. Mix together all the other ingredients, stirring well to dissolve the honey, and pour them over the tofu. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until the marinae is absorbed and …

EVENT: Big Girls, Small Kitchen Launch Party
VENUE: Phoebe’s Apartment, Flatiron
PARTY SIZE: oh, just 75 of our closest friends
TYPE: After-work dips and drinks
MENU: Panko-Crusted Spinach Dip; Spicy Chipotle Hummus; Mint and Sweet Pea Dip; White Bean, Caramelized Onion, and Rosemary Puree; Dueling Oatmeal Chocolate Cookie Party Favors

We passed the three month blogging mark, and to your Quarter-Life Cooks, that meant it was time to throw a party. The plan was to have a casual get-together with the readers and friends who’ve shown us their vested interest in the blog, feed them, and talk to them in a non-creepy, experimental way—finding out what they liked and wanted more of, and getting inspired by the ways they make use of their kitchens. This materialized for about the first ten guests who arrived and then, well, it kind of just became a party.

EVENT: Turkish Baking Afternoon; Oscar Party
VENUE: Cara’s apartment for baking; then Phoebe’s parents’ for eating

My sister Kate and I met up in Spain in December because she was studying abroad in Turkey and Madrid is actually about halfway between Ankara and New York (as the plane flies). She arrived with a sticky cardboard box of baklava that her favorite baklava vendor had made specially for me, with walnuts instead of pistachios.

Sitting in the hotel room, I inhaled the baklava.

about halfway through the box…
Though she’s back in the States now, she hasn’t lost any of her

EVENT: House guest from the Holy Land
VENUE: Phoebe’s Apartment, Flatiron
PARTY SIZE: 4
MENU: Chicken Thighs with Soy, Honey, and Beer Reduction; Cinnamon Scented Rice; Cumin-Roasted Cauliflower

The responsibility of hosting a house guest for the weekend tends to send me into a fit of planning frenzy and other uncharacteristically overbearing and insane activities. In other words, I become my father.

A few weeks ago my friend Eran, whom I met two summers ago, came to visit from Israel. I took him to a cozy brunch in the East Village and then felt—having exposed him to the classic NYC …