Moving & Eating....Literally

I arrived in NYC last week and would love to report that I'm being a fabulous international playgirl....hitting all the hippest summer spots, eating exotic street food everyday, uncovering the fabulous underbelly of the city and bringing it to you in this blog as a witty gift.  But I'm tired and there's work to be done, so I've done none of that.  What I have been doing is helping my sister and Jess move into their lovely new apartment in Brooklyn and sending off tons of job applications.  And I've been able to fit in a little bit of cheap and fabulous food here and there.

I never thought I'd say this, but the day we went to IKEA was fabulous.  Not because IKEA is so special, but because it is in Red Hook.  This little neighborhood is right across from Governors Island in Brooklyn and formerly was an industrial and pretty underdeveloped place.  These days it's pretty hopping.  One of the highlights for me was the Red Hook Community Farm.  It sits on 2.5 acre concrete lot in the middle of an industrial/residential neighborhood.  They just put about a foot of dirt right on top of the concrete and started farming.  It really doesn't look like much, but they have a CSA program for the neighborhood, weekly farmers' markets and youth education programs.  They make quite a bit impact on their community with only two and a half acres of fenced concrete.

Another great part about the neighborhood is the fabulous street food by the ballpark.  Every kind of Central and South American food you could want awaits you here: elote, papusas, sopas, horchata....it was a dream come true after having (mostly happily) eaten bread and cheese for almost three months.

Some other quick food highlights include:

The great street food at the Brooklyn Flea.  Manchego fritters and kim chee hot dogs are a wonderful breakfast.

BLT Burger in the West Village.  Any time you can have Maker's Mark in your chocolate milk shake is a good one.

Jacques Torres wicked frozen hot chocolate.  I have one every day that I'm in NYC without fail.  Don't ask how it's possible to have something cold and hot at the same time.  Just drink it...you'll become obsessed.

The street hustlers on Kate's block who were trying to sell me a watermelon every time I walked out their front door.  I don't know how they wound up with a truckload of fruit, but clearly they weren't very successful at getting rid of it all.  A real shame.

I'm off to Ohio this afternoon for a quick visit and then back to California...sigh.

Paris in a Day

What is the best way to see Paris?

On a bike.

With lots of chocolate.

Darling sister had just been to Paris and recommended that I check out some of the chocolate shops there. She and Jess are perpetually more prepared than myself and Elly, so I took advantage of their organization and copied their chocolate route (with a few monumental additions). Paris is a surprisingly small city and most of the major sites are clustered in a few square kilometers around the Seine. So I took the liberty of planning the ultimate Paris-in-a-day tour....and now I will share my genius with all of you!

Elly and I biked down from our hotel in the Marais, across the pretty little bridge and over to the island in the Seine where Notre Dame sits. We knew we would be crunched for time, so we didn't go to the top of the tower, but just walked around and looking at those crazy gargoyles, scenes of temptation and torture...quite a way to kick off the day.

I think the cathedral must have really put the fear of the Lord into Elly, because right as we were riding away she crashed her bike...for no reason. We were chatting and biking...one minute I look back and there she is right behind me, the next minute, she's lying on the pavement. My eye quickly scanned for a pot hole, an opened car door, a gargoyle, an arch-angel...nothing. I don't know how, but Elly managed to have an immaculate collision. (Don't worry, Cherie, it was just a tiny scrape...) I promise that I won't turn that into a life metaphor, but I was thinking about it.

After we'd cleaned Elly up a bit, we cruised back over the Seine, past the Louvre and its huge gardens. Just one block north of the Tuileries on Rue St. Honore, the chocolatier Michel Cluizel sits in a totally fab shopping district with hip record stores, lingerie shops and independent clothing designers. We almost got sucked into spending the entire day on that street...it was seriously tempting. The chocolate shop itself was a wonder: a huge chocolate fountain at the entrance, beautiful truffles with gold leaf letters, delicious macarons, candied everything. The real winner was a chocolate champignon (don't worry there were no actual mushrooms involved). It had a buttery, chewy caramel center peppered with crunchy toffee, shaped like a cute little mushroom and covered in swirls of white and dark chocolate. Right down the street another amazing chocolatier, Jean-Paul Hevin. At this little gem of a shop we tried the most wonderful macarons I've ever had; Elly and I sampled a beautifully floral chocolate-bergamot, a spicy orange-ginger-chocolate and (my favorite) mango-coriander.

From there we cruised down the Avenue Champs de Elysees, through the plazas and parks, past the big, beautiful Louis Vuitton store with its four-story high windows and up to the Arc de Triomphe. It was a beautiful, breezy day and as we rolled down the streets in our sundresses, life was sweet. It was even sweeter when we found the theatrical chocolatier Patrick Roger. The shop was unlike any other I'd been in. No gold decorations, no little plates piled high with truffles. The long refrigerated cases were sleek, the bites and morsels each perfectly spaced in neat rows. On the counters were modernist chocolate sculptures. Even the chocolates themselves were presented in perfect, glossy simplicity. Elly and I tried a concoction that looked exactly like a green marble in a Tiffany's jewelry box. I felt a little strange about eating it. Until I ate it. Inside the smooth sugar shell was a layer of milk chocolate and then a perfect lime-caramel-cream. I was surprised that anything in this world could taste so perfect.

We rode down to the Eiffel Tower for a quick peak. It was stunning to see in person, and we decided to come back at night for the light show.

Next we biked through the pretty little neighborhood of Saint-Germain-des-Pres for the final stop of the epic chocolate tour, the uber-famous Michel Chaudun. We were delighted by the window full of tiny chocolate figurines: the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, babies, trees, pigs, deer...just to name a few. We went inside to try the specialty of the store, pave. These little morsels are cream truffles, one the simplest and best of all chocolate creations: cocoa powder, sugar and heavy cream. They are kept cold, so you get a little cool, silky bite of chocolate that spreads slowly through your mouth like a Southern woman sauntering into a room. Heavenly.

Later that evening when the sun was going down over the city we strolled down to the Tuileries Gardens again and rode the huge ferris wheel as the lights were all starting to twinkle on over city. Just as we reached the top the Eiffel Tower exploded in sparkling movement like a huge Christmas tree. I think I actually screamed in delight. I could see the Seine, the Opera House, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, the hill of Montmartre, the lights of Notre Dame, like points on a Lite-Brite against the dark, warm night.

Steelgrass Farms

I would be a great big asshole if I didn't at some point give proper props to the man that made Kauai fun, the inimitable Will Lydgate. This man took me all around the island, taught me songs on the ukulele, attacked me with an apple pie and in general rocked my world with his awesomeness. So here I want to give a shout-out to the man, the myth, the legend (and the chocolate farmer) William Hibbs Lydgate.

Will, in addition to being a kick-ass bass player, makes his living by Steelgrass Farms on Kauai, a farm that give the best ag tour of all time: three hours dedicated to tasting and talking about chocolate. You start the tour by sampling a little of the good stuff (a luxury at 9 in the morning), take a leisurely stroll around the farm getting educated about the unusual plants grown there (papyrus for one, vanilla orchids for another and a really strong variety of bamboo from which the farm gets it's name), tasting the tropical fruits and generally being entertained by the dry humor of your tour guides.

pretty little "poor man's orchid"

cute sister-in-law with the papyrus stalk


rambutan hair tie

vanilla orchid pods

cacao tree

Then you get to the part everyone's been waiting for, the star of the show: the chocolate. The unassuming little trees have these weird looking pods growing on the bark and these weird looking pod contain the real magic...the chocolate seeds. In case you didn't know, chocolate is made from the huge seeds of the chocolate fruit. How you might wonder? Let me tell you the long and intricate process of making that delictible dark treat that drives so many of us to ecstasty. First, you harvest the cacao seeds (that's right, the plant is actually called cacao, not chocolate), then you ferment them in banana leaves for a couple of days, dry them in the sun, and then send them to plants to process the beans. The next step is one of my personal favorites: they crack open the shell of the bean and extract the cacao nib. I think I just love any excuse to use the word nib. I'm sure I'll throw it in a couple more times in this post for good measure and my own personal amusement. So after you've extracted the nib, it gets all ground up and usually coco butter is added to make it extra creamy. Some fools add other stuff too, but we won't talk about that here...it would be blasphemy. It's mixed and ground up a lot to make is smooth (this is called conching) and then heated and cooled at precise temperatures to ensure that the molecules are all lined up in the right way.

So we saw the cacao trees, got the 411 on how to make chocolate and arrived at the last and most anticipated part of the tour: the tasting. We all sat down and got to try 11 different artisinal chocolates. Like wine, there are mass producers and then there are artists. All the chocolates we tried were single estate and all contained the same four ingredients: cocoa, cocoa butter, sugar and an emulsifier. But they all tasted amazingly different. I cannot believe what a foodie I am to be able to say this with a straight face, but you could taste the terroir of the chocolate. Feel free to guffaw at that statement, but it's true. Some of the chocolates were really sour, others bitter, some spicy or fruity or grassy. It was an amazing variety of flavors and they were all really good.

Here are my parting words for you chocolate fanatics: go to Kauai to pay homage to the cacao tree, give Will a high-five for me, geek out on chocolate at Steelgrass and always buy dark. It will change your life.