No. You did not come to NYC to eat mall pizza. Eat fucking Sbarros and I'm gimp boxing you.

^ Not happening. I wanna try either some of the old standards (Patsy's, DiFara's, Lombardos, etc.) or I wanna try some true neapolitan pizza.

Great! I LOvE Patsy's. Also try Muzzerella on Ave A between East 13th-14th. Stay away from 2 Brothers Pizza and La Familia or Amadeus.

Also try Prince St Pizza in Soho around the corner from Lombardo's. Btw Lombardo's won't let you do just a slice.

I honestly wish I could fucking live here for a few months. Between the Uber app and Open Table, this is a whole new city to me. I'd kill to live in a city where pretty much anything and everything I want is within walking distance.

My go to's:
John's Pizzeria- whole pie, thin and burnt, Bleeker Street only
Two Boots- slices. multiple locations (even in LA)

Other NYC favs:(we don't have east coast Chinese food here in LA, so that's one of the things I hit while back east)

Joe's Shanghai- soup dumplings and turnip cakes, Chinatown location only
Mee Noodle Shop- Hells Kitchen/9th ave. old school egg rolls, soups and noodles exactly the same for 70 years or more.
Halal trucks on 6th ave- late night drunk food of the gods.

La Famiglia is where Donald Trump took Sarah Palin, and where he ate that pizza with a fork. I'll admit I tried La Famiglia simply because of that event. I ate mine with a fork too. I felt like a tycoon.

Mine:

Muzzerella Pizza
Stage Coach Deli
B+H Dairy or Bagel Boss for bagels. Bagel Boss is 24/7. Both kosher.
Williamsburg Bagel. Kosher.
Wolf and Lamb. Kosher steakhouse
Candle 79. Vegan.
Quintessence. High end vegan.
Juice Press. Vegan. Mostly raw food and juices to-go.
VIV. Thai.
Lexington Candy Shop. Diner in UES.
Decibel. Japanese.
Dojo's. Japanese and variety.
Orsay. French. Best steak tartar ever.
Gimme Coffee. Best coffee in NYC. Soho.

If you wanna get technical, Sbarro's is NYC pizza. Bensonhurst is where the original is.

John's on Bleecker today. Really great pie. If I make a pie and the rim doesn't puff up at all, I consider it a failure. This crust was totally flat, but it was great. Just the right amount of chewiness and not tough at all, amazing, sauce and that wonderful stretchy cheese. If I make it out for pizza again, I'm going to try Motorino for neapolitan pizza. They're one of the only neapolitan pizza spots where you can reserve a table with Open Table. I don't want my Mom to have to wait in line anywhere.

Just made some special sandwiches.

Off brand candy on clearance smashed in between 2 slices of bread?

By neapolitan pizza you mean the pizza fritta? Out-standing.

Pizza fritta is fried, so no, I don't mean that. I'm sure it's great, but I mean traditional neapolitan pizza. The dough is made from just flour, water, yeast (preferably italian sourdough), and salt. The flour is 00 Italian. The pizza is cooked in a 900°+ wood-fired oven for 1-2 minutes. The sauce is mostly just crushed tomatoes and there are only a few high-quality toppings on it.

My cholent was a success. I'm still nervous about anything that takes a day to cook. Most people use a crockpot, but that still takes about as long and makes me as nervous.

Raw oatmeal. Soaked uncooked oats for an hour then left them in the fridge overnight for this morning. Added blueberries.

The pizza fritta is indeed fried, and it is indeed awesome. It's basically a deep-fried calzone.

Every time Panzer uses the word "special" when describing food the image I get isn't very pleasant. Can't shed the gag reflex.

Random food porn

Made this yesterday afternoon: Cholent, challah bread, egg salad, cold cuts, and chopped liver and raw veggie platter.

Question: if I make potato kugel with sweet potato (healthier,) does it taste better? How's it work out ingredient-wise?

I'm no expert, but I would think that sweet potatoes have different levels (less) starch than a regular potatoes and that may influence the consistency and feel of the kugel. You could try making it 1/2 each and if it works well, decrease the potato portion the next time you bake the stuff.

Ugh I feel me screwing this up.

I stuck on you actually eating cold cuts.

Pork butt on the green egg mini max.

Smoked for 3 hours at 300f on a mix of natural charcoal and maple. Would have let it go another hour, but the girlfriend was having a fit to get it on the table.

Prepped with John Henry honey rib rub, salt, and pepper.

The cold cuts were for other people. I didn't eat them.

Flat meats, as they say in Texas.

Did you make chopped liver or buy it from a deli? My mom used to make it and the secret is you have to eat it the next day. It needs a night in the fridge to set up right.
The only deli version I have ever liked is Second Avenue Deli.

^^^ I chopped everything. I didn't make the shmaltz. I still don't know how, but my friend did. I like chopped liver, but like all meat, cooking it has always grossed me out.

Fried eggs and mixed berries. I'm starting another Whole 30 cleanse.

Fixed some Southwestern vegetable soup in the crock pot overnight. Came out really good.

Whole 30 Approved Chocolate Chili: http://meljoulwan.com/2009/02/22/my-favorite-chili-recipe/

Technically my beef stock had maltodextrin from potatoes in it, so it wouldn't actually be approved for a Whole30 cleanse, but I'm not making organic bone broth just so I can have chili. Although I do have some good chicken & bone broth on order for next time. I'm getting high later anyway, so that's how closely I'm sticking to the cleanse. Haven't been drunk in 2 weeks though.

Made some Whole 30 approved roasted garlic mashed potatoes to go with my leftover turkey. Instead of milk/butter, you use coconut milk/ghee. Slightly different flavor than regular mashed potatoes, but just as good.

I wasn't sposed to weigh myself for the entire 30 days, but since I was cheating on Thanksgiving anyway (I had wine), I decided to hop on the scale. Even though weight loss isn't the primary goal of a Whole 30 cleanse, I've lost 12lbs over the first 2 weeks.

Gonna drop a couple of pork tenderloins in the crock pot and make BBQ on the grill when it's fork tender.

Never cooked pork tenderloin that way. I'm sure pork shoulder in a crock pot would make great pulled pork, but I'm always worried that pork tenderloin will dry out whenever I cook it. I made some in my sous vide machine once that turned out great, but with that type of cooking, the meat never goes above the cooking temp., which I'd set at 140°. Then I seared it off in a cast iron skillet to give it a nice crust. I need to do that again. I can pretty much eat as much meat as I want on this diet/cleanse.

Soup

This is how I do my pork loins as well - cast iron skillet, seared and cooked low.
fuck it is tasty

Just be sure to cover the tenderloin with water and worcestershire like I do. Maybe a little bbq sauce too. It always comes out moist if cooked on low heat overnight.

Cracklin' chicken over bacon "fried rice" that's actually made from cauliflower which has been pulsed for a while in a food processor. This was actually one of the best meals I've had in a while.

I think this meal was worth posting the recipes:

Fried rice: http://nomnompaleo.com/post/40440789686/whole30-day-13-asian-cauliflower-fried-rice

Cracklin' chicken: http://nomnompaleo.com/post/74180911762/cracklin-chicken

Anybody here ever made a ham? I mean the whole deal... curing it & slow smoking it. I bought a 22lb fresh leg of pork today that I plan to cure for 2 weeks and then smoke for New Years Day dinner. Or more likely the next day if I'm too hungover. I've been meaning to do this for a while and then today my favorite cooking website posted a recipe, except not including the smoking part.

http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2015/12/home-cured-holiday-ham-first-you-brine.html

Don't forget the black eyed peas.

^^That's a good luck thing, right? Black-eyed peas on New Years Day. Maybe I'll try that this year.

Anyway, I thought I would document the process here, just in case I accidentally poison myself and my entire family. Here is the fresh pork leg scored through the skin and fat. I think it looks semi somewhat professional, considering I had no fucking idea what I was doing. I can see where I cut a little too far through and went into the meat, but oh well.



And then, like Cousteau, the pork leg plunged into the briny deep.

Yeah it's supposed to be hog jowl and black eyed peas but I believe that big old ham will suffice.

One nice surprise from this adventure was finding out that Lowe's sells food-grade buckets. The turkey brining bag I was using left part of the pork leg sticking out of the brine, but the 5 gallon bucket I got at Lowe's worked perfectly. I just had to put a heavy bowl on top of the pork leg to keep it submerged. In the summer these buckets will get a lot of use hauling salmon up from the fishing dock and then later for brining the fish before smoking it. I might might also use one of them soon to try and make some beef jerky.

Prairie Oysters.

Cheeseburger from the grill, mustard potato salad and corn on the cob.

How did the pork leg in brine turn out?

How did the pork leg in brine turn out?

Still going. Looks good so far. I rotated it in the solution the other day and also used a meat injector to inject some brine deep into the meat near the bone. My plan is to rinse it and soak it in cold water for a few hours early New Years Eve, then leave it in the fridge to air dry until the next morning. Then I will smoke it at around 180 degrees with some hickory and apple wood until it reaches an internal temp of 150. Then I'll bring it inside and let it rest for a while before I glaze it and finish it in a hot oven. Decent plan?

First off, Happy New Year!

I stayed sober for this, so that's saying something. Anyway, the ham still wasn't quite finished after 13 hours on the smoker and that's around the time that my Weber remote thermometer decided to say "fuck you" and stop working. I think it might've gotten too cold.

So, I brought everything inside and decided to finish it in the oven. Right around the time that the oven finished heating up, the thermometer starter working. It's not quite finished, but I think it looks pretty good so far. Smells great too. It had taken on enough smoke anyway, so finishing it in the oven won't hurt things. My only real worry is that maybe the brine didn't penetrate all the way and it might be gray in the middle. I'll find out tomorrow.

Except for the scoring part. I KEEEEEED! Looks good, Steez. Happy New Year.

Never scored a ham before. I know it's sposed to look like diamonds of skin rather than a retarded checkerboard, but it was hard to deal with a 21lb piece of meat on my countertop. And I decided it just looked good enough at the time. Sitting in a brine bucket for two weeks and cooking for 15 hours hasn't improved things. Lol. Anyway, it should all be nice and crispy come dinnertime.

Just to follow up on that...I went and rechecked the website where I got the recipe from and mine actually looks better. And that's compared to a chef. He didn't even smoke his, just cooked it in the oven.