Meals On Tour: Part One

Greetings from a tour bus in the middle of Pennsylvania!  I’ve been away from my kitchen for weeks, first performing at the OK Mozart Festival and now playing with this man on a 5-week tour.  I had grand plans to cook and photograph many summery dishes in early June so I could write periodic blog entries from the road, but unfortunately it didn’t happen.  I was overwhelmed by the preparations for these 7 weeks away from home, so until I am back in my kitchen, here’s another series of Meals On Tour.

I love being “the string boss” for this band, and the concerts have been a total blast with a mixture of songs from the new album as well as classic standards, gospel tunes and New Orleans jazz.  A typical day on this tour focuses on an evening concert, followed by a several-hour drive and arriving at the next hotel in the middle of the night. Sometimes we only have a day in each new city, but I always try to explore a bit and seek out an excellent lunch, no matter what.

The first big travel day was rough, leaving late after the first concert in Baltimore and rolling into Providence at 7 am.  At least our hotel was around the corner from Local 121, so after sleeping a solid four hours in the hotel, I treated myself to lunch. This white pizza with smoked mozzarella, sautéed kale, oven-roasted tomatoes and topped with a fried egg totally hit the spot, and I can't wait to recreate it at home.

We followed the brief stint in Providence with several days in Boston, my old college town.  I was thrilled to play at Symphony Hall for the first time, and my inner 19-year-old was turning cartwheels with the excitement of it all.  I was deliciously happy wandering around all weekend, revisiting my first two college apartments and other favorite places.

The Ten Bells

It’s good to get out of the neighborhood once in a while. It’s especially worth taking a 30-minute subway ride down to the Lower East Side when your destination is a little wine bar called The Ten Bells. If you enjoy sampling a variety of wines that are off the beaten path, then you really must know about this place. If you have a fondness for tapas and you happen to love raw oysters, then you need to take yourself down to this charming hideaway on Broome Street as soon as is humanly possible.

I have a soft spot for this cozy wine bar ever since discovering it on Thanksgiving Day last year. My friends and I had had an excellent non-traditional holiday meal in Chinatown, and Sylvia had done her research and was armed with a list of a dozen wine bars and cocktail lounges in the area where we might have a festive cocktail afterwards. (Sylvia, who is one of the most well-traveled people I know, is affectionately nicknamed “the tour guide” because of her encyclopedic knowledge of where to go and what to see in practically any city!)

Table For One

If I ever moved back to California, I have full confidence that I would enjoy living in San Francisco. At least I’d definitely be very happy EATING in San Francisco on a regular basis! That is one of the main reasons why I planned to have my weeklong writing retreat in this particular city, and what a week it was. Determined to climb the notorious SF hills on my own steam, I charged up and down those steep inclines every day, and when I wasn’t getting a major cardio work-out, I practically gave myself permanent writer’s cramp for all of the scrawling I did in my notebook. And then of course, there was the food.

I had this pre-conceived idea that I would eat my meals at the bars of restaurants, writing in my notebook when I wasn’t chatting up the bartenders and talking with the people around me. But the reality is that I'm usually not one to strike up conversations with strangers, and while my first night meal at Absinthe was lovely, I somehow felt rather lonely sitting at the bar surrounded by couples who were all deeply ensconced in conversation with each other. There wasn't much breathing room, and I felt self-conscious scribbling away in my book as people bumped right into my elbows.

Otto Mania

I have missed spending time in my kitchen lately. If you’ve been following this blog over the past few weeks, you’ll know by now that it’s been a bit of a culinary washout for me this spring, as my cooking endeavors have been eclipsed by a very busy performance season. However, the silver lining in all of this is that this gives me a chance to share some of my favorite New York restaurants with you. One of the first thoughts that races through my mind upon getting called for a gig, after ascertaining whether or not I’m available, is “what restaurants are nearby?” There are certain jobs I particularly enjoy playing here in town, not just for the musical experience or the camaraderie of performing with friends, but also because of the venue’s proximity to favorite restaurants.

I’m having a banner week in that department, as I’ve been playing amazing music with some of my favorite musicians/friends in excellent dining locations. There have been multiple rehearsals on the Upper East Side for two different church concerts in these past few days, putting me a stone’s throw away from the Lexington Luncheonette. I’ve also spent a lot of time at Grace Church down on 10th Street rehearsing Beethoven’s magnificent Missa Solemnis, which has been a true joy to play, especially with so many wonderful friends in the orchestra. I have brought many of those friends with me to Otto, Mario Batali’s casual pizzeria and wine bar. Some might say it’s a little excessive to dine at the same restaurant three times in the space of 30 hours, but it seemed the most natural choice when it was my favorite restaurant within a few blocks of the rehearsal site.

If you happen to find yourself in Greenwich Village with a hankering for thin-crust pizzas, vegetables that sing with purity and surprise, or gelato that will make you swoon, I would urge you to run, not walk, to Otto to satisfy all of those cravings. This informal pizzeria is located on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 8th Street, just a few steps away from the famous arch to the entrance of Washington Square Park. And do bring your friends, for the menu is packed with one enticement after another, and it is definitely one that encourages sharing.

The Lexington Luncheonette

Harriet The Spy by Louise Fitzhugh was one of my very favorite books as a child. I related to Harriet, a highly curious and intelligent 11-year-old who wanted to remember everything, and she scribbled incessantly in her notebook as she recorded her thoughts and observations on people. This book, set mainly on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, was also my introduction to New York. I was a California kid and thought it very strange that nobody in this book had a car but instead walked everywhere when they weren’t riding the bus or subway. I also thought it odd that Harriet’s street was simply called “East 87th Street”, and the words “brownstone apartment” and “garden duplex” meant nothing to me at first. But as I reread the story of Harriet the Spy’s adventures many times over the next few years, I gradually began to form an idea in my mind of the New York that Harriet lived in, and I wanted to experience it for myself.

I was particularly enchanted by the idea of a luncheonette or drugstore with a soda fountain counter, places that Harriet frequented. During her spy route each day, she would stop at her favorite luncheonette for a chocolate egg cream. She had a daily game she played, sipping her egg cream at the counter while listening to customers at the tables behind her, making notes and trying to imagine what they looked like merely from the sounds of their voices and conversations. As someone who earnestly loved people-watching from an early age, I could definitely relate as I had my own variations on this game. And though I had no idea what a chocolate egg cream was, I knew I wanted one. I figured it must be delicious, if only for the fact that it had chocolate in it and was served at a place that also offered shakes and malted.

Coincidentally enough, I actually lived on East 87th Street during my first year in New York, just like Harriet. By that time in my life, I had more than a decade’s worth of journals filled with my own scrawling, an accumulation of notebooks that certainly would have rivaled Harriet’s collection. But unlike Harriet’s New York of the early 1960s with its charming luncheonettes, my New York of the mid-1990s was overrun with charm-free corporate coffee chains. Competing with the coffee franchises for space on every corner were the big drugstore conglomerates, impersonal and sterile storefronts with garish fluorescent lighting and nary a soda fountain counter in sight. I was yet to find the chocolate egg cream in the luncheonette of my dreams.

An East Village Crawl

Until I met Jennifer, I had never known someone who was as enthusiastic and adventurous in the culinary department as I was. I discovered during our first year of school together that not only was she a gorgeous violinist who could make me cry by the sheer beauty of her music-making, Jennifer was also someone who met my epicurean enthusiasm and raised it a notch. We quickly forged a great friendship that has lasted for nearly two decades and has been cemented by a mutual passion for bittersweet chocolate. She has been my longtime partner-in-crime for exploring restaurants and recipes, first during our college years in Boston and later in New York. Whenever we go out to eat, the question is always “what are WE having?” for it would be inconceivable for us to order individual dishes but not share them. Today was a beauty of a day, an ideal afternoon to wander around the East Village and try a few new places together. It would take me far too long to count the number of times Jennifer and I have shared meals together over the years, but today was especially memorable for it was the first time that we were joined by Siena, her beautiful 6-month-old baby girl.

A craving for steamed pork buns provided the impetus for a visit to the sleek Momofuku Ssam Bar on East 13th Street. These were unlike any I’ve ever tasted before, and I was so enraptured by the taste that I completely forgot to photograph the dish! The pork had been braised until meltingly tender, succulent and juicy while crispy on the edges. A soft pillowy white bun wrapped its way around the luscious pork like a warm embrace, while a few lively slices of pickled cucumber and scallions tucked inside provided a tangy textural contrast. It was the perfect marriage of decadence and comfort, and I could have left the East Village a very happy girl after eating that singular pork bun. But there was more in store for us.

I didn’t know I was capable of growing so excited over Brussels sprouts the way I did over the ones Jennifer insisted upon ordering for us. Many people I know are avowed Brussels sprout haters, including my dad, which is probably why I never had much exposure to them while growing up. But these were prepared in such a way that I think even my dad would have enjoyed them. They were a marvel: little green globes sliced in half and roasted till their outer leaves crisped to perfection, then tossed with slivered scallions, fresh mint leaves, hot chilies and a judicious amount of Vietnamese fish sauce to balance the flavors. We downed these little guys in no time and were tempted to order another plate of them, for neither of us wanted the dish to end!