Maté Weather

It's a gray day, no longer winter, not yet spring. Is it warm? Uh-uh. Cold? Ish. On Sunday it was sixty degrees, on Monday it snowed three inches. If Macbeth were here he'd surely proclaim it "foul and fair" (Act I, sc. III).

When it's that hard to get a fix on the weather, nothing feels better than suddenly deciding what it is you want to eat or drink. I imagine this is how some women (or men) feel when they know exactly what shoes to wear. Today, I slid my feet into some warm maté.

The world outside is muddled, but in my apartment I'm drinking maté, and everything is warm and clear. Like the final act of a Shakespeare play, just one sip turned chaos into order.

I'd dabbled for a few years, but it wasn't until last summer that a Chilean friend fully inducted me into the cult of maté (not to be confused with the maté cult). Whenever I drink it I dutifully practice his method, and now so can you.

How to Make Maté Like Gabriel Sepulveda:

1. Fill the gourd halfway with yerba maté leaves. (You could use a less exotic vessel, but you could also drink champagne out of a rusty tin can.)

2. Shake the gourd with your hand covering its mouth, then blow off the dust that gathers on your palm. Repeat until there is no more dust.

3. Gently insert the bombilla (metal straw) into the leaves at a 45 degree angle. Never move it.

3. Cover the leaves with cool water.

4. Fill with near boiling water (between shrimp eyes and crab eyes) by trickling it down the straw.

5. Let steep about four minutes. Drink!

6. Continue filling with hot (but not boiling) water for several more infusions.

The Best French Fries I've Ever Had

Until now, the best fries I'd ever had were in Ithaca, NY. It's no secret that I have a soft spot for the town, but it's with good reason.

A friend of mine who is also a former Chez Panisse employee is considering moving from the Bay Area, and Ithaca is near the top of her list. Partly because she's interested in a grad program there, but partly because it's one of the few towns in America that won't make a former Bay Area foodie feel like they live in the desert outside of the house in Beetlejuice.

So it was no surprise that I had great fries there, especially because the region is also known for something called salt potatoes. But yesterday, all that changed. Elise had a rare free night now that her new show is up, and there was only one thing on her mind: making fries.

They were the perfect fry, with crisp skin and light and creamy guts. She admittedly has a heavy hand with salt, but in this case it was just right, going toe to toe with the surprisingly sweet taste of the taters. Crispy, fluffy, sweet, salty - may my epitaph be so kind.

We have three guesses as to why they were so ethereal. First was her general skill, including the decision to steam and then fry. Then there was our luck of having the right potatoes chilling in the hallway thanks to our winter CSA. But the third and most unusual reason was the choice of fat, or fats, rather.

We just so happened to be low on all oils, so she made a blend of peanut, canola, and olive. We wouldn't have done so for any other reason but necessity, but it just might have been the killing stroke that made these the best fries of my life.

Now who's gorges?

Finally, The Pawpaw

As I write this, the outdoor thermometer reads 14 degrees. Inside, I'm eating fresh, local pawpaw. How? I don't quite understand it myself.

At long last, my search for this remarkable fruit has come to fruition, and I thank those who have helped along the way. I had all but given up until last week, when I received a hot tip from where else but Ithaca, the Kansas City to my Fats Goldberg. There pawpaw were for sale at the Cornell Orchards store.

In addition to growing heirloom apple varieties with names like Sheep's Nose, Cornell has also raised pawpaws since the 1950's. By some accounts, the pawpaw season doesn't last longer than September, so you can imagine my surprise when the woman working the counter handed me several fresh specimens for fifty cents a pound. Pawpaws are equally famous for being delicious and perishable, so the fact that I got them this late in the season is truly confounding.

The fruit itself was everything I had hoped for. Just as I'd been told, despite the fact that the pawpaw is native to North America, everything about it seems downright tropical. It looks like a mango and tastes like a combination of banana and guava or cherimoya. Yet the pawpaw grows right here, in a region where the temp regularly dips below freezing, as it has at this very moment.

Through the ice on the windows I can see barren trees swaying in the wind, but I've got sweet, ripe pawpaw for my mid-morning snack. I'm certain that these are the only pawpaw still available anywhere in the world. If you live in Ithaca, rush to get the last few. If you live anywhere else, rush to Ithaca.

Finally, Frank Pepe

The golden pizza fleece of eating Frank Pepe's has eluded me for years. I could never count the times I've driven past New Haven, but for a slew of reasons, I've never been able to stop in for a slice.

Some friends once brought me a white clam pie while in Amherst, but it had been out of the oven for hours, so I didn't consider it a valid test. Then, last month, the stars aligned for a quick dinner in New Haven while traveling from New York to Boston. It being a Monday, FP's was closed.

Flash forward to last week, if it were possible to flash forward backward. Elise and my first stop en route from Boston to St. Louis was none other than that infamous pizzeria. I'd heard about it for years, had been taunted by the sign for exit 2 on 91, and have craved the real thing ever since that cold, soggy tease. With such high expectations, of course I was disappointed.

That's not to say that it wasn't great pizza. It was. In fact, it was probably the best pizza I've ever had. Why, then, didn't I like it? First, pizza has a ceiling. I know this is a departure from my Trillinesque love of all foods, no matter how lowly or unsustainably grown, but the best pizza just isn't as good as the best braised goat stew or Tarte Tatin, like the excellent one I had last night at Dijon in Ithaca. The best pizza can only be so good.

The second reason, to be completely unfair to Frank, is that I wasn't in the mood. We'd hit traffic on the way in, gotten lost, had a hard time finding green space to walk the dog, and were anxious about the 1200 miles that lay before us. Being in such a state, even the gamiest wild persimmon could go unappreciated.

I owe Frank Pepe another chance. I'm going to go back, take my time, drink a beer before puzzling through the spreadsheet-like menu, and enjoy what I know is some fine pie. I just have to work on being the best pizza eater.

Only then can I share in the sentiment of this bathroom graffiti.

Think Globally, Drink Locally

Continuing on the epicurean wonders of Ithaca, I am proud to announce that the bar known as Korova now carries the local cider Bellwether on tap. This is a bigger deal than you realize.

For fans of sickly sweet ciders like Woodchuck and Cider Jack, this may not seem like news. However, the U.S. has come a long way since its early days, when cider was the most popular alcoholic beverage. Flash forward to 2008, when you can get virtually any beer you want from any number of far away countries in almost any bar. Our taps read like an Epcot brochure, with brews hailing from such exotic locales as Japan and Jamaica. But cider? Uncommon.

While small craft American beers have made a tremendous comeback in the past few years, cider's popularity has greatly dwindled. I remember touring New England as a kid in 1987, and my dad ordering Sam Adams (in moderation) whenever he had the chance. That's because back then, at least where we lived, the only alternative to Bud was Miller. And brands like Red Dog and Icehouse were still just a glimmer in the eyes of the evil marketing wizards who spawned such tasteless poisons.

But in beer's upswing, our old friend cider has for the most part been left high and dry, in the sense that no one has been getting high from drinking fine, dry cider. Hence my double take when I saw a locally produced cider on tap at Korova.

Since local apples are a whole lot easier to come by than local hops and barley, if you see a cider like Bellwether on tap, you're odds are good that it reflects a deeper kind of local than beer: one which has in it's interests your region's trees.

I'm hoping that Korova's Bellwether tap is part of the larger trend in which Americans are remembering how much better it is to consume things that we ourselves produce. My hope is that real cider will ease into the niche created by brands like Woodchuck as smoothly and effectively as the coyote has taken the place of all the wolves we've killed. In fact, here's my first prediction since coquito: you're going to see a lot more cider. That goes for fancy French cider on wine lists, and hopefully for affordable, local cider at your neighborhood pub.

Only then we can honestly say: "the cider house rules!"

Review: Ca Phe House

Sorry, I don't know how to do accent marks.

Ithaca, NY has so many interesting and affordable places to eat that I suspect the Roman goddess Abudantia hovers above it, doling out leases for inspired restaurateurs from her horn of plenty. In other words, for such a small town, it has some great restaurants.

That observation rings only more true now that Ca Phe House is on the scene. While they do serve the infamous Vietnamese coffee, Ca Phe house is not a false cognate for coffee house. Instead, it's an excellent place for Banh Mi, aka Vietnamese sandwiches.

Not only does Ithaca now have a Banh Mi shop; it has a Banh Mi shop that sources as many organic and local ingredients as possible. As one Cornell professor put it, "they're making their own local, organic mystery meat!"

My companion and I ordered the Special and the Mack. They were so good that they made us feel like we ourselves were special, and the Mac.

The Mac comes with a somewhat disorienting amount of differently textured meats.



This includes ham, sausage, pork loaf, and in case the pork loaf isn't enough for you, paté. Yet the sandwich is lightened considerably by shredded, zingy, pickled veggies and razor thin slices of raw jalepeno. The Mack is so named for the two fillets of canned mackerel slapped between halves of a baguette. Okay, so that's probably not local, but it's surprisingly good for a canned fish sandwich.

In addition to being great and featuring local ingredients, Ca Phe is also incredibly cheap. Sandwiches are six or seven bucks, but they could easily pass for eight dollar sandwiches.

Review: China Road, Syracuse

What can you expect from such an unassuming store front as this? Well, for one thing, whole, fried Cornish game hen:



China Road in Syracuse is the best Chinese food I've ever had. However, that was not always the case. China Road is also the only restaurant I've had a gestalt shift for.

Though I adore it now, my first trip to China Road was an utter disappointment. I went with a lover of fake meats who wouldn't shut up about their gluten. Since the "meat" dishes were about three dollars more than the tofu, I foolishly went with the latter. There I sat, eating mediocre bean curd and string beans, in what would later become one of my most sought after food temples. It was as though I was in Aladdin's cave, surrounded by riches, but pocketing a piece of jackal poop.

My most recent trip to China Road started with a lingering Chinese New Year Special: crispy shrimp balls.



True to their name, they were crunchy, shrimpy, and spherical. Also, they were delicious. Next came the soup dumplings.



The chef and owner of China Road boasts that his are the only Shanghai soup dumplings outside of New York City. While I imagine that there must be some in San Francisco's Chinatown, or in Shanghai, these might just be the best anywhere.

For those who have never experienced the soup dumpling before, be warned that you must carefully -- carefully! -- use a deep spoon to lift them from their bed of cabbage lest they break, spilling their precious cargo. If you can get one to your lips intact, you're then rewarded with all of the porky flavor of a whole bowl of soup somehow condensed and injected into one, soft, doughy wonder. If you find the meatiness overwhelming, the black vinegar with ginger which accompanies them will perfectly cut it.

A guest blogger on Bitten writes that they're "supposed to be so hot they burn your mouth a little bit." Perhaps, or perhaps this myth is circulated to excuse the gluttonous haste with which people like me eat them.

After these excellent appetizers, the "crunchy Cornish hen" featured at top was a perfect climax. The skin was so crisp, the sauce so savory, that my companion and I were positively moved to abandon our silverware and eat the bird like our earliest ancestors must have: with our hands, and a side of steamed, delicately sauced Chinese broccoli.

This is what our table looked like when we were done:



On our way out the hostess said "You boys have big lunch." We certainly have.