Shabbat Dinner at Our Place

Shabbat dinner at a few weeks ago:

(1) A flavorful salad of romaine lettuce, candied walnuts, blue cheese and cranberries;

(2) Basil zucchini quiche with soy milk base;

and (3) Paella with chicken and soy chorizo (if you leave out the chicken, it's vegan!).

  

If anyone wants any of the recipes, let me know, and I'll post them! FYI, though -- the paella takes a few steps to make, since Hiromi makes it from scratch. Yum!

Restaurant Review 1: Gramercy Tavern, NYC

For my first restaurant review, I thought I'd start out with a bang! From what little I know about the NYC food scene, Gramercy Tavern is well known for being a great place to have a delicious, memorable meal. Whether it's healthy or not depends more on how much you eat -- and as you'll see below, we ate waaaaay too much. And it was delicious.

I should start off with a short explanation, though, before getting into the review. I find that people who write restaurant reviews, particularly on Yelp, tend to have no discernible focus and often end up complaining about whatever bothered them the most during their meal. My reviews may comment in passing about the interior or the service -- both of which are important to the dining experience. But rest assured, my main focus will always be on the food. 

Also, my wife and I probably don't eat out for the same reasons as a lot of other people. Those of you who know me know that I am very lucky, for many reasons. One reason in particular is that I am blessed with a wife who is an amazing cook. I don't just mean she knows how to use a knife and fry an egg; my wife has a chef's license to cook Italian, French, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese cuisine. So she knows how to make most of the things we eat in restaurants, and she can often make them better herself (and she does). That's why when we go out to eat, it's usually for one of two reasons. Either we want to eat something that is too complicated or too much trouble to make at home, or we want to experience something that is beyond my wife's abilities in the kitchen. The latter type of experience is harder to come by, and it is generally pretty pricey.

Gramercy Tavern satisfied both of our desires. The food was fantastic, the recipes were complex yet simply delicious, and we were very impressed by the cook's skillz. If you are looking to spend at least $100 a person in New York City (not a hard thing to do), then I truly recommend you spend it here. If you can get in.

The first time we tried to get a table at this restaurant, we were denied. I tried to make a reservation a day in advance, and they were fully booked. I think it was a Thursday night or something. The second time it was a Sunday night, and I called about 40 minutes in advance. They happened to have an opening, and voila! -- we were in.

The interior was not too complex or ostentatious, and everything was pleasing to the eye. I could say the same thing about the food. We went with the course dinner menu for $88. It comes with a choice of one appetizer, one main, and some small desserts. We ended up ordering 2 (or was it 3?) desserts in addition to those that came with our meal; they threw in an extra 2 on the house!

We each ordered a drink; I had a glass of white wine, and Hiromi had a delicious non-alcoholic cocktail. She had a nice soup, and I chose the smoked trout (pictured below). I decided on the trout once the server said it was her favorite, and it was a signature dish of the chef.

I could tell why it was considered one of the chef's specialties. It may not look like much, but this dish was well designed and perfectly executed. The flavors all complimented each other without any one thing overpowering the dish as a whole. I enjoyed the fish by itself, with the various sauces, and with the pickled onion. I was very impressed (as was Hiromi) by the initial flavor of the dish and by the way it faded into a wonderful aftertaste. Great with my white wine! I highly recommend that anyone who likes fish, or delicious food, try this dish.

For our main courses, Hiromi got a delicious piece of fish (I can't remember what offhand), and I ordered the duck. Her fish was very good, and I loved my duck. I am a big fan of duck cooked well; it is not the easiest meat to prepare. Hiromi doesn't usually like duck because it often tastes gamey. This duck was great; even Hiromi enjoyed it! The meat was perfectly cooked (medium rare for me!), and the combination of the vegetables and sauce left me very satisfied. I should mention that I was surprised at the amount of meat! The picture (at right) doesn't do it justice, since I took it after I had already started eating...

Lastly, we had dessert. We ordered two or three desserts, and they ended up throwing in two more desserts (maybe because we were having a hard time choosing?!), so we ended up getting five amazing desserts that would satisfy any dessert-lover. We had our meal a few months ago, so I am not 100% sure, but I believe the desserts were: (1) sticky toffee fig cake; (2) warm chocolate bread pudding; (3) [something delicious and fruity that I can't remember exactly, with a coconut wafer thing on top], (4) pineapple upside down cake; and (5) peanut butter semifreddo. They were all great, but my favorites were the fig cake and peanut butter semifreddo. I sprinkled the photos of the desserts throughout this posting, as I'm sure you noticed. I definitely didn't have room for the mini desserts that came with our course, so we ended up taking them home.

So in summary, the restaurant's interior was very nice, the service was great, and the food was amazing. I hope you enjoyed the posting, and I'm sure you'll enjoy your meal at Gramercy Tavern -- if you can get a table!

Healthy Vegetarian (or Vegan) Lasagna

Happy Passover (and Easter), everyone!

Today, I'm going to share a not-so Passover friendly recipe with you--Lasagna with tofu ricotta!! It's vegetarian, and it's delicious. I actually like it a lot better than regular lasagna... And if you choose to substitute the cheese on top for soy cheese, the dish is vegan. Yum!

But before we dive into the recipe, here's a video of Sarah driving for the first time:

Now onto the recipe!

Here are the tools/implements you'll need: 

a food processor

some bowls to mix the ingredients

an oven

a pan with a lid

a couple mixing spoon

a spatula or something to spread the spaghetti sauce with

a 9" x 13" baking dish

The ingredients are split into two categories: (1) the Tofu Ricotta ingredients and (2) everything else. First, I'll explain how to make the Tofu Ricotta, and then I'll go through the actual making of the lasagna. Note, however, that once you get the hang of it, you can actually make the Tofu Ricotta while the vegetables are "sweating" (see below). 

Tofu Ricotta Ingredients: 

1 block of firm tofu (14 oz.), drained (by leaving in a sieve for 20 minutes) or microwaved for 3 minutes

1 1/2 Tsp. tahini

2 cloves garlic

1 tsp. vegetable stock paste/cubes (Hiromi uses Better than Bouillon)

A pinch of ground nutmeg

1 Tsp. mellow white miso

1 Tsp. lemon juice

To make the Tofu Ricotta, take all the above ingredients and put them in a food processor. Viola! Easy enough, I know. The next part is not much more complicated. 

Lasagna Ingredients: 

2 cups spaghetti sauce (Hiromi likes Trader Joe's organic spaghetti sauce)

Some oil (to saute the vegetables)

Some salt

1/2 cup sliced onion

1 cup grated carrot

1/2 tsp. dried oregano

6 oven-ready lasagna noodles

2 1/2 cups of the Tofu Ricotta (see above)

1 package (16 oz.) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained

1 1/2 cups grated cabbage

1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (or soy cheese)

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese (omit if you are going for vegan lasagna)

Directions: 

(1) Heat the oil in a pan. Place the sliced onion in the pan with a pinch of salt and saute on medium heat for 1 minute. Then cover with the lid and let the onion suer (French for "sweat" -- called that because the salt and heat cause water to escape from the vegetable) for 3 minutes. Next, throw the carrot into the pan with another pinch of salt, and let everything suer for another 3 minutes. Lastly, throw the cabbage into the pan with a pinch of salt, and let it all suer for another 3 minutes. Transfer everything to a bowl and mix with the oregano and spaghetti sauce. 

(2) If you haven't made the Tofu Ricotta yet, make it now. 

(3) Mix the Tofu Ricotta and spinach together in a separate bowl. 

(4) Spread 1/2 cup of the spaghetti sauce mixture on the bottom of the baking dish. 

(5) Layer the following on top of the spaghetti sauce in the baking dish in the following order: 3 lasagna noodles; 1/2 of the remaining spaghetti sauce, 1/2 the Tofu Ricotta, 1/2 the sliced mushrooms, 1/2 the mozzarella cheese, and 1/2 the parmesan cheese.

(6) Repeat step (5) with the remaining ingredients. 

(7) Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Enjoy!

Japanese Lesson 5: Informal Introductions

Happy Friday everyone! 

Today's word of the day is another one that teaches us about kanji: 

Word of the Day:

Romaji	Hiragana	Kanji
tenpura	てんぷら	天ぷら or 天麩羅

You should all know what tenpura means... In English it's often spelled "tempura," since that's what it sounds like when someone says it (though it's phonetically spelled "ten pu ra"). The reason why it can be written with an 'n' or an 'm' in romaji (literally "Roman characters") is because if you make an 'n' sound followed by a 'p' or 'b' sound, the 'n' ends up sounding like an 'm' -- due to the fact that your lips come together. For example, try saying "tenple" instead of "temple." If you say it slowly, you can do it -- but if you speed it up, "tenple" becomes indistinguishable from "temple." 

There are two ways to write tenpura in kanji: 天ぷら and 天麩羅. The first spelling consists of one kanji character (ten -- the character for "heaven" or "sky") and two hiragana (phonetic) characters (pu and ra). The second spelling starts with the same ten ("heaven"), followed by a kanji character for pu ("wheat-gluten bread") and ending with a kanji character for ra ("gauze"; "thin silk"; or "Rome"). What does this tell us about the food which it describes? Not much... although you could say that the fried delicacy is a method of cooking something by giving it a "heavenly gauze-like layer of fried wheat-gluten"... or something like that. 

It turns out that kanji serve a variety of different purposes in Japanese (and in Chinese too, from my understanding). Often, the character will have a specific meaning -- it being a pictographic representation of something (e.g., oya, which was the previous word of the day). Characters with specific meaning can be combined to create more complex words with meaning derived from the characters from which it is comprised (e.g., Tokyo, which literally means "Eastern capital"). Sometimes, however, kanji are simply used for their pronunciations; not their meanings. While the word tenpura can be written in kanji, the kanji do not provide us with any deeper meaning about the word -- which, by the way, is the way that English works. The spelling/pronunciation of a word is all we have to go on when deciphering the meaning of a word in English. In Japanese and Chinese, however, there is often additional information packaged into the way the letters are written. It's quite an amazing system, in my opinion! But I may be a bigger fan of kanji than most...

So back to the kanji spelling of tenpura. While ten by itself means "heaven," here, it is just the sound "ten." The same is true for the latter two characters. 

If you've gotten this far into my explanation, then here's some trivia for you! 

1. Then ten in tenpura (天) is the same character that is used to write Nintendo in Japanese!

2. The pu in tenpura refers to a type of Japanese food (or foods, really, as there are different types) made of wheat gluten. To learn more about fu (it's pronunciation changes from fu to pu because it appears after an 'n' sound... but I'll explain more about that in a later lesson), click here. And here's a beautiful picture of some nama fu.

3. Lastly, for those of you who are familiar with the movies of Kurosawa Akira (I put his last name first, since he's Japanese), the movie Rashomon is written in Japanese using the same ra as is used in the word tenpura. 

Using kanji to represent pronunciation instead of meaning is called ateji. Ateji is common in names of foods (e.g., sushi), people and places (e.g., France -- 仏蘭西).

Japanese Lesson 5: Informal Introductions

The first four lessons introduced some basic sentences and vocabulary in Japanese. These next few lessons will introduce some important, basic conversations that you can start using immediately. First on the list is how to introduce yourself. Here it is (assuming Wan-chan is introducing himself): 

Wan desu. Yoroshiku.

That's it! Wan is Wan-chan's name (chan is a Japanese honorific, which you would drop when you refer to yourself). If you're Japanese, you'll use your last name only. So if Akira Kurosawa introduced himself, he's say: Kurosawa desu. Yoroshiku. 

The word yoroshiku is more or less the equivalent of "nice to meet you." The word is derived from the word yoroshii, which means "good," "OK," or "fine." Yoroshiku basically means "regards" (as used as a closing for a letter or email). In Japanese, after you meet someone, you would say "best regards" to be polite; in English, we say, "Nice to meet you." or "A pleasure." or something like that. 

I mentioned that a Japanese person will generally use their last name when introducing themselves. That being said, younger people may use their first names in informal settings. When you introduce yourself, you should obviously use the name that you want people to call you. 

That's it in terms of the language. An additional important point about introducing yourself, however, is your physical actions. In Japan, people don't usually shake hands (though it happens, especially if a Japanese person is meeting an oubeijin (Westerners)) -- they bow. In an informal setting, the person introducing himself or herself will probably bow slightly when saying "yoroshiku." Or, if you want to combine a bow with a handshake, that's an option too -- especially if you're President Obama.

Your homework? Walk up to someone in a bar (who is Japanese) and introduce yourself! Or, if you prefer, talk to yourself in the mirror.

Japanese Review Lesson 1

To make sure everyone's learning these basic Japanese grammatical patterns and vocabulary, I've decided to make every fifth lesson a review of the previous four lessons. Before we head into the review, however, here's the word of the day...

Word of the Day:

Romaji	Hiragana	Kanji
oya	おや	親

Oya means "parent." Unlike previous words of the day, this particular word has no special meaning, and there is no difficulty in translating it into English. Instead, I chose it to illustrate how interesting kanji can be! The character for oya is a little complicated... with 16 strokes. By breaking it down into its composite parts, however, we can learn a little more about the meaning of the word itself. This character is comprised of three parts: 立 (tatsu -- to stand), 木　(ki -- tree), and 見 (miru -- to look at; to see). If you can't see these three characters within the kanji for oya, try clicking on the character, and it should become more obvious.
The character tells a story about what a parent is -- someone who stands in a high place (e.g., on a tree) and watches over children. Probably a cute picture of my daughter is appropriate here...

And now for the day's Review Lesson!

Review Lesson 1
Lesson 1: I am [noun]. 
In Lesson 1, we learned how to say: "I am [noun]." You should be able to say, for example, "I am teriyaki chicken." Why you would want to say that is beyond me, but the sentence would be: Watashi wa teriyaki chikin desu. And to build on what I mentioned in Lesson 4, you can also say, "Wan-chan is a dog." and "Wan-chan, you are a dog." Both sentences are the same, just with a different context -- Wan-chan wa inu desu. If you are talking to someone about Wan-chan, then the former is the correct translation; if you are speaking to Wan-chan directly, then the latter is the correct translation.

Lesson 2: Asking a Question
Once we learned how to say, "I am an American." the next logical step is to ask someone else what they are. In Japanese, it's really, really easy. Just add "ka" to the end of the sentence. So to change "Wan-chan is a dog." to "Is Wan-chan a dog?" all we have to do is add "ka" to the end of the sentence: Wan-chan wa inu desu ka? (Note that in Japanese there are no question marks... But I add them since this blog is in English and adding them probably makes it easier to understand).

Lesson 3: Eating!
In Lesson 3, I introduced a verb -- to eat. In Japanese, the verb is taberu. Of course, just like in English, verbs need to be conjugated. I introduced the present continuous and its negative form (is/am/are eating; is/am/are not eating) -- tabeteimasu and tabeteimasen. Now you should be able to say:
1. "Tama-chan is eating teriyaki chicken."
2. "Wan-chan is not eating sushi."
3. "Is Tama-chan eating tempura?" and
4. "Isn't Wan-chan eating sashimi?"

Just to check your work, the answers are as follows:
1. Tama-chan wa teriyaki chikin wo tabeteimasu.
2. Wan-chan wa sushi wo tabeteimasen.
3. Tama-chan wa tempura wo tabeteimasu ka?
4. Wan-chan wa sashimi wo tebeteimasen ka? 

Lesson 4: Yes and No
We know how to ask questions (mainly about eating), but we couldn't answer our own questions until Lesson 4. In that lesson, we learned not only how to say "yes" -- hai -- and "no" -- iie; we also learned how to answer questions using a complete sentence! So while the answers to sentences 3 and 4 above could simply be hai or iie, doing so would come across as rude. A more polite way to answer questions 3 and 4 are as follows:
3. (affirmative) Hai, tempura wo tabeteimasu. 
3. (negative) Iie, tempura wo tabeteimasen. Sushi wo tabeteimasu. 
4. (affirmative) Hai, sashimi wo tabeteimasen. Sushi wo tabeteimasu.
4. (negative) Iie, sashimi wo tabeteimasu.

Wait a second! Don't the affirmative and negative sentences for 4 seem switched?! Yes, they do because they are switched, at least from the perspective of a native English speaker. In Japanese, a negative with a negative actually make a positive. In English, when we say, "Isn't Wan-chan eating teriyaki chicken?" We can answer in the affirmative: "Yeah, he is eating teriyaki chicken." or in the negative: "No, he isn't eating teriyaki chicken." In Japanese, "yes" means "yes to what you just said." So if the question is: "Is Wan-chan not eating teriyaki chicken?" then "yes" means "yes, he is not eating teriyaki chicken." Makes sense, huh? But it can also be very, very confusing because it's the exact opposite of what we say in English. So while you could answer simply hai and iie to question 4 above, doing so would mean the opposite of what it means in English. So be careful!!

By the way, here are the answers to the homework in Lesson 4:
1. "Wan-chan, are you a cat?"
Q: Wan-chan wa neko desu ka?
A (aff.): Hai, neko desu. 
A (neg.): Iie, neko dewa arimasen. Inu desu.

2. "Sensei, are you eating sushi?"
Q: Sensei, sushi wo tabeteimasu ka?
A (aff.): Hai, sushi wo tabeteimasu.
A (neg.): Iie, sushi wo tabeteimasen. Teriyaki chikin wo tabeteimasu.

Questions? Post them in the comments. Thanks!

Japanese Lesson 4: Yes and No

Hello Japanese language enthusiasts! Sorry for not posting about Japanese recently... Here is your next lesson -- how to answer the questions you learned to ask in the Lesson 3. But before we get into the grammar, here is  your Japanese 

Word of the Day:

Romaji	Hiragana	Kanji
ronin	ろうにん	浪人

The first character, "rou" (I put a 'u' after "ro" to show that it's a long 'o' sound; the long 'o' is often written: ō), literally means "wave" or "wandering." The second character, "nin," means "person." It's actually the same character as the "jin" in "amerikajin" (American) and "nihonjin" (Japanese). Same character, same meaning, but different pronunciation. The word "ronin" originally meant "masterless samurai." There's a movie that some of you may know called "Ronin."
Today the word is commonly used to mean something else (not surprising since the class system in Japanese society was abolished in the late 1800s). It now refers to students who graduated from high school but failed to gain entrance into the college of their choice. Instead of matriculating in their second or third choice for university, they opt to attend a "juku" (i.e., cram school) and study for another year in order to hopefully pass the entrance exam the second (or even third!) time around. 

Review of Lesson 3: Grammar and Eating

Last time, we learned how to say the word "to eat" -- "taberu" and to conjugate it: 
In present continuous form -- tabeteimasu is "am/is/are eating." 
And the negative form -- tabeteimasen -- "am/is/are not eating." 
The answers to last week's homework is as follows: 
1. "I am not eating a cat." --> "Watashi wa neko wo tabeteimasen." 
2. "Are you eating teriyaki chicken?" --> "Teriyaki chikin wo tabeteimase ka?"


Note again that the answer in the second sentence doesn't include the word "anata" for "you" -- since it's understood from the sentence/context that you are asking the person to whom you are speaking. If it isn't clear, you would generally use their name or title. For example, if they're your teacher, you'd address them as "sensei." 
The sentence in number 2 above would then be: "Sensei, teriyaki chikin wo tabeteimasu ka?" That sentence could be translated in two different ways in English, depending on the circumstances. It could mean: (a) "Sensei, are you eating teriyaki chicken?" but it could also mean (b) "Is sensei eating teriyaki chicken?"

Japanese Lesson 4: Yes and No

Now on to today's lesson! We recently learned how to ask a few different questions: 
1. "Wan-chan, are you a dog?" --> "Wan-chan wa inu desu ka?" 
2. "Are you American?" --> "Amerikajin desu ka?" 
3. "Are you eating teriyaki chicken?" --> "Teriyaki chikin wo tabeteimasu ka?"

How would Wan-chan, or whomever you are posing the questions to, answer? The Japanese word for "yes" is "hai"; "no" is "iie." So you could simply answer "hai" or "iie" to any of those questions, and you would be perfectly understandable. You might also come across as terse and somewhat rude... 
Better would be to answer in a complete sentence. "Wan-chan wa inu desu ka?" is answered in the affirmative with "Hai, inu desu." Literally, "Yes, am a dog." Note that the subject "watashi" is totally unnecessary. As I mentioned in the previous section reviewing Lesson 3, the same question could be posed to a third person about Wan-chan -- i.e., If you ask Neko-chan: "Wan-chan wa inu desu ka?" it would mean "Is Wan-chan a dog?" Neko-chan would then reply "Yes, he is a dog." The answer would be exactly the same in Japanese, because the subject is dropped! Neko would simply respond: "Hai, inu desu." Voila! To recap: 
You: "Wan-chan wa inu desu ka?"
Neko/chan or Wan-chan: "Hai, inu desu." 

What about saying no? Well, imagine you are asking a French person if they are American. The conversation would go something like this: 
You: "Sumimasen ga, amerikanjin desu ka?" 
Jacques: "Iie, furansujin desu." 
Translated, that goes: 
You: "Pardon me, are you American?"
Jacques: "No, I am French!"

But what if he wanted to be absolutely clear that not only was he French, but he was not a dual citizen with America? Then the conversation would proceed something like this: 
You: "Sumimasen ga, amerikanjin desu ka?" 
Jacques: "Iie, amerikajin dewa arimasen. Furansujin desu." 
Translated, that goes: 
You: "Pardon me, are you American?"
Jacques: "No, I am not American. I am French!"

Your homework:
1. Ask Wan-chan if he is a cat. Figure out some possible answers. 
2. Ask your sensei if he or she is eating sushi. Of course, he or she is not eating sushi, but teriyaki chicken. Figure out some possible answers. (Note: You should be able to figure out how to say "No, I am not eating sushi." from what you know... but it may be a little tricky!)

If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the comments!

Vegan Brownies

Sorry for not posting any new Japanese lessons recently; things have been a bit busy at work. But maybe these vegan desserts will whet your appetite a bit...
Hiromi did a lot of baking this rainy weekend, and the picture to the left was the result. From the left and moving clockwise: vegan banana chocolate chip bread, raisin scones and vegan brownies. I say vegan, but we didn't have enough maple syrup, so both the banana chocolate chip bread and the brownies have honey--making them technically not vegan. At any rate, they all taste amaaaazing! Hiromi adjusted the recipes to make them less sweet, as American desserts tend to be. A friend asked me for the recipe for the brownies, so here it is!

"Wet" ingredients:
1/2 cup mashed sweet potato (or a can of sweet potatoes)
1/4 cup honey (or maple syrup, if you prefer)
1/4 cup vegetable oil (canola, safflower, sunflower, etc.)
1 Tsp. vanilla

"Dry" ingredients:
1/3 cup rolled oats
3/8 cup Sucanat (or date sugar or maple sugar)
1/4 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup pecans, divided
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. baking powder
a heaping 1/4 tsp. salt

Other stuff you'll need:
An oven, preheated to 350 degrees F
An oiled 8 x 8 inch baking pan
A blender or food processor
A pot, some water and a knife to peel and slice the sweet potato
A spatula, to mix everything
A sifter, if you want to sift the dry ingredients

Step 1: Make the mashed sweet potato. (Or, you could just use canned sweet potatoes). Peel and slice a sweet potato; the thinner you slice it, the sooner it gets cooked. Place the slices into a pot with some water and boil/blanch. Once the sweet potato slices are tender, drain the pot leaving some of the liquid. Mash, or puree in a food processor or blender. Use the excess liquid to thin the mash/puree as necessary. When done, the mash/puree should be a little thinner than mashed potatoes.
Step 2: Take the rolled oats and chop 'em up in a blender or food processor until they are like coarse flour.
Step 3: Take all the "wet" ingredients and mix them up in a bowl.
Step 4: Take all the "dry" ingredients (except for some pecans) and mix them up in a bigger bowl. To avoid clumps, you may want to sift the ingredients into the bowl.
Step 5: Pour the combined "wet" ingredients into the mixture of "dry" ingredients.
Step 6: Mix the concoction, but not too much!
Step 7: Pour the concoction into the baking pan, sprinkle the pecans you saved on top, and bake for 20 minutes. Rotate the pan and bake until you can stick a knife in the middle and it comes out clean--probably about 10 more minutes.
Step 8: Let it cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting.
Step 9: Eat and enjoy!

Citation: This recipe was adapted from a great book full of delicious vegan recipes: Simple Treats: A Wheat-Free Dairy-Free Guide to Scrumptious Baked Goods, by Ellen Abraham.