Holiday pause

I have stopped the vegetable delivery until after the holidays. It seems likely that I will have little time to cook fresh vegetables either. I have had take-out Chinese and bagels with sundry spreads and canned soup. I will probably snack my way through this week and then show some (!) restraint at Christmas and in Mexico. I love vegetables, but this is the time of year that my eating habits suffer.

Resolutions 2004, here I come!

Homestyle chicken

Regardless of what the title dish is in the South, this is the name of my favorite dish at Hunan Balcony (97 & Broadway). It is chicken breast slices with green beans in a brown sauce with ginger threads (sliced with the grain). Spicy! Before moving to NYC, this dish was unknown to me and I thought it was a specialty of Hunan Balcony. Now it looks like it is available all over town, but I am so pleased with their version that I am reluctant to try other places in the neighborhood.

It is what I ordered tonight as a compensation for the cancellation of my flight to France.

Rome report

No, I didn't do any cooking while I was in Rome. In fact I hardly did much eating. When I travel, especially when I travel alone, I find that I can either do hardcore sightseeing or experience the nightlife. Usually not both. This trip, since everything was new, I hit the sights hard and didn't have much energy for going out.

I did experience a couple of dishes worth mentioning:

At Enoteca Corsi: the artichoke antipasta. Unbelievable! A whole artichoke, trimmed, served in oil and lemon and delicious.

Also, the Spaghetti alla Carbonara was fabulous. Both of these I tasted from my lunch companion's meal. I did not have such good luck ordering my own meal (it was good, not great).

At Due Colonne, the best dish I had was a bruschetta with paper-thin beef, arugula and parmesan cheese. Delicious!

The vegatable market at the Campo dei Fiori was fun to wander around, but I didn't purchase anything. Not there, not in the shoe stores, not in the boutiques. Next time.