Vacation

I'm out of town all week. I wasn't going to say anything, but Mike N. expressed concern that I had been run over by a vegan taco cart and I wanted to ease his fears.

Weekend Eats

Elizabeth's parents have been in the state for a couple of weeks, since her sister was due to have her baby more than a week ago. But it hasn't happened yet, so they came to visit us for the weekend. Rick went out and got us bagels both mornings, which were great.

I made dinner both nights. The first night, I picked up some chicken breasts and a bottle of Mojo Criollo marinade: orange juice, garlic, and other spices. I placed the chicken in the slow cooker and poured the bottle on top, then left them alone for six hours.

I sliced zucchini, red onion, peppers and shallots, tossed them all with olive oil and salt & pepper, and cooked them on the indoor grill.

The chicken was falling-apart tender, the veggies were great and the potatoes I roasted with olive oil and rosemary were delicious.

Saturday afternoon we took Elizabeth's parents to Economy Candy; they enjoy old-fashioned candies and were able to find a few they wanted. I restrained myself this time and only got three items. (Elizabeth's mom said the pet rat was one of the worst things she'd ever seen.)

Elizabeth got this "premium German milk chocolate." I figured it had been a few years since I'd given chocolate a try, why not give it another one?

I still don't like it.

It's always good to finish up a candy-shopping trip with a beer, so we stopped into a local pub. I had a pint of Guinness; Elizabeth had a Lagunitas Little Sumpin'.

I made two pizzas for dinner. Elizabeth's mom requested one with tomato sauce, mozzarella and basil, so that's what I did. The other one was olive oil, goat cheese, and some of the leftover veggies from the night before. We didn't get home from our Saturday adventures until after dark, so by the time I got the pizza dough, I didn't have time to let it come to temperature like I usually prefer. So they didn't roll out evenly and looked deformed. Whatever, they were still delicious.

It's "Februany," so I got myself a sub at one point: my usual Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki with lettuce, red onion, bell pepper, banana peppers, jalapeños, and plenty of sauce. I miss the cilantro I used to get on my subs in California, but I still can't complain when I got two subs and a bag of chips for eleven bucks.

Last night I again kept it simple and picked up food from the deli across the street: Elizabeth had some of this chicken breast with wine sauce and pasta. I took a bite; it was good.

I'd wanted to get the teriyaki chicken I love, but they were all out. So I got these chicken tenders instead. I've tried them before but I won't be getting them again. They're usually overcooked and overbreaded. The mustard is good, though.

Elizabeth chose the pasta salad and I tried some, but it wasn't my favorite.

I prefer the potato salad.

I hope you had a good weekend.

Ten Snacks

1) Boneless Wings

I'd noticed Hoboken Eddie's sauces for several months but never tried them: the 14 oz bottles cost between eight and ten bucks each. That seems a lot for a bottle of sauce. But eventually I was curious and gave one a try, the roasted jalapeno and lime juice version. It was delicious. Really, really good. 

I immediately made some boneless wings one night and tossed them in the sauce. 

2) Quesadilla

I had leftover ground turkey one day, so I added that to a grilled quesadilla with sautéed onions and added chipotle sauce and the Hoboken Eddie's sauce. This was the best "snack" quesadilla I have ever made. (As opposed to a quesadilla I make as a main meal, with grilled chicken or lobster or something like that.)

 3) Hamburger

A brisket and short rib patty, with caramelized onions, lettuce, Baconaisse, and Heinz 57 sauce.

4) Japanese Salad

A local bodega has this Japanese ginger dressing that is as good as almost any restaurant. (Still not as good as Shogun Restaurant, though.) I make salads frequently with lettuce, carrots, cabbage, sliced cucumber, and this dressing.

 5) Desserts

I got myself a creme brûlée at a local market. It was merely okay, and too small for the price. Elizabeth had a white Napoleon, but she only ate one bite of it and announced she wanted to save the rest for later. So I ate it all before she could return to it. It was much better than my dessert.

 6) Sushi

Another local bodega has a sushi chef who makes sushi all day long. I often pick up a container. I don't even remember what these were, but everything from there has been good, the best non-restaurant sushi I think I've ever had.

 7) Cupcakes

I picked up a couple of cupcakes for us at Crumbs one night. Elizabeth had the white chocolate, which was delicious. I had the "Brewsky," which wasn't that good. The cake and frosting tasted fine, but the cookie was stale and these little balls were as hard as ball bearings.

8) Tacos

I am definitely a fan of the Frontera cooking sauces. On this occasion I used the slow cooker - I put some browned beef in there with the packet of sauce and let it cook for several hours. One taco I ate with sour cream, lettuce and green salsa. Another I ate with chipotle sauce. I probably ate at least two more. All were delicious.

9) Life Savers Gummies Coolers

These fruit-drink-flavored gummy Life Savers are delicious, which means there is a ticking clock on how long they will be available. Life Savers always pulls their best new products.

10) Balsamic Porter Vegetables

Two of my very favorite flavors are balsamic and beer, so buying this bottle was a no-brainer. I soaked some chopped veggies in it all day, then grilled them. They were great.

Have a good weekend.

Sal's Pizzeria

When we arrived in Brooklyn last spring, I started going for walks almost every day, usually in a different direction. I figured that was the best way to get to know the neighborhoods, specifically to see what restaurants looked good, even more specifically the pizzerias. I only ate at about 10% of the joints I entered; I just wanted to get a look.

On one of my walks, I ducked into Sal's Pizzeria. I can count on one hand the number of places that looked worse. There were only two different pies out that day and they looked like they might have been sitting out for a day or two. I was pretty sure I would never eat there.

A few months later I saw the exterior of Sal's on Blue Bloods. (They had turned it into a pizza restaurant called "Salducci's," and Henry called it the best slice in the city. But of course this had nothing to do with the actual Sal's Pizzeria, and it did nothing to change my desire to never eat there.)

And then, a couple months after that, the restaurant next door - Mama Maria's - was on Kitchen Nightmares. The same person owns both. I don't pretend that reality TV has all that much to do with reality - it's pretty obvious that a lot if not most of Kitchen Nightmares is staged - but it still reinforced my opinion from my first visit that those slices of not-fresh-looking pizza had probably been sitting out for a long time.

After seeings Sal's twice on TV, I became curious. And hey, it's still pizza. As I have written before, of the thousands of slices I have ever eaten in my life, there are only two that I would call bad.

So I went by the other day.

There were three pizzas on display but only one that looked edible. The white pizza looked as dry as any I have ever seen; the "grandma's" (or something like that) looked overcooked. The Margherita looked okay, though, so that's what I requested. The guy slid it into the oven and left it there for several minutes. I thought for sure it would be overcooked.

When I received my slice and was asked if I wanted to stay or go, I said go. I actually wanted to stay but, even though half the tables were empty, they were covered with used plates and napkins and empty soda glasses. I guess Sal's doesn't care much about bussing the tables. Whatever. It was a nice day so I took my slice outside and placed it on a wall.

The pizza wasn't overcooked at all. It actually wasn't even that hot. Apparently Sal's doesn't crank up their ovens very high. (If My Little Pizzeria left a slice in their oven for the four or five minutes that my slice sat there, it would not only be scorching hot, it would be burnt.)

There were two things that stood out to me: the cheese, which was tasty, and the sauce, which was terrible. There was a nice amount of cheese on this slice (sometimes I've received slices of Margherita with barely any cheese on them) and it tasted fresh. But the sauce was sickly sweet, like room-temperature tomato paste out of can.

The crust was pretty crisp. If you like slices that can fold, this might not be your best bet, as it broke in two when I tried to fold it. But I don't mind crispy crust, so I was okay with this.

My initial reaction to Sal's last April or May was correct: this is pizza I should have avoided. Now, it's nowhere near as bad as the two slices I mentioned earlier that I refused to finish, but it is not a slice I will ever get again and it's not one I can recommend to anyone. If Sal's existed in a town somewhere with only a Pizza Hut as competition, I could see the appeal. In a neighborhood where you can't walk more than a couple of blocks without coming across a pizza joint, there is no point in ever returning.