this blog is about all the things that DON'T keep me up at night---nothing deep, nothing serious, nothing depressing. it IS about the things that keep me sane and distracted. now, i have a recital tonight. perhaps if i were a "serious" musician i would be entering some sort of semi-voodoo ritual to ensure that i am in that precise frame of mind in which musical genius comes pouring from my fingertips. but that sort of thinking has led me to crash and burn at the last few public performances, so here is plan B: distracting myself from myself.
ok, so back to Whole Foods. their grand opening in cleveland was this past week; my roommates and i chanced upon them on saturday, our first day off (minus the practice sessions) in weeks.
even though Whole Foods is based in texas, from which i hail, i'd never been to one. even if i had, back then i wasn't near the wanna-be foodie i am now...the treasures within would have been lost on me. treasures such as....
1) ostrich and emu eggs. $20 a pop, not cheap, not practical---i don't have the first clue as to what to do with one, except egg somebody i truly despise. but still! i never thought i would say i was a size queen, but in this case, who can resist?
2) fiddlehead ferns. my first encounter with these were in taiwan, where, due to translation/nomenclature issues, i came to the conclusion that nobody had any idea what we were eating. imagine my delight, then: "THERE THEY ARE! AND THEY'RE LABELED!!!"
3) maitake mushrooms. ever had the taleggio cheese/maitake sandwich from Craftbar in NYC (one of tom colicchio's restaurants)? 'nuff said.
4) taleggio cheese! you all can guess what we've been making at home for snackage! but, seriously---they carry LOTS of cheese---stinky cheese, pretty cheese, UNPASTEURIZED cheese. i would profess to be a cheese connoisseur who could discuss the finer points of various methods for aging, cooking, inoculating, brining/salting, curing, etc etc---but then i would be lying.
5) crawfish! or merely their tails. and frozen, shipped from houston. FOR ME, this is a huge deal....gumbo is my therapy (making it, and eating it). it's difficult enough to find okra in this godforsaken midwest, but crawfish are unheard of...at least for eating. one of my roommates, from minnesota, refers to them as the "bugs in the creek." or "crik," as she would say.
now, the other finds are no less wonderful, but mostly less rare. we are blessed to have the west side market and a small chinatown (really, chinablock) that have supplied us with most of our needs...squid, fresh fish, crabs, razor clams, and eel, goat and lamb and unsmoked pork hocks and belly, freshly made chorizo and filled pastas and gnocchi, and a wonderful assortment of chinese vegetables (minus the elusive "tswan chi," which i recently found out was the madeira vine). there are more, but that's another blog.
so....if you've ever ticked me off the in past and you open your mail one day to find a REALLY HUGE ROTTEN EGG? good chance it's from me.
2 comments:
Ooh, you should try the cooking classes at Whole Foods - they're excellent! I think it's great that you get tails-only crawfish...All the seafood we get these days is served heads-on, and usually propped up in a way that makes you think of what it looked like alive. I don't like it when my food looks at me.
Ostrich and emu eggs at $20 ea? That's a much better bargain for the ostrich egg... I wonder what you would serve a 3-ostrich-egg omlete in? Maybe a 9x13 pan? Also, taleggio and chianti, very nice - I like it better than the blues.
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