Heights Eats

While at the West Side Market this week we noticed that a bakery had some yummy looking cup cakes and instantly thought of Feeding Maybelle’s cupcake project. So we bought the double chocolate cupcake from Grandma Freda’s Fresh Bake in the corner of the market. It got slightly smooshed on the way home but here’s what it looked like:

Ben, Jonathan and I split it, and we all enjoyed it quite a bit. Jonathan ate the frosting AND the cake which is a big thumbs up from him. Ben said he doesn’t normally enjoy frosting, but he really liked the frosting on this cupcake. My thoughts were that the frosting and cake were fantastic, the cake had an unusual (in a good way) taste to it. I thought it tasted a little like chocolate-cherry and Ben thought it might have been almond extract.… continue reading

Ben and I love going to ethnic markets, and one of our favorites is Gallucci’s. There is an entrance to their parking lot near the intersection of Carnegie and East 66^th. The staff is always extremely friendly and helpful, and of course it smells wonderful inside. They carry a wide range of Italian foods from deli meats to pasta, and nice olive oils and vinegars. We almost never leave without getting two things:

Pizza (only $2 a slice!)

and

Procuitto

I am not sure what it is about it–I love procuitto but I hate ham. (Our son loves ham, but hates procuitto!) One of my favorite snacks is to have melon with procuitto. I love the combination of sweet and salty. If you are in the neighborhood, we reccomend stopping by!
… continue reading

This week we recorded the movie King Corn on our DVR; it was on Independent Lens on PBS. I also began reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma this week as well, an odd coincidence. The movie basically echoes Pollan’s first section in his book where he discusses our nation’s dependence on corn. Watching the movie however made more of an impact on me, perhaps because of the visuals. One of the most disturbing sections is when the filmmakers eat the corn they’re growing and one describes the taste as “sawdust,” then spits it out. Most of the corn grown in this country is an ingredient for processing, not really a food. It is unbelievable how pervasive corn is in everything we eat.

After watching the movie I want to decrease our dependence on corn — but I am not sure where to start. It seems that just about everything has corn in it from … continue reading

This week we visited Mitchell’s Fish Marke t in Woodmere, with Ben’s Dad (Gramps) and wife (Jacqui). Gramps and Jacqui wanted to try their hand at food blogging, so Jacqui took some gorgeous pictures, and Gramps is going to contribute to our review (italicized below).

I am, most assuredly, the wrong person to review restaurants. I just like food — but then again, some food I don’t like. So I don’t like calamari (it’s rubber — I don’t care what you claim it is) . So when my wife said, “I’m ordering calamari: the sign of a good fish restaurant is how they cook calamari,” I thought “good, you eat it, I’ll watch.” When it came, she not only loved it, she said she hesitated to order calamari in anything but a Mediterranean country, but this calamari was very good:

Not only did I try it & like it (for the first time ever, it was not rubbery!), … continue reading

Is the top shelf of the dishwasher–coffee cups, cereal bowls, glasses–full, while the bottom shelf is nearly empty?

If so, you’re probably not cooking very much. That’s been our situation pretty frequently as of late. So I was glad, after we made Mark Bittman’s Dal and Michael Symon’s Exellent Naan, to have a full bottom shelf of the dishwaher tonight.

As much as we love Cleveland restuarants, we’re trying to cook simple food at home a bit more often.… continue reading

(Picture by: natedougherty)

The last restaurant we visited on our trip to new Orleans was Felix’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar on the corner of Iberville and Bourbon Street. It’s one of the most well-known places for oysters in the area, but it definitely has a mom-and-pop diner feel to it. The décor is simple and the employees are really friendly.

The oysters are, not suprisingly, outstanding. Jonathan Swift wrote, “He was a bold man that first eat an oyster,” and Sarah has yet to try one. I love, them, though–I first tried them at Whole Foods a few months ago. Felix’s has other good food besides oysters, however.

For appetizers, we sampled the shrimp remoulade, grilled oysters and raw oysters. The remoulade had a nice horseradish kick to it, and the oysters tasted like oysters “scampi.” They were topped with garlic, butter and breadcrumbs(?) and were tender and not overcooked. The raw oysters were … continue reading

This is my entry for the CLICK: April 2008 (Au Naturel) photo contest. I first heard of this contest through Maybelle’s Mom. I chose strawberries because these strawberries in particular were great, especially for first of the season berries. I am posting below my two favorites, but I ultimately chose to enter the first one because of the cool pattern and vibrant colors inside the berries.

Monthly Archives: April 2008

Cleveland Cupcake Project Entry

Gallucci’s

King Corn

Mitchell’s Fish Market

Are you eating out a lot?

Felix’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar

CLICK: April 2008 (Au Naturel)