I’m trying to get back on the wagon after a summer full of barbecue and my new deep fryer.  Here’s a quick look at a tasty veggie option from one of my favorite Union Square lunch spots: Grey Dog Coffee.  A hearty bean-based patty that holds its own even with the spicy red onion.  Thumbs up!

Grey Dog Veggie Burger

Tastes better than it looks

PS – Rest in peace, Carmine Street.  This sammy is from the University Place location.

On my last day in town, I wanted a muffuletta.  While Central Grocery is a historical staple, I’d always found it a bit too oily for my tastes, and the line was always too long.  I had my sights set on a newer place that was making a big splash for itself in the city: Cochon Butcher.

The fine dining restaurant, Cochon, was nominated for a Best New Restaurant James Beard award in 2007, the same year David Link, the co-owner of Cochon and the popular Herbsaint, was named Best Chef: South.  Stephen Stryjewski, the other co-owner of Cochon, was bestowed the very same honor this year in 2011.  This butcher shop was their casual brain child – part butcher counter, part restaurant, part supply shop for amateur gourmet – the epitome of everything that modern “fast food” could be in my opinion.  My flight was at 3pm, and I had just enough time to bring back a muffuletta (and a few Hubig’s Fried Pies) to cram in before I returned to New York.

Needless to say, it didn’t disappoint.  It was the epitome of what I would classify as a nouveau-Creole muffuletta; herby, soft bread perfectly balanced with the finest cuts of meat, a distinctive olive tapenade that may have contained pearl onions and other spices…  simple with depth, exactly what would be expected from a Beard-nominee. And in spite of the fact that I was so entirely full that I didn’t think I could fit another bite of food into my stomach, I ate the whole thing.

My stomach was a wreck on the way home, due simply to the fact that I’d eaten entirely too much.  By volume.  I wasn’t hungry at all when I ate that muffelatta.  On the contrary I was quite full.  So I already knew that what I was doing could only be classified under the biblical sin of gluttony.

I sat shifting back and forth in my seat trying to find some comfort, to no avail.  So I made the utter mistake of consuming yet more – a ginger ale “to settle my stomach”.  Less than 30 minutes later, I was fumbling awkwardly in my seat pocket for the bag of terror, which I proceeded to fill to the horror of my rowmate.  I didn’t feel sick before or after.  Only sublimely embarrassed that I’d actually partaken in a romanesque purge.

A fitting departure for a whirlwind baptism, a forceful re-christening of my stomach into the ways of my old world.  Yet an awakening…  into a new awareness of health and balance.  A knowing, that I still craved another bite in spite of my puke mouth and that I wanted to enjoy eating these things forever, so I had to beat back my primal urges and create balance.  You can’t possibly eat rich and gaudy deliciousness for every meal.  It’s unsustainable.  Hence, my neverending quest for…

Sustainable gluttony.

Having your cake, eating it too, and walking it off afterward so you can fit into the skinny jeans.

Follow my quest.

(Start at the beginning? Intro, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5)

Have you ever danced in the streets until 6:00 AM on the third day of a 72 hour binge of sleepless excess?  Have you ever gorged to the point of nausea, walked it down for a few hours and then – impossibly – eaten and drank again?  Have you ever spent days reposing in bed, postponing every thought of responsibility and care while you lazily nibble a lover’s affections?  Pushed the limits of your physical and emotional ability to feel and reveled in the frailty of the overextended nerve ending?

The dank humidity hanging from the lush gardens of New Orleans creates a mystical aura of slow, confident calm…  invincibility at times.  It is a place where time slips away unnoticed because you can see, hear and taste each minute in the bud of a magnolia flower, the cadence of a marching band, the juices of a crawfish head.  Subsequently there is a sense of detachment, in the moment, from the consequences of one’s actions that can be gleefully entertaining at best, and woefully tragic at worst.

While growing up as a local, there was always a mysterious allure to the nighttime that called for me even as my staunchly religious family resisted most of the secular traditions the city reveled in.  My great-grandfather was a jazz musician, a trumpet or trombone player if I remember correctly, and was perpetually partially-employed.  Great-grandmother was a shrew of a woman who never held her tongue and lashed with both words and physical objects, turning to religion as a respite from the hardships which came from a “sinful” life of pursuing a career in art or music.  While my grandmother and her brother were mostly obedient and pursued stable careers in teaching and public service, my grand-aunt took up the family mantle and plunged headlong into nightlife entertainment.

Listen: LaVergne Smith – Stormy Weather

My grand-aunt LaVergne Smith – the New Orleans Nightingale – was a celebrated pianist and songstress on Bourbon Street for many years, for whom my grandmother sewed costumes and in general disapproved of her lifestyle choices.  She recorded a number of albums with Savoy Records in the 50s and enjoyed a successful career until it was largely derailed by alcoholism and abusive relationships.  I never got a chance to meet her as she passed away shortly after I was born due to complications from years of alcohol abuse.  However, I was told that she held me once before she died…  and I’m sure that she imparted into me not only a fever for showbusiness that took me years to shake as well as an affinity for “the sauce”, but a curiosity for all of the things that the nighttime streets of NOLA could offer up.

And so, after spending my adolescence training to become a professional dancer and safely ensconced in a religious bubble of spiritual pursuit, even to the point of preparing for ordination, I moved onto campus at university and plunged headlong myself into challenging my own spiritual, emotional, and physical boundaries as I attempted to navigate my identity as a young adult.  I shaved my head, “lost my mind” many times over (abandoning a pre-ND biochemistry major for Dance and Women’s Studies), and indulged in experiences that challenged every notion I had of what was right and proper.  Eventually I became involved in nightlife promotion and made a career of going out, throwing parties, and the wasting of brain cells until such a point when I cried out for divine intervention, because the fruitless frenzy I’d whipped my life into had begun to take its toll.  That’s when Hurricane Katrina happened, and snapped everything back into perspective.

Moving to New York, I was exposed to a level of purpose and responsibility that I’d never known, and it was invigorating.  This is a place of limitless possibility, if only you can get through the first year without being “thrown off the horse”.  It was at this point in time that my entrepreneurial thirsts were rekindled, and managed to find gainful – a.k.a. salaried with benefits – employment while attending evening classes to get my MBA.  The luck of my opportunity was that I was able to work in marketing and business development for a hospitality technology company, meaning that I was able to get paid to research and stalk the owners of the hottest new restaurants and bars in NYC in hopes of selling them very expensive software before they opened the doors.  Not only was I getting paid to eat and drink my way through the city, but I was also developing an encyclopedic knowledge of where to eat and party in NYC.  After 3.5 years there, I’ve moved on to various and sundry things that are still unfolding in the most exciting ways, but my personal obsession with restaurants and nightlife persists in a way that has led me to writing this blog.

All that said, I’m 28 years old, skipping along on my merry way around the Capitol of the World, having the time of my life…  tag along!

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