Peanut Butter and Company

I warn you in advance that this, sadly, (for when it comes to dessert I could write a novel) will be a very short blog due to my European History midterm tomorrow. While I’m still a little confused about the relationship between communism and socialism I am not at all confused about the relationship between chocolate and peanut butter. While I have never doubted their relationship, I also never realized just what their potential was. After a trip to Peanut Butter and Company you too will realize why the expression “Peaches and Cream” should be changed to “Chocolate and peanut butter.” I ordered the “Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie,” which they make from scratch. It had a cookie crust covered in chocolate and a peanut butter cream filling. They topped it with chopped peanuts, chocolate chips, and peanut butter chips. Gilding the lily? I think not. The toppings not only made the pie a work of art, but also added a delightful texture. The smooth creaminess of the filling mixed with the crunchy toppings created an ideal equilibrium. It was also not sickeningly sweet – the saltiness of the peanut butter nicely balanced out the sweetness of the chocolate. Peanut Butter & Co. is located at 240 Sullivan St. (between Bleeker and West 3^rd) They sell sandwiches, dessert, and drinks, all featuring - you guessed it – peanut butter. Hmmm now if only there was a Nutella & Co…

Scones, Ravioli and Nutella

What a wonderful food-oriented weekend! The magic (…or calories…. but I prefer magic.) started Friday at noon, when I met my mom and aunt at the Met. In college lingo, family coming to visit = nice meal!!! We went to Alice’s Tea Cup, a few blocks from the museum, on 81^st between 1^st and 2^nd Avenues. (Alice’s Tea Cup has two other locations as well; another on the Upper East Side and one on the Upper West Side.)

The last time I had had tea – as in, not just tea, but TEA - the complete, afternoon tea- (scones, jam, clotted cream) was in Oxford, England, at a place called The Rose, and ever since then I had been dreaming of that quintessential British repast, wondering if any American institution could possibly meet my, by now terribly romanticized, expectations.

Well, the no British accents thing aside, (the waiter was some sort of hipster dude, rather than a charming English fellow) it was an excellent meal, or should I say feast. I ordered “The Nibble” which consisted of a pot of tea, a choice of scone with preserves and cream, a choice of a sandwich, and assorted cookies.

When the food arrived I could not help but eat the scone first – it’s pretty hard to resist the scent of a fresh-from-the-oven blueberry-orange scone! Typing this right now, I am mourning, just a little, for the too-abrupt disappearance of that beautiful British treat. It was oozing with blueberries and further flavored with just the right amount of orange zest. And while the blueberries and orange stole the show, you could still taste the sweet, buttery, fluffy scone. A little jam and homemade clotted cream (think, whipped cream, the remix) and that scone could have been a meal in itself.

I chose the smoked salmon sandwich, which came open-faced with lemon-dill butter, and ordered it on seven-grain bread instead of black bread. It was love at first sight with this sandwich, which was piled a good inch high with salmon.

To finish there were six cookies; oatmeal raisin, peanut buttery and jelly, sugar, and one that was filled with raspberry preserves. It was a festive and tasty ending.

With over ­­­­­­­­­­­­140 tea’s to choose from it was hard to make a decision, but when I saw “Alice’s tea” on the menu my heart-wrenching dilemma ended. I was not disappointed in this “house blend of Indian black Vanilla tea with Japanese green tea and rose petals.” It was mildly sweet, calming, and the little bit of rose petals brought me back to my afternoons at The Rose. Well, perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but the rose truly did add a nice touch.

The next day I visited my brother, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and ate some fantastic spinach ravioli at a restaurant called Fiore, on 284 Grand Street. Served in a brown butter-sage sauce, with freshly grated parmesan cheese on top, it was the perfect reward for a morning of lugging my suitcase through the N.Y.C. subway system. (The distance between the Upper West Side and Brooklyn grows a lot when you’re carrying all your textbooks.)

But my gourmet weekend didn’t end there, no siree. That night I discovered an amazing way to eat Nutella! (Believe me, before this I thought I’d come up with every way possible, but I was very mistaken.)

Ok, here goes: Spread atop fresh, lightly toasted challah, nutella is lifted to new heights.

My weekend ended too soon, but I think it’s safe to say that the scones, ravioli, and nutella will be lingering in my thoughts - and I’m afraid on my thighs as well - for a long time to come. Good thing Barnard has a P.E. requirement!

Cafe D'Alsace

Restaurant Week is perhaps the only time of year when college students can have a gourmet meal for a reasonable - or semi reasonable - price. (Okay, so I've persuaded myself it's reasonable, although to be honest $35.00 for dinner... actually, I'm not gonna go there. It's reasonable.)

Last night ten of my friends and I went to Cafe D'Alsace on the Upper East Side for a meal that not only broke up the monotony of cafeteria food but took my taste buds to places they had never before ventured.

For an appetizer I had a poached egg with artichoke fricassee and melted Morbier cheese. I was a little hesitant at first, having never had "artichoke fricassee" (I'm not gonna lie...I didn't quite know what fricassee meant) or morbier cheese. However, it was truly a lovely concoction. The cheese melted onto the poached egg and the fresh, flavorful artichoke perfectly complemented the dish.

Okay, time for a confession... I'm not normally a meat eater. That is, I eat chicken and fish, but rarely wander into the red meat territory. I know, I know, how can one be a food writer and not eat red meat?! I decided it was high time to change this, and venture out of my culinary comfort zone. "If I'm going to be a food writer I need to eat everything," I told myself, and bravely ordered the steak frites.

It was a bit intimidating to have a huge piece of red meat plunked in front of me as if was something tame as chicken noodle soup, but I had to admit it was very, very good. I have had steaks before and this was one of the best I've ever tried. The frites were reminiscent of those I had in Paris. I'm a bit of a french fry snob but these met my high criteria - not too greasy, not too thin. Thick enough to really taste the potato and thin enough to be light, crunchy, and delicate in a melt-in-your-mouth kind of way. These were the kind of fries that people around you just can't help but steal from your plate. (Heck, I don't blame them, I would have done the same if I'd seen these on someone else's plate.)

Dessert truly made the meal. I had the warm, flourless chocolate gateau with raspberry coulis and pistachio ice cream. It was very similar to a chocolate souffle; when poked with a fork, the chocolate oozed out. Halfway through eating the gateau, the chocolate inevitably mixed with the raspberry coulis, and the pistachio ice cream melted slightly into the gateau - a happy occurrence indeed! Usually the first bite of dessert is the best, but in this case the dish just got better and better as the flavors combined forces.

The waitstaff were extremely friendly towards us. I have too often been treated disrespectfully when out to eat with friends - perhaps the waiters assume that because we are college kids we won't tip well. But at Cafe D'Alsace we were all treated with the utmost respect and kindness.

We all left smiling at the end of the meal, tummies full and content, faces glowing with the triumph of having managed to eat a delicious meal outside the brutal cafeteria world we live in. Perhaps $35.00 isn't reasonable for a college kid, but it was still worth every penny!

A Freshly-Baked Start to the Semester

Every weekend, my friends and I gallivant through New York City on a food adventure. Sometimes we go to places recommended to us by friends or family. Other times we go to venues written about online or in the New York Times. Most of the time, we take our advice from the pro's and go to places featured on the Food Network. (If a restaurant, cafe, or bakery has been on a Bobby Flay Throwdown, and is in N.Y.C., you can pretty much guarantee it's on my list of places to go.)

After a long stressful first week back at Barnard, I was craving something sweet to balance out the sourness of the endless amount of pages I had to read that weekend. (Why oh why did I sign up for both art history AND European history?)

It didn't take much to persuade my friends to go to Levain Bakery, on West 74th Street, not far from where we live. It's interesting how the word "cookie" can light up a college student's face.

The moment we walked into the small brightly lit bakery we were inundated - BLASTED - ENGULFED by the heavenly smell of gourmet cookies being baked. It was as if a chocolate and sugar tidal wave had taken over our noses, and for that matter, all our senses. "Why, oh why can't our school cafeteria smell like this!?" one of my friends asked.

Well, it's a good thing our cafeteria does not bake cookies like Levain's does, because if they did, students would gain much more than just the freshman fifteen. (The freshman fifty would be more like it.)

Decisions, decisions....what would it be? (There didn't seem to be a wrong choice, but still...) I finally decided to buy the Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip cookie. My friend Elana bought the Chocolate Chip Walnut, and we split them.

The Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip cookie was still warm when I bit into it. Cue, eyes widening. Sighs of chocolate peanut butter contentment. The peanut butter chips had melted into the dark chocolate cookie dough. The cookie was baked perfectly. It was crispy yet gooey, sweet, yet not overpoweringly sugary, perhaps because it was dark rather than milk chocolate. To make a big cookie into a short story, I had found paradise in this wonderful mixture of flour, sugar, and eggs. The Chocolate Chip Walnut cookie was equally good. The chocolate chip to walnut ratio was utopian. It was a rich and shamelessly decadent dessert - the kind of chocolate chip cookie that puts other chocolate chip cookies to shame. I do hope my chocolate chip cookie experience has not peaked at age 19.

You don't need to take college calculus to know that friends + out-of-this-world-delicious-cookies = the perfect start of the semester.