Hungry Hippo

More often than not, I come home late, feeling tired and hungry. I've had conversations with friends in which we fantasize about having our own personal slave, something akin to an Oompah-Loompah, so that upon arrival at home, a full meal spread would be waiting. Until we figure out how to acquire one of these, I'll have to take care of myself. That means putting together meals within 30 minutes of arriving home, or I'll start feeling my stomach dissolve itself.

Today, I thought about picking up some food on the way home, but couldn't think of anything I really wanted to eat. I quick look in the fridge yielded eggs, cabbage, and frozen peas. I instantly thought Tortilla!, but with only three eggs, that seemed like an impossibility. But once I thought that I wanted a spanish tortilla, I couldn't give up the idea. So I made a modified one that was healthy, tasty, and satisfying but looked nothing like a tortilla:

- approx. 3/4 lb green cabbage, shredded
- 2 medium Yukon gold potatoes, sliced 1/4" thick
- 1 1/4 cup frozen peas
- 1 medium yellow onion, sliced
- 5 cloves garlic, sliced
- 3 extra large eggs
- 4 T olive oil
- salt and black pepper to taste

Heat a pot of water to parboil the potato slices. In the meantime, in a large saucepan, heat olive oil and saute onions and garlic until soft and golden brown at the edges. Add cabbage and mix into onions and garlic. Cook for approximately 5 minutes. Add frozen peas and cook for about another 5 minutes. Lightly beat eggs in a bowl and set aside. Potato slices should be done now, so drain and add potatoes to the saucepan. Mix to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Add eggs to pan, let cook at medium heat for about 2 minutes, allowing it to set, if possible. In this case, there was no hope, so instead, I coated all ingredients with egg. Serve in a bowl and scarf down.

Makes about three servings.

I realized a couple things as I was eating.
1) I love one-bowl-meals. It's similar to a horse eating out of a bucket--only one task at hand and very little distraction
2) This fake-tortilla was similar to a fake-egg foo young; peas and potatoes (tortilla), with shredded cabbage (egg foo young). It was a strange hybrid of the two that ended up with about 1/8 of the egg volume necessary to set the dish.

Still pretty good, nonetheless.

Let's champion the pig.




One of my all-time favourite meats is pork, which why I adore Momofuku, a relatively new ramen joint in the East Village. Clearly, the good folks who run Momofuku love pork as much as I do, so much, in fact, that the most of the menu features Berkshire pork from Eden Farms. These pigs are raised in a healthy, humane, environmentally-friendly way, and result in a quality meat that is very tender and beautifully marbled.

The restaurant itself has a soothing atmostphere for me, even though it is almost always packed. The space is long, so diners are seated at blonde wood bars, mostly facing the kitchen. I like watching my food being prepared, and I also am always pleased to see how clean the kitchen is and how well the food is treated. In addition to having Berkshire pork star in the menu, Momofuku mostly uses locally grown produce and seafood. Fresh, fresh, and fresh!

The dish that I never fail to order is the pork steamed buns, as seen in the top photo. Pork belly cuts are sandwiched between steamed buns that are painted with hoisin sauce. Add some scallions and a few slices of mildly pickled cucumber--ta-DAH! Scrumptious deliciousness. It reminds of Peking Duck, which can come in two versions: wrapped in thin "crepes" or in these steamed buns. The assembly of Peking duck is similar; a thin layer of hoisin sauce, some slivers of cucumber, and then the crispy, fatty duck skin (and a little flesh) in a bun.

Of course the noodles are not to be missed. The wheat noodles themselves have a nice texture to them, a sort of Asiatic al dente. I prefer the soup ramen, which is also shown above. Since I was sharing a bowl with another person who doesn't like poached eggs, I got the yolk all to myself. Score! Observe the shredded pork and pickles on the side, with (hidden from view) braised collards, scallions, and bamboo shoots. The soup itself is a rich pork broth, and my only critique is that the noodles are usually not salty enough for me. This tends to be a common complaint of mine, so perhaps I'm eating too much salt.

The sum up: yummy food, great pork, hott staff in full view, and good music selection (Stephen Malkmus and Danzig!). My own personal heaven.

Since the launch of Hungry Hippo Central (HHC, if you will), I've been taking baby-steps towards figuring out how this here blog works. I've learned how to strategically place links to other sites, post photos, set up side bar links, and alter my comments section.
I point all this out because I want visitors to:
-appreciate my hard work (procrastination from actual work)
-welcome and encourage non-bloggers--and bloggers--to comment
-notice that I've added a couple blogging friends from my days in Mtl, and check out their sites

I've also linked to a number of my favourite food blogs, though they don't know I have yet. I'm still naive in the ways of blog etiquette. Maybe I'm being rude, much like my first year of email-sending, when I didn't know that the use of caps is the EQUIVALENT OF YELLING IN SOMEONE'S EAR.

Poutine, that is. And for me, too, as you can see. On our way to the Broken Social Scene show, the Canadian collective du jour, we indulged in some gutt-clogging fun at Pommes Frites. In this picture, what you see are two servings of 1000% of your lifetime recommended intake of acrylamide, trans-fat, pesticide and MSG. Thank god I only managed to eat two-thirds of my poutine.

But now, let me take a moment to wax poetic on the mighty poutine. For the uninitiated, poutine is the Quebecois delicacy of layering fries with cheese curd, and then dousing the whole she-bang with hot gravy. Ideally, for me, Belgian fries and real cheese curds are used--the kind that squeak in your teeth. This grotesque concoction is what broke my metabolism while in living in Muntreal: night of drinking beer + poutine before bed = FAT. And the next morning, I would eat the cold, congealed leftovers. It was just that irrestible. I could never understand why the poutine phenomena has only stayed in Quebec. I mean, it was so ubiquitous that you could get poutine at Burger King up there. Also, being the food for champions, it never failed to keep me warm in the bitter Canadian winters--it's tasty and practical!

I still get nostalgic and misty-eyed at the memory of Mtl. poutine. To be honest, I think Pommes Frites has pretty tasty poutine, but minus the curd squeak. The fries were a good balance of crispy and mealy, and were well packed and nicely layered with the cheese. The gravy was tasty enough, and the amount of gravy was just right; enough to flavour and lubricate the whole thing, but not so much that the fries were swimming in gravy. Nobody likes to have to fish their fries out of puddles of gravy.

When I fully transformed into my current state of Crunchy Granola Wholesomeness, I really started dropping cash on beauty (booty) products. Not that I really spend all that much on products now, just that I spent most of my youth being a tomboy--or least, not conventionally girly--so any amount of money spent now is far more than what I used to spend. Now I generally purchase "natural" products, meaning that the ingredients of my soaps, shampoos, moisturizes, etc. are somewhat identifiable substances. Much like my general attitude towards food, I prefer to know what is being absorbed into my body. More often than not, I find that this means the ingredients are things that can be eaten. For example, this evening, I slathered on a couple moisturizers that contain buttermilk, honey, chamomile extract, rosemary essence, coconut oil, sunflower oil, peppermint oil, and green tea extract.
Let's not forget the vitamins: A, C, E, and B5.
And the minerals: copper, zinc, and manganese.
Plus the polypeptides…don't forget those.
Holy bejesus! it's looking like the back of the Total cereal box. I'm assuming that all these things are good for my skin, especially since my face starts to tingle (pleasantly) upon contact with my nutrient-rich crème. With all this oily creaminess sitting on my face, working to hydrate, firm, and strengthen my skin, I feel pretty certain that at least my face won't get cellulite, despite the calories.

Just this past Friday, I came home from Happy Hour, and found that I had received a package. I thought it was going to be the CDs I had ordered from Amazon, but when I picked it up from the mailroom, it turned out to be much larger and waaayyy heavier than two CDs. Instead, the box had come from Houston, TX, and when I'd cracked it open, it was actually an early birthday gift from my family (who are not living in H-Town); a beautiful, beautiful pecan pie from Goode Company. This arrival was awesome for at *least* two reasons. First of all, I wasn't expecting a birthday gift from the fam; I'd already requested a birthday goat (from the Heifer Foundation), and they had followed through with that. Secondly, I LOVE Goode Company pecan pies. LOVE, love, love these pies. They make the best pecan pie I have ever eaten in my life. Actually, I just love Goode Company, but that deserves a post all on its own. This pecan pie came in its own MADE IN TEXAS wooden box, with the unforgettable Goode Company slogan (incidentally, written by an long lost friend's father). Check out the whole pecans adorning the top of the pie…yummmm…a total Homer Simpson moment. And let me tell you, the gooey, custardy middle is to die for. What a way to start out the weekend. Thanks momma, poppa, and bro!

To my non-existent readers, this here is the first installment of my very own food blog. I've talked about this for months, so finally it has arrived. All that talk, however, results in built up expectations from my putative future readers, and I'm already going to be letting down a few of them. I'd promised that the first installment would feature the experience of dining at an All-You-Can-Eat Japanese restaurant (the buffet table being approximately the same length as a city block--possibly not as impressive when living in any other American city, but in NYC, it is positively awe-inspiring). Unfortunately, being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of food and the corporate décor, my camera never left my handbag as I methodically stuffed my face for almost two hours. So here's a shout out to Minado, the lovely AYCE restaurant, and the gut-busting chow down we all had there, sans photos.

At any rate, I intend to blab about food related escapades and document all forms of food enjoyment, from straight up gluttony to interesting/exotic food finds to (hopefully) recipes.