Fare trumps pretense, phew
Dumplings with oxtail divine
Ciao 8 hello Scott

Faustina is located in the Cooper Square Hotel.

French restaurants often serve Gougeres nestled in a basket or small bowl, covered with a napkin for warmth. Sometimes they’re served as an elegant bar snack. So while they’re not uncommon, Gougeres still manage to feel like a special treat. These savory cheese pastries are perfect for a pre-dinner nibble or as an accompaniment to your favorite libation. And the best news is that you can make Julia Child proud by making them at home. I love that they keep your hostess-with-the-mostess reputation intact, without ruining your guests’ appetites for whatever fabulous meal follows. They smell ridiculously good while they’re cooking and much excitement ensues when these golden beauties emerge, crusty and soft all at once, from your oven. Good luck getting them off the baking sheet and onto a serving platter before someone snags one.

Gougeres from Jacques Pépin (makes about 30)

1 cup milk (I used whole milk)

4 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/2 stick)

1/4 teaspoon salt

Dash cayenne pepper

1 cup all-purpose flour

3 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 1/2 cups grated Gruyere cheese

Coarse salt (fleur de sel or kosher salt) to sprinkle on top

Bring the milk, butter, salt, and cayenne to a boil in a saucepan. Remove from heat, add the flour all at once, and mix vigorously with a wooden spatula until the mixture forms a ball. Return the pan to the heat and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 1 minute to dry the mixture a bit. Transfer to the bowl of a food processor, let cool for 5 minutes, then process for about 5 seconds.

Add the eggs and paprika to the processor bowl, and process for 10 to 15 seconds, until well mixed. Transfer the choux paste to a mixing bowl, and let cool for 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375°. Line a cookie sheet with a reusable nonstick baking mat or parchment paper. Reserve 1 tablespoon of the grated Parmesan cheese, then add the remainder and all the Swiss cheese to the choux paste. Stir just enough to incorporate. Using a tablespoon, scoop out a level tablespoon of the gougère dough, and push it off the spoon onto the cooking mat. Continue making individual gougères, spacing them about 2-inches apart on the sheet. Sprinkle a few grains of coarse salt and a little of the reserved Parmesan cheese on each gougère. Bake for about 30 minutes, until nicely browned and crisp. Serve lukewarm or at room temperature with drinks.

*Mine were perfect at the 23-25 minute mark. Keep your eye on them.

“Thanks for picking up lunch,” my husband said, “and for those things you fed me.” And just like that, he had perfectly described K! Pizzacone’s addition to the already flush Manhattan pizza scene. “Those things” are pizzas served in cones, a hybrid between a calzone and a slice. Some things are better left alone.

K! Pizzacones have less grease than a slice of pizza and also less sauce. The cheese tastes like the pre-shredded grocery store variety and melts into a similar mess, globby and chewy. The cone is cooked until crisp, making it much less doughy than a calzone. It was much less prominent than I was expecting, its presence merely a vehicle for the ingredients it carried.

The available toppings stuffings are the pizzeria norm: pepperoni, mushroom, sausage, onion, etc. You can choose from a smaller cone (K!) or a larger cone (K!!!), both of which are more expensive, take more time to assemble and cook, and are less filling than a regular ole’ slice. They’re not served by dough-slinging-sometimes-impatient Italians, but by overly-excited-outfit-wearing youngsters. The cones are packaged in wasteful boxes and plastic bags that should make any quasi-green consumer cringe. So while the pizzacones tasted okay, everything about them felt wrong. Call me old-fashioned.

After the hype dies down, K! Pizzacone might find the most success with their dessert cones, which for the time being are buried under a menu of their savory counterparts. The Banana Flambe & Chocolate cone was not only tasty, but it had all the right charms for a sweet treat. It succeeded in every way the pizza-filled cones failed.

Purim, the Jewish holiday that starts this Sunday, commemorates the Jews’ rescue from the evil Haman. Purim is a time to celebrate. It’s also a time to eat Hamantaschen, the famous three-cornered cookies with filled centers. Depending on what you read, the cookies are said to represent anything from Haman’s hat to his ears. Apparently, there’s no revenge like joyously taking a bite out of your nemesis.

Though Hamantaschen are available year round, yesterday, in anticipation of Purim, I braved the blizzard-like conditions in search of NYC’s best.

The route: A pilgrimage to seven of the most famous Hamantaschen-selling bakeries, from the Lower East Side to the Upper West Side.
The guidelines: Purchase both raspberry and poppy-filled Hamantaschen, in the smaller variety where available, and return home to commence tasting with eager husband.

1. Yonah Schimmel’s Knishes Bakery – 137 East Houston Street: Dry and flavorless cookie. Pale (the most unattractive of the group). Schimmel’s is best known for their knishes. I imagine it will stay that way. The worst of the group.

2. Moishe’s Bake Shop – 115 2nd Ave: Too much almond extract in the cookie left an artificial after taste. The raspberry filling tasted like melted Twizzlers. The most disappointing.

3. 9th Street Bakery – 350 East 9th Street: The cookie was buttery and pure. The dough was more neutral, in a good way, than most of the others. The jelly filling was too sweet. The poppy filling was much better. Tied for best overall.

4. Bruce’s Bakery – 1045 1st Avenue: Lingering taste of almond extract from the cookie, but good consistency. Great raspberry filling. The poppy filling tasted a little off. So close.

5. Orwasher’s Bakery – 308 East 78th Street: Crunchy and flavorful cookie with perfect balance of butter and sweetness. Raspberry filling tasted more like cherry and was way too artificial and sweet. Tied for best overall.

6 – William Greenberg Jr. Desserts – 1100 Madison Avenue: Cookie tasted like pie crust. It could have had a touch more sugar and been crisper. Again, the raspberry filling tasted more like cherry, but appeared to be, and tasted like, real fruit. The best poppy seed filling. The best fillings.

7. Hungarian Pastry Shop – 1030 Amsterdam Avenue: Tasted more like biscotti. Very dry and crumbly with hints of almond extract. They didn’t carry any small varieties but were the only bakery with a walnut filling. The most non Hamantaschen-like.

My goal of finding the single best Hamantaschen in NYC was not as easy as I had hoped as there wasn’t a clear winner. While 9th Street and Orwasher’s had the best cookie, William Greenberg had the best fillings. Those are the three plates to which our hands kept returning.

Regardless, it was well worth the schlep.

I ate a lot of meat last week. A lot. My carnivore parade began on Tuesday with pork at The Breslin and ended on Saturday with a Reuben at Katz’s. In between, there were stops at Po for guinea hen and bolognese and DBGB for sausages.

On Sunday afternoon, my arteries and stomach begging for reprieve, my husband and I happened to walk by babycakes, a 100% vegan bakery on the LES. It couldn’t be interpreted as anything other than a sign.

In addition to being dairy-free, babycakes’s baked goods are wheat-free, soy-free, refined sugar-free, and guilt-free. Their cupcakes, brownies, cookies, and loaves are made of spelt and sweetened with agave nectar. They also offer baked goods that are gluten-free.

The cupcakes were not the moistest we’ve ever had, nor the sweetest, but they were surprisingly good. And better yet, we felt good about eating them.

Am I a convert? Maybe on Sundays.

You can learn more about babycakes and their ingredients at their website. They deliver in Manhattan and ship outside the city.