Lunch and Brunch ... Approved!

Hey there! I have news on the lunch front and the brunch front as well ... 1st, the lunch ...

I took a stroll around Brooklyn and found a great Mexican spot on 5th Avenue and 55th. It's called Tulcingo and I've walked past the address many times, but this is only the second time I noticed it. The first time I was coming from a store down the street and the timing was too close to my last meal, so I couldn't see giving a new place an honest shot. I'm really happy I gave it a shot on the second stroll by ... and good thing I was hungry this time!!! Take a look ...
Yeah ... and that's not even my plate! That's one bistec or beef taco on the left and two carnitas or pork tacos on the right. Here's my lunch ...

Can't see it huh? It was soooooo good and my eyes got wide as I caught it being delivered to the table. I really like overloaded stuff like this just as much as a refined small portion dish. On the left is my chorizo tostada, it's not on the menu per se, but I saw the components on the menu and gave it a try when I ordered. I love chorizo and beans in any combo. On the left side of my plate is a beef tostada. Under the Mexican crema, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, meat and beans, the corn tortilla managed to not only stay crispy, but it was a hearty crunch with each bite. It was so good. In most taco spots, they'll put a jalapeno on your plate to enjoy with the meal, but I like that here they took the extra step of roasting the jalapeno. The extra step made it much more enjoyable and there's nothing like tasting the sweet in something after a little roasting! I thought about returning for dinner and then remembered I had great leftovers from an enchilada casserole I baked and hope to share with you on a future show. Speaking of upcoming shows ...

Let's talk about Brunch!

Brunch Approved, that is. That's the title of this Saturday's newest episode of Cooking for Real. I share a really neat preparation for baked eggs, my sweet and tangy spin on classic grilled asparagus and a moist loaf of bread made with pistachios and poppy seeds. The flavor is crazy. I love to bake and this is a never fail to impress recipe, love it in muffin over-sized muffin tins too. Hope you catch the new show and try the recipes!

Cooking for Real ... New Episode ... Saturday @ noon! Catch it or DVR it!

What I Had for Linner: Brooklyn's Chinatown

Hey there! There's an area of Manhattan called Chinatown, but the one I'm talking about is less knock-off purses and bootleg movies and more about serving the local population with food, ingredients and culture from home. I live in the middle of a neat vortex of flavor in Brooklyn ... just a few blocks below me is all South American food and culture, West is Greek, North is Middle Eastern and just past that, Italian, then to my East ... very appropriately, is Asian. I love it and these aren't hard lines, they all blur with other nationalities, so the shopping is great. There are probably several areas considered "Brooklyn's Chinatown" and I've even lived close to a miniature one, but the one I'm talking about is around the 8th Avenue area in the 50s-60s of Brooklyn. Asian specialty grocery shopping is the best there and there's nothing better than walking into a business where you are most-likely the only one that doesn't speak the language.

I usually tell people about my grocery shopping habits and they rang true on this neighborhood stroll. I rarely grocery shop with an intended list past the staples. So, I'll make a list for butter, garlic, milk and the basic stuff I need to stock my pantry and fridge, but when it comes to the produce and meat and such ... I just like to let the ingredients talk to me from the aisles. Kinda like looking at a menu with fresh eyes and reading every single description to see what pops out.

My recent trip to Brooklyn's Chinatown started with a quick bite at Popeye's so I wouldn't be too hungry while shopping, plus it's right across the street from the market, so that helped. Who am I kidding ... I LOVE POPEYE's lol and often call my visit to Chinatown, the "Popeye's Run". Ok, but that's not what was for linner (Lunch and Dinner together) ... Take a look at what was to offer and what I decided on ...
That's it right there, the Fei Long Market. It has aisles and aisles of Asian ingredients. Sometimes I give myself an allotment of 4 or 5 new ingredients and I just pick them randomly and play with them at home, but today was all about the seafood selection by the fish mongers. Look what you see when you round the corner from the side entrance ...
Want a close up? It's hard to find even in Manhattan, it's some geoduck clams hanging over the edge, some fish I've never seen before and some snail-like mollusks.
Just next to them, the razor clams and eels.
The eels were just some happy swimmers! Then you turn the corner and run into the fish monger station. I can't tell you how many different kinds of fresh fish they have and the case that the ice-chilled fish sits on is a huge aquarium and there are about a jillion fish in there just swimming away waiting on fillet time ... grim, I know, but I like fish.
Then, just for fun I walked around to the other side of the store to the freezer/fridge section and ran into some black chicken! I mean really, this is hard to find in NYC and I've only had it once in my life!!

Crazy exotic ingredients, huh? You should see the aisles! Wanna know what I ended up buying and making for dinner?? Take a look ...

Yes, the not so exotic ... mussels! I know ... pretty benign choice given my options. Sorry, this is the "after" and not the "before" picture, but it was good and I didn't think to take a picture until the massacre was over. I sat there filled with sopping bread and mussels trying to figure out how I went to such a familiar place given my options. I dunno, I guess I couldn't help myself when I saw them sitting in the netting. One look and I knew they were farmed and that's less cleaning, less grit and of course, no beard removal. That means easy! Easy is what I do!

If you want my recipe, it's on the newest episode of Cooking for Real this Saturday at noon, great coincidence because I actually pitched this show last year when I was going through a mussels phase and given my options at the grocery store, maybe the phase has revisited.

I titled this week's Cooking for Real "I Want Mussels" I blogged about it last year and I even called the blog I Want Mussels, give a look at the blog post and you'll get a preview of things to come on this weekend's show. I share my recipe for Mussels with Chorizo on the show as well as my version of sopping bread I appropriately call Sop-tastic Garlic Bread. To wash it all down and I toss in my Honeydew Tropic Freeze at the end. Hope you catch it and give the recipes a try! It's easy and mussels are pretty fast if you buy them like I did. Beards are for the birds.

Ok, don't forget ...

New episode of Cooking for Real is this Saturday @ noon/est!! Catch it or DVR it! :-)

New Network, New Show!!

Hey there, well as it is sometimes, things happens so fast I don't have time to tell you about them as they happen. Back in February, right before I left for the SoBe Food and Wine Festival and the Monday after I wrapped taping the new season of Cooking for Real, I stepped back on to my set in Chelsea Market to tape a new show for a new network.

The network is called The Cooking Channel and it debuts later this year. It's owned by the same company that owns Food Network and I liken it to what other successful networks go through as they grow, they annex and expand. Quite like MTV2 or the many ESPNs, the Cooking Channel is going to be a neat new way to see food and I'm really excited about it. There's news out there if you Google or Bing, but I just wanted to give you my spin on it.

Anyway, the show I taped is called Decadent Delights and it's all about the sweet things we eat and how they are made ... sound familiar? :-) Here are some behind the scenes pics ...
That's my set, but what's different here is the focal point. None of my kitchen was used in this show, so they packed it away when I wrapped shooting just a few days prior, but my foyer area is the back drop for Decadent Delights, so Wendy Waxman styled it and placed some flowers and sweets in the background to fit the show.

That's me opening my front door to nowhere. One day if I'm lucky, I'll get to do a Mr. Roger's Neighborhood tribute show or something complete with the walking in, removal of coat and the changing of the shoes. Call me corny, but it's a thought. Ok, now a look at my view from the set ...
That's Jay, he's not only an excellent camera guy, but he's good for a smile or laugh whenever I see him and he's seen it all when it comes to the biz. One of those people that you look forward to seeing when you go to work. If you enlarge the photo by clicking you can see the script I'm reading in the teleprompter.

And that's me sitting and waiting to read the script. It only took about an hour or so to tape and I have a follow up voice over to finish up the show. BTW, when the shoot was over, everyone on the crew made a dash to the set to scoop up the cupcakes!

Decadent Delights airs on the new Cooking Channel sometime later this year. When I get more details, I'll let you know!

Catch Best Thing I Ever Ate Tonight!

Hey there, just a quick program note. Tonight's episode of Best Thing I Ever Ate is all about totally unexpected food finds. It features selections from me, Michael Symon, Chris Cosentino and Alton Brown as well!! My find is sweet and a total guilty pleasure. It's an unexpected find because well ... I guess you have to catch the show for that or someone at the production company will call foul because I gave up the goods. I actually tape more episodes of the show next week and I'll do my best to get some behind the scenes deets ... ok ...

TONIGHT @ 10PM Eastern ... Best Thing I Ever Ate - Totally Unexpected

Essence Mag and New Shows

Hey there! Well, I've taken a teeny comment moderation break from the blog just to relax a bit after coming off a teeny road trip, to take time to develop some recipes AND to play my favorite video game, the newest edition of God of War. Childish yes, but I waited in line at midnight to get my copy and I've been battling mythological figures for days! In the meantime, the interview and contribution I told you about with Essence Magazine is out!
This is the issue and it's on stands now! Look at hot Avatar star, Zoe Saldana! It's the April issue and I offer some of my tricks and recipes for a great Easter meal. Catch me on the contributor page early on where this blog gets some love (yaaaaaaay!) and then flip all the way to the back starting on page 170 to catch the action. What a neat thing to be in such an iconic magazine, I can't tell you how neat it feels.

More happy news ... the Cooking for Real shows I just taped a month ago are now being rolled out beginning this Saturday on Food Network! That's a fast turnaround time, eh? Those guys and gals at the network really hustle and there are plenty of unsung heroes. I can't wait for you to get the new recipes and some of the stories behind them. This week's newest episode is called Say Hello to Easy Flavor. When I say easy, I mean really easy ... There's my Easy Grilled Honey-Dijon Chicken recipe that I hate to even call a recipe because it's so simple, some Tangy Tater Salad and for dessert my dense and not too sweet Black Forest Cupcakes. Hope you like the new shows, looks like they are running every Saturday until they run out. A quick check of my full episode guide online and you can see, as soon as the show is done and edited ... it gets added to the list. This is a perfect time to say again, thanks so much for your support. I couldn't ask for better comany with such cool foodies. I've run into so many people in the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan and to see how friendly and cool you guys are is great! My kinda people! Thanks for watching and thanks for the support!!

Okay ...

Saturday March 20th @ 12 noon, The new season of Cooking for Real!

Sunday is Guy's Day!!!!

Hey all! I just wanted to update you and remind you of some things in the land of Guy Fieri ...

I know this is my blog, but I wanted to throw some love and support his way ...

This Sunday on NBC, his new game show debuts.

Win it in a Minute airs at 7PM eastern/6PM central.

If you haven't caught the commercials yet, it looks like a fun game of interesting tasks that all need to be completed in a minute, in order to win it! That "it" is plenty of money and bragging rights! Check the website link above, there are some neat online games to play, backstage videos with Guy and previews of some of the tasks and teasers featured on the game.

Spread the word and DVR! The first night is the important night!! If you watch and say to yourself "I can do that in a minute!", click here and find out how to become a contestant.

Don't forget! NBC this Sunday at 7!!! Win it in a Minute with Guy Fieri!!!

Thanks for the memories Florida!

Hey there! Well, it's my last night in Florida on what is my first ever cooking demo tour. Take a look out my window at a pretty bridge in Jacksonville, FL ...
What a pretty vision out my hotel window. Florida's been great! I ate at Bern's Steakhouse, saw several gators in the swamps on the ride from Sarasota to Boca Raton and I had 3 slices of key lime pie from 3 different hotels! If only I could stay longer, but I'm headed to the Peachtree State in the morning for the final day of the tour. I can't wait to catch the flight and cook up some dinner for the class there! If you've signed up, send a comment so I can look for you in the class!

Here's a pic from Boca Raton, FL on Sunday night ...
That's Michele and Aprons' Chef Graham after the class. Thanks for sending the picture Michele! I had so much fun chatting after class was over and Graham, thanks for the mise en place and everything else!!

Then I headed up to Jacksonville Monday and decided I finally needed to get some crowd shots, here's the whole class ...
I had to take two pictures to fit everyone in ...
A special thanks to "Miss Perfect". Her and her girls had me laughing the whole night between recipes and after class. Also thanks to the entire chef staff in Jacksonville, you guys were great and I appreciate the smiles on a Monday!!

Ok, well it's on to Georgia in the morning! I still have a bit of work to do before I go to sleep. I've found when magazines can't track you down on the phone, they ask for an email interview, so I have two of those to finish tonight for Ladies Home Journal and First for Women Magazine. Hope you catch the articles when they get published. Speaking of, I did an interview a couple of months ago for Essence Magazine and provided some recipes, so look for that on stands soon as well.

Ok, Georgia you're on my mind :-) ... see you soon!!!

Publix Tour-tastic

Tour-tastic ... tour+fantastic :-) ...

I'm in the middle of my mini tour of Publix Aprons locations in Florida and I end up in Georgia. Yesterday I hung out in Tampa and Sarasota and in a few minutes I'm making the trip to Boca Raton for a class tonight! I'm having fun and imagine I'm enjoying a teeny trip that is a window into what bands must go through when on the road. I'm in and out of town before I get to even enjoy it! I'm doing my best though ...

I went to Bern's Steakhouse in Tampa. In a great little piece of foodie fortune, I met the owner David Laxer at the Sobe Food and Wine Festvial. He stopped by my booth at the Burger Bash with his wife and invited me to his restaurant if I were ever in town. I immediately said I'd be in town in just a few days! I say foodie fortune because just that morning I was looking at my weeks ahead on the road thinking ... "Where am I going to eat?". So, for David to walk in and pass me his biz card and say come on by ... well, I felt it was foodie fortune. After making my rsvp and asking around about the place I was told the food was great, but the real treat was making it to the dessert room ... so here's my yummy dessert ...

Yes, I ordered two. One was a peanut butter pie surrounded by and Oreo crust and the other was a yummy coffee ice cream that has to be the smoothest ever.

That was Friday night, Saturday morning I hung out in Tampa and Shelisa from Big2Beautiful came by and took some pics ...




Then, I headed down to Sarasota and hung out, I didn't get any pictures, but before I left I wanted to get a picture of me and the logo just for the memories so that's the pic at the top of this post.

I'm headed to Boca Raton now! If you are coming to the class tonight, I can't wait to meet ya! Come hungry!!

Get Closer To Your Food @ Publix w/ Viva Towels and Me!

Hey there! I just wanted to give you a list of dates and locations to catch me in the next few days if you are in Florida or Georgia. I'm in Tampa now getting ready for the start tomorrow of a series of cooking classes I'm teaching with Publix and their popular Aprons classes. Here's a list with hyperlinks ...

Saturday, March 6

Tampa, FL

Publix at Shoppes of Citrus Park @ 11am

Saturday, March 6

Sarasota, FL

Publix at University Walk @ 630pm

Sunday, March 7

Boca Raton, FL

Publix at Polo Club Shoppes @ 630pm

Monday, March 8

Jacksonville, FL

Publix at San Jose Boulevard @ 630pm

Tuesday, March 9

Alpharetta, GA

Publix at Alpharetta Commons @ 7pm

Click the links for directions and addresses. Click here for a list of all dates and online ticketing. Only a few of the dates have tickets left. See you there!!!

Don't forget Best Thing I Ever Ate tonight at 10pm on Food Network!

SoBe it! 2010 - Final Shots II

Hey there! Well, it's taken me a bit to post the final shots from the SoBe Food and Wine festival because I took a few extra days in Miami to relax. I ate out, hibernated in my room a bit and went out to clubs with friends. If you are in Miami, Club Louis at the Gansevoort South is perfect on a Tuesday night for a good party! I went out with some friends and didn't even get to sleep before my 7AM flight. That's good for chef/restaurateur Donatella Arpaia, because I sat next to her on my flight home and slept the whole way. If I weren't so tired, I may have talked her ear off or at least gushed to tell her how proud I am as a business woman. I did get a chance to edit it down to just a few minutes while we landed. Turns out she watches Cooking for Real and she's very, very nice! I'm not saying it because she watches though, you can just tell from chatting with some people that it's all about the passion and not the ego of the whole thing. She's such a hard worker and has great things on the horizon. Nice to get a seat next to her and spread some smiles. Now I'm home and back to work! Tomorrow, I leave for a quick tour of Publix grocery stores in Florida and Georgia for some cooking classes I'm hosting. Yep, right back to Florida and I can't wait! Gonna see if I can get people Cooking for Real on the road! In the meantime, here are the rest of my pics ...

Back stage in the green room for the cooking demonstrations I caught a show being taped for Food Network. Can you guess which one??
I know you see Pat Neely in the background, but the crew is there to tape Ace of Cakes! Looks like they'll have an episode following the team to the festival and watching what happens when they take the stage for the cooking demonstration. After they cleared out and went on stage, look who got off stage and made their first stop the green room to relax ...
That's actually my first time chatting with Paula Deen! We've met very briefly, but she is always so busy and surrounded by friends and family that it's hard to chat. She is just as sweet as you can imagine though and after I told her about specific shows of hers I loved and how I can be brought to tears just by her tearing up over food ... she invited me on her show! I immediately said yes and I look forward to pulling all the loose ends together now that I'm home. If you would have told me a few years ago Paula would ask me to be on the her show, I would've exploded lol. It's neat to me that she comes on right before me on Saturdays too. A great lead-in as the TV people say! I just totally respect her path in life and it wasn't an easy path to where she is now, I'm happy all her efforts payed off. Ok, then I went back out to the fairway area and chatted it up with some more people at the Viva Towels Booth ...

The camera man behind me is shooting video for an internal Food Network video they'll use to showcase at the cable network up fronts. Ever hear of those? More on that later ... back to Miami! You can tell by looking at the different outfits in the pictures that it wasn't super warm down on South Beach, but it wasn't cold either. A very nice middle ground around the mid-70s all weekend was perfect for sipping wine. Last year it was about 20 degrees warmer and there were surely more people stumbling out than walking out. Heat just magnifies everything. Take a look at the tents on Saturday ...
I have to tell ya, it seems impossible to power through all of the vendors in one day and because of that many people bought tickets for the entire weekend. Wanna know the price of that?? Check Jacob's blog ... the saving grace for the ticket prices is the charity attached. Young culinary students get grants for school in exchange for working at the events. Pretty cool and each student I spoke with was super excited to not only get the grant, but to work side by side with people in an industry they plan to join. Here's someone I worked with side by side before I got on Food Network ...
Back then I was a radio DJ that catered for music industry even and he was ... well, Emeril Lagasse! Nuff said! He gave me my start here on Food Network when I cooked with him on Emeril Live back in 05 and every time I get to give him a hug ... I take it. He has a new cooking show on the way he told me about and I can't wait to see it. After I said hi to him, I let him get back to work. He was signing cookbooks and taking pictures for what seems like forever. I made that the last stop for the day and headed back to my hotel. Just as I was walking up to my room I caught a store in the lobby I didn't remember seeing last year. I think I'd remember seeing these huuuuuuuuge cupcakes. Or are they mini cakes???!!!
Well, it's not all about cupcakes ... the place is called SoBe Scoops and I tasted the purple flavor in the top right. It was raspberry chocolate and then I tried the cookies and cream, the peanut butter and then settled on not ice cream, but a 100 Grand bar, a Kit Kat and a bag of Poppycock popcorn - Pecan lovers.
Here's store manager Gianna and coworker Ebonique. Thanks for letting me sample waaaay too much ice cream ladies!

Here's a wide shot of the store ...
Colorful and inviting, eh? They've only been open a few months and I think it's a smart store for a hotel lobby. I always need a sweet note at the end of a meal and how many Key Lime pie slices can you eat? :-) Well, I could actually eat many so that's a bad example, but you feel me. Ok .... that was Saturday.

The next day, I started the same ... at the Viva Booth. Only this time I met the winner of the Viva sweepstakes! Take a look!
That's Randy and his wife. they both entered to win and Randy was the lucky one. They got a year's supply of Viva Towels and a trip down to the festival to hang out. I actually met them Friday night at the Bubbles&Q party so by time we took this picture ...we were old friends :-). I kept telling everyone they were the winners because don't you always wonder IF there are winners of those things?? We had a good time chatting and hanging out. Right after we took this we both had to head back to the hotel so we hopped in golf carts and sped off. Randy and his wife were headed home and I was checking into another hotel to lengthen my stay in Miami. My first order of biz was a quick birthday hello to one of the reader's of this blog ...
That's Heather, aka "Dolphinfanhq" on blog comments. I put the call out for bloggers that wanted to meet up while I was in town and she replied, so we met and hung out for a few minutes before I headed off to a meeting. I also met "reyna" that Sunday night at Guy's party. What a nice surprise that was!! The weekend was almost over and I hadn't really hung out with my bloggin buddy Jacob so I invited him over for a Monday brunch on my patio along with a couple other friends. Here he is right before he headed off for the airport ...
We're smiling cuz we made it through the weekend with out a hitch and we are full. Just look at my plate ...
Well, that's it! All my stuff to share from the weekend! Catch me tomorrow night on Best Thing I Ever Ate - Guilty Pleasures @10 pm ET. I won't ruin it, but mine is from New Orleans ... home of the guilty pleasure if you ask me :-).

SoBe it! 2010 - Final Shots ...

Hey there! Well, I took a day off blogging only because things got to be so busy I couldn't handle it, so I'm what I call Putt-Putt-in' along :-) ...

To make things easier on the both of us, I'm still going to try to keep it short and to the point ...

Did I tell you I rep Brooklyn!!!???? Well, I do and the most asked question of the weekend was where I live or where I'm from. I like the second question because I get to talk about moving around growing up as an Army Brat. I wear the badge on my sleeve proudly and like to talk about it because there's plenty of bad that came with that good and I'm happy I adjusted to it.

That's me on the way to the Grand Tasting tent Saturday to meet and greet foodies in the Viva tent. I mentioned in the previous post that I forgot to take a picture of the set up because I was just having too much fun so ...

There it is ... my office on the beach for four days. See that woman's plate? That's from Paula Deen's tent! It's was fried fish that smelled sooooo good with a side salad. I was in a good neighborhood to have her next door, eh?! After I hung out at my tent ... I again made the mad dash to the Grand Tasting area so I could get a look at what was to offer and have a bite to eat. I stopped many places, but I grazed like a cow here ...

They were making teeny quesadilla discs and then what I was really into were the plantain chips. They were perfectly salty, crisp and they sliced them lengthwise so they were long and some were flat and a few fried curled up. So, it was a nice texture thing. It was from a place called ...

Right next to us Paula Deen was on stage, so I stopped in and watched for a minute...

After catching Paula and her hubby make the crowd roar with laughter I ran into the couple I call "The Cosby's 2010" ...

Just minutes after we took this picture they went on to a packed house!

Recognize this funny guy below?

Well, besides being a funny guy, he's also what appears to be a great chef ... I say that only because I watched him, but have never had his food. That being said, what I saw ... looked delicious. He's Fabio from Top Chef season 5. I thought he was really nice in person and I figured it would be that way from watching the show, but you never know. Nice guy. Ok, more pics later ....