So, we have established the fact that this location is inconsistent, yes?  Why do we keep going back?  Well, $10 fajitas is a pretty good deal and 50% of the time, the service and food are good.  Sometimes they are even good on the same night!  Haha!  Now, the reason I write this post today is that last night was the worst ever.  I need to vent about it.

Last night as we sat down, we were brought our basket of chips and salsa and our glasses of water.  We placed our order quickly as we knew why we were there and what we wanted.  I ordered my usual vegetable fajita and my husband ordered his usual steak fajita.  The food was unusually slow to come out last night to the point where we actually polished off the basket of chips and salsa and were about to ask for more when the fajitas finally arrived.  We immediately noticed problem #1: the restaurant had run out of onions.  I asked the server, “No onions?” and he said “What? Oh yeah, we ran out of onions.”  This was not a huge deal but my husband’s dinner looked more like Chinese pepper steak than steak fajita.  Before that server left, my husband asked for more tortillas as this restaurant never gives us enough.  Problem #2:  the waiter said “There should be enough there.”  My husband said “Trust me, we’ll need more.  Can we have 4 or 5 more?”.  The server, with his shrewd bargaining skills, said “How about 3?”.  Fine.  Except, they never came.  So, we asked another server for some tortillas.  She brought 2.  We ate those in about 2 minutes.  We asked the same woman again, “Can we have some more tortillas, please?”  They never came.  So we asked the man who appeared to be the manager for some tortillas.  He brought 2 tortillas.  We gave up our fight for tortillas.  After having to ask for extra tortillas 4 different times only to have them rationed out to us on every other request, I told my husband to go ahead and enjoy those last 2 tortillas and I ate my veggies plain, with a knife and fork.  We finished our meal and we paid the check, asking for the change.  Enter Problem #3: they only brought the paper part of our change and kept the coin part!  What the hell is that?!?  Did they run out of onions, tortillas AND coin change???  Needless to say, we were quite frustrated with the evening as a whole.

You may be wondering, “Will you be going back?”.  The answer:  Probably.  “Why?”  Because, I haven’t found a better fajita deal in town and this one happens to be in our own neighborhood.  No subway ride necessary.

I do appreciate you letting me vent to you.  Feel free to vent to me anytime.

The weather in Rome and Florence was as expected for January… cool and wet.  Our transportation to and from Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport in Rome was expertly handled by Rome Cabs.  We stayed at Hotel Giardino in the center of ancient Rome.  For the price, location and hospitality of the staff, this place can not be beat.

Now, for the food.  My husband and I easily ate our weight in pizza, pasta, gelato and bread.  We did not take any photos of the food we ate as we did not want to stick out like sore thumbs.  A few places that I can recommend to you are:

Virginiae, located at 41 Via di Parione – we ate here twice we loved it so much.  We recommend the osso bucco (braised veal shank), the coda alla vaccinara (braised oxtail), the coniglio (rabbit) cacciatore and the rigatoni all’Amatriciana.

Pizza Ciro, located at 43/45 Via della Mercede – we ate here twice as well.  The pizza here is so delicious I swear I am starting to drool right now just thinking about it.  The crust is flavorful and the perfect balance of crispy/soft and chewy.  The toppings are fresh and simple.

Il Gelato di San Crispino, located at 42 Via della Paneterria – this gelateria is the most sterile eatery I have ever seen and the gelato is fresh, all-natural and heavenly.  The flavors are pure and uncomplicated.  I enjoyed the pistachio and date while my husband liked the hazelnut and chocolate chip.

We both refrained from partaking of any vino as I am expecting and my husband doesn’t like to drink alone.  He did, however, enjoy some espresso (I abstained from this as well but it sure did smell good!).

We truly enjoyed our Roman holiday.  Now we are eagerly anticipating the arrival of our little bundle of joy!

If you find yourself in Rome in the near future, I hope these recommendations are helpful to you.

I first learned about Maytag blue cheese when I was in college (in Iowa) and I was watching Emeril Lagasse on the Food Network cooking with Maytag blue cheese.  I heard him say “…Iowa…” and I was shocked that Iowa made a cheese that I had not yet heard of.  So, the next time I went home for a holiday, my mom and I hunted down this cheese and made ourselves every recipe we could find that called for blue cheese.  I’ve been hooked ever since.  It is the only cheese I use in my traditional blue cheese dressing and Buffalo wing dip.  I also love to make Maytag blue cheese butter to dress up steaks.

You can find Maytag blue cheese in most specialty cheese departments but if you can’t, you can mail order it directly from Maytag Dairy Farms.  Now that football season is here, why don’t you make some homemade blue cheese dip to go with your Buffalo chicken wings?  But be careful, once people taste the Maytag, they’ll want to come to your house every time to watch the game!  That being said, Go Iowa Hawkeyes!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

1 (14oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup sifted unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 (8 oz.) container frozen non-dairy whipped topping, thawed
1 (6oz.) Oreo pie crust

In a large bowl, combine sweetened condensed milk and cocoa powder; mix well.
Add peanut butter and mix well.
Fold in whipped topping.
Spoon into crust.
Cover pie and freeze 6 hours.
Garnish as desired and serve.
Freeze leftovers.

There are many ways to debate this question and tons of research to support each side, I’m sure. Buying local products reduces the amount of fossil fuel burned in transporting the products to us, thereby reducing the emission of greenhouse gases (which have their own snowball effect of global disaster) into the atmosphere. Buying organic products reduces the amount of chemical pesticides and fertilizers (which can cause a variety of medical problems) we ingest.

If we had to choose one or the other, which would be the best option? Obviously, I would like to always be able to choose local and organic. I am, after all, a girl who wants to have her cake and eat it too (as long as it’s local and organic). Unfortunately, this is not always possible. One source of comfort for me is that buying a product that is either local or organic has to be better than buying a product that is neither.

So I ask you, Dear Reader, to offer your advice on this matter. Please leave me your comments and if you have friends who might be able to impart some wisdom on this subject, please send them over. I appreciate any and all opinions.

Thank you!

I have been trying to figure out what type of cuisine to choose for the last few days and I am leaning toward German. I don’t know why, exactly. German food, to me, seems to be a lot of sausage and meat and I am not much of a meat eater. Still, something is pulling me in that direction. I Googled “authentic German restaurant NYC” and came up with Zum Stammtisch, a restaurant in Glendale, Queens that appears to be inaccessible by subway. A friend of mine has recommended Lederhosen in the Village, so that’s a possibility. The menu at Zum Schneider in the East Village looks good but they seem to get mixed reviews.

Do any of my NYC readers have any suggestions on where to go to get my German food fix? Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated….

The carrot puree also came to fruition, Asian-style, with some grated ginger and orange juice and zest.  I served this with a juicy roasted pork tenderloin.  The garlic scapes did become garlic scape-potato soup in the form of vichyssoise.  It has simply been too hot to even fathom eating hot soup, but this vichyssoise was awesome!  The scallions went into a Thai red curry chicken served over rice.  The red leaf lettuce and mixed baby greens obviously became a selection of salads, complete with homemade dressings.  I’ve been known to say that salads are just an excuse to eat salad dressing.  Actually, I think salads are a great excuse to make salad dressings.  It’s easy, economical, healthy and fun.  Last, but not least, the baby red onions were roasted along side the pork tenderloin and were caramel-y and delicious.

I must say, I had a great time this week and I am really looking forward to seeing what I receive tomorrow morning.  I’ve seen a lot of gorgeous summer squash and tomatoes at the green markets around town so I am hoping to get some through my farm share.

See you tomorrow!

I am not alone in my adoration of Iowa. The state has been immortalized on Broadway in Meredith Willson’s The Music Man, in works of fiction such as Robert James Waller’s The Bridges of Madison County, in films such as Field of Dreams and in paintings such as Grant Wood’s American Gothic.

What homage to Iowa would be complete without mentioning Iowa’s contribution to our culinary lanscape? Iowa is often referred to as “the nation’s breadbasket” as the state is the the US’s #1 producer of corn, hogs and soybeans as well as a major producer of cattle & calves and dairy products. From this great agriculture comes great cooking. Today I searched amazon.com for Iowa, narrowed down by Cooking, Food & Wine, and found 1,478 results! That is a real testament to the deliciousness that is Iowa. One of my favorite cookbooks is Best of the Best from Iowa. Every recipe I have ever used from this book has been fantastic. From beverages to desserts, these recipes are infallible. These are recipes that anyone will enjoy, whether you’ve been to Iowa or not. And thanks to globalization, no ingredient is out of reach.

I encourage you to seek out and enjoy some delicious Iowa products. You’ll be glad you did.

Landscape 6 by Citizen110

Here are some photos:

Corn Bread

Waffle with Fried Chicken Wings

Honey-Dipped Fried Chicken with Potato Salad and Mac-n-Cheese

Cheesy Grits

My rating (out of a possible 5):

We ordered 2 appetizers to share:

Rolls of grilled lemongrass beef with basil and bean sprouts wrapped in fresh rice paper served with a peanut dipping sauce. The grilled flavor of the tender, thinly sliced beef was delicious and the fresh basil added such a bright flavor while the peanut sauce lent an earthy aspect that we really enjoyed.

The second appetizer was a steamed “ravioli” filled with mushrooms and topped with fried shallots, fresh basil and a lime broth. This dish had good flavor but was a bit difficult to serve and eat. The ravioli pasta was a limp rice paper and the filling fell out when we tried to distribute each ravioli to our plates. Once we got the raviolis in place, they were difficult to handle with our chopsticks. Problems aside, the dish was very tasty.

My entree was a fillet of crispy red snapper in a chili lime sauce. Delicious! The skin of the fish was perfectly crispy and the flesh was moist and flaky. The chili lime sauce was out of this world and was soaked up nicely by a side of sticky rice.

My husband ordered one of the daily specials: 5-spice marinated grilled beef served with angel hair rice noodles, crunchy peanuts, mint, cilantro, lettuce leaves for wrapping and a chili lime sauce for dipping. He said it had excellent flavor and he really enjoyed the crunchiness provided by the peanuts as well as the fresh flavors of the herbs.

For dessert, I ordered the coconut panna cotta served with tapioca and a sesame tuille. I would have to say this dessert was only okay. The panna cotta had nearly no coconut flavor and an odd, lumpy texture. Additionally, the tapioca seemed a bit out of place in this dish. The sesame tuille was obviously affected by yesterday’s humidity as it was far from crisp.

My husband’s dessert, on the other hand, was great. He chose the chocolate mousse with orange sauce. It had intense chocolate flavor yet was light as a feather. The orange sauce complemented the mousse well as orange and chocolate do tend to make a delightful duo.

Overall, the night was wonderful and I would definitely recommend Nam to a friend.

My rating (out of a possible 5):