My Love Affair with...Licorice!

Licorice — just the word makes my mouth water.

It started many. many years ago when I was a child in the candy store eyeing everything on the shelves and deciding where my dime or quarter would best be spent. It landed on Nibs — with its exotic wrappers and small cut tubes of black "licwish" inside.
  

                 

With thanks to  R. Jason Bennion  
who has a collection of packaging...

...he actually bought these on Ebay!

candyblog.com

These and Good & Plenty — oh how I loved those little pink and white candy-coated bullets of licorice!  There was this great sound they made sliding back and forth in the box at first crowded and then slowly fewer and fewer rattling around in the box until just a single, solitary pink pellet is left and then — NO MORE!

Yes, I'm not forgetting Twizzlers.  They were next on my licorice menu — first black, then red.  

Sometimes I'd bite off both ends and use the red like a straw in my soda.  Other times I'd leave the bag open so the sticks would get hard and I could suck on'em and they'd last even longer.  Then Twizzlers came out with brown, chocolate "twists" because actually if it's not black, it's not really licorice and they know that and call the strawberry and the chocolate twists.  Once they started with cherry and pull n' peel and citrus, well I gave up on Twizzlers and only buy them when there's no other licorice to be found.

But then (and I can't remember HOW) I came upon the mother lode of licorice in Manhattan's theatre district...

MYZEL'S  

Licorice of the WORLD

From their website:

We are the Myzel family: Myself, Kamila, and my mother Lucy, and we are traditional European chocolatiers. 

Our selections include:

• Chocolates, Cookies & Truffles: Chocolate nut bars, Almond butter crunch, Ultimate chocolate cookie, Truffles, and Figaro truffles
• Gift Baskets
• Licorice: Over 100 licorice flavors from Europe

We have one of the largest selections of black licorice, gourmet licorice, and European licorice in the United States. 

We bring licorice candy to licorice lovers who yearn for that good, old-fashioned licorice in the way it used to be. 

The unmistakable taste of real licorice comes through in our selection of what the world has to offer.

Visit our midtown Manhattan store today!

A tiny crowded shop filled to the brim with candy, chocolates, cookies, treats and LICORICE GALORE!  Jars and jars and jars of it...from Holland, Italy, Finland (my latest favorites) in every shape and color and taste sensation — sweet and salty and dark and medicinal — they have it all.

Photo by David Stanke

I took this photo from Myzel's website because they did such a great job of it...

Below some of my latest stash (courtesy of my husband) though I must say it's missing some of my very favorites...oh well, it just means I'll HAVE to go back there to replenish my supply.  

If you love licorice, you should go TOO!

Why I Love, Love, Love Trader Joe's

I know there are those of you out there that can't get to a Trader Joe's and for that, I'm sorry for you!  But for those who can, these are my favorites...what're yours?

Let's start with the incredible selection of wine with prices that can't be beat for the quality.  I'll skip over the "Two-buck Chuck" (now $2.99 a bottle) which can be really good much of the time (well, at least the cabernet sauvignon is usually good) and just dive in to the varieties from Epicuro — the Salice Salentino, Nero D'Avola, Aglianico and now a Primitivo.  At $5.99 a bottle, these wines are luscious and incredibly affordable.  

Now that you've got the wine uncorked, treat yourself to a first-course featuring prosciutto which is available in these affordable 4 oz packages and best is that the paper-thin slices are separated by sheets of paper making it really easy to peel and wrap that prosciutto around cheese, melon or figs, serve on a bed of arugula ("rocket" for $1.99 or organic arugula for $2.49) and dress with a simple vinaigrette.  (This arugula is so good it won't last long.)

Buy the Thai Red Curry Sauce and it'll be the quickest and the easiest dinner you'll ever make.  Just get boneless chicken, cut it into cubes, turn the frying pan on medium high with a very slight bit of oil (not olive) and sear the chicken very quickly. When it's browned on all sides ( and we're talking not even ten minutes), lower the flame, pour on the sauce and when the sauce is heated through — you're done.  Now you can make jasmine rice, udon or soba noodles, steam some broccoli and dinner is complete.  Really — 30 minutes from start to finish for the entire main course.  And for the vegetarians and vegans out there — cook cubes of firm tofu instead and it'll be just as delicious.




When you need another grain for a different meal, buy a bag of Harvest Grains Blend — a combination of pearl couscous, orzo, baby garbanzo beans, and red quinoa.  Another quick and tasty side, it's ready to eat in 15 minutes.







When dinner's done — time for something sweet.  I suggest one of their Dark Chocolate Bars. My favorite?  Caramel with black sea salt.  Rich, dark, salty chocolate with buttery sweet caramel sandwiched in-between that oozes out when you break off a square and slide it into your mouth — you'll be licking your fingers as you work your way through the bar and at $1.99 for three ounces, you can get a bar for every person at your table.  



And while you're shopping, give yourself a treat and pick up a bag of the Ginger Chews, they're great to have in your bag or in the car.  

Better make that two.

Calling McCall's

One of the benefits of working at Random House was that every June or July we would receive this stapled set of about ten pages with three columns of tiny print, single-spaced and double-sided that looked like the pages of a phone book but the paper wasn't tissue-thin and instead of names, addresses and phone numbers, the listings were of book titles.  

Books, books, and more books — must've been 1000 titles on that list —  the list that was delivered to each and every one of us by the mail guy who came down the aisles with his rolling cart cubicle-by-cubicle and deposited mail onto our desktops.  [I remember the buzz when after much corporate angst and deliberation, finally the first females were hired to do this entry-level job.]  The best part about that list?   You got to choose ten book titles and get them for FREE!  While it wasn't a raise or a cash bonus (we were making about $8 -9,000 a year) it was what we all loved and could never have enough of — BOOKS.  It was the Random House way of saying thank you to its employees and we loved them for it.

Everyone scoured those lists for days and days trying to decide what to get. Circling one, then another, then changing our minds because we'd found something better.  I think they were in alphabetical order and not grouped by genre, so unless you actually knew the book, there was no way to know what was what without looking the title up in the Random House book catalogue.  It was the 70s. IBM Selectric typewriters were the high tech of the day.  No one had a computer so finding information took time. But it was so much fun.  Don't waste any of your choices on paperbacks.  Look for the expensive coffee-table over-sized specialty books that would look great in your apartment.  Find books you could give for gifts.  People poured over those lists the way I imagined children in the 1900s searched through the Sears catalogue for their Christmas and birthday presents.

Step-by-step picture instructions

One book I was sure I wanted was The New McCall's Cook Book. If I was going to have one, it had to be McCall's because it incorporated ten+ "McCall's Cooking School"recipes.  Lifted from their monthly women's magazine, "The Cooking School" featured a step-by-step recipe on a two-page spread with detailed photographs that showed you what you were supposed to be doing. Color photos in a cookbook were a novel feature at the time and a way to hook buyers.

Another marketing stroke of genius was that you could get the NEW McCall's Cook Book in four different colors.  Someone had come up with the idea that women would love to have their cookbook match their kitchen decor so you could get this cookbook in yellow, red, green or blue. Genius! Now at the time I was single, living in an 800-square foot studio apartment with no natural light, but I did have a great little kitchen, with light wood cabinets, Formica countertop, wall-oven and all.  But the kitchen I imagined I would have one day was this very modern red,black and stainless steel kitchen with one of those refrigerators with glass-front see-through doors, and so — the red-covered McCall's cookbook was for me!

Come October — when you least expected it — the mail guy would come, rolling down the aisles with his book cart stacked high with large shrink-wrapped bundles of books. Your list would be on top showing through the plastic.  By then you'd forgotten about the books, forgotten what you'd chosen.  It was this huge exciting gift to unwrap — it was Christmas in October!  

Of all the books I got that way, there is only one that I still have and remember. 

My cookbooks proudly displayed — on the bookcase I designed to fill 3 inches of unused space
behind my kitchen door.  My sweet husband took my sketch and had it built for me as a surprise!

It was and is my go-to cookbook. Though I have cookbooks galore — plus the Internet to search for the millions of recipes available for every possible dish you'd want to make, still that McCall's cookbook never fails me.

The other night when I wanted to make coleslaw (and I am very picky about coleslaw) I searched for an Ina Garten recipe and then a few others but not satisfied, back I went — to my forty-year-old, food-stained, falling apart, red-covers held together with a large rubber band cookbook and happily found two recipes for coleslaw that I combined in a way that suited both my tastes and the ingredients I had on hand.

This coleslaw is going to be a satisfying creamy crunchy complement to those country-style ribs I'm making.    Wanna come for dinner?

The Not-in-Brooklyn Brooklyn Deli

JFK-American Airlines Concourse C

I have a hard time with food in airports.  I always want to find the best food at the most reasonable price — but that’s hard if you haven’t done any online research beforehand.  I always ask the people who work at airports and no matter the airport they always reply, “I don’t eat here.  It’s too expensive.  I bring my food.”

There are gems that travelers write about or you can discover.  There was a Cuban place in Miami’s enormous airport that was terrific.  And you can’t go wrong with Jersey Mike’s subs as a good staple  — and — I’m a sucker for Nathan’s hot dogs wherever they have ‘em.

So knowing I'd be hungry before the end of my trip, I scouted my options for an early lunch at American’s terminal.  While there may be good food at the sit-down grills or restaurants, I skip the high-end options because of price. And since I’d been in Manhattan and not had a Sabrett hot dog I was thinking a hotdog might be fine and then I saw a possible choice:  The Brooklyn Deli.  Looked good, looked clean, and they had hot dogs.  But they also had a “New York Pastrami Sandwich” for $9.99.  Hmmm.  Pastrami.  It looked good.  It was reasonably priced — considering the hot dog was $3.79 and surely I’d need two.  A guy who clearly was the manager was checking the display cases and greeting customers.

"How's the pastrami?” I asked.

“Wonderful!  Lean, delicious, it’s great pastrami!  Look at the picture!”  he exclaimed.

“Well, sure it looks good in the photo, “ I said skeptically.  “But  what about in real life?”

He looked offended.  “You won’t be sorry with the pastrami.  It’s terrific.”

Still, I wasn’t convinced.

But I was hungry and I wasn’t gonna be getting any NY pastrami where I was going down south.  I could have hotdogs any time.

“Do you have seedless rye?”

“OF COURSE,” he said defiantly.

I ordered the pastrami on seedless rye.

“With cheese?” the counter guy asked.

“No, no cheese.”  Geez, cheese on pastrami?   It wasn’t a Reuben.

I put my card down to pay, “Pastrami on rye”

“With cheese?” the girl asked. 

“No, NO cheese.” I replied and the two cashiers were chattering in Spanish and I saw that without cheese dropped the price of my sandwich to under ten bucks.  You can’t buy a pastrami sandwich in Manhattan for under ten bucks.

As I saw the counter guy making my sandwich I looked atop the display case and saw a big bottle of fat pickles.

“Does it come with a pickle?”

“We give you a pickle m’am” said the Hispanic sandwich-maker.

“Mustard?”

“Mustard over there," he pointed and handed me my sandwich.

I opened the nicely wrapped pastrami and saw what looked like a really decent pastrami sandwich!  Sliced thin, piled high, seedless rye and true to his word lean.  No fat, no dripping grease.

I took the little packets of Gold’s mustard (Gold’s of horseradish fame) and even though I used three — I shoulda used four to make the taste of mustard complete.  The pickle was a sizable wedge — of an appropriately sour Kosher dill and the sandwich was delicious.  Lucky me!

Now if only they had Dr. Brown's Diet Cream soda — my New York pastrami experience woulda been complete.

Frozen by our Choices

Starting in the 1950s, we as a society made the plunge into processed and treated and convenient.  [Think Swanson's frozen TV dinners.]  I’m not pointing any fingers 'cause I too am a customer of this consumption.  I too choose to make my life easier at times and it's not with the (more expensive) organic/natural choices.  We are a society that has opted for ease and convenience and over the decades of my lifetime, we sure are paying for it — in more ways than one.  

I used to love Banquet Chicken Pot Pies — when I Googled it this is what I found from one food writer: 

"Banquet Chicken Pot Pies are very flavorful. Each component of the pie, the crust, the sauce / gravy and the meat / vegetable mixture complements the other. The gravy is thick and satiny and full of chicken flavor and the chicken meat is fresh, tender and real. The flaky crust maintains a very pleasant flavor and texture. Especially when you consider how inexpensive these pot pies are, Banquet Chicken Pot Pies are a delicious dinner option.

Like any other product, the retail price charged for Banquet Chicken Pot Pies varies from store to store. Quite frequently however, most food retailers sell these pot pies for approxmately $.99c - 1.29 each. I have even seen these chicken pot pies priced as low as $.79c each while on sale. In my opinion, Banquet Chicken Pot Pies are one of the most economical, yet delicious food items available in American supermarkets. " 

This from a "food writer" — who is he kidding?  Yes, it may not cost much and it may taste good, but is it good for us?

I think you know, but just in case, this is from the Center for Disease Control:

• Since the 1970s, the amount of sodium in our food has increased, and we are eating more food each day than in the past.
• The vast majority of the sodium consumed is from processed and restaurant foods; only a small portion is used in cooking or added at the table.
• The average daily sodium intake for Americans age 2 years and older is 3,436 mg.
• The Upper Limit (UL) of 2300 mg per day refers to the highest daily level of sodium that is likely to pose no risk of adverse health effects to almost all individuals in the general population. The UL is not a recommended intake and there is no apparent benefit to consuming levels of sodium above the Adequate Intake (AI).

• The Adequate Intake (AI) of 1500 mg per day is the recommended average daily sodium intake level. The IOM set the AI for sodium for adults at 1500 mg per day to ensure that the overall diet provides sufficient amounts of other nutrients and to cover sodium sweat losses in physically active individuals.
• The 1,500 recommendation applies to about half of the U.S. population overall and the majority of adults. Nearly everyone benefits from reduced sodium consumption.

While I  still might have a pot pie once in awhile, when we make a habit of eating what's convenient, fast, and cheap, this is what we get — over half the calories come from fat and the amount of sodium is over half of what one should consume in a day.  

Is it any wonder that obesity and diabetes are prevalent throughout our adult population and impacting children's health as well?

It's true that some people are eating healthier and organic.  But in part that's because they have access and the financial means to do so.  

We need to make major changes to what we choose to eat, what we make affordable for people on limited incomes, and in a broader sense, what we value in our society — 

Will we stick with short-term cheap convenience or will we start to fully grapple with long-term solutions, better and  healthier choices?

Navigating Emotional Terrain

When times are tough (and they are right now) I gravitate to comfort foods. I hadn't been to the grocery store.  There wasn't much in the house — pasta nests from the Chinese market, sausage in the freezer that I could defrost in the microwave, a few mushrooms on their last legs. I started slicing and sauteing those mushrooms in butter, then frying up the nuked bratwurst and adding in the egg noodles I'd cooked separately.  German food can be very satisfying.


The next night I made some small shells, mixed with my absolute favorite bottled sauce, Ragu Robusto Chopped Tomato, Olive Oil and  Garlic.  I took this photo then took a bite and felt it lacked some comfort, so I ripped up some fresh mozzarella into little bits and zapped my bowl in the microwave. Much better.  Even the simplest Italian food can be very comforting.

The next day when it came time for lunch I knew what I wanted to have.  It required a trip to the supermarket.  I reverted to making my childhood favorite — a fried Taylor Ham sandwich on a toasted English muffin with Heinz ketchup. I devoured it with such relish I forgot to take a picture.



But then, the third day,  I had to call in the big guns — it was time for dolma.  Time to channel my mother and mix the meat and the rice, boil the sumac, stuff the peppers and roll the grape leaves.  Cook it all and then settle down to the lemony-sour mouth-watering taste of dolma.  

When it comes to soothing my emotions, Armenian food takes the plate.

Full of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is always tough for me. It's the holiday my sister and I spent together — long distance. Me on the east coast and she on the west. Back and forth all day we'd call each other. After my turkey was in for a few hours she'd be up and putting in hers. When my turkey was done and we were getting ready to eat, her company would just be having appetizers. By the time my company went home — stuffed to the gills with all those carbohydrates — she'd be putting out the desserts and by the time her guests had left, I'd be finished cleaning up and ready to rehash the day.  Though 3000 miles separated us, I always felt she was with me. and now I don't.

Here is this year's menu — which is pretty much last year's menu, and the year before:

Turkey & gravy 

stuffing 

sausage stuffing (not me)

corn pudding  

peas (not me)

Picture-perfect, Not mine. 

green beans (not me)

mashed potatoes (not me)

creamed onions w/almonds 

cranberry-orange relish 

Pecan pie (not me)

Sweet potato pie (not me)

Caramel pumpkin ring 

   & Whipped cream for all


You had to hand it to my sister.  Her Thanksgivings (and Christmases) were shared with her ex, his two boys from a subsequent failed marriage and, at times, the girlfriend of the year.  My sister opened her doors, her table, and her arms to anyone she considered "family," and her family-network was wide.  She got along with her three sets of in-laws — she loved old people.  She loved our parents.  She was talented and funny, smart and generous-hearted.  Far more generous and forgiving than me — than I am, or will ever be.

I can't think of a time when I reached out to my sister that she didn't come through for me and oh-so-many times she came through when I never even asked.   Just when I was about to start 8th grade, we moved.  I was headed into a school where everyone knew everyone, for ever.   Sensing my anxiousness about it all, my sister spent her own money and bought me two Villager outfits to help me fit in.  An A-line skirt (lined, with a side-zipper) with matching cardigan (buttons on a strip of grosgrain ribbon). One set in heather mauve and the other in heather blue. (From Wikipedia: In clothing, heather refers to interwoven yarns of mixed colors producing muted greyish shades with flecks of color (e.g., heather green.), a white man-tailored button-down collared blouse, and to make the look total, a pair of cordovan penny loafers, complete with brand-new pennies.  Those clothes made all the difference in the world to me. 

Seven and a-half years is a big difference between siblings, at least when you're young. The difference between six and thirteen or thirteen and twenty is huge but then. slowly it starts to collapse.  Regardless of the gap, Donna was always looking out for me.   Me and about a hundred other people at any given time. 

I haven't got her here to call and talk to, to go back and forth  with— about recipes, guests, and what went wrong with the day (critics that we are).  

I've got a lot to be thankful for — great husband, two great kids, friends to share it all with — but I finally realize how full of thanks I am — for having had the sister I did.

Wishing you each enjoy the people who are family to you.