VittlesVamp

Pot Pops

I know I promised to chronicle my adventures across the pond, but once again, the day has gotten away from me - and there is food news worthy of putting my British shenanigans on the back-burner temporarily. The headline and sub-head say it all:

Candy goes to pot: report
NYC lawmakers fume over marijuana-flavored candy that claims 'every lick is like taking a hit.'

And, if you are inclined, check out the cannibas candy manufacturer Chronic Candy, to take a gander at their selection of pot pops and "Icky Sticky Buds" jelly candies.

So good, you can't just stop at one.

New York, New York - It's A Challah of Town

Back in NYC - where I belong - and promise to share my adventures in London, but I'm a bit pressed for time at present.

However, considering my long absence, thought I ought to post sooner than later, and a lovely story in today's New York Times about "The Challah Lady" seemed the perfect opportunity:

The municipal drama that plays out each day in City Hall has a reliable cast of characters, their daily arrival as inevitable as budget deficits and comptroller reports.

There are the lawmakers on the east side of the building, the mayor on the west, and the lobbyists, advocates and reporters sprinkled throughout. They join with the rest of the powerful and the seeking and the perpetually aggrieved who descend on city government each day.

And then there is the challah lady.

Soft spoken and unassuming, she strides up the steps of City Hall each week with a few toasty loaves of the traditional Jewish bread tucked into a shopping bag. She breezes past the security desk and into the mayor's press office, where she is greeted warmly. She comes bearing a loaf for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, and at least one challah for the press office staff members. (On a lucky day, it will have chocolate chips.)

Among the scores of people who make their way into City Hall each week, the challah lady, Esty Scheiner, is among the more invisible. She has no petitions, no lawsuits, and no real agenda other than to build a vibrant Jewish life in Lower Manhattan. She considers merging government and challah part of that mission.

Hava nagila, challah nagila, challah nagila venis'mecha...Hey!

Merry Olde England

Jumping across the pond early tomorrow morning for business in London.

Hoping to have a little fun in between meetings and such. Definitely plan on hitting some popular Indian restaurants, potentially Zaika.

Will also, try to catch a show while I'm in town. (Yes. I do realize that I live in New York, where theater options are plentiful, but there are shows that are open in London that have yet to make it to our shores. On my short list: the revival of "Blithe Spirit" and long-running thriller "The Woman in Black" and (if I'm feeling girlie) the new adaptation of "Anne of Green Gables" or (if I'm feeling serious) the war drama "Journey's End."

Then again, I could bypass culture and head straight for the pubs. I'll give you a full update when I return on Monday...

The Festival of Lights in the City of Angels

How dare I post about Christmas traditions in Los Angeles, without giving my own tribe a nod (and maybe a wink)?

Well, let me show my people short-shrift no more. As soon as I saw this story from The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, I was pheklempt and felt the need to share editor Rob Eshman's journey to find the perfect latke:

Most of us consider the recipe we were raised on as the best, be it for brisket, fesenjan, kubaneh or latkes. Your search for the perfect latke, then, was over before it began, unless you are like me and have a restless hunger, a belief that with a slight change, a different oil, a coarser grate, maybe a hotter flame, the ideal can be made even better.

Anyway, your mother

MUG

So delighted! VittlesVamp was featured in today's Manhattan User's Guide (aka MUG) e-mail newsletter in a round-up of food-flavored blogs, mostly NY-centric:

Vittles Vamp
In spite of the Granny/Jed Clampett moniker, the anonymous blogger behind VV provides strong coverage of both up- and downscale dining in the city and on her travels. Food trends, recipes, events, all in a pleasantly conversational style.

Strong coverage...Pleasantly conversational...Granny and Jed Clampett...Yeah that sounds like me!

Christmas in the City of Angels

Living in New York, it's hard not to think of the tree at Rockefeller Center, warm chestnuts for sale at sidewalk carts and window shopping along Madison Avenue as holiday delights. But, my friend Erica recently explained to me that the holidays look very different when she's back home in Los Angeles.

There, Christmas isn't about snowmen and Buche Noel. It's about tamales (pictured above). Every Christmas morning since she was a little girl, she has been woken by her mother at the crack of dawn to join the women of the household in the painstaking preparation of a tamale feast.

And, according to an article by Corie Brown in the Los Angeles Times, Erica's family is not alone in this tradition:

Like just about everyone in Los Angeles, I've happily eaten tamales of every shape and flavor, in styles from all around Latin America. Whether wrapped in dried corn husks, banana or avocado leaves, filled with pork, peppers or chocolate, this traditional Christmas holiday treat is available here all year long in a seemingly endless variety...

...Eating freshly made, just-steamed tamales is a pleasure usually reserved for the Latin American families who have passed recipes from generation to generation and shown them off at tamale-making parties during the Christmas holidays. That's how Alice Tapp and her daughter, the owners of Tamara's Tamales in Venice, perfected their techniques.

Alice's Mexican grandmother taught her how to make tamales when she was a little girl in East Los Angeles; she loved to join her grandmother's friends selling the corn husk-wrapped treats after Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe. Collecting tamale recipes and chronicling the centuries-old traditions for herself and her American children became a lifelong hobby.

A self-proclaimed "gringa" from Kansas, Brown goes on to detail her in-depth Latin lesson in making masa, filling, stuffing, wrapping and steaming. Time-consuming, but worth it, once the fragrant, moist, sweet corn and spicy babies land on your plate. Makes me want to price a plane ticket to LA and see if Erica's family might let me join in the festivities.

Holiday Hooch

Sorry I didn't get around to posting yesterday. To make up for it, I promise two entries today...Here's the first...

Jewess that I am, I'm infatuated with all of the hooplah surrounding Christmas. Baking a holiday ham? Count me in at your dinner table! Planning a tree trimming party? Please invite me! (Actually, looks like my pal Laurel has finally made my dream of decorating a tree come true, with a Yuletide trimming party in the works for next week.)

However, there has alway been one Christmas tradition I could never get into: Egg Nog (pictured above). It was always too rich and creamy and way too sweet for my tastes.

But all that changed, once I tried Sam's Famous Egg Nog at the esteemed Waterfront Ale House. Sam's milky concoction only hints at honey sweetness, is perfumed with fresh nutmeg and packs a wallop.

So, if you're strolling in either the Kips Bay or Brooklyn Heights areas, I suggest you drop by one of the Ale House branches for a sip of this holiday treat - and you can even purchase a bottle to take home or offer up as a special gift. And, what festive soul wouldn't want to find a bottle of wintertime wallop under their tree Christmas morning - or next to the menorah on Hannukah eve for that matter?

The Gourmet Grocery Wars

Instead of focusing on holiday toy or fashion retail, today's New York Times and Wall Street Journal turned focus on the world of supermarket news - gourmet supermarket news.

According the the venerable "Grey Lady" the battlefield over epicurean palates and pocketbooks is heating up, with Whole Foods, Dean & Deluca and Balducci's leading the charge:

The success of Whole Foods Market, an almost $4-billion-a-year organic-food specialist that landed in Manhattan several years ago and is only getting bigger nationally, has shown the potential for high-end niche foods. Now, some of New York's home-grown grocery chains are planning to test the market well beyond Manhattan.

"There is no reason why Balducci's couldn't expand significantly along the East Coast," said Mark S. Ordan, a partner in Balducci's, along with Bear Stearns Merchant Banking, the controlling shareholder.

At the moment, Balducci's, once in Greenwich Village, has its only Manhattan store tucked in a hidden corner behind Lincoln Center. ("The worst location in the world," Mr. Ordan said with a laugh.) Along with their $10 million deal to buy that location about a year ago, the partners also bought Sutton Place Gourmet and Hay Day Country Market gourmet chains, renaming them all Balducci's.

In May, the owners plan to open a 20,000-square-foot flagship store in a former bank building at the corner of 14th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, a landmark they have nicknamed "the temple of food."

Dean & DeLuca has already expanded to Japan, among other places. The small chain is looking for a store in Los Angeles.

The market for gourmet groceries is growing nationally; last year, it topped $22.8 billion, according to the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade. From 2001 to 2003, it grew more than 24.1 percent. For 2004, the trade group expects sales in dollars to increase another 10 to 12 percent.

And, if the Journal has it right, Texas' own HEB Grocery Stores is beating out Wal-mart by catering to local tastes:

[HEB founder Charles E. Butt] signed off on a plan to make fresh produce and high-quality meats the chain's hallmark. He spiced up the formula with cooking demonstrations at some stores, stationing chefs in kitchen booths in the middle of the store floor to whip up recipes and answer shoppers' questions. In-store tortilla makers churn out fresh, hot tortillas all day.

At the same time, Mr. Butt insisted that prices stay competitive with Wal-Mart's. At headquarters in San Antonio, Mr. Butt drives home the message that managers must learn to think like the customer, not just about the customer. In one exercise, HEB's president of food and drugs, Suzanne Wade, handed $20 to several employees and told them to feed a family of four for a week. "We found out why beans and rice and tortillas sell so well," she says

To emphasize its Texas roots, HEB has specialized in developing its own branded products tailored to specific community needs and tastes. For instance, managers in the Rio Grande Valley discovered an annual summer spike in rubbing alcohol sales came from customers who couldn't afford air conditioning and used the alcohol on their skin to keep cool in the sweltering Texas heat. Since alcohol also dries out the skin, HEB worked with manufacturers to develop its own brand of rubbing alcohol with moisturizers, which now makes up a quarter of its rubbing alcohol sales.

And while outdoor grilling is a Texas passion, not all Texans do it the same way. Along the southern border HEB stocks its stores with the large metal discs, called discos, that Mexican-Americans use to cook their brisket. Further north, it sells the gas grills and barbecuing gadgets that Anglos prefer.

Wonder what Mr. Butts would dream up, if he were to open an HEB in NYC. Whole Foods, Dean & Deluca and Balducci's better watch their backs...