Food on Screen: Food Beware

The food documentary is not an exclusively US phenomenon - Europe has ventured into the genre with films like Our Daily Bread and the recent French documentary Food Beware.



Despite the terrible English title, this film is worth watching. It's about a small town in the South of France where the mayor decided that all school children and invalids - who are fed through a central municipal kitchen - should eat organic food. This decision was spurred by increasing scientific evidence that pesticides used in the region (which is heavily agricultural and wine-producing) have been responsible for health problems in children and adults.

The cross-cultural difference is what I found particularly interesting about the film. It's really astounding to see French school children sitting at lunch tables, enthusiastically tasting and describing the new foods they are being offered. That, and the class picnic at the base of the Pont du Gard, were enough to bring a tear to my eye.

It's a nicely made film, and set in a beautiful region. Available on Netflix!

Hester Street Market

On a sunny August Saturday I headed to the Hester Street Market, after reading about it in an issue of Time Out. As far as street markets go, this one gets top marks for interesting food. Lots of different vendors that I haven't seen elsewhere in the city.

"Artisanal" pretzel made with cheddar and truffle
+ a cucumber limeade

Bowls of bulk spices and teas...

Japanese pancakes filled with red bean paste

Taïm

The Israeli-Vegetarian restaurant Taïm was recommended to me by a friend when she found out I'd be working on West 14th Street over the summer. When I finally made it I got a date-banana smoothie and this falafel sandwich - though they have some other selections on the menu that look equally tantalizing. The tiny restaurant has a line out the door most of the day, but if you can go at 3pm on a weekday you might get a seat at the window counter....

My falafel sandwich on whole wheat pita

Sorry for the poor picture quality and for the fact I was too busy eating to take a picture of the brilliant green insides of the falafel (they also have red and yellow varieties, with slightly different flavoring). What sets this falafel apart from others, for me, is that all the ingredients are really fresh, including falafels fried "to order." No stomach ache after this one.

Chiyono

Chiyono is a tiny restaurant in the East Village specializing in what they call "Japanese homestyle"cooking. The menu is small and everything seems to be prepared with a lot of care. There are literally only two tables in the restaurant - one long table, where multiple parties can be seated, and one 2-person table in the window.

Dessert:
Sesame pudding, fruit, red bean sauce, and vanilla ice cream

The vegetarian plate:
I don't know what half this stuff was, but it was all delicious and tasted very healthy

Dim Sum Go Go

Careless checking off on an ordering menu led me to order two rounds of dim sum at this Chinatown establishment. Too much of a good thing? Possibly. But it meant I got to sample both their vegetarian and their meat (mostly shrimp) dumplings.

Meat dumplings

Veggie dumplings filled with all kinds of things
+ the same sponge-like thing in the middle - seaweed?

The green sauce, which had ginger, onion and oil in it was
especially tasty (I went through two small bowls of it)

Hot tea and toasted soy beans, also very tasty

Actually the most interesting thing about the whole experience was that I went early, around 5pm, and restaurant was nearly empty. I was seated next to an older lady with a strong European accent who started talking to me when she realized we were both alone. She tipped me in on the green sauce and told me about her experiences in the neighborhood. Who says New Yorkers aren't friendly?

Belleville

Brunch is a big deal in NYC, and there are lots of restaurants who offer it. A couple of weekends ago I met friends at the French-inspired Park Slope establishment called Belleville. My "oeufs pochés" were delicious - sautéed mushrooms and a creamy sauce over nicely round eggs. Thumbs up on the home fries too, which were crisp on the outside.

Everyone else's meal looked equally tantalizing.

Balthazar, when Paris is too far

A few pastries to start your weekend off right. It's a good thing I'm no longer living within walking distance to this bakery...

Meringue with raspberries

Inside a cannele

EXT: Cannele and chocolate croissant
'

Donut (tres francais), madeleine, croissant, apple tart

Vanessa's Dumpling House

Over the summer, I was fortunate to live within walking distance to Vanessa's Dumpling House, which I found out about through the internet when I was looking for good dumplings. You know it's a winner when there's a steady stream of customers, which there always is at Vanessa's.

Waiting in line isn't so bad, though, because you can watch the skillful steaming and frying of massive numbers of dumplings... And anticipation is a good appetizer.

A juicy shrimp dumpling

A veggie dumpling
(These take extra time to prepare, but are worth it)

A scallion and egg "pancake"

Dumplings prior to being consumed

A sandwich made on a sesame pancake, with fried egg and veggies

I think my total for all this food, which fed me for three meals, was $13.

30 Rock Apple Rescue

I recently started volunteering with City Harvest, a great organization that "rescues" food from all over the city and then redistributes it to soup kitchens, low-income greenmarkets, and others in need. This past week I was part of a team that rescued thousands of apples from Rockefeller Center, where an education conference was taking place (using apples as decor).





Not only did we bag lots of apples, but I got to see the bowels of Rockefeller Center, and I can truthfully say that the industrial kitchens down there smell a lot better than most industrial kitchens I've seen.

Court St + Sahadi's

Having read about Monteleone's Bakery in a book, I decided to check them out recently. They have a nice selection of cookies, but the counter service was eternally slow, so I left and headed down the block, where it turns out there are a number of old Italian bakeries, some with windows selling Italian ices, like this naturally colored pistachio ice...

Further down, Court St runs into Atlantic Ave, home to several stores selling Middle Eastern food and wares. One such is Sahadi's, a venerable old store. There are always crowds inside checking out their enormous bulk section (dried fruits, nuts, olives...) For the Atlantic Antic festival, Sahadi's set up a sidewalk cafe...



I wasn't sure what to expect from their deli counter, but everything I got was delicious and inexpensive. Creamy hummus, a nice eggplant salad, vegetarian grape leaves, and a feta, cucumber and tomato salad. The focaccia bread, also good, was from a bakery on Court Street.