HUNGRY GERALD

SJ Here. Last night my good pal Jay brought over some Pepperoncini that a friend of his had smuggled over from Italy. Tightly packed in a jar of golden oil, the peppers were finger length and a glorious vision of home made craft. I slipped one of these bad boys out of the jar and chomped into it. Oh My. The flavor was like a great short story that unfolds in stages — the first bite, crisp and almost pickle like; then a whoosh of unctuous fat tingling with licorice undertones and finally a revelation of almost meaty flavors with an umami tang of woody mushrooms. Amazing.

I’ve never tasted anything like them and pestered Jay for more information. The following description of these glorious peppers is taken verbatim from the Pepper Smuggler himself:

“These Pepperoncini are cured in a broth called Salamoia, which is a brine consisting of Sicilian Lemon, onion, olive oil and finochietto (baby fennel seed). After soaking in the brine for several weeks, they are then placed into barrels with sea salt and cured for one year. This is where the maloactic fermentation takes place. The peppers are sliced lengthwise and the belly of a tuna is inserted prior to the curing.”

http://hungrygerald.com/apps-that-find-people/

Sunday New York Times had a “Food and Drink” issue. Some good stuff from Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman. And a few nasty/dopey items. Christopher Buckley did a short essay: “What’s The Golden Rule of a Business Lunch?” He used this as a springboard to dis Ed Berberian’s Balkan Armenian Restaurant, an ethnic gem that shut its doors some years ago. Buckley seems to have inherited all of his late father’s (the conservative/reactionary William F.) snarkiness and has coupled it with an uneducated palate (probably honed at a white bread prep school). The Balkan Armenian (on E.27th near Lexington) was the type of small, affordable. family restaurant that made Manhattan so delightful for residents and tourists. It had a wonderful pastry appetizer (cheese borek), stuffed vine leaves, Armenian chopped eggplant, the best lamb (not mutton, as Buckley stated) kebabs, rice pilaf. All tasty treats. And, the desserts? Heaven. An HG favorite was Ekmek Kadayiff with Kaymak. This was a sweet, but not too, pastry topped with the Armenian version of English clotted cream. HG tastes it in his dreams. HG took BSK there on their second date (March 1963) and BSK sure knew she wasn’t in Ohio anymore.

The other goof by the Times was perpetrated by the usually perceptive movie critic, A.O.Scott. He called “Ratatouille” the best food movie ever made. Could he have been kidding? While Ratatouille was sly and knowingly funny about French cuisine and the shadowy world of restaurant kitchens — it is in no way the best. Anyone who loves film and food knows the best “food” movie ever made is the Japanese-language “Tampopo.” Mixing humor, eroticism and a satirical riff on “Shane” and other Hollywood westerns, Tampopo will have you lusting for Ramen, dreaming about oyster diving girls and speculating on the reality of fresh, Japanese wild boar sausages. It is a paean to the joys of eating, to the joys of movies and to the joy of life.

Give yourself a treat. Rent the movie today.