In a tribute to J.D. Salinger, the famously reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye, who passed away this week, my colleague Kristin Donnelly and I raised a glass to him last night at Rye House, a new cocktail bar in New York City’s Flatiron District. We especially liked the citrusy but not too sweet Rye House Punch (made with chai-infused Rittenhouse Rye, Batavia Arrack, lemon, grapefruit and Angostura bitters, pictured) as well as the flaky pork belly and smoked Gouda-filled empanadas.

Here, a few rye-based cocktails to toast the author’s life and literary works:
Carra-Ryed Away
Manhattan
Silver Lining

The morning after a recent menu tasting at Brooklyn, New York’s Zenkichi restaurant, I woke up with a belly full of shirako cod milt (a.k.a. cod sperm) and no regrets. Available only in winter months, shirako is considered a delicacy in Japan and can be eaten raw or cooked.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t initially freaked out when a small bowl of glistening shirako sashimi (pictured, left) was placed in front of me, but I resolved not to be so squeamish when I saw two brawny guys, both former college football players, dig in without hesitation. Topped with thinly sliced scallions and a drizzle of ponzu sauce, the sashimi was slightly sweet and vaguely briny with a smooth custard-like texture that resembled brains.

Then the waiters brought out delicious, lacy clusters of a tempura combining creamy cod milt and crispy green chrysanthemum leaves, topped with a sprinkle of green-tea salt (pictured, below).

Now I’m thinking about going back to Zenkichi for more shirako before the season ends–and I might even bring a friend with me.

 

 

I’ve already heard declarations that “the Great Pork Decade has ended”, and as carnivorous foodies prepare to crown the next It beast for the coming decade, my hope is for vegetables to rival—if not surpass—meat as chefs’ newest obsession. Already, one of my most remarkable dishes of the new year was a vegetable-centric dish: George Mendes’s brilliant beet meringue at Aldea in NYC. Mendes cleverly juices fresh red beets, adds egg white powder and aerates it; he then dehydrates the mixture overnight at 145 degrees before topping the bite-size meringues with crème fraîche and American Hackleback caviar. Though just an amuse-bouche, Mendes twisted my perception of what a beet can be in terms of flavor and texture. And in today’s New York Times Dining section, Melissa Clark praised the unglamorous rutabaga and provides a delicious-sounding recipe that I plan to make this weekend. Maybe 2010 will be the year that some ordinary vegetables reach pork bun or fried chicken status.

 

As F&W's travel editor and someone with a serious case of wanderlust, it’s rare that I’m home for more than a few days at a time. But I promised myself I’d start off the new year in NYC and kicked off 2010 with a megadose of culture paired with some great meals. Here, a mini winter arts cheat sheet for Manhattan:

*MoMa has put together a brilliant, mind-bending retrospective of Tim Burton’s work that includes slightly disturbing teenage doodles, 3-D monsters and a showing of Burton's films. After, go to the bar room at the Modern and eat chef Gabriel Kreuther’s Alsatian thin-crust tarte flambé with crème fraiche, onion and applewood-smoked bacon and his decadent slow-poached farm egg served in a mason jar with Maine lobster, sunchokes and sear urchin froth.

*I dare anyone not to get dizzy as they wind their way around the Guggenheim viewing Wassily Kandinsky’s wild, geometric paintings. The museum’s new restaurant, the Wright, offers more sensory overload with a sleek space designed by British artist Liam Gillick that makes you feel like you’re riding Disney’s Space Mountain roller coaster. The food, from David Bouley-alum Rodolfo Contreras, is appropriately gorgeous with delicate dishes like roasted red and golden beets topped with sheep’s-milk cheese, citrus and pistachio and a fantastic spiced pumpkin and chocolate cake with pumpkin-seed-oil ice cream.

*I may never look at paper the same way again after viewing Slash: Paper Under the Knife at the Museum of Arts and Design. Drop by late and then have dinner at the just-opened restaurant Robert. The comforting Italian dishes like chicken cooked under a brick and papparadelle with wild boar ragu are delicious. Also amazing: the Central Park views and the room’s funky art and Jetson-esque design pieces (there’s a video-art piece by Jennifer Steinkamp and Barbie-pink acrylic lighting designed by Johanna Grawunder).

 

It’s frigid here in New York City, and with the long holiday weekend ahead, I plan on holing up and cooking my favorite comfort foods, drinking some great wines and watching a lot of college football. I recently heard about a new wine bar in Texas that combines all three things. Max’s Wine Dive opened in May in downtown Austin with the philosophy of "Fried chicken and champagne? Why the hell not?!"

With its local team, the University of Texas Longhorns, playing for the national championship on January 7, the bar should be packed with fans eating not just fried chicken with Champagne but kobe burgers with Cabernet and oyster nachos with premier cru Burgundy.

Until I find my own NYC version of Max’s, I’ll be replicating their comfort-food-and-wine pairings with ideas from Food & Wine.

 

While other star chefs are opening flashy, over-the-top restaurants in Las Vegas, chef Kerry Simon is going the opposite direction and offering TV dinner–inspired comfort foods for room service at Las Vegas's Palms Place hotel. Meals like meatloaf with mac and cheese, peas and carrots, and chocolate cake, and Southern fried chicken and mashed potatoes, are delivered in cafeteria-style compartmentalized trays.

 

After a marathon night of cocktail tasting, I started my second morning in New Orleans with a hangover-curing brunch at the fantastic new restaurant Green Goddess. This supertiny spot has a bit of a hippie vibe, but the food is seriously delicious, and surprising for New Orleans: cactus chilaquiles topped with a poached egg, smoky pulled pork, blistered nopales and Creole queso fresco; tea-smoked mushrooms covered in gravy and served with sweet-potato biscuits and orange-honey butter; and a killer roasted-yellow-tomato Bloody Mary with pickled okra and green beans.

Revived, I checked out the farmer’s market until I had worked up an appetite for the legendary Galatoire’s. Here, I was introduced to fried eggplant dipped in béarnaise sauce and powdered sugar (unexpectedly addictive and delicious), tried the signature shrimp remoulade and stuffed myself with oysters en brochette (when I told my waiter I was full, his response was, “Nonsense, you just need a glass of wine to help you finish that off”).

My dilemma of the night was where to take a group of five rowdy guy friends for dinner. The answer: John Besh’s casual brasserie Lüke, where we snacked on house-made charcuterie (and my poor friend Jay learned that head cheese is not really a cheese) before diving into the monster-size burgers topped with Allen Benton’s bacon, caramelized onions and Emmentaler cheese.

I recently came back from Phoenix, where everyone is buzzing about a new restaurant called St. Francis. Chef-owner Aaron Chamberlin (who trained with Michel Richard, Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Nancy Oakes) spent nearly three years searching for the perfect spot, finally buying and renovating a midcentury Harold Ekman building on Camelback Road. With the help of his dad and brother, he’s created a hip, industrial-style space with a two-story, window-faced garage door that opens the bar to the outside. There are homey touches, too; his grandmother's old silver spoons are embedded in the stone walls and chairs from San Francisco's old Rubicon restaurant space. There's also an enormous wood-burning stove. The affordable menu balances healthy dishes, like the sweet-and-spicy Forbidden Rice Bowl, with decadent ones, like a French Onion Burger topped with an onion ring, smoked bacon, Gruyère and homemade French Dip. With Pizzeria Bianco just a few blocks away, uptown Phoenix may be Arizona’s next cool food 'hood.

 

The dinner-theater concept sounds like a throwback, but director Marlo Hunter is trying to make it hip again with Eating Their Words. Hunter enlists noteworthy writers and actors for an evening of short plays to be performed at a top NYC restaurant. As part of the action, the actors sit at a table and eat a dish; immediately after the performance, the audience is served everything they've just seen the actors enjoy. The next Eating Their Words event, on Monday, October 19, will be at Tocqueville restaurant, with works by Pulitzer Prize finalist Theresa Rebeck and playwrights Jonathan Marc Sherman and Sam Forman. Tocqueville chef-owner Marco Moreira has created a menu to complement the plays, including schmaltz roasted country chicken and a bittersweet chocolate tort. Tickets must be purchased before Sunday, October 18.

A pile of pulled pork with wonderfully crusty edges topped with dill pickle slivers: $8. A heaping plate of blistered two-bite-size shishito peppers and sherry vinegar aioli: $6. Why had I only just checked out the cozy Flatiron location of ‘wichcraft, part of Tom Colicchio’s chain of sandwich shops, for dinner last night? Since last May, chef Sisha Ortuzar has been serving simple, delicious smallish plates with Greenmarket ingredients for insanely inexpensive prices. Last night, it was quiet, with only a few tables taken. How could that be, I wondered, when they were serving the last of the summer menu, including a fantastic tarragon-scented brothy dish of cockles and shrimp with late-season cherry tomatoes, corn and a hit of tarragon? Next week, Sisha will introduce a fall menu, and if all goes well, another ‘wichcraft that serves dinner will open in the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center in November. I can’t wait for both.

If you’re not getting to New York any time soon, try these 'wichcraft-inspired cocktail party recipes from Tom and Sisha.