A long, strange trip

Links a-plenty on this Groundhog's Day! Check out this week's e-paper here . Flip through it like it was actually printed! If you just want to read things that I wrote, here's a link to this week's editorial, railing against the proposed district lines for the NY State Senate and Assembly. And here's a link to my story previewing Larry Miller's show at Queens Theatre this weekend. Can't wait to see his show!

For those of you that rely on me to go tell you when to check out my paper, well, it's that time! The Queens Tribune is online and you should all check it out. If you're so inclined, you can read the online pdf of the paper here . Just click the link and flip through the Queens edition of the paper page by page. If you're feeling lazy and just want to read my stories, I can help you there, too. Click here for a link to my editorial on how the 7 train renovations are causing headaches. For those who enjoy comedy, click here for my interview with John Fugelsang, who is coming to Queens next weekend. And last but not least, click here for a restaurant review of Sidetracks, where I had brunch last weekend. Enjoy!

Back in college, I got hooked on a delivery place for (usually) late-night post-drinking munchies. D.P. Dough made several different kinds of calzones. My favorite was the Buffalo Zone (later renamed the Buff Zone, for reasons beyond my understanding). It was, unsurprisingly, a calzone stuffed with buffalo chicken. I ordered that much more often than I care to remember. Now, I'm nowhere near a D.P. Dough, and I've yet to find a place that sells a calzone that matches it. One of the upsides of cooking for yourself is you can make something just the way you want it. Back when we were still in Chicago, that's exactly what we did.  Usually, Stacey takes point on the calzones. But Stacey went back to Liverpool today, so I'm left on my own. Helpfully, Stacey left some dough behind from the pumpkin pizza she made last week, so I had all I needed to make a calzone on my own.  Wow, OK, this picture's not as good as I hoped. In front is a ricotta mixture, wi...

Usually on a workday, it's not unusual for my breakfast to comprise of my coffee and a bowl of cereal, and then head off to work. Not having a job for the last five months gives me some more time to make breakfast. One of my favorites, dating back to childhood, is quesadillas. When my mom made them - and how I started making them myself - she would put flour tortillas over an open flame, put some cheese in and melt it in the microwave. Throw on some hot sauce and this has always been my preferred way of making a quesadilla.  I noticed something in the last year, though. Flour tortillas (why do I need two tries to type tortillas?) seriously mess with my blood sugar. So, I switched to corn tortillas. I also stopped cooking them over an open flame on the stove.  I use a variety of cheeses now; really it's just whatever I have in my fridge. This morning, as seen above, I used some six-cheese Italian mix along with some shredded cheddar. Throw on some hot sauce (...

I'm surprised at how much more often I'm compelled to post here when I'm writing about the food I make. I've always liked to cook, but I didn't really branch out to try some more complicated things until I moved out to Illinois. For the longest time, my menu consisted of steak and pasta, some quesadillas, the occasional chicken parmigiana and scrambled eggs. That all started to change when we moved to Palatine. On Easter Sunday 2009, Stacey suggested I make huevos rancheros for her, her brother and me for breakfast. The experiment turned out well , and I started to make it more regularly as a special breakfast treat, breaking up the monotony of cereal and other simpler breakfast foods. I tend to make the dish a bit differently for Stacey than I do for me. For her, I put everything in one big pile: I layer the corn tortillas, pile the refried beans (an addition from the first version), the eggs and the salsa over the tortillas. She cuts it up and eats it with...

Normally, when we have clam chowder, Stacey takes up the cooking. In my continuing attempts to branch out, however, I decided to take a shot at it.  When I cook a new item, I like to use a recipe, unless I'm just making up new ways to season chicken or steak. For clam chowder, I was going to want to use a recipe. I asked Stacey to send me one and she complied , because she likes it when I'm cooking dinner when she gets home from school.  Unfortunately, instead of a chowder, it ended up a little too think. I used too much flour, not enough half and half. It was more of a clam, onion and potato oatmeal.  The "chowder," of course, is on the right. On the left is my garlic bread, which I usually make when we have a soup or salad of some sort. Take a loaf of Italian bread, slice it up (I usually get 12 slices or so), butter the bread and season with garlic salt and some red pepper and toss it in a toaster oven. Viola.  I'll have to make the chowder a...

Hey, it's my first attempt at blogging with photos from my phone. Hopefully I don't delete anything. Dinner last night consisted of some chicken (for me, salmon for Stacey) and a dish found on the New York Times Recipes for Health blog: wild rice and brown rice stuffing with apples, pecans and cranberries . While the prep work was a bit overwhelming - I was relieved when Stacey got home do she could help with the pecans - the end result was a great meal, and we've got leftovers for the next couple of days. Updated (from my laptop) to include the link to the recipe. 

Wow, so while trying to post a blog via Blogger on the iPhone, I somehow managed to delete the previous post about my cooking. That's really annoying. So, as I said earlier today, I've been cooking more often with Stacey taking classes. Tonight, while Stacey was sick in bed, I made some things. Dinner tonight was pretty simple: baked penne. I was low on sauce, so I only put it as the top layer. I cooked about three servings of whole wheat penne and placed a layer on the bottom of the pyrex. The bottom layer got covered with some crushed red pepper, hot sauce and cheddar and mozzarella cheeses. Another layer of penne followed, which got covered in marinara sauce and more cheese. Stacey said it needed some oregano and some basil. We live, we learn. And after dinner: I think this was some of my best work. I through in some cinnamon, and it really popped. Hope everyone enjoyed their dinner. If you're near Queens and you want some chocolate chip cookies, stop o...

Back when this year started, on Day -8, for the first time in a long time, I made a few New Year's resolutions. To the shock of everyone - well, mainly me since I'm the only one who would care - I've actually followed through on them. The two resolutions that I thought would be the hardest to maintain are the ones that are now coming through. When the year began, I told myself I would quit smoking by the time I was 30. I have 28 days left in my 20s as I write this and I haven't had a cigarette in almost three months (it'll be three months in about a week and a half). Sure, a trip to the hospital was instrumental in helping me quit, but you take what you can get, right? The other resolution was to start going to the gym. While I was in North Adams, I had signed up for a $10 per month gym membership that I ended up never using. And after moving to Palatine, Stacey had been bugging me for months to start going to the gym with her, but because of my health issues, I alw...

Days like today I really miss living in Central New York. It's not that I'm homesick, or that being in Central New York is so much better than being in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. It's the driving I miss. A day like today would be the perfect time to get in my car, roll down the window and go for a drive, going to visit any of the myriad friends I have a couple hours away, or just getting in the car to enjoy the weather and just drive around. I suppose I could get in my car and go for a drive here, but it's not the same. I don't know the area like I did Central New York. After all, I lived there for almost 10 years. And outside of my sister down towards Chicago, I don't really know anyone in the area. Plus, my car has been legitimately deemed a death trap by a mechanic just a month ago. I always suspected, but now I have proof. So instead, I'll sit on my balcony with my laptop and ponder what I'm going to do today or tomorrow or sometime later this...