Ashley’s posterous

New York Farmers Markets in Manhattan and Brooklyn :: Awesome to guide to fresh food in NYC

WANT/NEED/DESIRE

Andy is going to buy this for me and I'm going to buy it for him. Or I'm going to buy it for myself and he's going to buy it for himself and just pretend it was from each other. Either way, we win!

 

Half Baked: White People's Artichoke Dip

by Jolie Kerr posted @3:46 PM

And now the second of our Super Bowl-applicable recipes!

Dear Jewish and/or poor friends—have you ever wondered what WASPs eat? Trick question. WASPs don’t eat! They drink. But they do like to put food out and feign eating. There are three WASP foodstuffs for setting out and feigning eating, but the one I’m here to talk to you about today is mayonnaise. (The other two, cucumbers and shrimp, are only around because they’re pink and green and cold, and WASPs like food created in their own image.)

One other thing WASPs love is that adorable and slightly drunk girl at the party. And while the best of us are born into the role, there is hope for the rest of you because it can be learned. And I would like to teach you how to master the fine art of being the slightly drunk girl who trots out a delicious artichoke dip at parties because, quite frankly, I’m really awesome at it and you need to be told things.

Traditional artichoke dips are really quite simple, but I’ve usually got Important Drinking To Do and therefore have distilled mine down to a three-ingredient, one-bowl process that allows me to drink fairly heavily throughout. You should work on doing the same. God knows, alcohol can’t make you more dull.

Measure a cup of mayo into a mixing bowl. You needn’t be particularly precise about this.

Open and drain a can of artichoke hearts. Toss the artichokes in the bowl with the mayo. Pour a glass of wine, grab a fistful of ice cubes and plunk them in. Drink it. Turn the oven on to 400°. Using a fork and a spoon, pull apart the artichokes while mixing them into the mayonnaise. This will feel awkward but that’s why you have the wine, to ease your anxiety about things. Top off your grape juice.

Stir in 3/4 of a cup of grated parmesan cheese and pour the whole disgusting mess into a baking dish. Don’t spend too much time looking at it because if you do your mind is going to go to a place it really shouldn’t go when one is contemplating dip and—oh, you did it. Now you’re looking at your last yeast infection sitting inside some Corningware and it’s all over. POUR AND DRINK MORE WINE, STAT. FOREGO THE CUBES IF YOU MUST. Grip your countertops and regain your composure.

Top the mayo mixture with a 1/4 of a cup more of cheese and put this utter disaster of a foodstuff in the oven for 20 minutes. Pour more wine. Throw cubes in with wild abandon!

After 20 minutes it’s Choose Your Own Adventure time. Either:

1. Take it out of the oven to cool before transporting elsewhere and reheating, following the instructions for step 2 once you’ve arrived at your destination and have gotten a glass of wine from your hostess. (“WITH CUBES, DEAR.”) or.

2. crank the oven to 475° and let it go for about 10 more minutes until the top is nicely browned.

Now, the most important part. Don’t you dare eat any of that. It’s made entirely of mayo. Mayo with cheese. Leave the fat dip for the guests and go fix me another wine. Yes, with cubes! Come now.

Jolie Kerr wears Lilly below 14th Street.

AWESOME interactive website. Awesome as in you get to throw a sexy male model around and undress him. haha

Smith & Wollensky to barter steaks for stakes

Wed Feb 3, 2010 4:05pm EST

Stocks

* Offer targets Wall St bankers who got stock for bonus

* About 50 bankers have inquired but no redemptions yet (Adds first day interest in plan, paragraphs 6-7)

By Phil Wahba

NEW YORK, Feb 3 (Reuters) - New York steakhouse Smith & Wollensky has come to the rescue of Wall Street bankers trying to cope with the shock of receiving their multimillion-dollar bonuses in shares rather than cash.

Smith & Wollensky took out a full-page ad in The New York Times on Wednesday offering to trade steaks for diners' stock certificates, touting the plan as a way to inject the bonuses into New York City's economy.

Despite that generosity, the restaurant is not making it easy for diners to exchange a stake for a steak. The fine print says prospective steak-eaters must present original stock certificates, which few people have in their possession anymore.

It said that St. James LLC, the partnership which owns the restaurant, will decide what the shares are worth based on current share prices.

"We haven't the slightest clue if people will show up with stock certificates, but we are ready if they do," Smith & Wollensky founder Alan Stillman told Reuters earlier in the day, adding that the reduction in cash bonuses hit business hard last year.

So far, about 50 bankers have called to inquire about the plan, a spokeswoman for the restaurant said, although no one has yet redeemed a stock certificate for a meal.

One diner did bring in a photocopy of a stock certificate in the afternoon on Wednesday, but will have to return with the original certificate, the spokeswoman said.

In the tongue-in-cheek ad, the chain expressed concern about the trickle-down effects of bankers receiving shares rather than cash. Among those purportedly affected are personal shoppers and pet psychiatrists. The ad also noted that "massive amounts of steak and lobster" could remain uneaten.

Under pressure from the U.S. government, major U.S. banks paid many of their top executives' bonuses in stock rather than cash. The idea is to have bankers' remuneration more closely tied to long-term performance rather than short-term trading profits.

Bonuses can account for the lion's share of a banker's overall pay, often reaching several times base salary, and recently hitting levels that drew the ire of the U.S. public.

Smith & Wollensky has a number of restaurants in various U.S. cities but the promotion applies only to its New York restaurant on Third Avenue.

That restaurant draws patrons such as billionaire investor Warren Buffett. He will be hosting a lunch there on Feb. 20, for which a Canadian wealth management firm agreed to pay $1.7 million to charity in an auction last year.

Smith & Wollensky said it will accept certificates for any New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq-listed stock, including those of Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and Morgan Stanley (MS.N), two banks whose top executives are receiving stock rather than cash bonuses this year.

Smith & Wollensky even offered to redeem stock in General Motors Co [GM.UL], though following the carmaker's bankruptcy last year that can only refer to the old shell, Motors Liquidation Co (MTLQQ.PK), whose stock currently trades at 62 cents. (Reporting by Phil Wahba, editing by Matthew Lewis and Tim Dobbyn)

Does anyone have any stock lying around they'd like to give me? I could really go for some Filet mignon right about now...

Awesome.

Just because...