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Dining & Wine

A Note to Readers

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Diner’s Journal began in 2006 as a place for Frank Bruni, then the Times restaurant critic, to post news, notes and other observations about food that went beyond the borders of his weekly review.

Today the Dining section is ending the blog in order to consolidate all of our food coverage on the main Dining page, creating a single destination for readers. Many of the regular features that used to appear on Diner’s Journal, including Recipe Lab, What’s For Dinner? and Restaurant Takeaway, will now be found on the main page. Past Diner’s Journal posts will remain where they were.

You can also follow @nytdining on Twitter to stay up to date on all of the Dining section’s offerings, or subscribe to Dining’s RSS feed.

Thanks for reading.

Front Burner: An Unusual Vegetable, Ceramic Ice Cream Cones and More

By FLORENCE FABRICANT
Margaret Cheatham Williams/The New York Times

To Shop: Another Salumeria for the Upper East Side

Fabio Casella (right), who comes from Salerno, Italy, shares a surname but no relatives with the better-known chef Cesare Casella, from Tuscany. Though Fabio Casella’s career path is more modest, like Cesare he now has a salumeria on the Upper East Side. Il Salumaio, his compact new storefront a few doors south of his pizzeria, San Matteo, specializes in hams, salamis, cheeses, condiments and groceries imported from Italy. “I can sell my 18-month-old San Pietro prosciutto di Parma for $16.99 a pound and still make a profit,” he said. “This is a neighborhood place and I don’t have to charge more.” A few pasta dishes are made fresh, along with sandwiches layered on magically delicate focaccia baked in the pizzeria’s wood-burning oven: Il Salumaio, 1731 Second Avenue (90th Street), (646) 852-6876, ilsalumaiony.com.

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

To Shred: An Unusual Vegetable in a Quick Summer Slaw

How often have you actually gone shopping for kohlrabi, those weird, cabbagelike spheres sprouting stems and leaves? If you belong to a community-supported agriculture group, you may have acquired some without even asking. Otherwise, consider buying some for a quick summer slaw. Take large kohlrabi, four to six ounces each, remove the stems, peel them and shred them in your food processor. Then toss with about a half-cup each of yogurt and mayonnaise sharpened with a splash of rice vinegar, salt and pepper. Letting the slaw sit for several hours improves it; the finishing touches are a few tablespoons of minced dill and a bunch of scallions, finely chopped. Read more…

What's for Dinner?

Vietnamese Marinated Flank Steak

By MELISSA CLARK
Evan Sung for The New York Times

In What’s for Dinner?, a column appearing every other week on Diner’s Journal, Melissa Clark answers that universal question, offering recipes for simple, relatively quick dishes that use ingredients you can pick up on the way home.

I don’t cook many flank steaks in winter, but once I get into a summer grilling groove, it’s one of the easiest things to throw onto the coals, even on a weeknight. Flank steak cooks up quickly, and as long as you vary the marinade (and a marinade is essential for this economical piece of meat), you can serve it in endless variations, all season long.

In this version, I base the marinade on a classic Vietnamese dipping sauce called nuoc cham. Since it consists mostly of pantry staples – Asian fish sauce, brown sugar and garlic – all you need to pick up on the way home are some fresh limes and jalapeño. Nuoc cham works as a salad dressing, too. Here I drizzle it on crisp cucumbers and radishes, but sliced ripe tomatoes work just as well. You could serve this as it is with the salad on the side, or put everything on top of a bed of rice noodles or rice for a more substantial meal.

As always with flank steak, slice it thinly against the grain. Look for the long muscle fibers and cut perpendicular to them. This will give you the most tender slices.

Leftovers are ideal for steak sandwiches. Or, marinate the whole steak, cut it in half and cook half for dinner and freeze the rest in the marinade. Pull it out in the morning, and it will defrost in time for dinner next time you light your grill – or preheat the broiler. This versatile recipe works either way.
Read more…

Drinking

Wines for Savory, Pungent Sausages

By ERIC ASIMOV

And to Drink…

    Eric Asimov, the wine critic for The New York Times, suggests a drink pairing for one of the week’s recipes.

What wine goes with sausages? What wine doesn’t? Savory, pungent sausages seem to bond instantly with countless wines. Simply look for ones that are as elemental, casual and juicy as the sausages themselves. With Italian sausages, you’ll most likely want a red, and for warm-weather grilling it ought to enjoy a light chill. Translation: avoid tannins and oaky flavors. What does that leave? Only much of the low-priced red wine universe. Allow me to make a list, beginning in Italy: barbera, dolcetto, Valpolicella, Chianti, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, to name a few. If grilling French sausages, you might start with Beaujolais, or an easygoing Chinon or Bourgueil. But no need to get hung up on ethnicities. Look for an American gamay noir, or one of the good reds from the Canary Islands, or a dry rosé. For summer rentals, don’t rely on local selections — B.Y.O.B.

What would you pair with this recipe for grilled sausages and radicchio? Post your suggestions in the comments section.

Back of House

After Midnight, She Rules the Kitchen

By GLENN COLLINS
Diana Bush is the overnight baker at the NoMad restaurant.Tina Fineberg for The New York Times Diana Bush is the overnight baker at the NoMad restaurant.

Back of House, an occasional column, celebrates the unsung characters who animate the restaurant universe.

It was way past midnight in the empty kitchen, and Diana Bush, the overnight baker at the NoMad restaurant in Manhattan, was working the eight-foot-long, black-granite-topped pastry table, 20 steps from the dining room. Most of the 70 other kitchen workers had long since departed. As she weighed the dough (each loaf: 130 grams), her long, strong fingers were forming brioches to be served with beef tartare. Her pace was methodical, irresistibly efficient. She worked from 8 p.m. to dawn: everything had to be baked by 5 a.m. (Mark Welker, the pastry chef, presides over the day with his staff.)

A few years ago, when Ms. Bush, 27, worked as an architect, she took a pastry class at the Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan. To her surprise, she found herself going on to earn a pastry-and-baking course certificate. As a cooking student, Ms. Bush had baking stints at Craft, Gotham Bar and Grill, Jean-Georges and Union Square Cafe, then landed an externship program at Eleven Madison Park, working in the kitchen of the executive chef, Daniel Humm. After he opened the NoMad with his business partner, Will Guidara, she bade architecture farewell and began baking there.

“It takes a certain type of person to do this job, to work these hours, to find rhythm in the kitchen even when no one else is around,” Mr. Humm said. “Diana is a craftsman,” he added, “one of the unsung, and oftentimes unseen, heroes of the restaurant.”

Baking vs. Architecture
“Baking is a lot like architecture in a sense; they are both part creative and part scientific. Baking is a chemistry experiment – there is the precision of weights and temperatures and ingredients chosen with organizational skill – but there is always the creative side. It’s a craft.” Read more…

Links

What We’re Reading

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Susan Seubert for The New York Times

Details: Be glad that it’s summertime. More than ever, ice cream has become a field of American innovation. — Jeff Gordinier

The Chuck Cowdery Blog: When and where was that bottle of Old Fitzgerald bourbon bottled? — Robert Simonson

The Washington Post: Yes, the government maintains a national raisin reserve. Objectors call it a cartel. — Julia Moskin

Eater: New York City Council members propose legislation that restaurant owners will welcome. It would reduce health fines by 15 percent and change the reporting of violation data. Christine Quinn, the Council speaker, said, “We’re taking steps to ensure that the restaurant inspection process is fair.” — Maria Newman

The Economist: A hot topic in the French Parliament is a consumer-rights bill that would force restaurants to label dishes that they prepare from fresh ingredients in their own kitchens (“fait maison,” or homemade), instead of merely ripping open packets and heating up the contents. Almost a third of restaurants do so, many claiming on their menus that their offerings are “façon grandmère,” or like grandma used to make. – Glenn Collins

Read more…

Events

Dining Calendar

By BAO ONG
Cercle Rouge is one of the restaurants offering specials during the week leading up to Bastille Day.Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times Cercle Rouge is one of the restaurants offering specials during the week leading up to Bastille Day.

Various food and drinks specials at French restaurants in the Forgeois Group (which includes Café Noir, Jules Bistro, Cercle Rouge and Le Singe Vert) across the city will be offered for a week leading up to the Bastille Day celebration on July 14 at Bar Tabac, 128 Smith Street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, which features Pétanque tournaments, live music and food vendors from the neighborhood. Thirty-seven restaurants will also be participating in French Restaurant Week at the same time between Monday and July 14, offering various specials for $17.89 (the year of the French Revolution). A full list is available online.

Counter Culture will be offering coffee-brewing demonstrations and tastings at Dean & DeLuca’s SoHo location, at 560 Broadway, on July 9, 16 and 23 between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Erin McCarthy, the recent champion of the World Brewers Cup in Australia, will demonstrate the Chemex pour-over brew method and offer tips on how to make better cups of coffee.

From gin to bourbon, all the libations featured during the Spirits of New York event on Wednesday from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Astor Center, 399 Lafayette Street in NoHo, are made by local distillers. The tasting event is $40 per person or $30 for members of Slow Food NYC, which is organizing the event.

Craft beers, whether brewed at home or by experts, will be the topic of the Craft Beer Jam 2013 series, which kicks off 7 p.m. on Wednesday at the Greene Space at WNYC/WQXR, 44 Charlton Street (Varick Street) in SoHo. Many of the beers tasted will be from lesser-known brewers. Tickets, $25 per person, includes beer tastings and snacks; they are available at thegreenespace.org.

Recipe Lab

‘Jerusalem’ Fans: What’s Your Favorite Recipe From the Book?

By JULIA MOSKIN
Hummus kawarma (lamb) with lemon sauce from Jonathan Lovekin Hummus kawarma (lamb) with lemon sauce from “Jerusalem,” the cookbook that is the focus of this month’s Recipe Lab.

A dozen new cookbooks flood my cubicle every day, and most of them go right back out, never to be heard from again. But one cookbook has kept making noise this year: “Jerusalem,” by the chefs Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, has gone viral among food lovers since it was published in the United States last fall.

Jonathan Lovekin

What makes one cookbook “sticky” — meaning that it holds your attention, not that it’s covered with maple syrup — when so many of them languish on the shelf? In this month’s Recipe Lab, we’ll try to figure out why so many food lovers (me included) have been working our way through the recipes in “Jerusalem” since it was published in October — posting pictures of Coconut-Marmalade Cake on Instagram and writing tweets about Chicken With Caramelized Onions and Cardamom Rice. Is it the Middle Eastern flavors or the photos? The stories or the spices?

If you’re a fan, tell us your favorite recipe from “Jerusalem,” or the one you’d most like to discuss with Mr. Ottolenghi and Mr. Tamimi. We’ll choose one for everyone to make, then we’ll meet the two chefs in a live video chat on Wednesday, July 31, at 2 p.m. Eastern time.

And if you’re free at that time and want to participate in the video chat, indicate that with your recipe suggestion or fill out this form.

Links

What We’re Reading

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Danny Bowien appears with Jimmy Fallon on Lloyd Bishop/NBC Danny Bowien appears with Jimmy Fallon on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.”

The New York Post: Top chefs have found a late-night advocate in the food-obsessed Jimmy Fallon. — Jeff Gordinier

Digimind: As Shake Shack and Five Guys opened in London last week, this site tracked the social media frenzy. (Via @RichardVines) — Julia Moskin

Food52: ABC Cocina puts sweet green peas in its guacamole. And at Food52, they show up mixed with chickpeas in hummus. Pea season just got twice as interesting. — Melissa Clark

Salon: Now comes the backlash from an article in The Atlantic that savages Michael Pollan’s critique of “big food,” claiming that locavore and organic options are impractical, too expensive and not measurably more nutritious than packaged industrial food — even fast food. Salon challenges the article’s facts and methodology, and questions the article’s assertion that the food industry can be trusted to create healthier eating options. — Glenn Collins Read more…

Restaurants

Gallagher’s Closes for Renovation

By FLORENCE FABRICANT

Gallagher’s, the venerable theater district steakhouse, will close on Monday so it can undergo a multimillion-dollar renovation. The restaurant was put on the market last October and was sold to Dean Poll, who had been negotiating to buy it for more than a year.

Mr. Poll has held the lease on the Boathouse restaurant in Central Park for 12 years, but he failed in his bid to be the licensee for Tavern on the Green after he could not reach an agreement with the union, the Hotel and Motel Trades Council.

Gallagher’s, with its red-checked tablecloths, horseshoe-shaped bar and refrigerated wall of aging steaks at the entrance, has long been a hangout for colorful show-business and sports figures, many of whose pictures are on the walls. Mr. Poll has hired Niemitz Design Group of Boston, which has designed steakhouses in New England, to do what he is calling a restoration. The restaurant, at 228 West 52nd Street, is scheduled to reopen in October: