Jessica's Dinner Party

by jessica yoon

Blog

Crudite and Dips

I love getting fresh local produce at the farmer’s market or local grocery store. The fruits and vegetable are always so beautiful, colorful, and very fragrant.  It makes me feel really good that I’m eating healthy and being friendly to the environment.  However, I don’t know why, but I don’t like to cook with the fresh produce. I feel guilty, as if I was tainting the pure flavors with my amateur cooking skills. I’m slowly changing my mentality, but I tend to eat a lot of my fruits and vegetables raw.  I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but sometimes it can get a little boring.

So, for the picnic I decided to bring crudite and dip!  It’s a mix between enjoying the fresh flavors of summer and adding a little extra flavor.  As usual, since I couldn’t narrow it down to just one, I made two.  I made a hummus from a recipe that I had tagged in a Food and Wine magazine and a dip called Peacamole from the popular food blog, Chocolate and Zucchini.

 

  

  

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Mom’s Chicken Salad Sandwich

Throughout high school my mom packed my lunch everyday.  I went to the same school for ten years, so after awhile the food gets a little old.  I have to admit though, my school had a pretty good cafeteria.  We had a selection of both Western and Korean food, and there was rarely anything we would call “mystery meat.”  Most people just bought food from the cafeteria, but I liked bringing food from home.  My mom usually packed me a sandwich and a sliced apple.  The sandwiches were always simple and clean on a soft bread, but very good.  My friends would always ask for bites and I would end up eating only about half the sandwich.  But it was fine, it always made me happy to share my food with them. One of the sandwiches my mom made was a chicken salad sandwich.  So, when the idea of the summer picnic came up I thought I should ask my mom for the recipe.

  

Chicken salad is almost a must at picnics.  It’s easy to make, easy to bring, and easy to eat.  However, I rarely find a chicken salad that I like.  Most often the chicken is drenched in mayo and everything tastes slimy and goopy.  I’m not a huge fan of mayonnaise but don’t mind it when it’s used in moderation.  This is a very healthy chicken salad and uses only a little bit of mayo as a binder rather than a main ingredient.  If you like a heavily mayo-fied version, then this sandwich will not be what you expect.  However, I think you should give it a try anyways because it really is good.

 

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Roasted Tomato Sandwich With A Feta Twist

To enjoy the dog days of summer, I thought it would be nice to go on a picnic with some friends.  Cold drinks, food, and a nice spot in the shade seemed like a good idea.  I didn’t plan on making most of the food myself, but my secret wish came true.  I don’t go on picnics very often, so if I was confined to one dish, I think I would’ve had an even harder time picking out what I wanted to bring.  I mean, I thought about the picnic menu for days and ended up with almost two types of everything.  It probably didn’t help that I went to Whole Foods without a definite plan or grocery list.  My friend kept on telling me to get inspired by the seasonal ingredients, but I couldn’t!  I’m just not experienced enough to know what I can do with what.  Every time I get something, thinking I can make a certain dish, I end up having to run to the local deli in front of my house midway through a recipe because I don’t have fresh chives, tarragon, or heavy cream.  Well, after more than an hour I finalized what I was going to make, and bought almost everything I needed.  I did end up going to the deli once though.

  

The first sandwich I made is made with roasted tomatoes and onions with feta, black olives, and oregano.  It was inspired by Martha Stewart’s amazing Tomato Hand Pies.  I made them a couple of weeks ago for a potluck and everyone devoured them.  I wanted to make them again but didn’t really want to be bothered by the Pate Brisee again.  So I decided to make it into a sandwich!  It was really incredible.  The roasted tomatoes were sweet and savory while the soft onions really provided a depth to the flavor.  The feta, olive, and oregano topping gave the sandwich a nice greek twist.  I thought about using mozzarella instead of the feta and olive combination, but just decided to stay closer to the original recipe.  Next time, I may lay a piece of mozzarella on the bottom of the sandwich because my bread did get soggy by the time I got to the picnic.  But I think it was good, soggy bread and all.  The juices were all soaked up in the crusty soar dough slice.  If you have the time and patience, I really recommend making the hand pies, but if you want a faster and easier version, make this sandwich!

 

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Otto Pizzeria- Mario Batali’s Best?

I don’t eat a lot of pizza, but I crave it often. In New York City, there is a pizza place practically on every block.  I’ve been to many of the well known, highly rated pizza joints but have not yet found the one favorite place.  There are a few places that I think could be the one, but I feel like I have to check out a few more contenders before I can be sure.  It’s so easy to eat pizza here because many places sell them by the slice, but for me, I like to share a big pie and enjoy it with someone else.  To me, pizza is a group oriented activity.  When I think of sleepovers, study groups, and pool parties, pizza is always there.  Maybe that’s why I don’t like getting a slice by myself.  It makes me feel a little bit lonely.

 

 

A few days ago, a couple of my old friends and I had a mini reunion.  Some of them just recently moved to New York and others were visiting.  It was a really great opportunity to catch up and a good group to enjoy pizza with.  There were hundreds of pizza joints to choose from, but I decided to go with Otto Enoteca Pizzeria in Greenwich Village.  I have long been a fan of Mario Batali’s and love his restaurant Lupa.  But, I think my expectations were a little too high.

From the beginning, something was a little off.  Our waiter was very unfriendly and rather grumpy.  I’m usually not one to be really critical of the wait staff because I know, from personal experience, how hard it is to be a server.  But that night, everything was very unpleasant.  Our waiter was very impatient with us as we ordered.  He never checked up on us after our food arrived, even though he walked by our table over a dozen times.  Our cups were empty the entire meal and we all felt like he was purposely ignoring us when we tried to call him.  Anyhow, it wouldn’t be fair to say that the entire restaurant’s service was horrible, but this guy did not represent very well.

 

  

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Tiramisu Cake

I really love baking for birthdays.  Cakes, cupcakes, frosting, sprinkles, piping…is there anything more delightful than that?  My cakes never turn out as pretty and whimsical as I imagine them, but I try not to let that get to me, it’s all part of the fun.  I do though get stressed out a little bit before I start baking, when I’m trying to decide what cake to bake. There are so many different recipes out there and so many resources to get them from, that I find it overwhelming to say the least.

There is a sort of thought process that I go through when a birthday starts to approache.  I first think of what kind of sweets or desserts this person likes and try to create a list of flavor profiles like: chocolate and strawberries, or lemon and almonds.  Then I start the “research.”  I look everywhere.  I go to food blogs, the Food Network, my cookbooks, magazines, and I also go to the bookstore where I grab any cake/baking book I can see and look through each one of them.  This thought process lasts for hours, days, sometimes even weeks and in the end I usually end up with two or three recipes that I like.  There’s always one cake candidate that models the flavor profile list pretty well, while the others are more geared towards something I would like or something I think would taste amazing.  I mean, don’t some people say you should give a gift you would like for yourself? Well, in the end I usually do the right thing, and pick the right cake.

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