Food Writer/Critic/Assistant to Gael Greene/Restaurant Consultant/Baby Mama eating to work and working to eat. Follow me on twitter @lrbloomberg.
Mom Appetit
What can I say? I forgot.
I wasn’t thinking about my dietary restrictions. I wasn’t considering if I’d have heartburn later and it never crossed my mind that dinner would keep me up all night. So when the lady at Xi’an famous food in Chinatown (the newer one on Bayard) brusquely asked if I wanted my “N1” — cumin lamb topped noodles — spicy. I nodded my head as I’d done hundreds of times when placing my order in the cramped quarters at the front of the shop. “I’ll have a chrysanthemum tea as well.”
Back at home on the couch I stretched the chewy, springy noodles (the most satisfying noodles in the city, in my humble opinion) from the round, flat plastic container to my mouth and uninhibitedly used both my chopsticks and fingers to expedite the process. I was too caught up in the rerun of The Newsroom to notice the hickups when they started. And by the time Will McEvoy and Mackenzie McHale’s weekly adversity was overcome and that large-foreheaded blonde chick was grinning alongside that dude from Slumdog Millionare who dates Freida Pinto I realized that I had full blown acid reflux. Then I started to gag. I was on my knees in the bathroom before I could take note if Gideon Yago was still being included in the closing credits (love that theme music by the way).
The moral of this story? Don’t eat spicy food while pregnant? Think more about what you eat? Or don’t get takeout Chinese food? I think I should have just taken advice from the paper sign posted at the restaurant. This food is not bullshit and next time, I’ll take my order not-spicy thank you very much.
Two years ago I wrote my very first ever published piece. Of course, she didn’t use my name (lame) but check out how far I’ve come: Fried Pickles on the Rise.
I convinced the Jewish Daily Forward blog to let me neuter chef recipes for the kosher kitchen. Now I’m heading to “Cocina” tonight to glom the real stuff: Kosherize This: Empellon Cocina’s Lobster Fundido.
“Hello stranger on the street, could you please tell me how to take care of my baby?” by Wendy Molyneux is hilariously awesome.
The Wall Street Journal says that I’m not the only prego who can’t score a seat on the subway.
Today’s amazing photo is courtesy of Dan Cretu via Food Republic.
Last night was what we call Family Night. That is, dinner out with The Husband’s best friend and his wife. A couple who’d been dating since high school when they were supposedly playing wing-people while her best friend and my husband played tonsil hockey. Something like that.
Anyway, our original plan was to head to the new Alex Raij (El Quinto Pino) spot La Vara but we somehow changed out plan to Rucola. When I tweeted that I was heading to Rucola I got such an overwhelming response of “meh” that we changed yet again to Colonie (are you following?). So off we went to Atlantic Avenue, to a cozy wood-flanked room — half-bar, half-dining room — to sample Brad McDonald’s cooking.
