I love you, olive oil.

I had a revelation last week while sitting down to my regular lunch salad. I was spooning out olive oil from a plastic portion cup that I'd filled upstairs in the company cafeteria when I thought to myself, "I should bring in my own olive oil." It was that simple. For some reason it had never occurred to me to buy a nice tasting olive oil and keep it at my desk. Duh.

On Saturday morning, I found myself at The Garden, a food market in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I needed to pick up some grainy mustard for my braised Easter rabbit and right next to the mustards was a lovely selection of oils. I scanned the shelves and picked one based on it's size (small,) it's price (affordable,) and it's container (convenient.) I liked that it came in a tin, but just 500 ml not a giant 5 liter size. It was a Sicilian olive oil and the tin specifically mentioned that it was "Top Quality" and would have a "Fruity Taste."

Perfect.

When I sat down with my salad today for lunch, I reached for my tin of Partanna Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I popped up the plastic pour spout and drizzled a reasonable amount over my salad of kale, parsley, bibb lettuce, orange bell peppers, kalamata olives and sliced steak. The nozzle of the pour spout let out only a thin, controlled stream of oil and didn't drip! I keep kosher salt and a mini pepper grinder at my desk so I seasoned my salad with both of those and then took the first bite. Yum! Fruity, grassy and herbaceous - it was a huge improvement over the dull, vaguely olive-flavored oil I'd been getting from the cafeteria.


I did a quick Google search, but didn't find much about Partanna other than where to buy it. Then I went to their website, which was in Italian. I hit the Translate button, and here, for your enjoyment, is a little snippet of what I found:

Twelve reasons to use olive oil
Do not make you fat, it helps the harmonious development of children, facilitates the intestinal absorption of vitamins, aids digestion and regulates the amount of cholesterol in the blood.These are just some of the properties of olive oil, the 'king of the Mediterranean diet.

If you're interested, the full 12 reasons are listed here.

Out to Lunch: Cha Pa's

I'm always on the lookout for phở joints in New York City. So when I heard about Cha Pa's opening in my work neighborhood, I put it on my lunchtime to-do list. A good bowl of phở within walking distance of my office would be a great find.

I asked Leila from our e-Strategy group to come along. I don't know her that well, but she's a winker and I like that. Wink, wink!

Before I started pushing my agenda, I asked her if she had any favorite places for lunch. She turned the question back to me, and when I mentioned that I usually go out for Asian food she jumped all over it.  She said she basically has never had Vietnamese and very little Thai food. Her only experience with Asian is Chinese food - which of course, is everywhere in NYC, but usually of questionable quality.

So Cha Pa's was on. We had a little wait for a table, and then we got down to business. A Tasting Table email had mentioned a rich Vietnamese stew, bo kho, at the affordable price of $4.25 for an appetizer-sized bowl. We also found banh mi on the menu, so the trifecta was complete: my standby - phở, a treat - banh mi, and the bonus of something new to try - the beef stew. We agreed to split everything.

I decided to break my no caffeine after noon rule and ordered us each a ca phe sua da - literally translated: big glass of coffee deliciousness. Actually, it's a French-style drip of strong coffee over condensed milk, which you stir up and pour over ice. Yay, culinary colonialism!

The stew arrived. You know how you book an amazing hotel for your vacation and then you show up and it's kind of a shithole? Yeah, the stew didn't look anything like the photos in the brochure. It was actually pretty tasty, but very greasy and not nearly as rich and luxurious as advertised. Or maybe Tasting Table just went on a better day?

The phở arrived. We had asked for an extra bowl, but some considerate cook did us a favor and split the order into two separate servings. I appreciate this, because it would have been kind of a pain in the ass to try to split up all the noodles and meat. A bowl of phở is a personal experience - you start with the same base of noodles, broth and meat, but add in sprouts, basil, hoisin, chili sauce and lime to your liking. Detailed phở-eating info here. Cha Pa's had a nicely flavored broth and the noodles were a good  thickness and cooked just right: still slightly firm when served so they didn't end up mushy by the end. In this photo I haven't added anything yet or stirred up the noodles:

Did I mention that we also ordered a banh mi? It was pretty good, but we were both getting full. Leila really loved the phở and the meal in general - success!

Over lunch I pestered Leila with lots of questions. Here's what I learned about my co-worker that I didn't know: She moved to New York from the Dominican Republic 10 years ago with her husband Emmanuel and her daughter, Maria, who is about to turn 12. They live in the Kingsbridge neighborhood in the Bronx. Leila likes to cook at home, and she usually makes things like chicken, beans and rice, plantains, salads and vegetables. She told me that she often uses a pilón - basically a mortar and pestle - to mash up garlic with salt and oregano for flavoring meat. You can also use it to mash green plantains for mofongo, the pork and plantain dish from Puerto Rico. Fun!

Thanks for a nice lunch, Leila!

Cha Pa's Noodles & Grill
314 West 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019
212.956.9300
www.chapasnyc.com

Two-Week Detox Diet: I made it!

Whew.

I made it through the wilderness... Somehow I made it through-oo-oo!

That's right, as of today, my two-week detox, cleanse, diet, plan, whatshamacallit is officially complete. I needed to do this because I've been on an eating bender. Imagine that - a food lover loves to eat food. A lot. I wish I was one of those high-metabolism, skinny foodie girls who seem to be able to eat and eat and never gain a pound. Just doesn't seem fair, but I am what I am. If I want to sample all the glorious food this world has to offer, I have to work at staying, well, not gigantic. I'll never be thin - I've just got the wrong genetic makeup.

By the way, I lost 8 pounds! Hip-hip-hooray! I know, it's easy to take off the first 10, but still, let's celebrate life's small victories. Those 8 were making it hard to button my jeans. Today? Jeans buttoned. They're big jeans, but goddamn it, they're buttoned.

The detox diet is something I've done in varying versions before. In 2008, I did a very strict two week "Fat Flush" from a book my mom gave me about detoxing the liver and lymphatic system, a side effect of which happened to be weight loss. Nice, felt healthy, too, not just low-cal. Even earlier, I tried a 5-day detox that nearly killed me - in addition to the usual suspects, I completely gave up both salt and caffeine. If you are addicted to caffeine I don't recommend going cold turkey. The two-day migraine was almost unbearable. And I didn't have my other best friend, salt, to comfort me! In fact, my diet was supposed to be 7 days, but I couldn't imagine foregoing coffee on the weekend. I hope that I never face a life-threatening need to give up my morning joe. After quitting cigarettes, can't I at least have this one vice? Thanks.

For this iteration of my semi-annual detox, I went with a version of the Fat Flush Plan that I did in 2008, but modified to allow me to a.) continue my 4 days/week workouts and b.) didn't drive me crazy with denial. You can do anything for a limited amount of time, right? Wrong. See above under "caffeine addict." So I modified my plan to ensure success. Here's a partial list of my self-imposed "dos and don'ts":

*no sugar
*no dairy
*no alcohol (my cheat here was red wine - I had one glass on each of the two weekends)
*no wheat, potatoes, corn or rice
*no beans
*minimal salt & olive oil
*yes flax oil
*yes unlimited veggies
*yes lean proteins
*limited eggs
*tofu once/week
*per day: 1 cup of 100% cranberry juice diluted into two liters of water, sweetened with stevia
*2 servings of fruit/day

Does this seem sort of intimidating? It's a lot of work, but I never felt starved. I did have some carb cravings around the middle of the second week, so I satisfied the urge by treating myself to some oven-baked sweet potato fries and that did the trick.

Daily meal plan and recipes after the break: