Beefy Ribs by the Pool
Plus: Roasted Chicken Thighs with Cherry Tomatoes, Saying Goodbye to Our Apartment, and Alex Jung on Lunch Therapy.
Hey everyone,
We’re currently in a holding pattern. And as holding patterns go, this is as good as it gets. We’re staying at Craig’s aunt and uncle’s house in Topanga Canyon and if California were trying to make one last argument for us to stay, this would be it. The backyard looks like Tuscany, there’s a pool, and the kitchen is enormous with light pouring in. And since it’s a bit hidden away from restaurants, etc., I’ve been cooking up a storm since we got here on Friday.
Before we get to all the cooking, you’re probably wondering how our move went. Well: it went great! Luckily, street cleaning day was happening on Friday, so the moving truck could park right in front of our place. We left the movers to do their work and a few hours later, we came back to an empty apartment.
So strange how a room that held so much life now just looks like any empty space. I suppose there’s something symbolic about that; how everything is transitory? How a space comes alive through the energy you bring to it? How a chair is just a chair if no one’s sitting there? (Cue Burt Bacharach.)
Now we’re in the in-between: a week in Topanga, then a week in PTown, and then our big arrival in Boerum Hill. Will Liza Minnelli be there to greet us? Can that be arranged?
I’m currently brushing up on my NYC restaurant knowledge, once again reading the Tables for Two column in The New Yorker and Pete Wells’ reviews in the NYT. I’m also enjoying “The Year I Ate New York” in New York Magazine by Alex Jung, who happens to be my patient on this week’s Lunch Therapy.
We talk about everything from the $98 lobster pasta at Bad Roman to the Korean soup he makes for himself to heal his body from all of that eating. We also cover the ethical question of going to restaurants whose chefs have shady reputations, which led to this chat about Chick-Fil-A:
It’s a great talk so do yourself a favor and listen to it on Spotify or on Apple podcasts and be sure to like and subscribe.
Now let’s get to the food.
Yesterday our friends Stephen and Stefan came to hang out at the pool and I cooked up a delightful dinner of beefy ribs with BBQ sauce and a quick thrown-together coleslaw.
The recipe comes from the NYT, but it’s so simple, it’s almost not a recipe. Preheat your oven to 300. Line a cookie sheet with foil. In a bowl, mix together 1 tablespoon garlic powder, 1 tablespoon onion powder, 2 teaspoons smoked paprika, 1 tablespoon fine sea salt, 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper. Take four pounds of beef back ribs, rub them with a little olive oil, then sprinkle the spices all over them.
Cover the ribs with more foil (you want to seal them in) and cook in the oven for three hours. When they come out, they’ll look good enough to eat.
But you’re not done! Brush them with 1/2 cup of store-bought BBQ sauce (I used Stubb’s), pop ‘em back into a 350 oven for 20 more minutes (keep an eye on them so they don’t burn), and voila. Your guests will be dazzled.
As for the chicken thigh dish that I made, I riffed on this recipe from Food & Wine.
Really, you can just click that link and that’ll tell you everything you need to know. Craig requested asparagus which felt a little out of season (like wearing white after Labor Day), but these fat spears at Gelson’s changed my mind. I just sautéed them in olive oil with garlic, added water to steam them a bit, and spooned some of the chicken pan sauce on top.
Here are some links to amuse you:
If I don’t get Liza Minnelli to greet me with “New York, New York,” I want Deb to greet me with these raspberry streusel muffins (Smitten Kitchen);
Making baguettes from scratch? Are you nuts? (NYT);
Barbie Girl in the style of six classical composers (Kottke.org);
Alex Jung’s review of Hakka Cuisine in Chinatown (Grub Street).
That’s all for this week, folks!
Now it’s time to sell my car.
Until next time….
Your friend,
Adam
The barbecue lunch looked so tasty. Sorry I could not join you, London U.K. is just a tad too far for a lunch invite.
Seeing your empty home shows how much of a footprint we create with our personal effects and our ‘being there’.