gluten-free and spelt muffins from silver moon

i love an accommodating bakery. now hear me out. i also love a dedicated gluten/wheat/dairy/soy/refined sugar/insert other allergen or dietary preference here but once in a while, i just want to walk into your normal run of the mill bakery and be able to eat something. get ready for silver moon bakery. in addition to having all sorts of wheat and gluten filled baked goods, they have a daily spelt muffin AND a daily gluten-free muffin. that's two different daily muffins. as in everyday.

the day that one of each of these muffins were so kindly brought to my attention was spelt cranberry and gluten-free chocolate chip day. yum yum yum. and yes, i ate both of them. well, with some help. because really, i'm a sucker for a quality baked good. who isn't?

the spelt muffin was chewy, with a crispy top, delicious but one of the best parts about it was that it wasn't at all overly sweet. the plump cranberries were by far the sweetest part. the gluten-free muffin was a different story (but still delish). in addition to chocolate chips, there were golden raisins (at least, that's what i think they were), which really helped bind the muffin together. (probably helped avoid that whole crumbly gluten-free symptom).

julie & julia and a celebratory meal at takahachi

i finally read julie & julia sometime last winter, shortly after i had started my blog. the comparisons seemed obvious: she and her husband lived in a not-so-perfect apartment in long island city with a "challenging" kitchen, she had an unsatisfying corporate job, and learned to gain satisfaction through cooking.

the two on screen stories of julia child and julie powell finding their culinary paths are sweet and gratifying. i dragged two friends to a showing on opening day, purchased the tickets a couple of weeks in advance, and made them show up to the theater with plenty of time to spare (so we could get good seats!) it was all worth it. and i'm pretty sure we all cried at parts. if you like food at all, go see this movie. if you like julia child at all, go see this movie. if you've ever lived in new york or paris, go see this movie. and finally, if you don't qualify for any of the statements above, go see this movie.

i must say that i was relieved that i enjoyed the movie so much. i mean, who doesn't like julia child? and after such a good reading experience of julie's book, i was worried that the movie would come up short. but it didn't, which is why it deserved a celebratory dinner at one of my favorite restaurants: takahachi.


we started our meal with red miso duck (to julia!). i'm not much of a duck fan since i feel it's usually too fatty and gamy but this was the perfect occasion for it. it was good but the sauce was better: a thick rich and sweet miso. we continued with our always-ordered tried and true favorites: hamachi jalapeno and tako sunomono. the hamachi (yellowtail) slices were thick and fresh, and the sweetness of the fish went so well with the spicy, vinegary jalapeno topping. tako sunomono, also called tako su, is a vinegared salad of octopus, seaweed and cucumber slices. i have a total thing for vinegar which makes this dish so tasty to me; last supper component for sure.


we continued the meal with the amazing sushi special which consisted of three pieces of sushi: slightly seasoned tuna, briefly smoked salmon with avoacado and a smokey spicy mayo, and yellowtail with a spicy topping (more like habanero than jalapeno...) we rounded it all out with some salmon sashimi and a spicy scallop roll. i don't often go for the spicy rolls but the spicy scallop is a somewhat recent discovery for me. scallop is so smooth and sweet that again, so goes perfectly with the spiciness. even better, the spicy sauce was not overly mayo-ey here; just a slight layer of heat.

i absolutely consider takahachi one of the absolute best sushi places i've been to in manhattan (and i do my fair share of sushi eating). the prices are also totally reasonable for the high quality food that you'll find and eat.

new york fixtures

everyone has a couple of new york fixures in their life. these aren't items, they are people who are unique figures in the neighborhoods they occupy or in which they run their business. their regularity is comforting and they make people feel at home with their personality and quality offerings.


take ray, for instance, who works in a tiny hole-in-the-wall shop on avenue a. among my friends, he is known as the frozen yogurt man. others refer to his shop as the belgian fries place and still others refer to him more formally as ray alvarez of ray's candy store. when i lived nearby, in a shoebox apartment in the east village, my roommates and i would find any excuse we could to wander over for a late night/weekend afternoon/substitute for dinner treat. i would even trek over by myself during snow storms to get my froyo fix. after we moved away and into our own apartments boroughs away from each other, we would still meet there for froyo. because of my love for this shop and the memories i have, it scared me to hear recent news of ray's poor health and finances.

every time i loose one of these people or their livelihood is threatened, i feel as though the misfortune has happened to a close friend and someone who is actually part of my life. the news of joe ade's death this week was heartbreaking. if the name isn't familiar, he was the vegetable peeler man. you can probably recall seeing him sitting on a street corner, happily peeling away and belting out his sales pitch. he was one of those people who was a mainstay in the city-someone who was constantly around and made you smile every time you saw him. it isn't that ray or joe are taken for granted; it's just that you don't consider passing by without them being there. to me, it feel as though a part of my belonging to the city has been chipped away and i am forced to scramble to find a substitute.

"save ray" tshirts will be on sale at ray's candy store to benefit ray (or just go buy some yummy fries or froyo). a memorial for joe is planned for saturday. if you missed your chance to get a peeler, you can order them online.