Too much of a good thing: a lesson in overindulging

I started my new job last week and celebrated by seriously overindulging--not in celebratory drinks, but in food. My new schedule is much more flexible and I went a little crazy taking advantage of all the food events around town. As with any bender, the details started to get a little hazy after a few days and things that seemed like a good idea at the time ended up being, well, somewhat less than satisfying.

It started on Wednesday at NGI. Class was Grain Practicum 2, or Things to Make with Cooked Grains So You're Not Always Serving a Big Pile of Cooked Grains--Plus Risotto. The main variations were cakes (baked, broiled or fried), stews and salads. Risotto isn't really a secondary cooking method, but more of an alternate method of cooking rice, and the school has developed a lovely method for making brown rice "risotto" by using a pressure cooker to blast through the bran. It was a bit of a minefield for me since many of the recipes called for shoyu, vinegar, onions, or beans (migraine triggers) or butter. I nibbled at the low-risk dishes, but made a critical error when I mistook the brown rice risotto for the vegan risotto my team had prepared. Rookie mistake.

Thursday was gray, rainy and miserable--perfect for an outing to Ellis Island and a charity dinner for Molly O'Neill's One Big Table and the New York Harbor Conservancy. The panel featured Ms. O'Neill, the legendary Calvin Trillin, Judge George Chew, Food Network Star Aarti Sequeria, and Chef Iliana de la Vega. My history lesson for the day was the impact that the 1965 Immigration Act had on America's melting pot. Once quotas were lifted, the influx of legal immigrants meant traditional cuisines could be served without catering to mainstream tastes. And so the quest for authenticity began--or as Molly O'Neill put it, from melting pot to tossed salad. The food was actually quite good, and plenty for me to enjoy: Kansas fried chicken, South Carolina pulled pork sliders, NY-Persian kebabs, Maine lobster rolls, Saigon-Biloxi shrimp, and New Orleans wood-fired oysters. Looking forward to exploring more recipes.

Friday (really?), well let's just say officially marked me as either a glutton for punishment of a punisher for gluttony. Friday was another book panel, this time in Brooklyn, for Primal Cuts, Marissa Guggiana's mash-note to the reviving art of butchery. The panel--Tom Mylan of the Meat Hook, Andrew Dorsey of Marlow & Daughters, Mike Yezzi of Flying Pigs Farms--spoke thoughtfully about the challenges in reviving a lost craft and the broader implications of our weakened food infrastructure on safety. I don't know if it was the seriousness of the subject or the hour or the weather, but although there was clear pride in their work, there didn't seem to be a lot of joy. Beleaguered, I would say. Anyway, the food was amazing in the way only pasture-raised meat can be: pork rillon, perfectly cooked steak, duck rillets, pork pate. And that's probably what got me. All meat, no veg, and a dangerous attraction to rillets and pates. I should really know better.

From there, well like I said, the details get foggy. Saturday class was seitan (all hail!). I'm glad to know this mystery ingredient better--wheat kneaded to a properly gluten-ous consistency and then rinsed of remaining starches--but I stayed well away from the marinated protein. It looked remarkably meaty. I might actually try a make-and-serve version one day.

Sunday was a class on the Healing Kitchen, at-home herbal remedies. I'll probably find lots of good info in my notes once my head is unstuffed enough to look at them.

Ugh, food hangover. Prescribing myself simple, home-cooked meals for at least a week and I'll try to pace myself from now on.