Happy New Year

Happy 2010 y’all! It doesn’t seem possible that almost three months have passed since my last post, but here we are…the holidays are over and it’s January of the new decade. I always get a little sad around New Year’s. I love the holidays – the lights, the decorations, the music, the cheesy Christmas specials – and in NYC, the holidays are in overdrive (especially in Rockefeller Center/Radio City where I work). So it’s always a little depressing when January hits – when the lights come down and it’s just plain cold.

The holidays always seem to go by faster and faster every year – and this year was in warp speed – one reason why I didn’t realize that over two months have passed since the final Reel Tasty event. But there are other factors to blame – mainly this: Eric and I launched bean & apple in November (with big thanks to Matt Besch for creating the logo and to Kun Kim for getting the site live with his beautiful RTB pictures). While we’re not entirely sure what this will ultimately be, we created this brand to sell treats at the Greenpoint Food Market – a grassroots market held monthly in Brooklyn where food makers can present and share their home-craft goods. We’ve sold at this market twice – the first one…well, let’s just say it was a learning experience (e.g. we lost money because of our cab rides to and from Brooklyn). However, the second one – the weekend before Christmas – went quite well – covering our costs plus a decent amount more.

Here's what we've been selling:

• Salted chocolate-almond toffee
• Chocolate-almond toffee
• Hot fudge sauce
• Salted caramel sauce
• Oreo cookie cookies
• Chocolate caramel peanut cups with sea salt
• The "Just-Add-Ice Cream" kit (hot fudge, salted caramel and toffee crunch)

In addition to the Greenpoint Food Market, we also entered The Cookie Takedown in Brooklyn. The Takedown series was launched by Matt Timms – who started with chili but has expanded to bacon, fondue, salsa, and curry. My Reel Tasty partner Jason participated in the Lamb Takedown this summer and he convinced me to enter the Cookie Takedown with my not-exactly-famous Oreo cookie cookies. So, three hundred cookies and one exhausted oven later, Eric and I trekked through the aftermath of the first big snowstorm to the Gowanus area in Brooklyn.

Despite the snowdrifts, there were about 30 cookie participants, over 250 paying guests and guest judges from Time Out New York and Baked bakery in Red Hook. A list of the winners here, and note who came in second in the People’s Choice voting (Jason and his girlfriend Preethi came and I think that they did some serious lobbying on our behalf).

So although Reel Tasty Brooklyn is on a winter hiatus, there’s still been a lot of cooking going on during the past few months. In addition to the sweets, Eric and I hosted our first Thanksgiving meal – cooking up a feast for nine (granted, we had a lot of help from my parents and our neighbor Ross and his parents) with a showstopping delicious honey-thyme brined DiPaolo’s turkey. And over the past few days, I’ve been making lots of bread from the new Sullivan St. Bakery cookbook (I’m obsessed with their pizza Bianca and pecorino pizza).

Here’s to more good food in 2010!
Last night's dinner - the Sullivan St. Bakery's mushroom pizza