Posted by Ed Levine, November 14, 2006 at 6:45 AM
WHERE ARE YOU GETTING YOUR THANKSGIVING PIES THIS YEAR?
I once wrote a piece for the New York Observer advocating the nation skip the turkey, stuffing, and sweet potatoes, and opt for an all pie Thanksgiving meal. A meal consisting of, say, half a dozen pies would indeed be one that serious eaters would be thankful for.
To encourage serious eaters everywhere to take up my all pie Thanksgiving cause I am going to try to guide readers and users to the best pies available, both in New York, via mail order, and elsewhere (later this week)...
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Posted by Ed Levine, November 12, 2006 at 9:11 PM
Traverse City Pie Company: TCPC not only still makes all their magnificent Michigan cherry pies by hand, but its other pies are also pretty damned fine. If you don't live in close proximity to a great pie, a shipped TCPC pie is the way to go.
Julian Pie Company: Who know that the town of Julian, Ca. is mecca for West Coast apple pie lovers? These guys also ship, and if their pies are not quite up to TCPC standards, they're a close second.
Posted by Ed Levine, November 12, 2006 at 8:24 AM
A BY CITY GUIDE TO THANKSGIVING PIES
I once wrote a piece for the New York Observer advocating the nation skip the turkey, stuffing, and sweet potatoes, and opt for an all pie Thanksgiving meal. A meal consisting of, say, half a dozen pies would indeed be one that serious eaters would be thankful for.
To encourage serious eaters everywhere to take up my all pie Thanksgiving cause I am going to try to guide readers and users to the best pies available, both in New York and elsewhere.
First New York:
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Posted by Ed Levine, October 2, 2006 at 1:00 PM
Although I have always vowed not to give ELE a bite by bite description of everything I eat, this past weekend I had so much good food I feel compelled to tell all of you about every incredibly delicious bite I took:
Friday 6 p.m.: A fantastic white pie at the Totonno's at 26th St. and Second Ave. Anyone who thinks the only way to get a great Totonno's pie is to go to Coney Island is just plain wrong.
Saturday 1 p.m.: I went with a couple of friends to the Red Hook Soccer Fields, where we proceeded to eat at every stall. The Red Hook Soccer Fields are one of those life-changing NY food experiences: great home cooks from many Latin American countries cooking for the rest of us. Real food, honest food, in an incomparable setting. I will have lots more to say this week on this not-to-be-missed experience, and I would urge all of you to go this weekend to the corner of Bay and Clinton Streets in Red Hook.
Sunday 1 p.m.: I bought my mother-in-law lunch from Bouchon Bakery. The sandwiches (a roast beef and a turkey) were disappointing (rolls didn't seem fresh, turkey too peppery, flavorless roast beef), but the sweets I brought made my mother-in-law amd me very happy: two chocolate bouchons, one incredible nutter butter cookie (or whatever it is they call their incredible peanut butter cookie), and a coffee eclair that was good but not worth the $3.75 price tag.
Sunday 7 p.m.: I bought a first-rate Eli's apple pie to bring to Calvin Trillin's house for dinner. As I exited Eli's I bought a cup of terrific vanilla ice cream and a cup of equally good grapefruit sorbet from Eli's sidewalk gelateria.
At Trillin's we had some amazing pimientos de Padron, small, vaguely smokey and only occasionally hot peppers, flash-fried and salted. Then Trillin brought out the big guns: boiled pork and chive dumplings from Super Taste on Eldridge Street. Best dumplings I've ever had in my life; remarkably delicate wrappers, porky filling with a slightly roughhewn texture, and something that gave the dumpling a vaguely sweet taste.
Trillin knows more about where to find great food in Chinatown than anyone else I know. He is also one of our greatest writers, whether he's writing about food or politics or anything else. "Bud" Trillin is, as I've said before, a national treasure. If you don't already own The Tummy Trilogy and Feeding a Yen (which contains his story on the above-mentioned peppers) them log on to Amazon and buy them immediately.
For dessert, the apple pie, a friend's very fine flourless chocolate cake with whipped cream, and melon sorbet and hazelnut gelato from Cones on Bleecker Street. More about Trillin's Chinatown favorites will be coming in a separate post.
Posted by Ed Levine, August 25, 2006 at 8:33 AM
With local berries and stone fruit appearing at farmer's markets all over the tri-state area, a man's attention turns to pie.
Real pie, doublecrusted pie, the crust made with some combination of shortening, lard, and butter. The mark of a great pie maker is his or her ability to make a great doublecrusted fruit pie. Don't get me wrong, I love crumb pies and meringue pies and cream pies as well. It's just that a perfectly flaky doublecrusted pie, with the bottom crust golden brown instead of gummy, the fruit tender and not goopy or too runny, is a thing of beauty, and mighty delicious as well.
So without further adieu my top five NYC pie bakers:
Yura: Yura goes by one name, like a rock star or a supermodel. She can get away with that because her pies are so damn good. I serve her ready to bake apple pie at Thanksgiving, and unless you're one of those persons who insist on making their own pies, you should, too.
Sweet Melissa's: Melissa Murphy Hagenbart first became known for her delicious butterscotcch pudding when she was the pastry chef at Home on Cornelia Street a zillion years ago. She started selling extraordinary Thanksgiving pies outside the side door of the restaurant around that time, and she's just kept on going. She's got two bakeries now, one on Houston Street and the other on Court Street in Carroll Gardens (it takes guts to open a bakery in Carroll Gardens and not sell cannolis), and her pies are still very serious indeed.
Two Little Red Hens: I know I kvelled over their cheesecake in the Times and their birthday cakes on my blog, but Christina Winkler and her partner Mary Louise Clemens just flat out know how to make great homey baked goods using terrific ingredients and ferocious culinary curiousity and passion.
Mitchel London Foods: Mitchel London is an eccentric to be sure, but the man flat out knows how to make great food. His apple pies are towering beauties, filled with firm fruit and just enough cinammon and sugar. Sometimes his all butter crust isn't quite as flaky as I would like.
Little Pie Company : The place has gone a bit corporate in recent years, and the sour cream apple streusel pie, while still being pretty good, has become a cliche, but these guys still make a mean double-crusted pie. The crust is flaky and light, the fruit doesn't drip out of pie like a waterfall, and the bottom crust is usually just as brown as the top.
I know I've probably missed somebody, but I gotta go.
P.S. I know we all like to think of all these farmer mothers and grandmothers making great pies that their sons and daughters schlep to the city farmer's markets, but invariably I have been disappointed by pies I've bought at farmer's markets. That's why I always say let farmers grow and bakers bake.
Posted by Ed Levine, November 17, 2005 at 1:40 PM
Given that I read on-line every major newspaper's Thanksgiving-obsessed food section this past Wednesday on SauteWednesday, I feel compelled to share with all of you my Thanksgiving menu.
I buy an Eberly Farms Organic Turkey and brine it overnight. This year I hope to avoid last year's catastrophe, which resulted from buying a cheap styrofoam cooler to brine the bird in. The cooler broke and there was a flood of salty brine water all over our kitchen.
Other years I've bought Kosher turkeys and Murray's free-roaming turkeys, and had good luck with both of those as well. Just try to avoid buying a Butterball. They have a strange unnatural taste, probably from the crap that is injected into them. The most fashionable turkey to buy this year is a heritage bird. They're much more expensive than even my organic bird, but they do have a more intense and distinct flavor. If you like dark meat, this is the bird for you. If you haven't ordered one by now, you're probably out of luck. Every website that is selling them appears to be sold out.
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Posted by Ed Levine, October 15, 2005 at 2:19 PM
So how were the desserts? Well, it was hard to judge the banana coconut cream pie from the Little Pie Company because my wife managed to flip the pie upside down as she carried it into our host's house. So it instantly became a banana coconut cream pudding with pieces of crust dispersed throughout. But it was really good pudding. The chocolate ganache cake from Soutine was impossible to cut cleanly, but the external bittersweet chocolate glaze was excellent if a little thick, the chocolate ganache inside was obscenely rich, and the cake was surprisingly dry and crumbly. The real surprise of the three was the coconut cake from Greenberg's coconut cake. The icing was coconut-flavored whipped cream (yum!) and the cake was light and moist. I had thought Greenberg's had gone precipitously downhill ever since the founding Greenberg family sold the business ten (?) years ago, but this was a damn fine cake.
I bought all three desserts as research for my next big New York Times piece, which is going to be on neighborhood bakeries.
Posted by Ed Levine, October 14, 2005 at 2:20 PM
I was asked to bring dessert to a dinner party tonight. I went a little crazy, buying three desserts from three bakeries. I was in Grand Central Station , so I went down to the food court on the lower level and bought a banana cream coconut pie from the Little Pie Company . In general I like but don't love LPC pies , but the banana coconut cream pie is pretty fine. My second spot was Soutine , the postage-stamp-sized bakery on West 70th Street. There I bought a prettily decorated chocolate cake with a chocolate ganache filling. Then I went to the new branch of Greenberg's on 76th and Broadway, where I bought a small coconut cake.
I'll post again after I try each one.
