HURRICANE SANDY FRANKENSTORM New York

Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis Getting COFFEE

The Importance of Coffee .  It's really up there. High on The Importance Scale that is. Most people wouldn't think about it that much, they love it, their morning coffee, but it's probably just one of those things, you do it every day and so much, you don't think about. Hey, but take that coffee away, and believe me you will.

On the evening of October 30, 2012 a Hurricane hit New York, and hit us hard. It was Hurricane Sandy the biggest hurricane to ever hit New York City. It caused much destruction with its hurricane force winds, flooding and the Atlantic literally sweeping homes away, in New York and New Jersey. In New York, Staten Island and The Rockaways got hit the hardest, many people losing their homes.

In Manhattan we didn't have it quite as bad, but things did happen. I was back in my apartment in Greenwich Village after spending the day out at two separate trips to Caffe Reggio on Macdougal Street and a stop at Bar Pitti for a little lunch and a chit chat with Giovanni. Caffe Reggio and Bar Pitti were two of only a few businesses to stay open new my house. Well after my second trip of the day to Caffe Reggio where I spent 2 hours each trip it was back to my apartment at around 8 O'Clock. I was watching TV, Hurricane New Coverage of course when about 8:55 PM my lights started flickering. Oh No I said. But the lights stayed on. Five minutes later they were off. That ws it, we lost Power. Well I wasn't gonna stay alone in the dark. I got dressed and went downstairs to see if Bar Pitti was still open. Hell Yeah! They were. They were open, the lights when out, and the Emergency Battery Powered Lights that all restaurants, bars, and most buildings are required to have. Apartment buildings are required to have them in the hallways. We have them in my building. Guess what? They weren't working. No big deal, I had my flashlight. Anyway, they had lights at Bar Pitti, food, wine, and gas to fire the stoves. I had a bowl of soup and a glass of wine, hung out with Giovanni (the Owner of Bar Pitti and a friend) and the waiters, we chit-chatted, drank wine, and listened to the news. Apparently we lost power because a Con Edison Power Sub-Station on 14th Street was flooded from waters from the Hudson River over flowing the banks from the storm surge. The transformers inside blew-up, and the power went off. Well the power was off below 39th Street that is. Everyone above 39th Street had power (Lucky SOBs), we didn't.

So I Hung out with Giovanni and the boys at Bar Pitti for two hours. The batteries finally died on Bar Pitti's Emergency Lights, it was 11:30 and time to go home. Boy that was a Godsend having Bar Pitti open and a place to go for a couple hours, kill some time and be with people.

So I went back to my house. I listened to the news on this massive Hurricane on my iPod-Touch until the batteries died, and was bummed that I didn't have batteries for my portable Radio, which would have been a big thing to have. I did try to get batteries before the storm hit, but every place was out of size D batteries, so I couldn't.

Well I fell asleep sometime around 1 Am I think. I got up at 8:30 .. No electricity and no hot water, but I did have gas and cold water, so I boiled water and took a sponge bath, made a good ol Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich, got dressed and went outside to see what was going on. I made a beeline to Caffe Dante, then Once Upon a Tart and all nearby delis to see if anyone was open and selling Coffee. I didn't have any power at home, no TV, no Radio, but I wanted my morning Coffee, there was none to be found. I walked over to Cornelia Street and saw my buddy Jimmy B and Charlie outside. We BSed for about 15 minutes and I told jimmy I was heading Uptown were there was Power. I figured I go find a Starbucks above 39th Street get a Coffee and maybe power up my Cel Phone and Laptop, if possible. I don't really like Starbucks (too Commercial) but I'm gonna tell you in a minute why I can't stand those SOB's now and how they let New Yorkers Down during Hurricane Sandy.

So I said my good-byes to Jimmy and Charlie, wished them well and started making my way up town. It was raining lightly as I made my way up 6th Avenue in Greenwich Village. I was heading uptown in search of Coffee, Food, and Electricity. I had been walking about 10 minutes when i came across a newly opened Coffee Shop (In the old Joe's Diner space on 6th and 12th) that was open and selling Coffee. Right On! I got a coffee, sat down and relaxed. that was nice. I sat there about 12 minutes chatting with people about the storm, this-and-that.

After about 12 minutes relaxing at the coffee shop and sipping coffee, I was on my way again in search of food and electricity and more coffee. As I walked up 6th Avenue, you'd see someone every now and then holding a cup of coffee, or several cups, and people would go up yo them and ask "Where'd you get the Coffee?" Everyone wanted Coffee, and people started realizing just how important and meaningful that little cup of Java is in their lives, especially when you can't get it. You realize!

Well that day I had quite an Odyssey, and Odyssey in Search of Coffee and Electricity. The Odyssey took me from my neighborhood (Best in The City) of Greenwich, up above 39th Street and Midtown, in search of you know what. Well I'm not one of the masses who loves Starbucks, for me it's just the opposite. I don't like Starbucks and avoid it like the plague. Starbucks is the McDonalds of coffee shops and I've always preferred one-of-a-kind independently owned Cafes, and I've been going to them way before the first Starbucks opened its doors. Now, that, said, I do go to them now and then, but just out of convenience when there is no other better alternatives around. Starbucks does come in handy. Anyway, this day I was actually looking to specifically go to a Starbucks. I didn't know which one, but I did want to go to Starbucks that day. Yes, no electricity below 39th Street and my plan was to walk up to Midtown, above 39th, find a Starbucks that was opened, get a coffee and hopefully be able to get a Electrical Outlet and charge my Cel-Phone battery and maybe my Laptop. I knew that everyone else would want to be charging up but at least I'd get a nice hot cup of coffee. "Not!" I walked all around, passed about 10 Starbucks, and guess what? Not a one was open. OK, my usual Cafes in my neighborhood of Greenwich Village / Soho we not open. They couldn't, we had "No Electricity" downtown, that's why I went uptown, they had electricity and there should be some Starbucks open, "Not," again. There wasn't a one open. Those "Bastards" let us down. Starbucks, SOBs! OK, I realize there was a Hurricane and some people maybe couldn't get to work. OK. But with more than 50 Starbucks above 39th Street those "No Good SOB's" should have been able to organize some skeleton-crews and open at least a few Starbucks in a time when New Yorkers Needed Starbucks most, those SOB's let us down. Yes, "Starbucks Let New York and New Yorkers Down." They could have opened a few of their shops, when the comfort of hot Coffee and a place to go would have been so greatly appreciated, it would have been like a great Public Service to New Yorkers, but No, "Stabucks Let New Yorkers Down" when we needed them most, Starbucks was not there for us, New Yorkers. OK, enough of this already, I hate those Bastards, and will never forget when we needed them most, "Starbucks Let New Yorkers Down."

  Now, back to my great odyssey. OK, no Dam Starbucks like I planned. I'd have to find some other options. Well, now that I think about it, maybe Starbucks did me a favor, as my options turned out way better than any time spent at that "Giant Commercial Sanitized Conglomerate Stabucks" could have ever been. So I looked all over for a Starbucks to go to, didn't find a one, they were "all Closed," SOB's! So I'm in midtown I figure I might as well go over to my workplace, maybe someone is around. So I walk over to East 49th, get to my job, nobody is around. OK? It's near the Waldorf so I figure let me go over there, Cha-Ching !!! I hit pay-dirt! The Waldorf is open, and it's jumpin, people are all over the lobby, sitting  in chairs or on the floor (nice comfortable thick Rug) and they're "all Plugged-In), their laptops and cel phone. Right on! I do the same. Found a free outlet and plugged in. My laptop first, then my cel.

to be CONTINUED

CAFFE REGGIO

DURING FRANKENSTORM

HURRICANE SANDY October 29 , 2012

Watch The VIDEO

ONE MAN'S FRANKENSTORM

HURRICANE SANDY ODESSEY

NEW YORK , NY

I Begin My HURRICANE SANDY ODESSY

Walking around GREENWICH VILLAGE and Soho

Before headig up to Mid Town to get COFFEE . Food ?

A place to hang (The ALGONQUIN HOTEL and WA:DORF ASTORIA)

and to Charge the Batteries of my Cel Phone and Laptop Computer

It was quite the day.

Author Daniel Bellino Zwicke

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The BIG LEBOWSKI COOKBOOK

GOT ANY KAHLUA ?

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Thanksgiving Bread Stuffing Recipes

   

Classic Bread Stuffing for Thanksgiving

   

RECIPE

INGREDIENTS :

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted Butter plus more for baking dish

1 pound good-quality day-old white bread, torn into 1-inch pieces (about 10 cups)

2 1/2 cups chopped yellow onions

1 1/2 cups 1/4-inch slices celery

1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf Parsley

2 tablespoons chopped fresh Sage

1 tablespoon chopped fresh Rosemary

1 tablespoon chopped fresh Thyme

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground Black Pepper

2 1/2 cups low-sodium Chicken Broth, divided

2 large Eggs

Preheat oven to 250°. Butter a 13x9x2-inch baking dish and set aside. Scatter bread in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake, stirring occasionally, until dried out, about 1 hour. Let cool; transfer to a very large bowl.

Meanwhile, melt 3/4 cup butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat; add onions and celery. Stir often until just beginning to brown, about 10 minutes. Add to bowl with bread; stir in herbs, salt, and pepper. Drizzle in 1 1/4 cups broth and toss gently. Let cool.

Preheat oven to 350°. Whisk 1 1/4 cups broth and eggs in a small bowl. Add to bread mixture; fold gently until thoroughly combined. Transfer to prepared dish, cover with foil, and bake until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of dressing registers 160°, about 40 minutes.

"EVERYTHING YOU WANTED to KNOW ABOUT STUFFING"

But Was Affraid to Ask ?

THE writer Maya Angelou has lived a long life and cooked a lot of turkeys, and one thing she doesn't mince is words.

Stuffing, she says, is really the point of the meal, isn't it?

For Thanksgiving cooks, a perfectly bronzed turkey is a challenge, and mashed sweet potatoes are a comfort, but stuffing is a labor of love.

Whether called stuffing or dressing, made with old crusts of corn bread or French-style pain au levain, moistened with Armagnac or applesauce, this unglamorous, gloriously flavored mixture is the true taste of Thanksgiving for many Americans. A passionate attachment to one's own family recipe, combined with a healthy suspicion of other stuffings, has become part of the holiday ritual.

"I make vats and vats of it, so there will be plenty for seconds and thirds and leftovers," said Susan Ott, an Iowa native who will celebrate Thanksgiving this year in Cornwall, Conn. "And I hate to go to anyone else's house for Thanksgiving, because I fear the stuffing will be weird."

Greg Danford of Burlington, Vt., recalled that "the first time I made oyster stuffing our family matriarch said that she didn't like food with surprises, asked me not to make it again and told me to stick to carving the turkey."

Continue Reading

In stuffing, as in politics, one American's tradition is another's abomination. Ingredients like oysters, chestnuts, giblets and raisins have long been subjects of fierce debate within families. But dozens of recent interviews with American cooks of all stripes revealed a surprising consensus: although the nation may find itself politically uneasy this Thanksgiving, most people now seem to agree that bread stuffing -- perhaps made with corn bread, probably with onion, possibly a little celery, sage and sausage -- has become the beloved national standard.

There remain, of course, some regional and ethnic variations in stuffing (dressing in the South). Maureen Stein, who grew up in an Irish-French family in the Canadian province of New Brunswick before moving to Queens in 1958, adds boiled potatoes and sarriette, or summer savory, to her recipe. Sheila Clark of Williamsbridge in the Bronx follows the same recipe that her great-grandmother did in Yamacraw Village outside Savannah, Ga., using ground beef, red peppers, onions, apples and raisins. Some Latino families and global-leaning cooks like Orin Herskovitz of Brooklyn use spicy sausages like chorizo or merguez instead of plain pork sausage.

Southern cooks, including Ms. Angelou, are still more likely to use corn bread. Lois Deane of Fayetteville, Ark., who is 91, has followed the same thrifty habit for 70-odd years.

"All year long I put the ends of the corn bread in a plastic sack and keep it in the freezer," she said. "Then at Thanksgiving I mix in some hoecake biscuits and use that for the stuffing."

Ms. Angelou, an Arkansan too, recommends precisely the same ratio of corn bread to white bread as Ms. Deane -- three to one -- to ensure a light mixture. "I think a heavy stuffing makes the turkey feel depressed," she said. Ms. Angelou, whose cookbook, "Hallelujah! The Welcome Table: A Lifetime of Memories With Recipes," has recently been published by Random House, has celebrated Thanksgiving in such far-flung spots as Ghana, Italy and Egypt, but she said she has always managed to make corn bread dressing, even if a turkey to stuff it into has sometimes been unobtainable. (Her stuffing, like the others mentioned here, can be cooked inside or outside the turkey.)

Some Americans, especially New Englanders, add oysters to their stuffing, obstinately following an 18th-century British fashion. Many admitted that they had made it only once, and were then subjected to ridicule and disappointment. But those who love it defend it fiercely. Christina Liao, who lives in Los Angeles, makes a luxurious dressing, almost a bread pudding, with corn bread, heavy cream, eggs, celery, onion and a pint of oysters. "I feel strongly that they add richness and flavor," she said. "My family is Chinese, so we love seafood."

When I tried her recipe on my own family, the response was unanimous: fantastic, except for the oysters. But I am mindful that our own family recipe, made with great ceremony every year by my uncle Julian M. Cohen, would be greeted with horror in many households, as it includes porcini mushrooms, Cognac, raisins and fresh rosemary.

Most cooks interviewed said they are happiest and get the fewest complaints from family and friends around the table when the stuffing they make is close to the classic bread stuffing.

And for new Americans, learning to love this stuffing seems to be part of the process of assimilation. Sasha Armandpour, who grew up in an Iranian family in Laguna Niguel, Calif., said: "The first year I hosted Thanksgiving, I thought it should reflect our heritage, so I stuffed the turkey with saffron rice, apricots and almonds. Everyone hated it. They said Thanksgiving is an American holiday, not an Iranian one."

Carleen Borsella of Park Slope, Brooklyn, whose Italian-American grandmother used to stuff the turkey with a combination of giblets, ricotta and raisins, said she now prefers the bread stuffing from "The Joy of Cooking," having suffered through a Stove Top period of family history.

American couples often have to reconcile competing stuffings as part of the ritual of bonding for the holidays. One Minneapolis woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid family discord, said she and her husband were so attached to their mothers' stuffing recipes that they had to alternate years at each table. "I hate my mother-in-law's stuffing -- she uses chestnuts -- and when I have to go to her house, I always stop off at my mother's on the way home," she said. "She leaves a container of stuffing in the refrigerator for me, and I eat it in the car."

Brooke Williams of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, whose family stuffing recipe called for pounds of pork sausage, was stumped the first time she had to feed her new husband's relatives, who keep kosher. "I had no idea how to make stuffing without sausage or ham in it," she said. "I had never heard of such a thing."

Out on the stuffing fringes is a tiny minority of Americans who have tried to make Thompson's Turkey, which calls for more than two dozen ingredients in the stuffing alone, including water chestnuts, crushed pineapple, poppy seeds, hot mustard and mace. Devised by Morton Thompson, the author of the 1954 novel "Not as a Stranger" (filmed as a medical melodrama starring Olivia de Havilland, Robert Mitchum and Frank Sinatra), the recipe runs to three single-spaced typed pages, with the stuffing ingredients helpfully divided into Bowl A, Bowl B and Bowl C.

"I got the recipe from my accountant, and I've made it every Thanksgiving for 25 years," said Elizabeth Lewin of Westport, Conn. "You just can't imagine what it's like."

The BADASS COOKBOOK

SECRET RECIPES

RICH CORN BREAD DRESSING 

6 1/2 ounces butter (13 tablespoons) 6 cups crumbled corn bread 6 cups torn crusty white bread, such as a baguette 2 cups chopped onion 2 cups chopped celery 1/2 to 1 teaspoon dried sage (optional) 2 teaspoons salt Black pepper 6 eggs, beaten 1 1/2 cups heavy cream 2 cups turkey or chicken broth 2 dozen shucked small oysters, with their liquid (optional).

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees, and butter a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Melt remaining butter. In a large bowl, combine corn bread, white bread, onion, celery, sage, salt and pepper to taste. Toss until well mixed. Add melted butter, eggs, cream and 1 1/2 cups broth. Toss in oysters, if using. Mix lightly but well; mixture should be very moist. 2. Turn mixture into prepared dish. If mixture seems dry around edges, drizzle on remaining broth. Bake 45 minutes to 1 hour, until firm and browned on top. Yield: 12 servings.

SAUSAGE STUFFING WITH SUMMER SAVORY 

2 tablespoons butter

Salt 4 medium-size russet potatoes, peeled

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 medium onions, chopped 2 large stalks celery, chopped 1 pound breakfast pork sausage meat, crumbled 2 cups cubes made from crusty white bread, such as a baguette, toasted

1 cup low-sodium or homemade chicken broth

Pepper 1 to 2 teaspoons dried summer savory.

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees, and butter a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. 2. Boil potatoes in salted water until just cooked through but still firm in center. When cool, cut into 1-inch dice. Set aside. 3. Melt remaining butter and oil together in large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and celery, and cook, stirring, until softened. Reduce heat if necessary to prevent browning. 4. Raise heat to medium-high, add sausage and cook, stirring, using a wooden spoon to break up clumps. When sausage has browned slightly add potatoes, and continue cooking until they are incorporated and slightly browned. Add bread cubes, and mix. 5. Add about half the broth, and mix. If needed, add more to soften bread cubes and to bind the stuffing together. Add salt and pepper to taste, and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon summer savory. Taste, and add more savory if desired. 6. Turn into buttered dish. If mixture seems dry, drizzle on remaining stock. Bake 30 to 40 minutes, until firm and crusty. (The stuffing is even better if mixed in advance, kept refrigerated and baked just before serving.) Yield: 10 to 12 servings.

CORN BREAD Time: 25 minutes

1 tablespoon plus 1/4 cup peanut or corn oil 1 cup coarse yellow cornmeal 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons sugar 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 eggs 1 cup buttermilk.

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Use 1 tablespoon oil to grease 9-inch square or round pan.

2. Combine dry ingredients in one bowl, and whisk wet ingredients in another. Combine, and stir together until batter is just moistened but not smooth. Spread into pan, and bake 15 to 20 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on rack. Yield: 8 to 10 servings.