1) Korean style ramen (I buy the Nong Shin Ramyun brand which is ready available around here. It's spicy and delicious. Add an egg and scallions and you've got yourself a real meal.)
2) Soup lady on Mercer and Prince (good beef chili and beef stew)
3) Thoughts of Barack Obama*
4) Pantry and long lasting fridge items to make pasta with (anchovies, sun dried tomatoes, pine nuts, olives, onions, garlic, cans of Spanish tuna, cans of tomatoes and tomato sauce -Murray's has cans of San Marzano for $1.45, sardines, frozen bacon/meats, pancetta)
5) Episodes of The Office on DVD or off Amazon.
6) Stretching/yoga at home (It helps the crunchy, computer shoulders that have been stuffed into winter clothes.)
7) Food that conjures up warmer weather (Keralese fish curry/ Turkish chicken/Cuban sandwich).
8) A steady supply of clementines and broccoli (to boost your Vitamin C to counteract that seasonal affective disorder)
9) Make large pots of food on Sundays, like a short rib ragu.
*gossipy tidbit: The Obama family like to eat at the Calypso Cafe, a good, neighborhoody Caribbean restaurant where I used to work at in Hyde Park, Chicago. (I wore an aqua green Island shirt and Indiana Jones khakis to work.) I didn't know of Barack's existence when I worked there in 2000, but figured it out when I was reading the New Yorker a few years later and they interviewed him in that restaurant. I wondered if the man they amusingly described shaking hands with him as the "hip hop auto mechanic" was my old pal Matt.
Short Rib Ragu
For the short rib ragu, I started by making this short rib provencale from epicurious. (Disclosure: I did not add celery or beef stock. I did add two slices of bacon, a little more wine and a tablespoon of sugar. Next time I would add a ½ more portion of the olives.) Eat that day 1 with bread or noodle. (On day 1, you will be swimming in beef lard.) On day 2, take it out of the fridge and discard as much of those giant globules of fat that you can in 7 minutes. (Otherwise you can pick at it all day.) Put some of the sauce and beef in the pan, with some freshly chopped garlic and heat it slowly with some canned tomato sauce. (maybe 1 part short rib sauce to one part tomato sauce). Add salt pepper and red pepper flakes to taste. Put it on top of some fettuccini.






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