Monthly Archives: April 2011

The Illchef: A Culinary Genius

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Sherese Francis

Chef Shehu

Shehu Fitzgerald has never been an average chef. He skateboards, snowboards, paints, does ice sculpting, and has traveled to such places as Britain, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. When he is not doing those things, he is a laid-back, funny guy, who likes to play video games and be a big kid with his 2-year old daughter, Che Elizabeth, and wife, Vee. On top of having already mastered a wide range of cuisines and dishes, it is no wonder why he was picked to appear on the sixth season of Food Network’s competition show “Chopped,” airing on May 3rd at 10pm.

“My mother, my love of food and my deep hatred of paperwork and office jobs,” were some of the reasons Fitzgerald gave as to why he pursued a culinary career. Raised in Staten Island, the 36-year-old has loved cooking since he was 5 years old with the help of his mother, Saundra, who is an esoteric cook and baker.

Graduating from Johnson & Wales University‘s Culinary Arts Program in 1994, he has worked at almost every type of restaurant, including his first job as a prep cook at R.H. Tugs, a cook at T.G.I. Fridays, a “Chef de Partie Poissonier” (chef of the fish section) at Les Célébrités Restaurant at the Essex House Hotel and his current job at 2 West Restaurant at the Ritz Carlton. He has also been fortunate enough to work under the instruction of Holly Peterson Mondavi at the Culinary Institute of America, cook for Princess Ann of England and become a Sous Chef at a beachfront restaurant in Auckland, New Zealand.

Fitzgerald, whose first name means “teacher” in the Nigerian Arabic dialect, began his first web series “Culinary Genius” in 2009 and has recorded 12 episodes since then. As his name suggests, the episodes of “Culinary Genius” are meant to teach viewers about different aspects of the culinary world, from simple things like separating an egg and vanilla-flavored sugar to the more fancy Hollandaise sauce and Gnocchi.

Che Elizabeth and Vee Fitzgerald

Recorded in their Staten Island home by his wife, Vee, the appeal of the series is that it speaks to a wide demographic of viewers, from Hip-Hop heads to laypeople on a budget to high-class chefs. Watching him cook looks like fun. Vee Fitzgerald agreed, “Shehu is so talented; his passion for food is infectious and he celebrates food every day. Life with him is never boring!”

Watching how delicate he is in preparing them is just as fascinating as eating them. Even better, his dishes are hardly ever disappointing.

Spiced Duck Breast

His spiced duck breast with French green lentils and baby turnips in an apple cider reduction sauce is a good example. The tart-sweetness and slightly syrupy feel of the apple cider sauce provides juiciness and a nice balance to the spices used in the duck and vegetables.

According to Food Network, the channel “is committed to exploring new and different ways to approach food – through pop culture, competition, adventure, and travel…”. Fitzgerald’s experience fits well with the network’s goals. With its distribution to more than 96 million U.S. households and more than seven million Web site users a month, Fitzgerald will receive plenty of attention, especially for his web series, which has reached over 3,000 viewers.

Shehu and Vee Fitzgerald together own wineLIFE, a wine shop located on 386 Van Duzer in Staten Island that opened in 2010, in addition to a catering business incorporated in 2003. Vee Fitzgerald, who is a wine consultant and president of the New York City chapter of Women for WineSense, spoke about how she combines her expertise in wine and her husband’s expertise in food.

“We have a monthly instore event called Meet the Chef where he creates foods to offer customers in the store that are paired with featured wines. We have also done catered food and wine pairing events for private clients and he has cooked for my Women for WineSense group on several occasions.”

Fitzgerald has also provided encouragement and support to aspiring chefs. His words of advice for them: “Stay focused, travel and keep your eyes on the prize.” Those same words seemed to have worked for him. “I’m just having some fun trying to spread the word of my love and my passion.” Asked what his goals as a chef are, he jokingly replied, “To rule the world.” With all of his accomplishments, he might very well be on his way there.

Posted in Food | 5 Comments

Une petite noce @ Cafe Mogodor

Posted on April 7, 2011 by rc111646

A telephone call from my grandson sent our household into a state of nervous excitement. Sion, who now calls himself Jean-Sebastien, was stopping over in New York for 18 hours, with his bride Marie-Ange on his way back to France from Mexico. He wanted to see his grandparents for a late lunch. Thoughtfully he gave me the number of his friend in New York’s East Village, to work out the details, saying ‘I do not want anything fancy’. Sultana, my wife, wanted to ‘se mettre en quatre’ [or pull out the stops] for JS, but once her initial enthusiasm took on a reasonable cast, we agreed on eating at Café Mogodor [101 St. Mark’s Place],

‘a pioneer of Moroccan restaurants in New York City’ since 1983. Owned by a family of Moroccan Jews, originally from Mogodor [now Essaouria],

once the most Jewish of Morocco’s cities, who has not broken ties with ‘le pays [بلاد] ou elle a vu le jour’ [the country where they were born].

Café Mogodor occupies two store fronts, with large windows which the light of day lends a homey, cozy, and unpretentious ambiance. The décor is simple: tables, chairs, and a good well-stocked bar and a good Italian-made expresso machine. In the second, smaller room, are photos of the owner’s family in Mogodor of days long forgotten from the last century, and on a shelf glazed ‘tagine’ pots, as a reminder to the café’s patrons that that they were eating in a real Moroccan restaurant. And if anyone had any doubts, on the wall of the larger room is a photo of King Mohammed VI, and in the small room, a portrait of his grandfatherMohammed V much revered by the Jews of Morocco, sipping a glass of traditional mint tea. Seating accommodates a hundred and in warmer weather, a terrace holds another 10 to 20.

Everything in Café Mogodor serves one purpose: the enjoyment of food. I met Ariela, a Moroccan Israeli, who is the manager to settle on the menu. Strikingly beautiful, in her mid-30s, she has finely chiseled features, dark, knowing and laughing eyes, and jet-black hair nestling gently on her shoulders; her voice has the quality of summer and smoke of a sultry mid-summer’s afternoon in the shade of Essaouira’s ramparts overlooking a lazy Atlantic Ocean, and her smile parts sensual lips favoring pearly white teeth devoted to food. Regal in bearing, olive complected, her voice has the ring of silky plausibility. She is a true Jewish Arab beauty. Raised on a kibbutz not far from Haifa, her parents chose well her name: for the archangel Ariel, in Jewish mysticism, is known, among other things, for warmth and betrays a soupcon of unrestrained. And the warmth and joy she exudes is quite palpable and she embodies the spirit of the earth [הארץ].

She knows no Arab, but her French is good enough so that when she’s visiting Morocco she has no trouble finding her way. And, she does know her Moroccan cooking thanks to her mother’s influence. No doubt, the owners of Cafe Mogodor have found a gem in her.

Still, a doubt kept nagging me. I did not care if Café Mogodor was not kosher, but I did worry that the kitchen staff was not Moroccan. ‘Have no fear!’ Ariela chimed in. The owner and his family have trained them in the art of Moroccan cuisine. Still, my worry subsisted until I ate my first bite of food.

Mogodor is known for its Cous-Cous, Merguez, Bastilla, and Tagines.

For a setting of 10 for the ‘wedding party’, she suggested a combination Cous-Cous [$12 to $17,50] with lamb and merguez. I proposed a Bastilla [$15], a pie of layers of pastry with chicken, eggs, and almonds. ‘Wouldn’t that be heavy on the stomach?’ she asked. I demurred, and then wondered whether a lamb tagine [stew] [$16,50]would be preferable.

Planning a menu does not seem as simple as it sounds: picture us in ‘souk [bazaar]-like’ fashion, haggling not too finely over the dishes as though we were at an open public market, which made the exercise all the merrier, the more especially since in bartering you never give in easily. For more than 40 minutes, Ariela and I exercised seasoned habits to trump the other, more in play than ego thumping.

Finally there would be a more ample simple Merguez Cous-Cous, steamed semolina over a bouillon of highly seasoned beef sausages and vegetables and chickpeas and onions, two Bastilla, and a larger Lamb Tagine with apricots and prunes. We would skip appetizers and soup –for the plain and simple reason they were more Middle Eastern [$4.75] and it would take too long to prepare a ‘harerah’ soup — but wouldn’t scant on the salad [$6.50 to $9.50]. Since no Moroccan wine was available and Algerian wines do not travel well, a good Bordeaux would do, which Ariela would buy.

Sultana argued for an appetizer or two, to which I agreed. She thought there was too much food, and she was probably right. I, donning my best Philadelphia lawyer robes, and with the fire of a proselytizer, argued that Marie-Ange and Jean-Sebastien’s friends, were worthy of a variety of dishes, the better to appreciate Moroccan cooking.

The menu agreed on, Ariela suggested eating in the second room under the family photos and one picture of a Jew in traditional djellaba [robe] and babouches[slippers] and another in a black-dyed silhm [wool cape] and on his head a white turban, suggesting his Berber origin. She thought that it would be an appropriate touch in recalling our family’s origins. And a wedding meal binds family closer to one another, she added.

JS and MA and friends showed up for an early dinner. Ariela was on hand to welcome the newlyweds and, trouper that she is, described the dishes and had the wine opened. After toasting them, we began eating ‘a la bonne franquette’, meaning simply and without much fuss. Ariela, in the best of Arab tradition, ‘regaled’ us with stories, as we ate, until she was called away to take care of other customers. We did learn that Woody Allen, Demi Moore, and Kofi Anan ate at Café Mogodor. Once, the owners personally awaited the arrival of a visit of a Saudi princess, who, alas, cancelled at the very last minute.

No one complained of the food and ate heartedly and if she did not like the Bordeaux, he kept his or own counsel. JS seemed happy and MA is very blonde and buxom, but somewhat reserved. Generally the conversation was animated in the way only the French can do with a relaxed degree of formality. Sultana was in her element, but quietly confided to me, she should have prepared the food. Saying this, she did her best to taste all the dishes and still had room for dessert . Ariela had the kitchen prepare the traditional ‘the a la menthe’ [mint tea],

which was not very sugary at my request. Everyone sipped it, but instead preferred an expresso ‘bien tire’.

As JS and MA and friends took leave of us, JS thanked me for choosing a restaurant which brought back memories of growing up in Morocco and the warmth of family gathering. Unspoken was his feeling that with a French wife they would fade and would not be passed on. Sultana broke up a set of her gold bracelets, giving two to MA who, my wife thought, was ‘unmoved’. However, I know my wife was already looking forward to the birth of her first great grandchild and the next generation. I was not as sanguine as she, since MA would bear JS children; they, however, would enter a world long denied us. Nonetheless, we are not so selfish as to deny our progeny their happiness.

In leaving the restaurant, we thanked Ariela very much for her kindness and help. And although it did not need saying, we would recommend Café Mogodor to friends and families and anyone else who wanted to eat good Moroccan like food at fair prices. We thanked the staff for efficient service.

Taking Ariela on the side, I slipped her an unmarked white envelope. Knowing it was a ‘tip’ for her, she at first refused it, but I pushed her hand away, quickly reciting in pray-bead fashion, time-honored formula of appreciation. Were it not for her tasteful and tactful suggestions, the wedding party might not have gone off as well as it did. To Sultana and me, time and distance have long separated us from Sion, but the food and the bonhomie of the moment brought us closer again. And, Ariela had no small hand in that!

Posted in Independent Film | 1 Comment

Amber is all Ambiance

Posted on April 5, 2011 by dospino

Sometimes who you eat with at a restaurant can make or break the experience, but even loving your company won’t help Amber.

Despite its misleading height of three floors, Amber is a relatively small asian restaurant on the second floor of its Gramercy location. The third floor is mostly unused, except for private parties, and gives the restaurant lofty high ceilings. The first is primarily “a bar area for young people,” in the area according to Wi Pam, the assistant manager. It’s long electric blue bar is modern looking and complimented by the neon orange of the stairs that clashes nicely with the brick facade hiding behind a curtain.

The space fits roughly 50 hungry people pressed together during the busy lunch hours in a closely spaced tables. It has two long leather couches on either of the exposed brick walls, but those stuck in the aisle’s wooden chairs will be surprised at how comfortably you sink in to them. The tables are an elegant dark mahogany that in the candle lit dinner atmosphere is almost romantic; I say almost because the Katy Perry blaring on the sound system is anything but.

Before you place an order the wait staff is patient, practically invisible. The same is true for when you get thirsty or need a fork if you’re not trained in the art of chopsticks. They begin to test your patience after a while but the giant Buddha surrounded by a small pond of fish by the kitchen remind you to keep your inner peace.

Once the food arrives, faster than the slow service might initially indicate, you realize the reason for the diner like prices. The portions are immense, but the food is disappointingly simple in flavor. Buddhist delight ($9.00), a combination of squash, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus and noodles were so drenched in soy sauce that the smell and taste was uniform. The texture of the vegetables also varied from hard huge chunks of the broccoli and cauliflower to smushy squash in your mouth, something I was unprepared for. The side of sticky white rice it came with reminded me of a cheap Chinatown restaurant and did not effectively compliment the dish in any way, even to soak up some of the soy sauce.

The pineapple fried rice ($9.00) was a little better, but that’s not saying much. It comes in an empty pineapple shell, which is nice, but just like the Buddhist delight, the combination of pineapple, cashews, an array of vegetables and shrimp did not combine well to bring out any of the flavor. The pineapple for example had a sharp sweetness that didn’t allow anything else in the bite to be tasted. If you tried each individual element with just the rice however, it fared better in the taste buds.

“I want to just eat the cashews alone, I’d be disloyal to them if I combined them with the shrimp,” said Jessica Rozario, who left a third of her food untouched.

Needless to say, we decided not to take remainder of her meal home. It was nice to sit there though. If you eat there on a weekday night only a few people downstairs silently drink their cocktails, the second floor plays poppy music giving it a lounge feel and no one, especially not the wait staff, bothers you. Just makes sure not to get your hair stuck on the gum stuck on the wall. If you want good Asian cuisine you would probably have better luck eating at any of the other 18 restaurants in the area.

Posted in Food, restaurant reviews | 2 Comments

Eating With the Small Bees

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Queen

Délicieux! Magnifique! Je ne vais certainement revenir à cet endroit encore une fois et pas seulement à cause de la classe !

In case any of you are confused it means : Delicious ! Magnificent! I am definitely going back to that place again, and not just because of class!

If you want a scrumptious breakfast that leaves you wanting more, then Petite Abeille is where to go. Located on 401 East 20^th Street this restaurant, even though it is small in size, carries a big punch.

I Love You Jon Stewart!!!

On the outside of the restaurant they have seating. This served me well since I sat there waiting for Sabrina and Ashley, also on assignment with me, to arrive. Even though it was somewhat warm, when you are sitting in one spot with the wind blowing, reading Jon Stewart’s book “Earth: The Book”, it gets pretty cold.

After they finally arrived, and apologized, we went in; but before we went in I noticed the big blue A staring at me through the window. I have to say seeing that made it a lot easier to eat there. If it would have been lower than a B I would not have eaten and instead watched them eat.

Made Me Feel A lot Better About Going In

We entered and a waiter showed us to our seats. As we sat there I kept asking Ashley what certain items were; she’s the foodie of the group. I ordered a croissant ($3.00), a Gaufre de Liège waffle ($4.00), and hot Belgian chocolate ($4.00).

The waiter was kind enough to put the croissant and waffle on different plates because I don’t like my food touching.

When the croissant came it was so soft, flaky, warm and awesome. Biting into it felt like my whole mouth was skipping through a soft fluffy cloud. I ate all of it.

On Cloud Nine!!!

The waffle was sweet inside which was ok with me. Just to think I was about to ask for syrup! Every one of its square shaped craters tasted as if filled with Aunt Jemima every time I chewed.

Next Time I Will Ask For Milk

The greatest part of the breakfast was the delicious, scrumptious, lip smacking, tasty Belgian hot chocolate. Take Häagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream and heat it up until it is fully liquefied and you get that amazing chocolate. As soon as I took my first sip of the chocolate I was in a chocolate trance. My biggest disappointment as far as the breakfast goes happened when I finished my hot chocolate. If it wasn’t for my nutritionist I would’ve ordered at least another.

YUM Is An Understatement!!!

However, I must say that they do breakfast better than lunch. First, my lunch and those of my colleges took what felt like forever to arrive. When it finally did it was not worth the wait.

The Petite Abeille Burger ($13.50), a 9 oz. burger that comes with fries, is made with BLT with cheddar on a brioche bun and their special sauce. Since I don’t like anything that remotely seems healthy I specifically asked that there be no L or T or any other veggie on my plate.

Not Happy 🙁

The burger, stated as Black Angus ground in house, tasted great. Think of a hot summer day where you are in the park having a BBQ and you watch that hot juicy burger being cooked over the coals and then you eat it. On the other hand I couldn’t fully enjoy it because even though I asked for no veggies there was a curl of purple onion on my bread. Safe to say I didn’t eat the bread. Also my food was touching which I didn’t like!

The fries were blah. I could’ve taken McDonald’s French fries dipped them in water and they would have tasted better.

Add to that that my experienced was rushed because I had to make it to class on time. All in all there is a HUGE chance I will go back again for breakfast, lunch not so much.

The Group

Posted in restaurant reviews | 2 Comments

Blending the ingredients for a career as a pastry chef

Posted on April 3, 2011 by Sabrina

Segufta Amin neatly slices a strawberry to make a simple smoothie.

Carefully selecting the right knife to delicately slice the ripe strawberries she picked up at the supermarket earlier that day, Segufta Amin brings the blade to the chopping board with a gentle and knowing touch. Preparing a simple smoothie, she quickly drops the slices into a blender, adds a handful of fresh blueberries and spoonfuls of sugar she doesn’t quite measure in order to concoct the sweet beverage. While my cousin may not look like the pros on the Food Network, she definitely knows what she’s doing. And it’s exactly what she has set out to do with her life: cook.

Growing up helping her mom prepare Bengali meals for the Muslim holidays, Amin discovered a passion for cooking early in her childhood and decided to make it her life’s career.

“When it came time in high school, when they ask you that question, ‘what do you want to do with your life?’ I couldn’t find any answer that made me happy except cooking,” Amin said.

To that end, the 19 year old is currently completing her Associates degree in Baking and Pastry at Monroe College’s School of Hospitality Management & the Culinary Arts, for a $25,000 education. Under scholarship and financial aid, the aspiring chef feels fortunate to scrape by.

However, feeling that she was embarking on an expensive career with an uncertain future, Amin’s parents were not immediately supportive of her ambitions. But they’re increasingly warming up to it.

“I want that she does whatever makes her happy and I wish her success,” her mom, Gulshan Amin, said.

Nevertheless, Amin understands her parents’ concerns. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average pastry chef’s annual income is only about $21,000.

“Parents want you to have a stable future. They want you to have a career where they know you can always support yourself, that you can do fine on your own, when I guess, they’re thinking about the times that they’re not gonna be there,” she explains.

To both alleviate their worries and realize her dream to one day run her own restaurant, Amin is aiming for a Bachelors Degree in Hospitality Management after graduation this month. Business knowledge from this degree is a key ingredient to realizing her dreams of opening an eclectic “bar slash restaurant, just a very relaxed place with really good music and really good food.” But experience in the real world of the food industry is another.

A recent stint as a baking intern at Tribeca Treats, where she prepared cakes and frostings and sometimes decorated the goods, provided that experience. Amin says the internship allowed her to apply her education outside the classroom and see the business side of the kitchen.

“I learned a lot more about supply and demand because they would do things differently for special holidays. They would make things in advance, and they had a good gist of everything they needed.”

She exhibits that notion in her own recipes now. Her culinary arts professor Margaret Wong describes Amin to have ”that dreamy like quality about her [though] she is more comfortable and requires less supervision when executing a recipe,” than when she first started.

Amin's homemade almond tart.

Taking a bite out of a freshly baked almond pear tart she later prepares for me, I experience the labor of that execution. Made out of almond frangipane, topped with poached pears and almonds and brushed with apricot jam, it took her an hour to poach the pears alone, and another to prepare the tart dough and frangipane.

The crunchy pie crust crumbled on my lips, meeting with a contrast from the both creamy and nutty frangipane, while the soft pears melted in my mouth. The tart delivered a sweet burst of flavors from varying textures, especially with the tart glaze on top. The desert’s only flaw was that the dough could’ve been a baked through a bit more; it was a tad soft. Though the tart was scrumptious, I can tell that the young culinary student is still learning how to perfect the recipe to her career.

Likewise, Amin says she wants to train more, especially in high end cake decorating, sugar decorations, “and the stuff that it takes the real masters to do.”

Chef Wong seconds that, for “the culinary/pastry field is very competitive and can be very rough. Segufta will need to constantly push herself in the field of pastry,” she says.

“I think I have a lot more to learn,” Amin agrees, “I really enjoy that learning, it’s gonna take hard work to get to where I want but I’m willing to do it.”