Category Archives: Food

Jars of Kusmi tea. Half-full bottles of Hypnotiq. A pipe that serves as a makeshift closet. Books with titles like “Farm Food” and “New American Table” perch atop shelves that appear ready to topple under the weight. Framed covers of the Wall Street Journal and promotional pictures sit atop a file cabinet, waiting to be hung. No, this is not the well-stocked kitchen of a Michelin-star rated restauranteur — rather, it’s the office (and bedroom, living room, and dining room) of Divya Gugnani, author of Sexy Women Eat: Secrets to Eating What You Want and Still Looking Fabulous and CEO of Behind the Burner.

CEO and acclaimed author aren’t the only two things on Gugnani’s resume. In addition, she was also an employee of Goldman Sachs, voted a 2010 Game Changer by The New York Enterprise Report, and received an award as one of the Top 50 Outstanding Asian Americans in business. She’s also on the Board of Directors for New York Entrepreneur Week — and she’s not even 35! With an MBA from Harvard and a degree from the French Culinary Institute, Gugnani has a portfolio to make any Wall Street-er jealous. However, she did find her one true calling, and it wasn’t cash-flow analysis or checks and balances — rather, it was her love for food.

“I reached this point when I couldn’t stop thinking about food,” says Gugnani, “I knew I wanted to start a business where I could share my best tips, tricks and recipes for food, wine, mixology and nutrition, and put them in bite-size videos, blogs, articles, recipes…and then, I just started doing it.”

Gugnani didn’t leave her full-time job just yet, however. Rather, while working at FirstMark Capital, she began to compose recipes and blog posts and putting them up on Behind the Burner, along with interviews with world-renowned chefs and behind-the-scenes looks of some of Manhattan’s most famous restaurants. Eventually, NBC got a whiff of Gugnani’s culinary website, and reached out to her to film a segment — and, as Gugnani proudly puts it, BTB “has been running ever since.”

It didn’t end there. In 2008, Gugnani was approached by Harper Collins, and initially, she pitched an idea for a book about her favorite recipes and tips and tricks for the kitchen. However, her editor had better plans, and instead, suggested that she write a book about her life.

“I said ‘this is crazy, I don’t want to write a book about myself!’” Gugnani exclaims with a laugh, “and then she said to try out a few sample chapters, and I just sat down at home at night and I wrote a couple chapters and my editor liked them and I sat down on my parents’ kitchen table — which was the perfect place for inspiration because snacks were nearby — and then I just wrote it, wrote it in two and a half weeks.”

The inspiration from her parent’s kitchen table was always a place dear to her heart. As a child, Gugnani fondly remembers coming from a “food-loving family” and having a grandmother that cooked day and night and two fully-stocked refrigerators that would sometimes get so filled up that the leftover food would have to be stored in the trunk of the car.

Divya herself!

“We’d wake up in the morning and at breakfast, we’d talk about lunch; at lunch we’d talk about dinner, and at night we’d marinate our minds and get up the next morning and start the process all over again.”

With a childhood that embraced a love for all things delicious, and a future that only gleams brighter, what are some tips that Gugnani can offer on living a healthy and fabulous lifestyle?

“It’s important to have a positive relationship with food, and if you have a craving and you just really want it — it’s okay to have it!”

At 5:30 pm, in the pattering drizzle of the approaching month of April, a crowd emerges from the subway at West 4^th Street rumbling like a train onto Avenue of the Americas. Among them are residents of the area, those who have come for the films at IFC, and the happy-hour-day drinkers that gather around downtown for “thirsty Thursday”. A group of 30 people linger on the sidewalk, spread out between Golden Swan Garden’s short black fence and “the Cage.” Some are standing alone, checking BBM’s or playing on their Nintendo DS 3Ds, while others are paired off, but there is something uniting this diverse mix of adults. On March 31^st, a food truck would bring in food from Pentos, a fictional land from the “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series by George R.R. Martin, and these fans are hoping to be the first to get a taste.

If the books don’t sound familiar, “A Game of Thrones,” might. It is the name of the first book of the series, but moreover, the newest show in the HBO lineup set to premiere on April 17^th. Since the announcement of the show, Martin’s book sales are approaching triple digit growth in year-to-year sales, according to “Thrones Tomes Selling Big” in Variety. In the United States alone the books have reportedly sold 4.5 million copies, according to the publisher, Bantam books, in the article.

The promotional food trucks were, in the tradition of an Easter, set up as a scavenger hunt. The rules were simple: check the “Game of Thrones” Facebook or Twitter page between March 28^th and April 1^st, show up to the destination by 6:00pm, find the cart, and be among the first 300 in line. The location of the trucks and the food varied daily from Astor Place on Tuesday, where “The Riverlands” green goodness came to life, to Lincoln Center on Wednesday, where food from “The Wall” could be sampled.

By 6:30 pm on Thursday, the Pentos truck had yet to arrive at West 4^th. The HBO crew, identifiable only by their “Game of Thrones” t-shirts, had already ushered the masses, now numbering in the hundreds, into a four-person-wide line that wrapped around the corner of the garden.  The grumbling was almost audible by the time the truck arrived, and talk of the week’s meals started simultaneously among the crowd.

“Of the three that I’ve tried, my favorite dish has to be the squab,” said Kat Baek, a sophomore at Baruch College, now on her third hunt for the cart. “The lemon cakes were served every day [but] the taste never got old,” she added, taking refuge underneath a Burberry patterned umbrella.

When the black truck was parked, the day’s menu was handed out. The more hardcore fans on the line attempted to decode the puzzle embedded in it. “Apples to oranges,” announced a crew member.

“It means you have to fold the apples to oranges in the menu to find the hidden message,” said Joseph DeSimone, an avid fan of the series and Senior at Baruch College. “I’m not even going to try,” DeSimone added, worn from the hour long wait in the rain.

The first dish was the spice roasted duck with dates, buttered turnips, cabbage and juniper. The second option was the Lamb Flatbread with chickpeas and purple olives. As usual, the dishes were to be accompanied by the “famous” lemon cakes. The books themselves are refered to as “tomes” for good reason, as they are detailed accounts of this fictional world, even when describing the meals.

“In the book they talk about this buttered cabbage and turnip dish,” said the meals architect Tom Colicchio (Top Chef)in an interview for the ‘Thrones’ Facebook page. “Pentos is an area more east, sort of a lot of spices are there, and so I want to use a lot of spices,” added Colicchio. This was evident in the duck, which mixed coriander, fennel seed, red/white/black pepper, and cardamom in its spice sauce to awaken the taste buds. The lamb flatbread was just as full of flavor. The thin piece of flatbread was surprisingly not brittle but more suprising was how well cooked the shredded lamb was in a food truck. The combination of its spices mixed the coolness of the chickpeas and the tartness of the olives gave the dish a perfect balance.

“I wish there was a permanent one,” commented Baek, referring to the food truck as she enjoyed her free lemon cake in the shelter of the subway.

Fresh mozzarella cheese over a rich, bittersweet and hearty tomato sauce on a crispy but soft, smoky crust are the reasons why the pizza at Grimaldi’s Pizzeria are insanely delicious and always satisfying. Fortunately for loyal pizza-lovers, the famous restaurant has finally set up a shop at a closer, new location in the recently renovated Limelight Marketplace on Sixth Avenue.

 Despite numerous delays, the restaurant’s staff finalized the preparations and quickly conducted their official grand opening in February. With years of family-owned tradition, service, and dining, Grimaldi’s Pizzeria has become recognized for making “the pizza that made the Brooklyn Bridge famous,” and has since expanded throughout the United States. The renowned menu offers several types of pizza with an assortment of savory toppings, hearty calzones, and a few house salads. Drinks vary from an assortment of non-alcoholic beverages and a list of select beers and wine.

Grimaldi’s Sixth Avenue location has a casual, family-style setting with an undeniably welcoming atmosphere that accents the brimming Limelight Marketplace that is full of colorful and enticing shops. After just three weeks at the new location, the line of customers has grown consistently. The wait time for dining-in varies from 20 minutes to over an hour, but customers can save time by opting to order a pie to-go instead. Taking the meal to go doesn’t take away from the experience at all. It’s still great pizza no matter where you eat it.

Grimaldi’s has sustained their customary tradition of serving pizza by the pie, no exception. So, for those interested in a single slice, you’re out of luck. You’ll have to place an order for their small original pizza, a serving size of three. The small pie is cut in six large portion slices that can satisfy most hungry pizza contenders.

Filled with a layer of fresh mozzarella and tomato sauce, then topped with basil and olive oil, one bite is enough to convince a single patron to happily devour the rest of the cheese pizza. The counter attendant was quick to provide me with suggestions, recommending this pie, he says “It’ a popular item on the menu and it’s the best. No toppings are needed”. I took is word for it and came back 15 minutes later for my take-out order.   

The thin crust is crisp with a nice, dough-like middle. With a combination of fresh, salty mozzarella and Grimaldi’s addictive rich sauce, this might be the best pizza a patron could ever have. Each bite is savory and sweet, made complete by the undeniable, smoky flavor from the oven, which places this pizza over the top. Truly, you haven’t experienced a grand, well-made slice of pizza until you visited Grimaldi’s Pizzeria.

Initially, loyal customers may have sought out this place for the hype surrounding it as a result form the oncoming press streaming from exposure on food network and in print publications. However, they became satisfied and amazed by their well-made original pies and consistently keep coming back. “It’s a great place to come with a group of friends, the pie here is one of my favorites in the city,” said nearby patron.        

Furthermore, now that the traveling time from Brooklyn is cut in half, there are abundant chances for Baruch students and pizza fans to stop by to indulge in a pan of Grimaldi’s famous pies. With their signature coal-brick oven style, inviting atmosphere and swift service, Grimaldi’s Pizzeria is a great family-run restaurant that gets your fix of mouth-watering pizza.

New York targets the struggling: the struggling artist, the struggling musician, and even, the struggling chef. Kala Coleman, a twenty-year-old culinary student from St. Louis, Mo, is no exception. She has one goal in mind: working with food and being successful at it. It hasn’t been an easy journey for her, however. Yet, with the motivation to rise out of her past, and the passion to work in the kitchen, Coleman stands as an example for what many seem to take for granted these days: achieving success by working harder than everyone else around you.

Coleman, a sophomore Culinary Nutrition major at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I., hopes to pack her bags and head for New York upon graduation. What sounds like a typical dream for many hoping to “make it big,” Coleman sees as necessary. “New York is fast paced, and so is the kitchen. That’s what I want to do. Work fast and get good money doing it.” It is a bold goal for one who wants to work in the culinary industry, with the average chef making anywhere from $57,471-$87, 563 annually, according www.allculinaryschools.com.

Her love for cooking stemmed from her childhood. She started cooking with her grandmother when she was younger, and since then, cooking has always been close to her heart. She knew upon high school graduation, she was going to pursue a career in the culinary arts.

Her motivation to work in food has grown stronger since she’s been in college. “School is tough,” she says. Classes run in 9-day sessions, so students have to learn fast. They work in three trimesters: the first is comprised of lab classes, the second of academic courses, and the last can be lab classes or a student can choose an internship.

Coleman ready to chop anything in her chef uniform.

Coleman, currently in the third part of her trimester and involved in an internal internship, is working hard to get on-hands experience. “I’m a prep cook for a place called Red Sauce at the school. So I’m learning pretty well,” she says.

Lately, however, she has been looking more into athletic performance. In this field, she will work with helping athletes enhance their performance through nutrition. She will work with members of a sports team, cooking for them and helping with their all-around diet. She could see herself working with anyone from the New York Giants to the New Jersey Jets. “I could still cook, but I could make a lot more money,” Coleman giggles.

Yet, her ultimate goal is neither working in a restaurant nor working in athletic performance. She plans to open her own non-profit nutrition organization for children. In this organization, she plans to teach kids how to choose healthier options, and to provide them with the necessary tools to do so. This project hits close to home for her. “Growing up, I didn’t really eat healthy. It’s hard, you know. Especially when all you have is food stamps and then Doritos and Cheetos in your school vending machine,” she says somberly. No one taught her about nutrition, so she feels strongly that eating healthy should start with children.

Growing up in a single-parent household in the crime-ridden streets of St. Louis, Mo., Coleman had to work twice as hard to make it out of the city. “I wanted to get as far away as I could,” she says. “Because I knew if I didn’t get out now, I’d be stuck there forever.” So, she worked continuously in high school to make good enough grades to be able to pursue what she loves. “I can’t see myself doing anything else besides cooking,” she says.

In regard to what her favorite dishes are to make, her voice lights up with excitement. “Chicken and peach cobbler!” she says delightfully. “Those are definitely my favorite things to cook.

Coleman is the essence of what it takes to be successful. One has to have a passion for what they are pursuing, and the determination to beat the odds working against you. She is destined to make a name for herself in the culinary industry, and whatever road she takes, she’ll be sure to have a delicious peach cobbler to take with her.