It's called the Pantry

Well. World events don’t seem to get any less troubling, so we might as well get back to business. Yes?

Last week, I said that I wanted to tell you about a new project, and I still do. It’s a project that grows out of Delancey, but it’s a whole new thing: a business headed up by two of our friends, Brandi Henderson and Olaiya Land. Brandon is technically the third partner, but this baby really belongs to Brandi and Olaiya. It’s called the Pantry at Delancey, and we’re all very excited about it. Excited. Maybe that word isn’t strong enough. Elated? Too strong? Thrilled? Let’s go with thrilled. We are thrilled.




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Easy enough

We moved last Tuesday. I’m going to repeat that, because it sounds so unlikely, so inadvisable, that I know you might not believe me. I hardly believe me. But we did. We moved. Brandon is starting a second business, and I’m trying to start a second book, so, you know, la la la, let’s move. We’ve had worse ideas, but I can’t think of them right now.

This is the last picture taken in our old kitchen. Our old kitchen, our old place, our old duplex, where we lived for almost five years, on a noisy street with the nocturnal neighbor who does outdoor home improvement projects by flashlight. I will miss that place, but only a little, and never at night.




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Dickerson, Monar selected in MLB Draft

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Alex Dickerson and Blake Monar are headed to the big leagues.

Both IU juniors were selected by Major League Baseball clubs Tuesday, the second day of the organization’s 2011 First-Year Player Draft.

Dickerson, whose 47 career home runs ties IU’s all-time record, was selected with the first pick in the third round, No. 91 overall, by the Pittsburgh Pirates. Left-handed pitcher Monar was drafted by the Washington Nationals in the 12th round, No. 367 overall.

Dickerson led the Hoosiers in on-base percentage (.440), batting average (.367), home runs (nine) and RBI (49) in 2011, and he earned First Team All-Big Ten honors after being named a First Team All-American as a sophomore in 2010.

The Poway, Calif. native was projected as one of the top collegiate offensive players to potentially be selected in the draft yet was not one of the opening day’s 60 selections. The Pirates drafted Dickerson as a first baseman after he had played the majority of his collegiate career in the outfield.

Monar went 6-3 in decisions with a 3.52 ERA in 2011 after starting 13 games and pitching a team-high 79 1/3 innings. He led the Hoosiers’ pitching staff with 61 strikeouts.

The draft will continue today until the completion of the 30th round and will conclude Wednesday.

Drew Allen is a senior majoring in journalism. He is the baseball beat reporter. A staff member since 2009, he previously has served as sports editor and has covered men's soccer, women's basketball and volleyball.

Sections: Baseball

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Now here, now there

I have two half brothers who live on the East Coast, and when I was a kid, if they came home for the holidays, they would bring a Styrofoam cooler of oysters. My father would get out his knife and shucking glove and lean against the kitchen counter, flicking grit and shells into the sink as he went, and they would all stand around, eating and sighing, making the noises that people make when they eat oysters.




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It's still at it

I had a recipe post all ready to go for today, and then I woke up this morning and realized that there was something more pressing to say. That book proposal that I was working on a couple of months ago, it did its job. Because of it, I get to write a second book(!!). I’m so excited about it that my eye started twitching uncontrollably this morning, and several hours later, it’s still at it. I can hardly see straight. When a Paul Simon song came on the radio over lunch, my eye actually twitched in time to the music. This is how excitement feels: like my face is falling apart.

Yes, the official announcement came today, in Publishers Weekly, and now that I can, I had to rush over here to tell you. The book is tentatively titled Delancey, and like my first book, it’s more a story than a cookbook. It’s about a marriage, in a sense: about a man and a woman and the restaurant that they, however uncomfortably, gave birth to. It’s about what we do for the people we love. It’s about growing up. And most of all, it’s about a small business that we made with our own hands, on our own terms, and the community that came with it, a life that I had no idea would be ours.




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The Real Ride – Little 500: Zach Osterman – The Final Post

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This is the true post of Little 500 riders picked to have their lives surrounding America’s Greatest College Weekend posted to the web. To find out what happens when the IDS stops just reporting and starts getting real

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Drop everything

A year or so ago, when we opened Delancey, I thought our lives were over and we would never see our friends again. Now that I type that out, it sounds like I was channeling Chicken Little, but my thinking wasn’t without reason: in the restaurant business, you work when other people play, and that complicates almost everything. But as it turns out, our friends are more flexible than I had given them credit for, and like us, a lot of them work odd hours. So over the past several months, we’ve begun to tweak our collective habits. I didn’t know this, but dinner parties don’t have to take place at dinnertime. You can also have them in the daytime. For example, last Sunday, our friends Sam and Meredith invited us over for what we used to call Game Night, and what we now call Game Day.




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We have some progress

This city has taken its sweet time in getting rid of winter, but I am happy to report that, as of this writing, it is 61 degrees and sunny. Actually, what it really is is 61 degrees and S!U!N!N!Y!




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Losing Micah Johnson a blow to Hoosiers

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Saturday was not at all a good day for the IU baseball team.

Headlining all the negatives from the doubleheader against Minnesota, which included a rain delay in upwards of an hour and two losses (one a 12-1 drubbing), was the loss of sophomore second baseman Micah Johnson early in the second game to a right leg injury.

Johnson was attempting to field a one-hop grounder that hit him in the leg and caused him to roll over in pain multiple times. He was helped off the field by two coaches.

It would be a blow to the Hoosiers if Johnson were to miss significant time, which appears quite possible. In Johnson, IU would lose a .325 average and the runner responsible for the Big Ten’s second-most stolen bases. While he has struggled lately, I’m sure all would agree that the Hoosiers’ lineup is much better with Johnson than without.

For now, sophomore Casey Smith, IU coach Tracy Smith’s son, will get the nod at second base, but that could leave a pretty visible hole in that No. 2 spot in the batting order.

Drew Allen is a senior majoring in journalism. He is the baseball beat reporter. A staff member since 2009, he previously has served as sports editor and has covered men's soccer, women's basketball and volleyball.

Sections: Baseball

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She got out a skillet

I should begin with a confession: I’m not in Thanksgiving mode yet. Who knows. It’s weird. This holiday sort of sneaks up, I’ve noticed, and then it’s quickly eclipsed by Christmas, which is sad, since Thanksgiving is our only national holiday devoted wholly to eating. This year, we’re heading to New Jersey to visit family, and I will almost certainly make cranberry chutney and probably a chocolate pecan pie, but it’s been hard to plan from a distance. Thanksgiving of 2010, I apologize. I’ll do better next year.

On the upside, I ate almost two pounds of carrots today.




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January 30

Just pancakes and coffee. Cereal. Girl Talk. Some John Mellencamp, when I have a sweet tooth. But last night, my friend Sam called, and then there was yellow curry and rice.




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Your efforts will be rewarded

Listen, I know it’s a holiday weekend. Most of you are probably outside, grilling or picnicking or generally engaged in some form of early-summer eating. In fact, as I type this, I can hear my neighbors on their deck, shaking a bag of charcoal briquettes, talking about Neil Diamond. But what I would like to tell them (aside from, HAVE MERCY! NO NEIL DIAMOND TONIGHT!), and you, too, is this: do your future self a favor and go inside and cook a pot of rice.




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A quiet soup

in the New Yorker and wondered, as usual, why it wasn’t very funny. I set my glasses on top of the stack of books on my bedside table and then retrieved them when they fell, as usual, and slid behind the table. I felt pretty normal - which is to say, I didn’t feel abnormal. Until I woke up at 3:30 in the morning, feeling nauseous, and spent the next four days on the couch, trying to get down a glass of Gatorade. You know you’re very sick when even a nature documentary about the deep oceans - a nature documentary narrated by Sir David Attenborough, whom you adore, and whose voice is a known soporific - feels like too much for your fragile senses. I was very sick. I have now returned to the land of the living, and that’s all I want to say about that. Anyone for soup?




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You might hear someone sing

My family is not having the Christmas that you hear about in carols and television specials. I am typing this from California, where we were supposed to arrive next Tuesday for the holiday festivities, but instead I flew down six days early to help take care of my aunt, who is in the hospital. My mother is here, too, and my aunt’s two daughters, my cousins. My aunt came down with an acute illness, very fast and sudden and serious, but after more than a week in the hospital, she’s going to be alright. Today she even cracked a joke. I was so elated that I tried out a couple of bad puns, and she actually laughed at them. It was a good day. I’m glad to be here.




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By popular demand

Good people! Here it is, : my new friend Aperol. Your new friend Aperol. Our soon-to-be old friend Aperol, a most cooperative portrait subject.




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Such is the power

I seem to have come down with some sort of virus, the kind of thing that feels totally out of place in the month of June, that keeps you in your bathrobe, eating mostly toast and canned peaches, for the better part of five days. To be perfectly honest, I can’t say that I feel like eating a deviled egg right now. But I did manage to eat a bowl of cereal this morning, and that is a great improvement. I even felt well enough for a cup of coffee! Maybe, by the time you read this, I will be wearing something other than my bathrobe. It’s halfway over, but I intend to do this month right. I have a deviled egg quota to meet.

I’ve been meaning to post this recipe for a while, because every time I make it, someone asks for it. It’s one of those recipes. Most recently, I made it for Brandi’s birthday party, and that night, I think there were actually three people who asked for the recipe. THREE! That made me particularly happy, I remember, because I had gotten a slow start in cooking that evening and had felt anything but love for these eggs as I stood in the kitchen, peeling them over the sink, already late for the party and still unshowered. But of the deviled egg, that even after making me swear and pout and show up at a party with my hair looking like I’m in Van Halen, still, still, I want to make them again. (Of course, I do have a certain fondness for David Lee Roth.)

In any case, this recipe was inspired by a deviled egg served to me by Olaiya, so I can’t take credit for it. Three summers ago, she had just moved into a house with a terrific backyard, and she threw a barbecue. She made deviled eggs and salmon burgers and a giant tomato salad and corn on the cob, and our friend Ben had just moved to town, and it was a famous night. Afterward, I wrote about it here and posted the recipe for a basil aioli that we ate on almost everything. And I started working on recreating the deviled eggs: classic ones, creamy with mayonnaise and mustard and lemon, but with a very small spoonful of basil aioli on top and, balancing on top of that, a couple of crispy fried capers.




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I am celebrating

2010 didn’t exit quietly, and the last month of it was a royal mess. But my aunt is okay now - even heading back to work! The rewards of health! - and for that, we’re relieved. I’m home again and excited for a new year, for the return of plain, normal, everyday life. I love plain, normal, everyday life. The laundry, the occasional clean sheets, the morning coffee that I never brew right, the dog asleep on the couch, the arrival of the mail, the mail carrier who hates the dog, the restaurant, the work, the split pea soup.



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