DiFara's Pizza

Everybody has their own opinion on what the "best pizza in NYC" is. Many say it is Lombardi's, many give that title to Grimaldi's, and others swear by Ray's. There's also a constituent of Brooklyners that claim the best pizza in NYC is in Midwood at DiFara's Pizza.

Our neighbors had let us in on the secret of DiFara's last year but we had yet to make the trip. With the threat of cold weather creeping nearer, we decided it was time. Turns out, there's an MTA bus that pretty much goes straight from our neighborhood to DiFara's. We waited about 15 minutes to order, and then another hour to actually get the pizza, but I have to say it was worth the experience.

The pizza rivals Grimaldi's, my personal favorite, in taste. But what is so special about DiFara's is that every single pizza is made by one man. One precious old man named Domendico De Marco. He's been making pizzas at DiFara's every day for the past 40 years. Watching him make the pies, you can see the care he puts into each and every one. It's heart-warming really...and delicious.

Scott and Nicki on the bus

 Chris and I...and his mustache...on the bus

Makin' pizzas

A double rainbow...what does it mean!?

A double rainbow, as seen from my office window:

Rebekah and Elizabeth Visit!

Rebekah and Elizabeth came to visit Halloween weekend! Chris went to visit Ross in Charlotte, so we got to have a little girls weekend. It was Elizabeth's first time in the City and it's always fun to show people around for the first time.

On Sunday we spontaneously decided to go see the off-broadway production of C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. Max McLean is one of those people that is just blessed with an incredible voice. It was an incredible, and very convicting, performance. It also made me want to read more C.S. Lewis.

That night we handed out halloween candy to the kiddies of Windsor Terrace. It seemed like every other kid was dressed up as Mario, but they were adorable nonetheless.

I REALLY enjoyed getting to catch up with these girls that I love so much!

Aunt Gwynn and Kellie Visit!

In October, my Aunt Gwynn surprised my cousin Kellie with a trip to New York. Kellie didn't even know where they were going until she got to the airport...good thing Aunt Gwynn pulled out the sundresses she had packed!

We had so much fun together and got to spend time with Gwynn's good friend Beth as well. We saw the sites, walked around Central Park, ate Grimaldi's and saw In the Heights on broadway. I can't wait for them to come back!

Boston with the LaForces

In September, Chris and I took a bus up to Boston to spend the weekend with Eric and Emily. We had fun roaming around the city. The LaForces had the fantastic idea to stay at an apartment found on VRBO. I highly recommend doing this. Having an apartment was so much cozier than being in a hotel room.

While we were there, we rode the metro out to Cambridge to see Harvard and MIT and our friend Josh. Being the dork that I am, I made sure that we saw the recently renovated Palmer Street and Winthrop Street shared streets.

We saw a bunch of high school kids playing their version of Quidditch in the park...

We went to dinner and then to a bar to catch some football...

 And on our walk back to the apartment saw this adorable basket of apples that somebody left on their stoop to share. How cute is Boston?

September 11, 2010

On September 11, Chris and I went down to DUMBO to view the annual Tribute in Light. Searchlights are shown straight up into the sky from the World Trade Center Site. Very beautiful and humbling.

Homemade Gnocchi

I'll be honest.  I had never even heard of gnocchi until we moved to New York. And I'm still not sure how to pronounce it. But I have learned that it's absolutely delicious. I've been fortunate to test a variety of gnocchi, from plain old potato gnocchi with marinara sauce, to gnocchi with an incredible blue cheese sauce, to pumpkin and spinach gnocchi. It's easy to buy in the grocery stores up here, but it seems a bit overpriced....I mean really, it's potatoes and flour. So I decided it was time to try making it myself, from scratch.

I looked at a variety of recipes online (101 cookbooks, The Italian Dish, Epicurious, and some random blog by a girl named Christine)  and then mashed them altogether to come up with a game plan. From the onset, I could tell this was going to be an ordeal, so I decided to go ahead and double the recipe so that I'd have some leftover to freeze. This is the recipe I ended up with:

4 russet potatoes

3 egg yolks, slightly beaten

1 1/2 cups flour

a pinch of salt

additional flour for rolling

I boiled the potatoes for about 45 minutes, with the skin on as this was recommended in order to keep the potatoes dry - apparently gnocchi is finicky. I let the potatoes cool for a few minutes and then carefully removed the skin. Then I mashed them all up, stirred in the egg yolks, salt, and flour. That formed a nice dough that was actually very easy to work with, not sticky at all. I then rolled out the dough into long snake-like rolls one portion at a time and chopped them up into little gnocchi-size pieces with a Pampered Chef tool. This was my first time using this tool and I have no idea what it's purpose is, but it seemed like it would do the job. I was too lazy to make individual ridges in the gnocchi with a fork like some of the recipes called for, so I figured this PF tool would be good enough.

I took about half of the gnocchi, arranged it on a plate, and froze it for 15 minutes before moving it to a freezer bag. This way it wouldn't all stick together in the freezer.

To cook the gnocchi, I took about 20 pieces at a time and boiled them in salted water for about 5 minutes, and then moved on to the next batch. All of the recipes said that they will float to the top when they are ready or about a minute before they are done. Well, my buoyant little gnocchi floated to the top after about 1 minute...so I'm not sure what went wrong there.

Then the sauce. The sauce is important, and I couldn't decide on one...so I made two. I made a mushroom and shallot sauce similar to the Epicurious recipe and bought a jar of Newman's Own vodka sauce as the backup.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with the way it turned out. The gnocchi held together very nicely and the texture was perfect. It was quite a lot of work, though, so I'm glad that I have some in the freezer ready to go for next time.