Wednesday Food & the NY Times

[lsanderson]

From the bleak, but mild, midwinter...

The Silk Road Leads to Queens
By JULIA MOSKIN

SUNDAY is family night out in Rego Park, Queens. All 10 tables at Restaurant Salute are crowded with pots of green tea, platters of golden French fries showered with chopped garlic and parsley, and piles of Uzbek plov, a cumin-scented pilaf of rice, carrots and chickpeas.

In the kitchen at Shalom, lamb rib kebabs sizzle over a live charcoal fire, helped along by a hair dryer slung near the grill that blasts up flames to sear the meat; the cook, Tolik, spins a piece of dough into one unthinkably long noodle, his arms a blur as he stretches it round and round like string for a huge game of cat's cradle.

At 10 p.m. waitresses at Cheburechnaya are still running between the kitchen and the dining room. Snatches of Russian, Hebrew, Uzbek, Farsi and Tajik can be heard, and babies are passed from lap to lap, bottles of Smirnoff from table to table.

"I have been making chebureks since I was 14 years old," said Isak Sionov, an owner of the restaurant, referring to the savory deep-fried pies that are its signature. "First in the Soviet Union, then in Uzbekistan, then in Israel, and now in Rego Park."

In Queens's Central Asian restaurants, you can read history in the tea leaves.

The geopolitical upheavals of the 20th century sent tens of thousands of people to New York from the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as Afghanistan and western China. Separated from Russia by the vast Kazakhstan steppe, straddled by mountains that stretch from Afghanistan's Hindu Kush, all the way to China and the Himalayas, the region is home to the Silk Road cities of Samarkand, Tashkent, Dushanbe and Bukhara.

Recipe: Shurpa Lagman

The Fifth Taste Emerges From the Brine
By DANA BOWEN

MUSHROOMS have it. Fish sauce has it. Pepperoni pizza, too. But ask even the most loquacious cooks what "it" is, and they are at a loss for words.

"It's umami," David Burke said, drawing out the second syllable of the Japanese word with a breathy aah. "We don't have a word for it here. How could something that tastes so good not have a word?"

His hands were in a bowl of brine as he described the flavor sensation, which falls outside the sweet, sour, salty and bitter boundaries of our tongues. Some call it the fifth taste, others a meaty mouth-feel.

"MSG has it," Mr. Burke said. "It's glutamate. It's what makes your mouth water."

When he learned that seaweed's umami factor was off the charts, he developed a brine that leaves chicken moist and intensely flavorful, with a teasingly aquatic tang. It has been on the menu at his restaurant David Burke & Donatella ever since.

Recipe: Seaweed-Soaked Chicken With Roasted Root Vegetables
Recipe: Jasmine Tea-Soaked Fruit

In Winter, It's Scallops
By MARK BITTMAN

FANS of seasonal, regional foods have little to celebrate in the depths of winter, especially those of us in the Northeast. Among the notable exceptions is the bay scallop, often called the Nantucket bay scallop because one of the last significant fisheries for this gem, once found from the Maritimes to the Carolinas, centers on that island. Most bay scallops are harvested between the south shore of Cape Cod and the north shore of Long Island.

Recipe: Bay Scallops With Sesame Seeds and Scallions

Roe Lovers, Rejoicing
By FLORENCE FABRICANT

For lovers of roe, there are some interesting options to take the place of wild sturgeon caviar, which has been banned from export worldwide. One choice is the glistening orange eggs from salmon that swim the Yukon River in Alaska. Delicate in taste and a rare treat, they can enhance canapés, crepes or a smoked salmon brunch. River Gold salmon caviar is $39.96 a pound, a fraction of the cost of sturgeon roe from the Caspian Sea, at Russ & Daughters, 179 East Houston Street (Allen Street).

Another alternative is Granoff Malossol, a fake caviar manufactured in France. The beautiful black grains are made from chicken egg yolks and whites, fish oil, squid ink and salt. They have a firm texture and a mildly briny flavor that hints of hard-cooked egg. Because they hold up well to heat, they could add a touch of luxe to a pasta sauce, omelet or beurre blanc. A three-ounce jar is $28.95 at Garden of Eden stores, $29.95 at Morton Williams stores and $25.49 at Fairway markets.
-ALSO-
Wayne's World: The Cheeses of France
In Chelsea, New Tastes in Takeout
Fresh, Sweet and Sassy: Young Onions From Georgia

Trader Joe's to Open in New York
By FLORENCE FABRICANT

THE specialty grocer Trader Joe's will open a store near Union Square in about three months, a spokeswoman said yesterday, confirming a year's worth of reports that the national chain would join a growing list of food stores along 14th Street.

Rolling Out Those Chewy Behemoths
By FRANK J. PRIAL

IN a series of articles in The New Yorker beginning in the mid-1930's, the writer Frank Sullivan set out to do battle with the inane and the banal in popular writing. He created a cliché expert, Mr. Arbuthnot, and made him the scourge of triteness.

Mr. Arbuthnot turned up intermittently in the magazine into the 1950's, well before wine writers began to impose themselves on the reading public. Because they are everywhere now, it seemed appropriate to resurrect Mr. Arbuthnot and query him about wine and writing.

Making Wine in a Hostile Climate on Sonoma's Coast
By ERIC ASIMOV
TIMBER COVE, Calif.

IT'S the rare morning along the Sonoma County coast when you don't wake up in a fog. From the cliffs of this hamlet on the Coast Highway, you can hear the Pacific crashing on the craggy shore. You just can't see it through the mist. It's a wild, beautiful, out-of-the-way place, perfect for whale watching, collecting driftwood or beholding mesmerizing sunsets. But wine? Fine for drinking, but nobody in his right mind would plant a vineyard here.