Crazy Good, 10 minutes prep, works with a Manhattan

Too easy and too fun to not write about. Here's the deal.​

--1 piece cleaned squid

--1 crisp jalapeno, sliced thin

--5 cremini mushrooms

--2 baby bok choys and a few sprigs of basil

--Soy sauce, nam pla, fresh garlic, chili garlic sauce

--1 pack, what else? Ramen!​

Wash and chop the bok choy. Slice those mushrooms thin. Chop up the garlic. Fire up the wok. (Boil the Ramen while prepping. You know the drill, fellow ramen-ites.) 

Here is the best part: scoring the squid. Yup, as easy and satisfying as it sounds. Cut into squares. Gently make score marks like a game of tic tac toe. Done.

Heat sesame oil in Wok. Sautee garlic and mushrooms. Dump in bok choy and a shake of soy. Fire it up. Flash cook for 2 minutes. Plate it. Add chili oil, chili paste and jalapenos to Wok. Sautee fast. In with the squid. Marvel as it curls just like your fav dish at the local Thai. 3 minutes. Slap in the Ramen. Shake in some Nam pla. Toss it all together like a dancing madman around your kitchen. No one's watching. ​Onto the plate and off to the blue couch. Flavor? Out of this world. Fat content? Sanjay Gupta move over. And cost? Six bucks maybe. Enjoy with Air Afrique on iTunes Radio or Richard Ford's Canada. Dinner for the sleepless. Enjoy. 

R Train Jesus

Riding in this morning after a sun-drenched work-week in Southern California, I was reminded -- yet again -- of why I belong in only one place in the world. All faces down, noses in books (thank god! -- books), when the between-cars door at the rear of the uptown R local opened and three middle-aged black men entered the train. The leader of the pack announced his intentions, and then in a glorious, triumphant baritone,  began singing "This Little Light of Mine." His trio joined in, a capella, accompanied only by the rhythmic clapping of their hands. I do not exaggerate: every head in the car turned, smiles materialized, scuffed boots tapping along, as NYers paused for a ray of musical sunshine on their way to work on a cold February morn. 

Night Sky in Winter

It is maybe 10 degrees in the city tonight and coming out of the gym, I was bowled over as I turned up Seventh. It was the perfect James and The Giant Peach sky, the moon rolling out from beneath the scudding clouds. You could nearly make out the centipede if you looked hard enough.

The Story of e

4 years ago I wrote a novel called Paper Trail – a speedy little potboiler about a man who has it all, sends an ill-advised email that goes viral, and it nearly costs him everything: his job, his family, his life. 

I sent Paper Trail out cold. In the space of seven days, it garnered me a hot agent and a deal offer from a major publishing house. The letter from the editor said, “We want to do this as a hardcover.” We, in writer-world, call that a very good week.

As I waited for all the players to generate the happy paperwork, I was called to serve on jury duty in downtown Brooklyn. For five straight days, I was sequestered and forced to keep my cell phone powered off for 8 hours at a time. At the end of the week, we awarded a man who got hit by a bus $450,000.

Right after the judge thanked us for our service, I popped on my cell phone to check messages. This is what I found. “It breaks my heart to tell you, but we are not going to be able to make an offer on Paper Trail.” No explanation followed. Fifteen rejection letters later, Paper Trail was over. That is the day my e-Book career began.

There was a step or two in-between. You see, I LOVE writing. I just can't help myself. Meanwhile, my chef-y friend John had just signed on to open a hot little bistro in the Village called The Waverly Inn with Graydon Carter, and all of New York was buzzing. So I called John and said let’s write a book. Sure, he said. Three espressos at St. Ambroeus will do that to you. We hammered out a quick proposal. A week later we landed an agent, who sold the book in a day for what amounted to about a half-year's year’s salary for each of us. By the time we finished The Hunger, I think we each earned about 12-cents an hour. But I had an inkling that The Hunger was going to be hot, and I was hardly done with my aspirations as a novelist. Hence: Food for Marriage was born. But the coming-out party was not quite so fast in coming.

A few weeks after The Hunger was released to great fanfare, my agent put out a tasty little number I’d written called The Dinner Party. Having had my heart stomped out like a brushfire once already, I was apprehensive. Okay, that’s not true. I was scared shitless. But Victoria knew I had a winner and she held my hand and we were off – again! A dozen glowing rejection letters later, I was back to square one.

Any doubts I had about self-publishing were quashed. I tamped down my terror of technology. I ignored the fact that I was all thumbs when it came to software. And I decided to publish this book.

In the end, I could not have done it without all the amazing people credited at the end of Food for Marriage. I had incredible artistic and technological help. But mostly, I had 100% confidence in the material from the best readers and hand-holders in the world.

What is the end of The Story of e? I am hopeful that Food for Marriage will put a smile on a few faces. I’ve learned how to operate the moving parts of publishing a novel and I am already preparing my next e-Book. But make no mistake: I love “books” – the paper kind – and while I believe in choice, I hope that Food for Marriage will lead to that elusive goal that so many writers crave and slave for -- to see their work in print. No one writes to get rich, and I am not holding my breath. But as the father of young children and an ardent lover of the printed page, I hope this story is just the beginning: one small step for one hungry writer, in the shared effort of all of us, to keep books alive, bookstores in business, and everyone availed of the opportunity to savor a dog-eared copy of a book they cannot put down.

The Ramen Blog

With all due respect to David Chang, this site is about the real story of Ramen noodles. You see, long before Momofuku, Ippudo, and all the other fabled fifteen-dollar bowls of noodles, there was Ramen. 25 cents a pack. Food of the artist, sustenance of the writer. Ramen was not trendy. Ramen was not hand-pulled. It was, however, frequently available for 8 for a dollar. Now since this is incidentally a site dedicated to taste, flavor and hunger, a recipe is in order. 

--1 pack Ramen soup

--1 package of pork for stir fry

--1 scallion

--1 tbsp olive oil

--That packet of soy sauce leftover from Chinese

Boil noodles. Chop up the scallion. Fry up the pork. Throw ingredients in any pan without actual rust showing through. Heat until steaming. Enjoy with Letterman.

The Ramen Blog is intended as a hungry artist's menu to possibility. It's a tough world out there. Hyper-charged media makes it sound like every writer should be on the 30 Under 30 list, every actress developing the next "Girls," every artist enroute to Art Basel Miami, and every purveyor of food opening a farm-to-table eight person restaurant to stellar reviews in some part of Brooklyn. It's a tough sell out there on the street. And a worthy one. Pull up a bowl of 25-cent soup. Chime in.

We are hurting terribly for our Devil Dogs.

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Here is my caption.

Prowling the aisles of Key Foods in Brooklyn there is an empty space. Cookies? Plenty. Bad, bad pies. Not a problem. Health bars? Puhleeez! But there is nary a packaged cake treat to be had. Man cannot live on Hagen Dazs alone. Item one: Talk to manager to stock Little Debbie snacks. A paltry second to Yankee Doodles, but a temporary fix all the same. Larger solution? Someone, someone please buy out the Hostess Company. I am volunteering to lead the maktg campaign. Bring back our Twinkies, please.