The best cafe in the world

Here's Mr. Construction Worker and Laura waiting for our breakfast in New York City at the Essex World Cafe. Without any exterior fanfare it's the coolest cafe I've ever been to. It's located on a street that faces the huge hole that was the World Trade Center. Construction workers that are busy at work on the WTC site seem to frequent this place as, I'm sure, the many people who used to work at the Twin Towers did seven years ago. Once inside the cafe you slowly realize where you are. In a place of humble history.


The Essex World cafe became known by another name on September 12th 2001 as the "Liberty Treatment Site". After the Towers came down it became a medical center and I can only use the best of my mental powers to try to imagine the activity that may have happened inside it's doors.

This is a picture of a picture inside the cafe during the time it was a medical station.

The walls have memorials and pictures from September 11th. It was quite sobering but more-so, healing. The construction workers that arrive and leave in a steady flow seem representative of a sense of pride in the anticipation of newness for the area. The cafe continued on and stayed open. It adapted to the situation and has morphed into a symbol of the continuity of life with a reverance for the past. It's the best breakfast Bob, Kevin, and I have had in a long time.

Recycle Day: (APPLE BREAD FRENCH TOAST)

Desire: I wish I knew how to type so that my thoughts could keep up with my fingers.

Goal: I'm going to find a program, or something, so I can learn.

Ah. Now I feel better. I would like to be able to look at the screen as I'm typing. That would be great. I'm VERY anal retentive about certain things and miss-spelling is one of those things. I'll lose my train of thought if I see a miss-spelled word. I hate losing my train of thought. Onward to recycling my Apple Chunk Bread.

I couldn't put Kevin through one more grilled ham and cheese on Apple Chunk Bread. Even though I thought it was a fabulous idea I couldn't make him eat any more this week. I think he had three or four. My husband says that I can beat a dead horse until it's alive again (CPR) so no more beating horses. The bread was getting stale anyway so I thought making french toast was a good alternative.

I whisked 2 eggs and a healthy splash of milk with a fork in a shallow pasta bowl. I then sliced the already stale bread into 1 1/2 inch slices. I'm being a bit bass ackword here but I had a morning school bus to compete against for time and did things as I thought of them. Alton Brown (whom I LOVE) had a great episode on french toast, if you're interested, and you'd see why I feel bass ackword.

I dipped each side for a healthy, one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three, kind of timing. I grilled each side in a non-stick pan that had been preheated on medium heat and sprayed lightly with oil. Kevin tore them up along with his maple sausages. Success!

Sandwich Day

It started this morning with Kevin. I toasted the apple bread I made yesterday for his morning breakfast. Out of the blue he wants a toasted ham and cheese on apple bread. Hummmm. Sounded pretty good to me. I've made apple and peanut butter sandwiches on waffles before. This could be good too.

I used real butter on both sides of the bread, tavern ham, and chedder cheese. Kevin had two sandwiches and Bob, later, had one too.

Bob stayed home from the office today because he's traveling tomorrow. I coerced him into being lazy yesterday so we ran around like crazy today. After running around doing some errands, earlier in the morning, we raced home for lunch around 1pm. I was STARVING. I had just bought baby spinach and a few small eggplant a couple of days before at the grocery store and knew there was some way to use them at lunch today. I was craving eggplant chips again and wondered how to use them this time around. Again, I roasted them, sliced very thin, in a 375 degree oven for about 25 minutes, swooshed in olive oil and salt and pepper. I smell another sandwich!

I made a vinaigrette dressing from equal parts (1 1/2 tbs.) balsamic vinegar and Dijon mustard, 1 tbs. fresh chopped oregano, 1 tsp. fresh ground pepper, and 1 tsp. fresh chopped garlic. I whisked olive oil into the mixture until thick (1/4 cup).

I then stuffed whole wheat pita's with baby spinach, tomatoes, and the eggplant chips. I drizzled in the dressing and Yum!

Lazy Sunday: (APPLE CHUNK BREAD FOR THE BREAD MACHINE)

Man I love Sunday's! Just change out of your pajama's into your sweat's kinda day. I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and applied deodorant. I consider myself clean. Since it was a day where I farted around in the kitchen I wanted to make something I never made before. I found Apple Chunk Bread, yet again, from the old bread machine recipe book from Sam's Club that's a hundred years old. I had all the ingredients so I gave it a try. This is a combination of some of the printed ingredients and my variation on the instructions.

Apple Chunk Bread for the bread machine:

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups milk (room temperature)
3 tbs. vegetable oil
1 tbs. plus 1/2 tsp. Splenda for baking or 2 1/2 tbs. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 1/2 cups bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp. yeast
1 1/2 medium peeled, diced apple

Topping:
2 tbs. Splenda
1 tbs. ground cinnamon
sprinkling of poppy seeds

Directions:

1. Layer ingredients in order, in bread machine pan, as listed above, starting with milk and ending with yeast. Start dough cycle on machine.

2. When machine stops kneading the dough and is at 50 minutes stop and pull dough from pan.

3. Preheat dryer to high or find dry area to set your formed dough. On a floured surface knead dough into diced apples. You may need to add bread flour occasionally to keep from sticking to the board.

4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Form dough into football shape. Place on greased aluminum foil or parchment paper on cake pan. Cover with oiled (sprayed) plastic wrap and allow for expansion. Let rise for 90 minutes (in dryer or dry spot) until doubled.

5. Whisk 1 egg with a splash of water until blended. Blend 2 tbs. Splenda with 1 tbs. cinnamon until incorporated. When bread is finished rising, brush with egg mixture, sprinkle with Splenda/cinnamon mixture, and poppy seeds to taste.

6. Place in oven and reduce temperature to 350 degrees. Bake in oven for 30 minutes or until evenly browned and sounds hollow when thunked on the top.

7. Allow to evenly cool before slicing. Chill a good chardonnay to eat with later.

Post Script: The next morning Kevin requested a grilled ham and cheese on his apple chunk bread. I thought it was such a marvelous idea that I grilled one right up for him. It was wolfed down so fast I didn't get a picture (Kevin would've freaked). Needless to say it was a rousing success.