Athena Pappas

Adventures in New York City and around the world
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  • Category: Cooking

    • Greenpoint Bites: Baoburg

      Posted at 10:00 am by athenapappas, on June 20, 2016
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      New to the neighborhood, but not to NYC, is Chef Suchanan Aksornnan’s Baoburg.  Recently named one of New York’s most badass female chefs by Thrillist, the creations at Baoburg live up to the hype. I stopped by late on a recent week night, and the tiny restaurant was pretty packed. The décor is cute and charming, very floral. Despite it being late, the service was excellent.

      I started off with a tall, cold pint of Sapporo. For my main course, I tried the duck ramen at the recommendation of my server. Spicy, the broth was rich and delicious. The duck was juicy and tender. Of course, the fresh ramen noodles can’t be beat. On a surprisingly cool summer evening, this delectable treat hit the spot.

      I can’t wait to come back soon with friends to try more of a variety of dishes and the infamous bao.

      Posted in Adventures, Cooking, New York, Restaurants, Review | 0 Comments | Tagged Bao, greenpoint, New York, Resturant, Review
    • Adventures in New York: Chinese Dry Pot

      Posted at 12:26 pm by athenapappas, on May 9, 2016

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      As a fan of hot pot, I knew I had to try Chinese dry pot! The new East Village/Alphabet City restaurant Mala Project serves just that. But what exactly is dry pot? A Sichuanese specialty, this dish is like hot pot but served dry sans soup.  Dinners select 4-10 different ingredients from meat to veggies to rice and the kitchen does the rest!

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      The restaurant itself was super cute! It had a great retro look, clearly a lot of time was devoted to creating the perfect atmosphere. And of course, the food did not disappoint. We started with scallion pancakes and dumplings (although afterwards, we realized we did order far too much food).

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      Since there were four of us, we decided on two bowls of about 10 ingredients each. One bowl would be a meat bowl, the other seafood. We had items such as baby bamboo, mushrooms, squid, prawn, meatballs, mustard greens, and more! Each bowl can also have a different level of spice from mild to very spice. We picked spicy… which was intense. In terms of taste, everything was beyond delicious, flavorful and fresh. However, next time I am not going to get my bowl as spicy, but I am looking forward to trying different flavor combinations. Overall, Malay project is a fun, tasty (and affordable!) dining experience. I highly recommend.

      Posted in Adventures, Cooking, New York, Restaurants, Review | 0 Comments | Tagged Dry Pot, East Village, food, Mala, New York, restaurant, Review
    • New Year’s in Durham, NC: Part I

      Posted at 10:00 am by athenapappas, on February 16, 2016

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      For New Year’s, I spent the long weekend in the lovely North Carolina city of Durham. Of course, the first of the year has to be kicked off with eating a bowl of Hoppin’ John’s, black eyed peas and other vegetables like collard greens. It might be a strange way to start the day, but it brings good luck in the New Year and is a Southern tradition.

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      One of the stops on our tour of the city was Fullsteam Brewery. I love how beautiful the boards are that hold their tasting flights! I tried a variety of 5 different beers. Highlights included the Carver, which is a sweet potato larger. Of course, I had to try the class Fullsteam, which is a very easy-drinking American-style Lager. My personal favorite was the Rocket Science, a hoppy American IPA. Overall, delicious beers in a really fun and beautifully created space.

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      In addition to touring breweries, we also did our own tasting of local brews. Yum! This included the Sonoma Cider, a local cider brewery. We also tried the Star Hill Brewery Snow Blind Doppelbock, which had a caramel aroma and lightly malty flavor. And the New Belgium Accumulation, a white India Pale Ale. Sensing a theme here? They were all wintery/Christmas themed beers. Nice spices, very full-bodied, and delicious taste. Durham is very much a craft brew city great for exporting.

      Posted in Adventures, Cooking, Review, Travel | 0 Comments | Tagged beer, Durham, New Years, North Carolina, Travel
    • Adventures in New York: Snow Day!

      Posted at 10:00 am by athenapappas, on January 25, 2016

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      Despite all of the warnings leading up to Saturday’s record-breaking snowstorm, I don’t think anyone quite believed this would really be the big one…until it hit. I went out that morning around 10am for yoga class, not realizing that a foot of snow had already fallen in Central Park and throughout New York. On my walk back home around 11:30, cars were starting to get covered in snow.

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      The city buses didn’t stop running until noon and all outdoor subway lines were closed in the early afternoon, but you can see how treacherous traveling became pretty early on. I’m glad I didn’t have anywhere to be! In my neighborhood, bars and restaurants were open for brunch but quickly closed once the city was declared to be in a state of emergency and a travel ban was placed.

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      Although my entrance wasn’t shoveled, a few brave souls cleared a bit of a path to get inside. It is bright and sunny the day after the storm, but Saturday was a total white-out of a storm.

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      Luckily, my Blue Apron order came a day early to beat the winter weather. Instead of joining the crowds at the grocery store for bread and milk, I made this hearty, delicious white pizza. Covered with fresh ricotta and mozzarella cheese, I topped the pizza with red onion, greens, and egg. I had trouble getting the pizza dough as flat and spread out as I wanted, but overall, a very delicious and simple to make recipe. The perfect way to keep warm on a snow day!

      Posted in Adventures, Cooking, New York | 2 Comments | Tagged Blue Apron, Brooklyn, cooking, greenpoint, pizza, Snow, Snow Day, Winter
    • Blog Roll Call

      Posted at 10:44 am by athenapappas, on August 7, 2014

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      A little bit of a departure from my normal format, I thought I would write a little bit about the cooking blogs that inspire me. First is Rachel Ray. While a lot of chefs tend to scoff at her, Rachel Ray recipes are the way I learned to cook (thanks to my mom) one summer. I like how easy the site is to search and the concepts behind the recipes from 30-minute meals to budget friendly versions of classics. Sometimes you just don’t have the time and energy to make a big, fancy meal.

      Another blog I love, love, love is Crêpes of Wrath. Sydney is a fellow Brooklynite and is constantly posting new recipes and about new bars/restaurants in the area. In addition to having well-written and tasty recipes, each post has a series of pictures outlining the steps. She is where I found the Strawberry Chocolate Chip recipe, which has become infamous among my group of friends.

      There is, of course, always plenty of inspiration to be found on Pintrest.  Although I haven’t actually made any of these recipes, I enjoy reading the Food in my Beard blog. He does crazy stuff like buffalo chicken pad Thai and Cool Ranch mac and cheese. On occasion, I do fid inspiration in the New York Times dining section, but usually I just find myself skimming it for what is going on in New York. Not strictly for recipes, Marcus Samuelson is a chef I like to follow online.

      I hope that inspires some new reading for you. Happy cooking!

      Posted in Cooking, New York, Review, Writing | 0 Comments | Tagged blog, cooking, food, Review
    • Hudson Valley Adventure Part II

      Posted at 10:03 am by athenapappas, on July 24, 2014


      After a lovely train ride, a trip to the grocery store, and a couple of wrong turns, we finally made it to our cabin in the woods. Eric Berelovich found the perfect place outside of Accord, NY. The cabin had plenty of bedrooms, the latest IKEA  furniture, but weirdly no curtains on any of the windows. Even though it had a wrap around porch. Regardless, it was plenty of space for our group, especially the kitchen.

      Since the grill was out of gas, we decided to make our Fourth of July burgers on the stove top. The kitchen actually was equipped with a grill top, which we used to grill the asparagus. Earlier in the evening, we had caramelized our onions and prepped different dips sauces and veggies to top the burgers. Prepping and chopping everything earlier in the evening really made the difference. As you can see above, we made the burgers diner style, which was so delicious. The trick to diner style is not to pre-form patties. We heated up the pan and greased it with butter. Once hot, the burgers went straight on. They were then seasoned as they were cooked with cheese added last.

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      We also made a lot of bacon. With the kitchen grill top, we could toast the buns. I was skeptical at first about not using the outdoor grill, but everything turned out perfect and was much easier.

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      Here is a portion of the condiments we could select. My contribution was chopping the jalapeños

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      My finished plate. Luckily I remembered to take a picture before I inhaled it. Grilled asparagus and a diner style burger with cheese, pickles, ketchup, caramelized onions, and spicy aioli sauce. It is always fun on a group weekend trip to take a  new kitchen for a whirl seeing other cooks’ processes. Thanks to our friend Eric Berelovich, we all had a great time exploring the Hudson Valley.

      Posted in Adventures, Cooking, New York, Review | 0 Comments | Tagged 4th of July, America, bugers, cabin, cooking, Hudson Valley, kitchen, onions, Travel
    • Sometimes I threaten my roommates with baked goods…

      Posted at 8:10 pm by athenapappas, on June 4, 2014

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      One of my absolute favorite things is to make dinner and/or baked goods for my friends. I am notorious for forcing Tupperwares of leftovers on people. Here, I just wanted to make sure everyone got some treats!

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      This past winter, I held a dinner party. I managed to make a total Frankenstein’s-monster-esque table. Yes, by the end of the evening I managed to squeeze 13 people into a Brooklyn-sized dinning room. Although, to be fair, that end part wasn’t completely structurally stable. No elbows on the table! None of the flatware or plates matched, but luckily that mismatched look is really in now. When I buy new dishes, I usually keep them in the blue-family to at least coordinate.

      IMG_0505IMG_0502Everyone enjoying some appetizers before dinner. To make things more manageable,  I had everyone bring something, either a wine or an appetizer, salad or desert. No one went thirsty in this crowd. I made the main course (a mac and cheese obviously) and vegetable dish. The mac and cheese was from the cookbook Melt. I selected one that could be made ahead of time, then just baked once guest arrived. I also prepped the roasted vegetables ahead of time so that I wouldn’t spend the whole night in the kitchen. Sadly, I did not take a picture of the food, but it turned out marvelous. One of the keys to a great mac and cheese is buying really great ingredients. The recipe called for a pancetta, but I found an excellent thick cut bacon as a substitute. People went wild for it! I am about due to host another cocktail party (which I love doing even if they never quite work out the way I planned) or dinner party, but it is so hard to get motivated in this heat! I need to plan a picnic or do some sort of no-stove dish.

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      Here are the infamous Strawberry Chocolate Chip Cookies. I wish I could take credit for the recipe, but that is all Sydney at Crêpes of Wrath. Her blog is one of my favorite food blogs and actually a great resource for awesome bars and restaurants in the North Brooklyn area. The greatest part about these cookies is that there is more “stuff” than cookie, it is basically chip and strawberry held together by an excellent soft dough. They are easy to make and always a crowd pleasure. You should keep them in mind now that it is strawberry season!

      Posted in Cooking, New York | 0 Comments | Tagged Brooklyn, chocolate, COokie, cooking, dinner party, friends, Mac and Cheese, strawberry, wine
    • Adventures in Cooking: Beer Mac N Cheese

      Posted at 10:02 am by athenapappas, on May 6, 2014

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      Sunday night, I decided to try a new mac and cheese recipe. This one comes from a friends Beer of the Month Newsletter, but they found it via livelovepasta. I’ve been wanting to try this one for awhile. I did make a few adjustments to the recipe just to save some money. I didn’t add the Romano cheese, Panko bread crumbs, or Parsley. I was able to find all of the ingredients I didn’t have at my local grocery store. For the beer, I choose Bell’s Amber Ale. Bell’s is a Michigan brewery, and it is always really exciting to see how it has grown in NYC. There is my Gouda ready to be shredded.

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      Here are my ingredients all ready to go while the water boils. I personally find it easiest to get everything chopped, shredded, and measured out before I start cooking (or waiting for the water to boil). As a general rule of thumb, the time it takes for the pasta to actually cook is about equivalent to the time you need to make your cheese sauce. If you can time it just right, you will only need one timer going and everything will end up ready at about the same time. Also, Bell’s Amber is delicious! Not that I sampled any while cooking…

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      Here is my cheese sauce. It was a bit darker in the pot. This was an incredibly easy cheese sauce to make. The recipe does warn that it won’t thicken like a regular cheese sauce, and it was correct. It is going to bake with the pasta for another 30 minutes (so be sure your pasta is also super a la dente), so it will thicken and adhere and do that mac n cheese sort of thing in the oven.

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      Here is the finished result after 25 min. in the oven! I should have taken a video, this guy was bubbling. So delicious. The mac and cheese was the perfect creamy thickness with a smokey edge. It was perfectly fine without the extra garnishes (Panko, Romano, and Parsley), but if I were making this for guests, I would add those. I think this would also be really great with a smokey meat (panchetta or a thick cut bacon) and chives. I also would maybe sprinkle a bit more paprika at the end to taste. Overall, a great, quick mac and cheese for any beer lover.

      Posted in Cooking | 0 Comments | Tagged beer, Bell's, Gouda, Mac and Cheese
    • Pumpkin Mania

      Posted at 12:56 pm by athenapappas, on April 25, 2014

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      This past fall, I fully embraced the seasonal pumpkin fad as overdone as it might seem. One of the most exciting pumpkin adventures was the pumpkin cask ale at Brouwerij Lane, a fabulous beer store/bar in Greenpoint. Yes, that is a tap in a pumpkin that pours great beer. I don’t know that I would normally order a beer that pumpkin flavored, but it was totally worth it for the novelty of drinking an ale from a giant pumpkin. Although the weather was a bit nippy, there was a small outdoor area with communal picnic tables. In addition to a wide selection of bottles, they always have a rotating selection of draft beers in sizes from samples to growlers. The staff is always friendly and knowledgeable. If you are in the area, Brouwerij Lane is a great place to check out for craft beers.

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      In addition to trying pumpkin in public, I also made my own pumpkin delicacies. Here, I might have been a bit more focused on my Halloween-esque red wine, but I was actually making pumpkin snickerdoodle cookies. I used this recipe, which made some seriously fluffy, delicious cookies. What I really like about these cookies is that they are a lot of fun to make. Also, I feel like the taste of pumpkin is just a nice after taste, it doesn’t overwhelm the cookie. The red wine was pretty good, too!

      Posted in Cooking, New York | 0 Comments | Tagged beer, Brouwerij Lane, pumpkin
    • Adventures in Cooking: Chicken Tikka and Biscuits

      Posted at 9:37 am by athenapappas, on April 22, 2014

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      To celebrate Spring (and a massive apartment cleaning effort), my roommates and I had a few people over on Sunday for dinner. I made an eclectic main course of Chicken Tikka Masala with Cheddar Bacon Biscuits. Yes, I know it makes no sense together, but they are both great foods. I also cheated a bit with both. My recipe for the chicken uses the slow-cooker, which was perfect for a Sunday afternoon. The only problem that I ran across was that my local grocery store did not carry garam marsala spice blend (the recipe did come with a quite complicated substitution spice plan). I decided to take a chance on a jar of tikka masala marinade. In the end, it might have made the sauce a bit too rich, but overall, it turned out pretty delicious. The cucumbers on top really made this dish feel like spring.

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      For the biscuits, I completely cheated and used Jiff mix, following Rachel Ray’s recipe. I just didn’t have the time to make them from scratch. But, it is fun to play around with recipes and make them your own. Here, I made the biscuits much like my cookies- more “stuff” than dough. I did not use just 2 pieces of bacon, I think I must have made at least half a package. I wasn’t stingy with the shredded cheddar either! All in all, I very lovely holiday weekend quick dinner party. We had spinach dip and deviled eggs followed by my main course. There was also plenty of Lambrusco and Mimosas to go around. I am ready for Spring!

      Posted in Adventures, Cooking, New York | 0 Comments | Tagged cheddar, cooking, Indian, spring
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