Iron Chef Champion Sells Cheese Made From His Wife's Breast Milk

            This Chelsea restaurant has gone from brasserie to brassiere.

            Chef Daniel Angerer of Klee Brasserie is now serving cheese made from his wife’s breast milk.

            “It tastes like cow’s-milk cheese,” Angerer told the Post, “kind of sweet.”

            Angerer said the flavor of the cheese really depends on what it is served with but recommends ordering a Riesling along side.  

            Since a lack of protein stops the breast milk from curdling, a little milk as to be added to the cheese to balance out the texture.

            Angerer, who once beat Bobby Flay on Foodnetwork’s “Iron Chef,” began blogging about his experimenting with making cheese out of human breast milk a few months back, and customers demanded a taste.

            “The phone was ringing off the hook,” Angerer told the Post.  “So I prepared a little canapé of breast-milk cheeses with figs and Hungarian Pepper”

            Overall many of Angerer’s customers were satisfied, despite some reluctance over tasting the cheese.

            "I think a lot of the criticism has to do with the combination of sex and cheese, but the breast is there to make food," said Lori Mason, the chef's wife.

            Since the restaurant began selling this new cheese, Mason has constantly received “creep queries” she said.

            Some people who clearly have issues have . . . e-mailed me saying, 'I wasn't breast-fed as a child, so can I taste your breast milk?' " she said.

            Mason continued to tell the Post that she declines the offers because she isn’t here to “walk people through their psychological problems.”

            However new creations seem to be in the near future as Mason prods her husband to start making human breast milk gelato as well.

             Is this even legal?  Though there are no department codes that explicitly ban the use of human breast milk in the food industry, the department of heath has told Angerer that he should refrain from sharing his wife’s breast milk with the world.

            “The restaurant knows that cheese made from breast milk is not for public consumption, whether sold or given away,” the city Department of Health said.

Chef Daniel Angerer's Blog

Recipe:

Step-by Step 
My Spouse’s Mommy Milk Cheese Making Experiment


(basic recipe using 8 cups of any milk - yields about ½ pound cheese)

2 cups milk (just about any animal milk will work)
1½-teaspoon yogurt (must be active cultured yogurt)
1/8-tablet rennet (buy from supermarket, usually located in pudding section)
1 teaspoon sea salt such as Baline
 
1. Inoculate milks by heating (68 degree Fahrenheit) then introduce starter bacteria (active yogurt) then let stand for 6 – 8 hours at room temperature, 68ºF covered with a lid. Bacteria will grow in this way and convert milk sugar (lactose) to lactic acid. You can detect its presence by the tart/sour taste. 
2. After inoculating the milk heat to 86 degrees Fahrenheit then add rennet (I use tablets which I dissolve in water) and stir throughout. Cover pot and don’t disturb for an hour until “clean break stage” is achieved, meaning with a clean spoon lift a small piece of curd out of the milk - if it is still soft and gel-like let pot stand for an hour longer. If curds “break clean” cut with a knife into a squares (cut inside the pot a ½-inch cube pattern).  
3. Raise temperature slowly continuously stirring with a pastry spatula (this will prevent clumping of cut curd). This is what I call the “ricotta stage” if you like this kind of fresh cheese – here it is. For cheese with a little bit more of texture heat curds to 92 degree Fahrenheit - for soft curd cheese, or as high 102oF for very firm cheese. The heating of the curd makes all the difference in the consistency of the cheese. When heated the curd looks almost like scrambled eggs at this point (curd should be at bottom of pot in whey liquid). 
4. Pour curd through a fine strainer (this will separate curd from whey) then transfer into a bowl and add salt and mix with a pastry spatula (this will prevent curd from spoiling). Whey can be drank - it is quite healthy and its protein is very efficiently absorbed into the blood stream making it a sought-after product in shakes for bodybuilders. 
5. Give curd shape by lining a container with cheese cloth (allow any excess of cheese cloth to hang over edges of container). Transfer drained, warm curd in the cheese cloth lined container (I used a large plastic quart containers like a large Chinese take- out soup container and cut 4 holes in the bottom with the tip of my knife). Fold excess cheese cloth over top of cheese then weight curd down (with second container filled with water or such) then store in refrigerator (14 hours or so – put container into a second larger container – this will catch draining whey liquid).
6. Take pressed curd out of container (flip container upside-down then unwrap carefully not to damage structure of pressed curd). Rewrap pressed curd with new cheese cloth then age in refrigerator for several weeks (cheese will form a light brown skin around week two – this is normal). Age cheese longer for a more pronounced/sharper cheese flavor.

2 cups mother’s milk 


Holiday Market Hidden Treasures

            The holiday season is in full swing and with it comes pop-up shops, annual markets, and a number of fairs across Manhattan.  Adding 21 new venders, the ever-popular Union Square Holiday Market houses a number of small shops including several local food purveyors.

            Right off the 14^th street entrance is the Breezy Hill Orchards, a hot apple cider vender that sells homemade cookies as well.  This cider mill, based in Hudson Valley, has been attended the fair for 3 years now, serving their cider, chocolate chip cookies, gingerbread men and apple cider doughnuts.

            “We don’t use fillers, extenders, preservatives, or cornstarch,” Amy White, a student running the stand, explained, “Our pies look and taste homemade.”

            Around the corner sits Momofuku Milk Bar’s booth, home of the exclusive Peppermint Cornflake Chocolate Chip cookie.  Though not sold individually, assorted tins of cookies, crack pie, cake truffles, milk bar cookbooks, and even tote bags line the walls Momfuku’s booth. With 3 locations in Manhattan and another in Brooklyn, this dessert bar is famous for more than their cookies.

            Steering away from the dessert, Brooklyn Salsa Company sells an assortment of salsa from mild to red-hot.  Created in a loft size kitchen, the founders of this company began cooking and making deliveries on their bikes back in 2008.   

Using locally grown organic vegetables, the ingredients used are meticulously selected based on the climate and soil they’re grown in.  Today founders Rob and Matt sell over 12 salsas, with names that range from The Hot – Brooklyn to the Girl Tank.

“We’re up and running like real American Dreamers,” Rob says, “the kitchen is our way of saying get into it.”

            A trip to the far back of the Market yields a new local favorite: Mighty Balls.  A mobile food company located in Manhattan, this food truck specializes in creating foods in the shape of a ball; including their most popular meatball hero.

“We specialize in all things balls,” claims Dina Williamson, co-founder of Might Balls, “and we strive to create a unique food experience.”

Occupy Protestors Flood the Brooklyn Bridge Again

NYPD estimated 32,500 people rallied the streets of New York last night, in support of "the 99%."  Thousands of protestors took the streets in over 30 cities including Los Angeles, Dallas, and Portland, ORE to celebrate its birth 2 months ago.

Police formed blockades all around the square, including a blockade of horses at the corner of Chambers and Centre Street.  Standing about ten feet apart, police officers lined the metal fencing that prevented protestors from entering Foley Square and from pouring into the streets.

By 6:00 the crowd started migrating towards the Brooklyn Bridge and began crossing the bridge using the pedestrian sidewalk.  Blinking road signs warned the "Peds on the roadway" that they were "subject to arrest," but that did not stop hundreds from crossing the bridge -- the same bridge occupiers stormed last month.  

Police gathered at the entrance of the bridge to stop anyone from stepping into the streets and continuously warned the protestors that they would be arrested if they did so.

"This is what democracy looks like!" the mob chanted back. "This is what America looks like!"

(Policemen on horses block Chambers Street)

(Moving from Foley Square towards the Brooklyn Bridge)

(Protestors pass out lights to the crowd to light up the bridge.)

"Granny Peace Brigade"

(Mothers of American Soldiers stand up for "schools not wars.")

(Protestors line up to cross the Brooklyn Bridge.)

"Peds on roadway-- Subject to arrest."

(Police officer warns protestors that they are "subject to arrest" over a loud speaker.)

("OWS Bitch.")

Park Dispute Dating Back to the Moses Days

            An East Side co-op released its ownership claim of a 10,000 square foot piece of land overlooking the East River, last Tuesday, finally ending a 10 year dispute with the city.

            In the agreement, the apartment building owner has agreed to share the $2 million cost of building a public park on this piece of land, located between 56^th and 57^th streets.

Photo by Google Images

             This site has been in dispute between the co-op owners and the parks department ever since the city tried to claim a portion of the land for public use, ten years prior.

            In a joint statement announced on Tuesday, the Sutton Place South Corporation and the city have decided to contribute $1 million each to the park’s construction.  The park is said to connect two existing community parks on the ends of 56^th and 57^th street.

            “Every square foot of parkland is precious, particularly on the Upper East Side,” said Adrian Benepe, commissioner of the parks department, told New York Times. “I’d say, in the long run, it’s worth the protracted negotiation.”

            Dating back 70 years, the yard has a history of its own.  In 1939, the city was planning to build part of the Franklin D Roosevelt Drive in this location.  However the city promised to build a park over the FDR Drive’s roof so that the residents in this area would not have to be disturbed by the constant drone of passing cars.

            The Sutton Place South Corporation since had been renting that patch of land for a dollar a year until the lease expired in 1990.  In an effort to keep the status of the real estate quiet, however, the co-op swore potential buyers into secrecy.  Eventually the city tried to take control of the space and in 2007 the co-op dropped a lawsuit on the city, arguing against the amount of land in which the city was entitled.

            “This has been something very special to the building for a great deal of time,” said Lucy Lamphere, president of the Sutton Place South Corporation, told the Times. “However, it became clear that something needed to happen.”

            Now, under this new agreement, the co-op is planning on releasing its ownership of the part of deck that’s closest to the East River.  In return, the city is releasing its claim on the section of deck closest to Sutton Place South’s apartment building, leaving them less than 4,000 square feet.

            The city plans on using this newly acquired land for a park, mostly intended for quiet leisure, hoping to start construction within the next year.

Robert Moses's Triborough Bridge

Construction began on this bridge in 1929, however, when the Triborough project’s outlook began to look bleak, Robert Moses resurrected the project and the bridge was opened to traffic on July 11, 1936. 

 (Photo By Library of Congress)

Although the original play was to have a two-deck roadway, the bridge’s engineer, Othmar Ammann, made the bridge into one, requiring lighter towers, and lighter piers.  These cost-saving revisions saved $10 million alone leaving the total cost of the bridge at over $60 million.  Considered one of the largest public works of the Great Depression, Robert Moses’s Triborough Bridge cost more than the Hoover Dam.

Connecting Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, the bridge’s mere size and proportions are enough to rave about.  Robert Caro, Robert Moses’s biographer wrote about the bridges immense size in his biography The Power Brokers.

“Here was a project to kindle the imagination.  In size, its proportions were heroic… Its approaches, the masses of concrete in which its cables would be embedded would be as big as any pyramid built by an Egyptian Pharaoh, its roadways wider than the widest roadways build by the Caesars of Rome.”

Caro also notes the amount of factories that benefitted from such a large project.  He writes about how constructing the anchorages and paving those roadways “would require enough concrete to pave a four-lane highway from New York to Philadelphia, enough to reopen Depression-shuttered cement factories from Maine to Mississippi.” To make the girders in which the concrete would lay on, “an entire forest would have to crash on the Pacific Coast on the opposite side of the American continent.”  Caro adds, “The Triborough was not really a bridge at all, but four bridges which, together with 13,500 feet of broad viaducts, would link together three boroughs and two islands.”

Photo of bicyclist pushing his bike across the R.F.K. Bridge.
 (Photo courtesy of the NY Times)
Yielding large sidewalks, all three legs of the bridge have paths designated for bicyclists.  Even with these sidewalks however, bikers are supposed to walk their bikes across the bridge, due to the low railings that block off the edge of the bridge.  Although there are signs stating this requirement, they are usually ignored by bicyclists.

            In November of 2008, after 72 years, Robert Moses’s Triborough Bridge – connecting Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx – was officially renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge.

            At a large ceremony in Astoria, Governor David Paterson, former President Bill Clinton, Mayor Bloomberg, and other city officials and members of the Kennedy family paid tribute to Kennedy on November, 19, 2008 – the day the bridge was officially renamed.

            New York Times quoted Mr., Paterson, the official who signed the bill renaming the bridge, calling it “a fitting tribute to the man and his legacy.”  He then added, “Robert F. Kennedy was a champion of social justice and human rights and his spirit is kept alive by his family’s continued commitment to those causes.”

            The move to rename the bridge had the support of the whole Kennedy Family and Mr. Paterson signed the bill that summer.  There were doubts, however about how many drivers will actually use the new name.  Some questions the use of $4 million in state funds just to create new signs for the bridge.