Holiday Foodie-izing at Murray's Cheese and the Broadway Panhandler [New York]

By: Anne M. Raso

For those of you New Yorkers wondering where one of the best places in town to create holiday "gift boxes" is, we here at FinanceFoodie.com recommend Murray's Cheese. A few nights ago, we got the chance to go make up our own holiday boxes (really, cute wooden crates with foodie expressions in red lettering!) and found that this Village legend is about much more than just cheeses (even though you get they have the good old-time custom of letting you try anything you'd like behind the counters).

We filled up our crates with homemade pasta, mozzarella, cranberry nut trail mix, rosemary crackers and more -- our only complaint is that they should have bigger crates (you can really only fit a maximum of ten fist-sized pieces of cheese or whatever else into them)!

We also need to point out that Murray's had a lot of fresh baked goods at the front of the store including thin crust pizza done the right way (the way it is done in Naples) and you can buy a hot slice to go (toppings vary throughout the day as they make one pie at a time). Also, be sure to check out all the luxury candies kept by the cash register on the way out--there are all sorts of enticing stacks of gourmet chocolate bars neatly tied with colorful ribbon that is a great holiday gift for foodies from 8 to 80--our motto here at financefoodie.com is "When in doubt, buy chocolate"! (The other one is: "Have a square meal every day...eat a box of chocolate"!)

After stuffing our gift crate at Murray's, we moved on to the Broadway Panhandler where we took in a demo of 360 Cookware done by Chef Stephen White. 360 is comparable in pricing to All Clad and is a star in the "waterless cooking/vapor technology" category. This fabulous cookware (which seems to stay clean at the bottom no matter what you cook inside), is available at Broadway Panhandler and on 360's website.

Chef White prepared Whole Foods organic chicken breast with absolutely no seasoning in one of the skillets, let it cook on low to medium heat for 14 minutes, and it came out as juicy and soft as if it were tenderized and marinated. He also managed to bake and fry potatoes at the same time in the same pan, and created a quick gingerbread cake in the same pan that used only five ingredients in under 20 minutes.

Chef White told us food bloggers that the key to being successful with this ultra modern metal cookware (with stay cool handles) is to cook everything on low o medium low heat. Individual pieces start at $89.95 and sets start at $449.95, and well worth the money since it seems to rally hold the moisture in foods more than any of the "major foodie" brands of cookware we have personally tested!

Murray's Cheese
254 Bleeker St
New York, NY 10014
(212) 243-3289

[Photos: Anne Raso]