Total Ravioli Disaster

It was, verifiably, a complete and total kitchen disaster. Food wise, that is, I didn't burn anything down or something like that. And the sad thing is, I had an opportunity to cut my losses at one point, but I kept pushing on, I kept telling myself, better press on. (willy wonka, anyone?)

It all started because Jeff was operating, not on a person, but on computers, or something. I'm still not sure I know what he's doing when he's "operating," all I know is that it's boring for me and we don't get to go have fun. So I decided since I was stuck not having fun, I should make something exciting for dinner. Something that would keep me occupied in the kitchen for awhile and something I haven't made in awhile and something that wouldn't be in the oven for like 3 hours (since it was so humid).

So I browsed recipes for awhile until I decided that I would make homemade pasta. yum! it's not usually that hard, and always tastes delicious. I found a recipe for ravioli that sounded great, and not too hard (the filling/sauce that is), and went to the store to pick up a few ingredients I needed.

I came back and got ready to rock in the kitchen. I had to decide between two recipes, one, which made more dough (and I kind of needed a lot for the ravioli) and was the traditional method (pile of flour, with a well in the middle where the eggs go). The second, which was a smaller batch and used the food processor. I decided to go with the first, even though I KNEW I always seem to have trouble with the flour/egg/well method. I didn't care, I was sure, since I've done it several times and in the end, always worked out, I would have either learned from my mistakes by now or at least I'd be able to pull it out like I had in the past.

So I piled up my flour on my cutting board, made a well, and started dropping eggs in. Three eggs in, two to go. The fourth egg started to break the flour wall and pour down the side, so in a flash of brilliance, I decide (instead of starting to mix in the flour), to add the fifth egg. at which point, you can only imagine what happened, eggs pouring all down the sides of my flour pile, onto the board and down the cabinets. I tried quickly to mix in the flour, but that only made the egg mess move faster, down the cupboards, all over my oven mitts, and started creeping dangerously close to the espresso maker. I called Jeff in to try and help me stop the egg madness, but he was "in the middle of something" - operating I guess.

So the only thing I could think to do was to wrap both my arms around the oozing egg mess to contain it. So I literally laid down on top of the flour/egg pile and put my arms around the eggs that were pouring all over the counter. At which point, I slid the whole mess into the sink. Thank goodness for that under-mounted sink we have, makes for an easy slide.

A few expletives later, I said, well, it looks like we're ordering Indian food tonight. The reason being, I didn't have enough eggs to make another batch and have eggs for breakfast the next morning, plus after a mess like that I wasn't sure I wanted to continue. Jeff said he didn't care what we did, order food, whatever. Then he said we could go out for brunch, so if I wanted to use the rest of the eggs, that'd be ok. And I love brunch, so the idea of going out for brunch the next day gave me the motivation to try again with the dough. So this would have been my out, I could have cut my losses, ordered food for dinner and been happy. But, not wanting to quit on the ravioli, and the prospect of brunch the next day, motivated me to try try try again.

So, after throwing a bunch of egg covered things in the washing machine and hosing down my egg covered arms, I pulled out the recipe for the food processor method. 20 seconds later, I had great looking pasta dough (note to self: NEVER make it by hand again, EVER EVER).

I was rockin' now. I made the filling for the raviolis, cooled it a bit and tasted it. Delicious! dinner was going to be good, I could feel it now.

I busted out the pasta roller attachment for my mixer and started rolling out the dough. I always get impatient with this step, it seems to take forever and I need go go gadget arms because it gets so long. But I kept cutting it in half and pushing forward. I was in the zone. I laid down several pieces I finished and started filling them. One of the problems I've often had when making ravioli is that they explode in the water. So I was trying very hard to get all the air out, but in doing so, the dough was breaking and there were all these holes in them. So I kept trying to patch the holes and keep going.

I'm not sure if the dough was dry and that's why it was getting holes in it, but they were just becoming huge dough balls. ugly huge dough balls.

So I went back and for the second half of the dough I tried to not roll it out so thin, because I thought that might be the problem, and then tried filling them. but they were kind of thick and weird. so with all the patching and different thickness doughs, I had some raviolis that were huge dough balls, some that sort of looked like ravioli but were really thick and then every weird shape in between. some flat, some round, some with 6 layers of dough, some with random pasta dough pieces hanging off of them. but I kept going.

I made the sauce (butter and mushrooms) and dumped the ravioli into gently simmering water. after double the amount of time the recipes said to cook them, I took them out, and some were completely overcooked and some were raw and some had exploded. I tossed them with the butter mushroom sauce, it was an ugly nightmare. more exploded.

Jeff came into the kitchen at this point (there were more expletives) and I said, please let's just order dinner. he insisted that we eat it. especially after the five hours I had spent in the kitchen (it actually wasn't that long, but it felt like it). So I served it up and we sat down. it was not good. it was as though a five year old made us dinner out of play-dough. I guess that's not entirely true, since the filling still tasted pretty good. it just looked like a mess and I felt like a mess, it was still hot and humid and the kitchen was a total mess (I had needed to use practically every piece of equipment, several pots and pans and there was still food everywhere). Jeff ate all of his, and went back for more. I'm pretty sure he was doing it to make me feel better, since I was being a crab-apple, but I can't be sure.

I have vowed to never make my own ravioli again. I will make pasta dough for lasagna or fettuccine or something and I'll make ravioli filling and make them with won-ton wrappers or something, but the combination of the two is a complete disaster, and I am done with lying in piles of eggs on my Saturday afternoon.

A Suburban Adventure

This one's totally unrelated to food....

Given my four day weekend, I was itching for some kind of adventure, there were enough days to lay around and enjoy being off work, but if I had too much time I knew I would either bake (and we already have four tupperwares filled with oatmeal cookies, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate peanut butter chip cookies, and brownies, plus the pudding ice cream), or organize and re-organize the apartment.

We had been throwing around the idea of going to Target for weeks now, and brought it up again while at brunch with our friends on Saturday. they only offered us many words of encouragement, "you should totally rent a car" and "Target!?! yes!" (I may be paraphrasing, but that's pretty close). Jeff looked for cars for Saturday afternoon (at 12:30 on Saturday), but unsurprisingly, none were available. so we kind of dropped it, said we'd look again, but forgot by the time we got home.

Sunday morning I got a reminder email from one of my friends, so Jeff looked online again. there was ONE car available in the whole city and the only time it was available was from 2 - 6 pm. PERFECT. and it was a MINI COOPER! I immediately asked if it were a convertible, sadly no, but the sunroof was essentially the whole top of the car.

one afternoon trip to target in a mini coming up!

next came me AGONIZING over which target to go to. there are several in NJ, one in Queens and then bunches out further in Long Island. I had been to one in LI with a friend awhile back and it was fantastic, so I wanted to go there to make sure we had a good target experience, but it was a 45 minute drive, and we didn't want to have to rush at target if there was traffic. see the thing is, you want the target to be far enough outside the city so that its the suburbs (and you get the full suburban target experience) but not too far that it takes forever to get there. a fine line, a very fine line. so we decided on one in NJ.

there was a little apprehension over the size of the trunk, given that we were going to target and all, and the whole point is to buy everything, but I heard that the trunk is really bigger than you think it is, and with a leap of faith we piled into the car (three of us total).

rarin' to go, Jeff turns the key in the ignition, nothing. but all the lights go on in the car. it doesn't turn over, it doesn't try to turn over, but the air comes on, all the lights go on, everything except the engine. so it's not the battery, it seemed as though it was disengaged. could our target hopes come crashing down? I hoped not. Jeff was sure we were "being stupid" but got out and asked the parking attendant, who gently reminded Jeff he had to swipe his zip car card on the inside of the car to engage it. oh RIGHT! (actually, I had no idea you had to do this, but now we'll never forget). with only a few minutes lost, we set out for the suburbs.

we head out for the open highway (well, the very traffic-y west side highway) and headed to the tunnel. Also happening this weekend is Fleet Week in which Navy ships come into the piers in mid-town and you can check them out and there are sailors and such wandering around. anyway, the ships are close to the tunnel, so there's lots of people and LOTS of policemen.

having not often driven out of the city, we didn't exactly know the route, and we fell back into our normal routine where Jeff drives fast and I can't tell him where to go and then I yell that he did the wrong thing. aah, the suburbs. anyway, he ended up in the wrong lane, "wrong" because we needed to turn left to go to the tunnel and he couldn't get into the left lane because there were orange cones set up (set up with plenty of space between them so that a car, especially a mini could go between them). I said, "go through the cones" Jeff said "I can't, and there is a police man RIGHT there" (literally 15 feet in front of us). But, Jeff does it anyway.

cop looks up, and immediately starts walking to the car. he does not look happy.
"What are you doing? You want a ticket on Memorial Day? You saw me standing there and the cones, what are you doing disrespecting my cones? You're disrespecting me and my cones. The only reason I can think you did that was because you want a ticket on Memorial Day."
he took a breath and Jeff said
"No, but I can see why you think that. I'm sorry"
and he replied
"Get out of my lane!"

we got through the light and by the cop and all three of us immediately started laughing "disrespecting my cones" - did he seriously just say that?! but I would have been in HUGE trouble if Jeff would have gotten a ticket. however, it was very clear that he wasn't giving Jeff a ticket from the beginning, because he just would have asked for license and registration. but we were through the traffic, through the cop and his cones and on our way.

when we got to our exit and got off the highway, the area seemed, well, not what I had hoped for. I became very nervous that the target would not be everything that I had been imagining. but we made it inside, and it definitely met my expectations. we filled up a cart (literally filled up to the top), and headed to the checkout. we then began to worry about fitting it all in the car (especially since Jeff insisted we buy a mop). we took the cart out and just started piling the bags in, one on top of another, we kept piling until we had two bags left, which probably could have fit in the trunk too, but we had extra space in the back, so we through them back there. the mop, of course had to slide in the back and through the front two seats. but, it was pretty amazing, I'd have to say.

we headed back into the city munching on Goldfish crackers, happy suburbanites for a couple of hours.

The Return of the Puddin' Pop

Raise your hand if you remember the frozen pudding pops. Raise your hand if you thought they were freakin' AWESOME. maybe I'm the only one with my hand in the air (or for that matter both hands in the air), but you're probably not raising your hand because you:
1. think it's silly to raise your hand while reading a blog
2. never had a pudding pop
3. don't have taste buds

Seriously people. pudding pops, or for that matter, the chocolate pudding pops, were one of the best things I remember eating when I was younger. I loved that crispy icy exterior and then the bite of the cold on your teeth, but still the soft texture as you bit into it. I used to slowly lick off all the icy exterior to get to the pudding goodness on the inside, savoring each and every lick.

So I recently re-purchased an ice cream maker (if I haven't told you the story of the first one that broke, it's a good one, but let's just say my freezer was covered in blue anti-freeze as the bowl oozed from a crack in the seam). with a new kitchen, a recent trip to Italy (and therefore a renewed obsession with gelato) and a Williams-Sonoma gift certificate, I felt it the perfect time for a new ice cream maker.

I hooked it up nearly immediately after the first bowl was frozen, and made a mediocre vanilla ice cream. I then remembered my frustration trying to make a fabulous gelato in the past, and I never quite got there without using all heavy whipping cream. I then decided to flip through the instruction manual (we were going to make margaritas, so I wanted to see if it had any hints). I stumbled upon some recipes, which all looked fairly typical until I flipped the page to "Chocolate Pudding Ice Cream." Could it be? Could it be like my cherished pudding pops? I remained very very skeptical.

Living in a "paperless" household, I threw away the manual assuming it would be online. so today I came home with my packet of instant chocolate pudding (I think it's the first time I've ever bought instant pudding) and hopped online to find the recipe. unfortunately cuisinart decided that it didn't need to post the manual online, but did have five select recipes which didn't include the pudding recipe. All I could remember was that it called for milk and a package of chocolate pudding.

so putting google to good use I searched for a chocolate pudding ice cream recipe. unfortunately I came up with junk. a lot of extra sugar, eggs, and other things that I don't remember in the original. so, I decided to wing it. I didn't know how much milk to add, but since most recipes had 3 cups of some combination of milk and cream, I just put in 3 cups of milk and mixed in the pudding package. I threw it in the ice cream maker and set it to work.

20 minutes later I ventured a taste. my school days on the playground came rushing back to me immediately. success! pudding pop ice cream! and it wasn't even done churning yet. I tried to let it go longer but I kept eating it. finally, I pried myself away and put it in the freezer for a bit, but I've already probably eaten half of the batch. it is delicious. probably not perfect, but next time I'm going to freeze it in an ice cube tray for a real pudding pop like experience. and it's still unbelievable that there were 2 ingredients. TWO!

ooh, the pudding pop goodness will definitely be an obsession of mine for the time being. I may even try another pudding flavor. I don't think it'll be as good, but I've got two freezer bowls, so I can go back-to-back rounds.

so here's the recipe. I still can't believe it. I'm in pudding pop heaven:
Chocolate Pudding Ice Cream
3 cups of milk (or any combination of milk and cream)
1 package of instant pudding

whisk the pudding into cold milk. prepare ice cream according to the manufacturers instructions on your ice cream maker.

eat pudding pops and love life a little more.

Highlight from Birthday Eating Extravaganza: Dad likes Indian Food!

older....wiser...more tired, and VERY full. that's pretty much what it's like to be 30. oh, 30. so much to eat, and so little space.

so it all started like this:

MMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWwwww.
mmeoooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW
meow?

"shut up Lola"
meow?
"LOLA!"
MMMMMMMMEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow

"Happy Birthday!"
"ugh"

then Jeff gets up to shut up the cat, since it was my birthday, which entitled me to be the one staying in bed and not feeding the cat. as Jeff went out to put the smack down on Lola (i.e. fill up her bowl with delicious tuna), I realized that we didn't have any milk. no, not for the cat, but for my birthday cappuccino that Jeff had promised to make me and I was SO looking forward to. I yelled into the kitchen that we had no milk followed by "this birthday already sucks." Jeff came back into the bedroom to console me, but I was inconsolable, no milk = no coffee (well until he went to the store and bought some). and then: KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK at the door. Jeff started scrambling around, whereas I knew it had to be birthday goodness (I was expecting a package or flowers or something). but EVEN BETTER! my sister and bro-in-law. I literally jumped up and down screaming for about 10 seconds. and then my b.i.l. offered to go get me milk too...what a day it was turning into! fast forward several more hours and my parents and aunt also showed up and surprised me.

the plan (before all the visitors!) for my birthday was a whole lot of eating...starting with Peter Luger for a steak birthday lunch. oh god. steak and burgers. it's really as good as people say it is. you can order BACON as your APPETIZER. "I would like one piece of bacon before my huge piece of cow comes please." I was in heaven. I split the burger with my sister and got some of the famous porterhouse as well. all good, very very good. so very good. mmm....beef (and bacon)...mmmm....

so after PL, we were meeting some friends for dinner at a smallish italian "small plates" place. italian tapas in a way. it was family style and I picked it because they had all sorts of panini. the food was great, so was the wine and the friends and family, but the best part of the night came when they brought the cake out.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAUREN"
said the cake.

so, you may have noticed, my name is not spelled in the typical way. so Jeff was very very careful when he told them how to spell it. In fact (apparently), the guy on the phone at the bakery said "with a 'C', as in 'cat'" - to which Jeff answered in the affirmative. so, we were both kind of confused and made the waiter go back and make sure it was my cake (perhaps, we thought, someone else named Lauren was not going to get her cake). and the waiter went back and brought out the receipt "Jess Cox" ordered the cake. well, if I'm Lauren then I guess it makes sense that Jeff is Jess. my friend took some awesome pictures of my face and Jeff trying to explain to me what happened. If I can find the pics, I'll post them at the end of this entry.

overall, though it was a great day. but the weekend of eating was not over yet. Saturday we had reservations at Picholine. a "jacket required" restaurant. as we were getting dressed (correction, as I was getting dressed and everyone else was lying around, which was fine for everyone but Jeff cause they all had picked out what they were going to wear except him), and it got closer and closer until the time we had to leave, Jeff finally asked me what he should wear. Given that I was at t-5 minutes, I obviously couldn't think about his outfit. I said "a jacket" he said "jeans?" and I said "sure" - he totally didn't believe me, but my argument was that it didn't say you needed a suit, you just needed a jacket. so he got all fancified on the top half and wore jeans on the bottom half. I thought it was cool, in fact, later I said to Jeff that I loved his attitude towards the restaurant, I think what I actually said was that I loved that he went into the restaurant and "was like, whatever dudes, I'm wearing my jeans." of course, they didn't say anything to him. after all, he was still wearing a jacket.

the food, I thought, was really quite amazing. but what I really liked was that it was a fixed price menu, but priced by the number of courses you got. but you could order two appetizers or two main courses or three desserts or two entrees and one dessert or one appetizer and one dessert and so on and so forth. they would appropriately size your appetizer course as such...so I ended up ordering two entrees, but they made my appetizer "entree" small. I loved that. I ordered scallops as my appetizer, which were good, but not nearly as good as the mushroom risotto that I hijacked from my aunt. it was salty and creamy and delicious. so very delicious. but my main course was out of this world. chicken "kiev" - in quotes because instead of butter pouring out when you cut into it, molten foie gras came oozing out. pure heaven. I can't say I've ever had a better chicken dish. of course, the best part of the evening came when I ordered my dessert course and they brought me a 2nd dessert (for my birthday). and no, I didn't share, despite having two ENTIRE dessert courses in front of me (and they didn't make one of them smaller to be an "appetizer" dessert course). however, I didn't manage to finish both. I actually ended up liking the "bonus birthday" dessert better than the one I ordered. the bonus one was brioche thing, kind of like a mini loaf of brioche (very mini) battered and cooked, like french toast. I don't know exactly, but it was delicious. the dessert I actually ordered was a peanut butter souffle with banana ice cream. it needed chocolate...it was far to peanut buttery.

but really...the highlight of the food weekend came on Sunday. my parents were staying with us Sunday night, and everyone else had left in the early afternoon for their flights. I announced to Jeff and my parents that we would be ordering Indian for dinner. I then turned to my dad and told him he would be having leftover pizza or PL steak. he was cool with that...I was cool with that, but Jeff insisted that we order my dad some chicken tikka masala. everyone knows my dad is not the adventurous eater that I am (huge understatement). I mean, I guess I always thought he'd like it, but we could never get him to try it.

alas, the food arrived and Jeff prepared my dad's plate for him. some rice mixed in with his tikka masala, a somosa on the side and a huge hunk of nan. apparently, he'll try food that Jeff "prepares" for him. we all dug in to our dinners and kind of forgot about dad, until suddenly I realized that he was not complaining...and his food was half eaten. and right about then he announced "not bad...not bad at all. It's like tomato soup, but with chicken and rice." ha! I mean, the chicken tikka masala that we get from our takeout place is not spicy at all, so that helps a lot. Plus, I put a huge dollop of plain yogurt on his, which he loves, so that also helped. incredible. but now we know, we have to have Jeff convince dad to try things and make it all "dad-like" for him and familiar. the possibilities are now endless! it's totally going to be ethiopian the next time he comes.

so, who knew? I really CAN be surprised...PL really IS amazing (it's the aging!), no matter how many times you see you're name spelled wrong, there's always a new version, 2 desserts are better than one (and you don't need fancy pants when it's "jacket required") AND dad likes Indian food! what a birthday weekend!

PS - if my name was spelled wrong on my cake, does that mean it wasn't actually my birthday and I'm not really a year older? I think the answer to that question is most definitely, yes. :)

No Splitting This Split

I have been reinspired to blog again. Many days and months have passed (a year even?), and I guess it's unsurprising to those who know me, that the thing to bring me back to the blog is my one true love. Ice cream that is. To be more specific, my absolute favorite the ice cream treat, the banana split. oh, how I love the banana split. There are variations that are better than others, and I've never really been a big fan of the pineapple portion of the banana split, but tonight, I had the banana split that beats all banana splits. Not only did it beat every other banana split, it KILLED every other banana split. It was the home-run touchdown of banana splits.

So I've been traveling for work and have spent the last two weeks in Washington, DC. I've had work to do in the evenings so for the majority of the trip, I've spent my dinners in the hotel room eating falafel sandwiches or peanut butter. Some nights I got some black bean soup from the Dean and Deluca down the street, but it's not been much high class dining (with the exception of one other night). So, last weekend my mother-in-law tipped me off to Frank Bruni's latest top 10 list (top 10 new restaurants outside of NYC). Since I was out of NYC and one of the restaurants on Bruni's list was in DC, I decided to check it out.

I went after work and settled in at the bar with a nice glass of wine. My treat dinner, I thought to myself, it being my last night here and all. I glanced over the menu, but I had studied it dutifully online and knew I wanted to order the burger. With bacon and cheese of course. And seriously, I am not a big believer in the fancy [expensive] burgers, but since this was treat night for me, I went for it. I did a little web surfing and emailing and before I knew it my burger had arrived…about three inches thick and with a sufficient pile of french fries on the side. I immediately dug into the fries and they were salted perfectly and peppered too. FINALLY. I don’t know why restaurants don’t always salt and pepper the fries, they’re SO much better with both. I mean, doesn’t everyone love the salt and pepper potato chips? It’s like that, but better because they’re hot and wonderful. Anyway, I managed to get my mouth around the huge burger and in no time I was half through it. Tender, juicy, and just delicious. Totally worth the $20 I was paying for it.

But this is a blog about the banana split…so we’ll move quickly onto that portion of the meal. I did eat the entire burger and left three fry crunchies on the plate, and was feeling full, but since the burger was so good, I figured the banana split had to be good, and really, how could I not order it? I really didn’t have a choice in the matter, the decision was completely out of my hands. Before I knew it I was ordering it. It seemed that the banana split took at least twice as long to arrive as the burger did, but perhaps that’s because I was so looking forward to it. Despite my clear excitement for the split, I really didn’t think it was going to be so good. I mean, I figured it would be good, but I had no expectation that it would be the best banana split ever. And I’m serious, best ever.

So the banana split arrived and my eyes must have grown to the size of the ice cream scoops; it was served up on an old school tv dinner type plate (you know the one, with four divisions, three small portions and one big one). The banana was served up in the main part of the plate (don’t worry, now that Jeff made me get that fancy phone, I take pictures), and it was snuggled between a pool of chocolate and a pool of caramel (for the record, I don’t like caramel). The banana was sliced in half lengthwise and covered with the following:

1. whipped cream
2. strawberry and chocolate sauce (duh)
3. crispy chocolate bits
4. freeze dried pineapple (they FINALLY solved the gross pineapple problem)
5. and just a nice sprinkling of chopped pistachios

The three ice cream flavors were: chocolate, strawberry (sorbet though, more about this in a minute), and caramel. I started with the chocolate ice cream (traditional choice for me, obviously) a bit of chocolate ice cream and a bit of banana (with all the banana fixins’) on one spoon. What surprised me immediately was the creaminess of the ice cream, I swear that the ice cream was made only out of heavy cream and chocolate. The banana with all the nibbly bits provided just the right amount of crunch, sweet, sour (from the freeze dried pineapple), creamy and good good goodness. I immediately ate about 5 bites in a row without thinking…I had to try every combination, chocolate ice cream with the caramel sauce, caramel ice cream with the chocolate sauce and so on and so forth. And despite my strong dislike of caramel, I found it not so sweet and just right with the banana and the rest of the deliciousness. I usually hate caramel because it oozes with gooey sweetness, which to me, is the mark of a bad dessert, if you have to cover the flavor with gooey sweet then it is just not good. But both the caramel sauce and caramel ice cream were LOADED with cream, so it was not so sweet at all.

So we now come to the strawberry sorbet. I had avoided it….I was so terribly disappointed when I first realized it was sorbet (sorbet is for cleansing your palate it is NOT a dessert…do you hear me Jeff? not a dessert). So when the rest of the split was so good, I had to give the strawberry a try. I reluctantly put my spoon in but only put a mere dab on the end of the spoon and filled up the rest with the banana goodies. But I took a bite and realized, this may be what all good banana splits were missing, it was SO refreshing with the rest of the dense creamy split. It was like an even better strawberry sauce. and I didn’t have faith, even after all the good food I had eaten.

this was the point in the split in which I had take a huge breath and I realized that my stomach was about to explode. I hade made it through about half the chocolate scoop (each scoop was probably about 10 oz of ice cream), half the caramel and a third of the strawberry (I know! but the strawberry came to the party too late in the game for me to get through that much of it).

I had about two bites left of the banana (in addition to the ice cream), and I realized I could not go on (so unlike me, one of my friends has already commented). Despite it being my celebratory night, I was not going to make myself sick (I have only once made myself sick from eating too much….aah, pound cake….and I still love it), so I threw in the napkin. but by that time I had already convinced the woman sitting next to me that she too must order the banana split.

Perhaps the joy also came from the fact that it was 60 + degrees here today, so I had that spring feeling in my step. PLUS, when I was younger spring meant the DQ, and that was my first experience with the banana split. but I’d have to say that 99% of the goodness in today’s banana split was from the fantabulousness of it, and maybe 1% could be attributed to the nostalgia. Regardless, this means that spring is here, ice cream season is officially upon us and there will be many many more banana splits for me this summer.

Even if I had gone to this restaurant with others, I would have not split this split.

Electrifying Butter

So to preface this, I'm going to be very clear that what I'm writing is not based on any real knowledge I have about how microwaves and chemistry works, and it is 99% based on information I read on the internet from sometimes sketchy websites (the 1% was based on conversations I had with Jeff while he was playing Halo).

So here's the story:
When we were in Michigan we were sitting down enjoying dinner when my sister and brother-in-law told us about a butter sparking problem they were having with their microwave. About a year ago (I think) they were trying to soften some butter in the microwave in a Denby (microwave safe) dish. After about 2 seconds there was a spark that shot across the microwave. They took it out and it didn't happen again until several weeks ago when it started happening regularly, that is, every time they tried to microwave butter.

So the facts are:
- only butter sparks
- they used the dish in the microwave with many different foods without any sparks
- the butter is unsalted (salt is an electrolyte)
- it happens well well before the butter melts, generally after 2 seconds or so
- they didn't leave the butter in long enough to know if it would continue to happen after the butter was soft/melted
- they had probably done it with two different types of butter
- I don't know what kind of microwave they have

We sat at the dinner table and peppered them with questions for the rest of the evening, not able to find anything obvious (we had 4 young well educated people: chemistry, engineering and biology majors sitting at the table, so hopefully our minds were at least asking the right questions). No physics majors though.

So we left without any answers, but I promised to blog about it if my sister showed me. So we went back to their house and stuck a piece of butter in. After about 1 second there was a PPPSSSHHHT! noise but no spark, but sister immediately stopped the microwave, although she was sure it would have sparked if she would have left it going.

So, after a bit of research on the web, here's my own personal crazy theory.
Two things are fairly well documented on the web (life lessons according to the interweb are often dangerous, but keeps things exciting, right?):
1. Microwaves spark on a more regular basis than you might imagine. Usually when this happens it is because it is dirty. It sounds like there is some side panel which is what gets dirty and the oil/food on there burns and sparks. I think that can be cleaned or replaced to solve the general sparking problem. But their problem only happened with butter.
2. Others have reported a butter sparking problem or other one-food related sparking problem. To explain this issue, a little background. Microwaves work by heating up the water in food (more specifically, it's a factor of the polarity of the water - at least according to some website). Microwaves are well absorbed by water, but not well absorbed by ice.

So here's my theory, assuming they don't have a dirty panel (which could cause sparking generally), I think when they start the microwave one bit of the cold butter starts to melt, and the liquid absorbs way way way more microwaves than the rest of the "pat" of butter (this was documented, that it can happen within a second). This large absorption of microwaves in relation to the rest of the butter causes the spark or at least the PPPPPPSSSSHHHHT! noise we heard. In addition, butter itself is a dipole and can get very very very hot in the microwave, so it seems reasonable to assume that in one or two seconds one little bit could melt and start absorbing more waves than the surrounding butter.

How's that for an uneducated guess at butter sparking?

There is also the well-documented experiment of grapes sparking in the microwave (actually, flaming), which is due to some very long complicated explanation which I didn't have the patience to read. So it is also possible that whatever causes grapes to flame might also cause their butter to spark. I'm not sure though. I think the mystery still continues.

But if anyone knows why this might be happening, let me know!

(Almost ) burger paradise

I've been a little behind with my postings, ok, well a lot behind. I'd like to blame it on the new apartment, but I think mostly I've just been lazy. Alas, I am back (hopefully, more regularly), so let's see what I can knock out here.

A few weeks ago Jeff's family was coming into town which usually means a uber-fancy dinner (per se, Jean Georges were restaurants visited in previous visits), this time, we were a party of 8 and decided to try a place down in Tribeca, which was known primarily for its low markup on its wine and its steak.

While I am a bonafide steak lover, and don't eat it very often, so usually am overjoyed about an opportunity for filet mignon (I think it's already well established that I have high food tastes and expectations, so does it really seem that surprising that I always go straight for the filet?). However, on this particular evening, I wasn't feeling the filet option. Surprised myself at my lack of interest, I browsed the rest of the menu to try and find something to suit my taste for the evening.

Which is when the hamburger option caught my eye. Generally speaking, if I'm at a restaurant known for some kind of specialty I'll go for it. Since steak was their thing, and I didn't feel like that, the hamburger seemed like the perfect compromise, and I am always in the mood for hamburgers.

So I ordered the burger and as a last minute addition I asked for blue cheese as well. Fast forward several glasses of wine, and the food arrives. So the restaurant is dark, I have had a few glasses of wine and there was this strange (what appeared to be) beige-ish very very thin patty on top of my hamburger. Confused and a little frightened, I gingerly stuck one tine of my fork in the patty-like thing, and to my great surprise it was the blue cheese....not too strong, (because an entire patty of strong blue cheese would have been terrible), but certainly not for those who don't like blue cheese. Like a kid in a candy store, I dug in to my blue cheese burger, and the warm oozy blue cheese melted into the ground beef. I knew I had one delicious burger on my hands.

I tried to savor every bite, but I think I really devoured the whole thing before anyone could even notice my burger. wow, it was one good burger.

Which got me to thinking, is the goodness of a burger (for me) dependent on the toppings? But I thought back to my favorite, the Red Coat burger, and that's just good burger meat. What I also thought about in terms of my burger enjoyment, if I have a burger that is not pink in the middle, I am immediately turned off. it's just too dry, and there's no flavor. So that seemed to lean towards a good meat = good burger theory.

And then, a couple of weekends ago we went to Michigan and went to Red Coat. And I always get blue cheese on my burger there. And there I realized it is clearly a combination of the toppings and the meat. At Red Coat the amazing sauce mixes with the blue cheese and the burger drippings, which is just plain delicious. But they also, ALWAYS cook just as you want it (probably a factor of the sheer number of burgers they cook every day). So many of the supposedly "best burger" places in Manhattan which I have visited in an attempt to find the best burger, do not cook it the way I want it. And that's because they see burgers being the new hot trend and got into this business but they don't actually know how to cook burgers.

However, the most important thing I realized is that it starts with the good burger meat and proper cooking. That can get you to a good burger. But if you have good toppings and sauce, that'll put it over the top into amazing status. Now, if I could only perfect this for home cooking, I'd be all set.

if only...

this sad story begins with a series of "if onlys..." (and by the way, if you get sick when hearing about gory things, then don't read this)

if only I had not been in such a hurry...if only I had used the pre-chopped lettuce...if only we had ordered take-out...if only I had used proper knife skills as I always do, I wouldn't have had to go to the ER on Sunday night.

the story begins around 7 pm on Sunday night when we had the "ooh, take-out is so tempting" conversation. but we decided that since I had already made the tomato sauce and bought everything for dinner, I'd cook.

so you may have guessed the story by now (or heard about it).... I accidentally sliced off part of my finger on Sunday night while cooking. and I ALWAYS curl my fingers up to get them out of the way, like I've watched for hours and hours on end on the food network. I started screaming and screaming and screaming and Jeff ran in (I actually saw a little bit of finger on the cutting board). he grabbed my arm and took me into the bathroom and realized there wasn't anything he could do really. he was holding my arm up in the air but I wouldn't really let him put any pressure on it to stop the bleeding because it hurt so much.

he called his parents and said "she chopped off part of her finger" and I screamed even more. they said "call 911!" which he did. once those calls were finished we sat down and I started to calm down a bit because the blood was no longer pouring down my arm. but then I looked up and Jeff was completely white and there was sweat pouring down his face. he looked up at me and said "I think I'm going to pass out" and his head fell forward. I grab his head and screamed his name. he opened his eyes but he did not look well. after a minute or so, he said that he was alright and got up to change his clothes (we had just gotten back from working out, so on top of it all I was a smelly mess).

shortly thereafter, the police arrived and then the EMS. they reassured me that it wasn't so bad and that I would be fine, but I wouldn't let them run my finger under water. they re-wrapped in it gauze (it was still bleeding), and there wasn't much they could do so we went down to the ambulance and they drove us to the hospital. we arrived and they checked me in and assigned me to a bed. we plopped down and began to wait.

we actually didn't have to wait too long before a set of doctors (I think there were 2 residents and an attending or chief resident or something) came over. they asked me when I'd had my last tetanus shot (I didn't remember) and then took off the gauze. they realized there was really nothing for them to do either (I hadn't cut off "enough" for them to re-attach anything, and it wasn't a cut into my finger that needed to be stitched, I had just taken off most of the nail and part of the side -- I think, I still haven't looked yet). But they did need to stop the bleeding so they needed to go find some blood clotter gel thing or something. so then we waited for awhile more.

they came back and wrapped me up (the gel was incredibly painful because she essentially had to press it into my open wound). we then realized that we didn't have enough cash to take a cab home, so we were going to have to walk. which was unbelievably depressing for me, so I sent Jeff to go find an atm. we waited a bit more for the tetanus shot and then we were ready to head home. all in all it was about a 2 hour visit.

we arrived home, saw all the half cooked food on the stove and immediately ordered a pizza. I think Jeff threw out everything that was sitting out, including the cutting board. I vowed to never cook again.

if only I could really stick to that vow...

oh peaches, where art thou?

So at Jeff's crazy cool workplace, last week there was a Farmer's market in the cafeteria. oh no, I'm sorry, I was just fact checking and apparently, the Farmer's market was on the balcony of the cafeteria. You would think that these things wouldn't surprise me anymore, but they still do. Now, I misunderstood this at first when he told me. I thought he meant that his cafeteria food was all made fresh from Farmer's market ingredients (like the "theme" for the day), but no, there was an actual market in which you shopped (but yes, they had to pay with real money) for produce and what not.

Anyway, I was out to lunch (i.e. the gym) when Jeff called me to ask if I wanted him to buy anything. So he took it upon himself to decide what looked good and what we needed. What he ended up with was about 4 pounds of peaches (but it was only $3). That's it. Just peaches. And a whole lot of them. I however, did not know how many peaches he had actually bought. (not that I'm complaining)

So this was last Wednesday. The peaches did not arrive home on Wednesday, because we were going out to dinner and he came straight from work to dinner. Thursday he didn't bring them home because he walked home from work. So on Friday he had to bring them home. However, he also received a 24" monitor from work that he had to bring home as well. Instead of taking a cab (which I understand because we were going to the UES that night and destined to be taking a cab both ways), he took the subway. Just imagine how big a 24" monitor is and then imagine how big the box for it is. HUGE.

To be able to bring the peaches home, he tied the plastic bag onto his computer bag (his computer bag is only big enough for his computer, not even room in there for a power cable). This arrangement was such that the plastic bag hit his side/leg every time he took a step.

So Friday he arrived home with mostly bruised peaches and monitor in tow. That's when I realized how many peaches we were dealing with. This was going to be no small task using them up (especially because I knew the chances were slim to none that he would eat the peaches on their own, the expectation was very clear that something would be made with them).

So here arrived problem #2 ... cooking/baking with peaches. Ugh. Of course pie pops into everyone's head. But peach pie (and every other peach recipe under the sun) calls for peeled peaches. double ugh. what an unnecessary ridiculous step in cooking. removing the skin. triple ugh.

I've also been in this situation before, where I think to myself, it can't be THAT bad if I just leave the skin on. But it's weird and gross every time. I don't know what it is. But when you eat a piece of pie, you don't want extra peach skin hanging out of your mouth attached to the peach piece.

After two days of half-hearted searching (and throwing away about three peaches a day because they were bruised and going bad), I stumbled across a recipe free-form fruit tart, that oddly enough, did not call for peeling the peaches. Especially strange since essentially it was a pie crust in which you mounded up peaches and blueberries in the middle of and folded the sides of the crust over "in a rustic manner."

Before I had to throw out all the peaches, I figured I'd give it a try. My kitchen, of course, is about 600 degrees when I'm making dinner, so I was sure the pie crust would be a disaster. Especially when I was rolling out the dough and there were only three bits of butter visible to the eye (it should be "peppered" so to speak, with bits of butter so that it can rise properly and be flaky).

I piled on the fruit, threw it in the oven and set the timer for an hour. Of course, what I happened to forget was that I had halved the recipe (I'm sure I've written about this problem before that I have with halving recipes). Luckily, however, I was also cooking our chicken for dinner in the oven at the same time. I went in to check in on the chicken when the tart was supposed to be about half way finished (imagine that), and found the peaches lightly charred, the crust golden brown and the blueberries bubbling away. I immediately pulled it out, but I was sure that it was yet more peaches destined for the garbage.

After scarfing down dinner, I turned to dessert. I had Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream in the freezer, so I knew that dessert would be recoverable if I piled on enough ice cream. To my great surprise, the crust was tender and flaky, the peaches and blueberries perfectly sweetened and no weird peach skin issues. I still managed to pile on the ice cream, but I mostly ate it separately, the free form tart was so tasty!

I got the recipe from Cooks Illustrated, but it was really a basic pie crust in which you piled on fruit (I'm not sure how well really juicy fruits would fare, since there's no thickener or anything), and gave the whole thing a sprinkling of sugar. a perfect way to use up peaches without having to take off the skin. Next time I'm going to advise Jeff to both diversify his purchases and maybe not wait three days to bring the goodies home. either way though, this time it worked out pretty well for us.

Dessert Karma

Last week I went out to dinner to Del Posto with two of my friends to bid adieu to one of them who is moving to San Francisco. We actually selected the enoteca part of Del Posto, which appeared to have a smaller, less expensive menu, but still looked wonderful. We were kind of expecting to be seated in a dungeonous basement or something, but we had a great table, near the front of the restaurant (I guess they consider the dungeon the front).

Our waiter appeared almost immediately to take our drink order, one of my friends (the one moving, I'll call her SF) had a glass of prosecco so my other friend (I'll call her NY) and I ordered one as well. The waiter inquired whether or not we were celebrating something (all the prosecco being ordered I suspect was the reason why he was inquiring), and NY indicated that SF was moving away, so not really a celebration of sorts, but a fun evening nonetheless. The waiter returned with the bottle and filled up a glass for myself, NY, and then topped off SF's glass. At that point we knew that we'd be in for a great evening.

We decided that we would go for the tasting menu, which included five courses: appetizer, two pastas, a secondo plate and dessert. Each individual ordered her own appetizer, secondo and dessert while the table selected two pasta dishes and everyone got the two same pasta courses. I had announced that I was happy to share (it was a special occasion afterall), so we all ordered different things and selected the pastas. We did not, however, have to select the dessert options when we ordered the rest of the food. Which was good because selected the four other options was tough enough at that point.

Our food began arriving at the table, course after course of wonderful morsels of all sorts of things, steak, pork, pasta, fish, calamari, asparagus...it was all wonderful. We wondered why the restaurant wasn't busier, the food was great, and while the selection wasn't as large as the main restaurant, there was still plenty to choose from, and it was cheaper too. The service was impeccable, and we had no trouble making a reservation (they only take same day reservations). Reviews of the main part of the restaurant often indicate overpriced and poor service for what you're paying..clearly this would be the answer to all of those complaints. Perhaps now that I'm writing about it, the word is out...then again, definitely not (as much as I'd like to believe more than 2 people read this, somehow I doubt that enoteca will be mobbed anytime soon because of my post).

Once we started getting closer to dessert, the conversation slowly turned to what our dessert selections were going to be. Both NY and SF are very well aware of both my dessert infatuation and my unwillingness to share. I however, committed to sharing my dessert like a normal nice person would (it was either the alcohol talking at that point or perhaps I'm actually learning to share...maybe I'll graduate to 1st grade at some point soon...we could only hope). Once I had committed to sharing we agreed to all get different things. This was a much tougher negotiation, there were a couple of stand out items, but after a short round table discussion we came away with our dessert agenda:

SF was to get a chocolate almond cake thing
NY was getting a sorbet/prosecco
I was getting the chocolate pudding

I was excited and ready to order (and I'd have to say that I was most excited for the chocolate almond cake). The waiter came back and SF ordered first, and to my great dismay, after she ordered he instructed her to pick something else. but, but, the chocolate almond cake! How could they be out?! After my loud groan of disappointment the waiter replied that he was planning on bring one of those for the table! Happy with our stroke of good luck, SF quickly selected a blueberry cake thing. Next up to order was NY, and once she completed her order, the waiter told her that her selection was more of a palate cleanser, and he recommended that she too pick something else. She actually kind of was interesting in the palate cleansing dessert (we had afterall, just consumed four other courses), so she indicated that was ok with her, and the waiter replied, with what was now becoming a pattern, that he'd bring one for the table and she should pick something else. Shocked yet again, she selected a lemon thing (I don't remember it exactly, whether it was more of a cake/bar type thing or a custard/brulee type thing, or perhaps neither of those). I went to order my pudding, kind of expecting at this point to be ordered to select something different, but at that point we had pretty much everything off the dessert menu ordered for our table, so my chocolate pudding was accepted by the waiter.

And then the flow of desserts started, five in all were delivered to our table. It was dessert heaven for me (just in shear volume of sugar treats covering our table). My friends agreed that I must have dessert karma of some sort, as neither of them had ever been to a restaurant and been offered so many extra free desserts. I think that my experience at per se was perhaps on their mind, but per se wasn't even the first time that I received extra dessert (although the other places I can think of were either very high end, or I had poor service or something and requested a free dessert...like the time I was in Toronto with SF and some of our other friends and I got a MASSIVE banana split with SPARKLERS coming out of it, just to name one other time).

I'd like to believe I have dessert karma, what a great thing! Of course, my mom would tell me, like she always used to, that I'm going to give myself diabetes (which, I didn't actually ever believe was possible, I thought she was just trying to scare me...turns out she was right, you can get diabetes from eating too much sugar). It's really not a bad thing to have going for you, dessert karma, despite the sugar infestation that will most likely one day take over me. I'm going to ride it out as long as I can!

Farmer's Market Salad

I haven't really had the opportunity yet this summer to hit the farmer's market. Last weekend I really started to get the itch to go as all the fruits started appearing en masse at the grocery store. So I planned to devote this Saturday morning to the market. Despite my overwhelming excitement, I slept in (so I probably missed all the good stuff), and only managed to drag myself out of the apartment after downing a cappuccino.

I love the farmer's market. Especially in the summer. Especially when it's 68 degrees and sunny. Especially when it's overflowing with fruits and veggies and flowers and bread and cheeses and jams and honey and everything else under the sun. It's not only that I'm getting fresh delicious things, but I think I also feel a sense of well-being because I'm helping the local farmers. I'm sure that some of the stands are not small farms, but no matter, I always come away from the market with more bags than I can carry, a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a glowing feeling.

Today was a perfect day for the farmers market (you may have guessed that it was 68 and sunny with a light cool breeze). I finally arrived close to 11, a little late by the farmer's market standard, but there was certainly still a ton of fresh goodness to pick from. I started with cherries, which must be in season because every stand had an overflowing amount of them. I grabbed my little pint and went to pay. The gentleman asked me if I wanted the pint basket and I said no and he thanked me and threw in a couple more handfuls of cherries into my bag. This is why I love the farmers market! Everyone is friendly, no pushing or shoving, everyone walks away smiling. I paid $3 for a sizeable bag of cherries, and last weekend I paid a RIDICULOUS $10 for cherries that didn't taste nearly as good.

My morning continued...we lapped the market and took a break in the shade once I had finished. I had bags filled with blueberries, cherries, strawberries, lettuce, eggs, herbs, tomatoes, all sorts of goodies. It's safe to say that I was incredibly content at that point...there are very few things that make me feel as happy as either an incredibly well stocked fridge or having bought all the things to stock my fridge with deliciousness. It's the best feeling to open the door or walk into the kitchen and have all sorts of fresh options to choose from for a snack or to make a meal.

I arrived home ravenous and asked Jeff what he wanted for lunch. To which he replied, with his standard reply, "what d'ya got?" (yes, he was an english major). I realized I didn't actually really have any food for a meal. I bought lots of things to complement a meal (veggies and things), but after thinking for a minute I realized that I could make a pretty darn delicious salad with all the ingredients in my bag. So I offered a salad with fresh berries and goat cheese and pecans. I didn't think he'd bite (literally ... figuratively), but I think he was hungry enough, so he was in.

I went into the kitchen and started making the salad, blueberries, cherries, strawberries, goat cheese and pecans. Easy and simple. I rummaged through my bags to find something else, and I pulled out the basil and chopped that up and threw it in too. But the real breakthrough came when I decided I wanted croutons too, but the only bread I had bought was a cinnamon raisin bread (for french toast tomorrow, yummmmm!). Of course that would work! It's a fruit salad anyway! So I made some cinnamon raisin croutons to top it all off..oh boy, that was good stuff.

I just added olive oil, salt and pepper to dress it with and dug in. Unbelievably fresh and delicious, it's amazing what fresh ingredients can do. The strawberries and cherries were so incredibly juicy and sweet, their juices kind of mixed with the olive oil to make more of a berry vinegrette. oh dear, it was good. The perfect way to top off my morning. This may have to be my new Saturday morning tradition, go to the market, buy a bunch of yummo ingredients and try throwing them all together...hopefully they'll all be as good as this one.

(June) Farmer's Market Salad
I'm just going to list all the stuff I used, obviously you can use as much or as little as you want. Plus the whole idea is to buy whatever's there and make it. But if you happen to have all these ingredients on hand, it's a pretty darn great salad.

Blueberries
Cherries
Strawberries
Goat cheese
Pecans (toasted in a dry pan for a couple of minutes...NOT BURNT!)
Lettuce
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper
Basil (mint would be good too)
Cinnamon raisin croutons (see below)

For the croutons, the best way to do it (I think) is to use the ends of the bread (especially if you're making french toast with the rest of the loaf, because you won't use the ends). Cut up the ends into bite size pieces, and heat up some butter (or olive oil, but I used butter since it's a sweet bread) in a pan over low heat. Add the bread and let cook for a couple of minutes until one side is golden brown. Toss around in the pan and add more butter if necessary until all sides are golden brown. Add to salad. Dig in and enjoy!!

rice three (maybe four?) ways

I've never really been able to make rice. Maybe it's silly, but it's true...I always have all sorts of problems when I try to make regular white rice. I've had better luck with brown rice (except the time when I burnt an entire cup of brown rice to the bottom of a pot). When I was in college I would make (the only thing I actually "cooked") the boil-in-a-bag, which worked fine. But now that I'm all grown up and should make adult white rice, I can't seem to get it right.

So last Saturday, while breaking out a serious sweat playing the Wii with some friends, it quickly approached dinner time (well for Jeff it was WAY past dinner time, being 8:30 pm it was well past his usual early bird special). I had found a red curry recipe that I wanted to try, well, in reality, I found a red curry recipe that I wanted to completely change around and replace most of the ingredients with other ingredients, but I did want the red curry to remain the same. This, however, required making rice. I confinded into my friend that I was village idiot when it came to rice making, but she was no help either, apparently I'm not the only one who has this mental block when it comes to rice making.

So I pulled out the Uncle Ben's (the first time I have even ever bought uncle ben's, I usually get the fancier stuff) box, and to make matters worse, they had instructions for making rice for 2, 4, 6 or 12 people. so I immediately looked at the recipe for 6 naturally (we had 4 people), but this recipe only called for 1.5 cups of uncooked rice, which didn't seem to be like a whole lot. My sous chef (not that I'm a better cook than my sous chef, she just happened to be reading the ingredients to me) agreed, and there was no way to double the recipe for 4 because the water/rice ratio varied for each serving size. Clearly, what made the most sense was to make rice for 12.

When the timer alarm went off, I refused to lift the lid because I was sure there was hard uncooked and mushy grains in the pot. When I finally did open the lid, what awaited me were glorious perfectly cooked rice grains. rice for 12 is clearly the answer!!

So after making our way through a lot of the rice for 12 (and we did eat a lot because the red curry was SPICY), I still had oodles and oodles of rice leftover.

what to do with rice leftovers?

well the first option that I came up with, was rice pudding. I actually thought of it when I decided on making rice for 12 (I think I said "well, I can always make rice pudding with the leftovers"). So last night after dinner (we had hamburgers, nothing at all related to rice), I whipped up a batch of rice pudding. It was tasty and delicious, but only used up a small amount of the leftover rice.

So tonight for dinner I was determined to come up with another use for leftover rice. Again, the choice seemed obvious, fried rice. I threw together a pan of fried rice, which was also delicious, and also did not use up all the rice. never again will I make rice for 12! (one of the funny parts of this whole thing is that the amount of rice that I had in leftovers was probably $1 worth...even funnier if you are reading this after reading the per se entry, in which no single bite of that entire meal probably cost less than $1). It had become a challenge at this point (clearly).

So I e-mailed my friend who got me into this predicament in the first place, and she came back with great ideas! Rice salad, rice stuffing, tomato rice soup (coincidentally that was also the soup in the cafeteria today), stuffed peppers, the list goes on and on. I have, however, been lectured over and over again from my mom and grandma that I must not ever make stuffed peppers with cooked rice. They have only ever made it with uncooked rice and it appears to be the proper polish way. I have yet to make any stuffed peppers because I keep forgetting the recipe (mom, can I get that again from you?). So I won't be making the stuffed peppers, but I will be making yet another rice dish tomorrow for dinner.

anywho. rice for 12. now that I have offered up so many options for leftover rice (well, stole a bunch of ideas and then posted them to my blog as though I came up with them), everyone should be making rice for 12. it may just be the only way to make rice come out at all, unless, of course, you use Toshiba's new $800 rice cooker.

oh god I'm never eating again [dinner at per se]

FYI...I started this post the morning after dinner and I just finished it (a week + later)

It's 9:30 am post per se, and I am overcome with the feeling of never wanting to eat again. Mostly I feel this way because I had a nine course dinner (plus little extras) starting at 10 pm last night. What struck me by dinner last night is that it was the first really fancy dinner that seemed like real american food. No hamburgers or anything, but a salsa/goat cheese course?! Dessert wasn't some fancy french pastry thing, but a heavenly chocolate/hazelnut almost ganache-like thing (but believe me, I will get to dessert in a minute).

When I asked Jeff what he thought of dinner, he paused for a minute and then said "yeah, it was pretty good." Pretty good, huh? Every course was meticulously designed and crafted for flavor and texture combinations. I admit there were some that had me feeling like they were just dressing up some veggies from the corner store. But overall, the meal was incredibly impressive, clearly, if I felt like I never wanted to eat again, I certainly got enough good food to make me want to explode.

So let's start at the beginning...10 pm, Friday night (two Fridays ago). We were seated and quickly ordered a bottle of champagne (it's hard not to when they come up to your table and ask "so will you be starting with champagne?" really impossible to turn that offer down). Then a waitress came up to me with a little stool. Slightly confused (but not wanting to show my confusion), she set it down next to me (I really really really wanted it to be a foot rest so I could stretch out my legs under the table), I quickly realized it was for my purse. A seat for my purse. A seat....for my purse. ha!

We started browsing the menu and were informed that we could "mix and match" off of the vegetarian tasting menu and the regular tasting menu. We put together our dinner selections while they brought us these heavenly cheese balls. Cheese balls raised to the infinite power. I think it was brie, surrounded by a delightful pastry dough, which provided just the right crispiness to match the melty cheese. I could have eaten a hundred, but thankfully I was only given one because I definitely would have thrown up after dinner if I had more.

We ordered our dinner, and shortly after our food descended to our table (we hadn't however, received any bread yet, and were DYING, so we had to ask for some, slight point deduction, but not much). The first course was an oyster/caviar course. Jeff opted for some green soup thing (he REALLY must hate oysters if he opted for the green soup). All I have to say is that the oyster dish was my favorite of the night and the green soup tasted like garbage. Literally, spinach garbage. I was worried for a moment and then I went back to my oysters and melted away to caviar heaven. It was this creamy dish, almost like cream cheese, with the caviar providing little bursts of salty goodness. Amazing. A-maze-ing. Definitely the best course (besides dessert, but we'll get there) of the night.

I'm not sure I remember the order of all the courses (but I did write them all down so I would remember them), but I'll highlight the good stuff.

There was a red mullet fish dish, that was good, for what it was. I'm not a huge fan of red mullet, but the skin was perfectly crispy and had delightful accompaniments. That ended up being story of the meal for many of the courses (except dessert...we'll get there). While the main part of the dish would be good, it was always paired with a bunch of little accent tastes that enhanced the dish to levels not imaginable.

Foi gras was delightful, one of the best I've ever had. Unfortunately, I hate to admit it, but I very much enjoy the fattened duck liver. It's horrible, but it's not like I eat it every day (I've probably eaten it 4 times in my life -- although 3 of those were in the last year). But it was extremely creamy and had a rich wonderful flavor. As we started to eat the foi gras (I actually think it was right before we dug in, the waiters came out and brought us fresh warm brioche toast (we were served brioche toast when they served it to us originally). Apparently the first batch of brioche was no longer warm and therefore needed to be replaced. We postulated that they just did this to really make us feel like we were eating at a fancy place. Maybe it did taste better with warm toast, but they literally had just set it down, so they must have brought it out cold (or cool or whatever). They just wanted to show off their warm toast.

And then came the veal brain. Yup, that's right, little baby cow brains. Jeff opted out of this dish too, which was probably a good idea. In my defense I didn't really know what I was ordering when I ordered it, but I have to admit that I ate the whole thing (it was only one little piece). Jeff remembers it actually looking like a brain (all nobby and such), but my piece looked smooth to me. My mother-in-law, who is a medical examiner (and therefore sees brains on a regular basis) could not finish hers because it hit a little too close to home. But here's the kicker, I bet you're wondering what cow brain tastes like, right? It tastes like sushi. Yeah, that's right, cow brain tastes like sushi. I'm not sure if it was the texture, or there was some kind of salty crust or something on it (wow, that sounds disgusting, a salty crusted cow brain), but all I could think about was how much it tasted like sushi.

The last truly memorable course was the beef course (real, cooked beef). It was perfectly done, perfectly tasty and perfectly accompanied. Yes, it's true, a steak is only a steak, and I agree that they can only be so good, but when put with a perfect little onion and a potato puff thing, it becomes a whole different meal. Bites of onion and potato that are soft and tender but providing just the flavor punches needed for the steak.

There was a "cheese" course, which was goat cheese with a tomatillo salsa, moderately forgettable. It was just as I have described it. Then, blueberry sorbet, which again, was good, but had this crispy caramel thin pancake thing with it that I could stop myself from eating once I started, it was totally addictive.

So let's move quickly onto dessert. So the menu said something about chocolate and hazelnut torte or something. I was excited (because I LOVE LOVE LOVE chocolate and hazelnut), but I was not prepared for how crazy good it was going to be. It was really just a chocolate hazelnut mousse in an egg shape (like reese's easter peanut butter egg size, those big ones). But it was this airy, delightful, chocolately, hazelnutty treat. It melted away into my mouth and I didn't want any bite to end, but I soon came to the end of my dessert. Disappointed, my mother-in-law fended off Jeff's grubby hands and gave me hers. I plowed through her dessert before the waitress came back. When she did, she commented that it looked like I really liked the dessert and noted that I finished two of them. I was a little embarrassed but then she asked if I would like more. I turned a little red, but my father-in-law quickly answered in the affirmative for me, and off she went.

She returned with not one but TWO more chocolate hazelnut mousse dessert delights. oh, how I love thee (both the dessert and the waitress for bringing me more). This time, I didn't even try to savor them, I just devoured them. It probably would have been a good idea if I tried to savor them, then I would have thought about how full I was. But I didn't...I just kept eating. I pushed through. Then they brought out truffles: chocolate, coconut, etc... Well, I had to try those too...until I didn't feel so well anymore.

Just as I was started to feel like I REALLY overdid it, the waitress came back, and I started to get a little nervous (if she had more chocolate hazelnut then I'd HAVE to eat it, but I might have exploded if that were the case). She approached the table and began with an apology. She explained that the kitchen had thrown out the rest of the desserts (although we read that as: chefs and wait staff claimed the rest to take home, which is fine, they deserve it), but they did have some brownies leftover, which she handed to me all wrapped up in an extremely fancy goody bag. Twelve mini brownies all together PLUS they had given us these packages of meringue cookies. oh god. this is when I really started to feel like I OD'd.

I really had wanted to take a taxi home, but when I got up I knew that I had to walk home or I would simply fall over and die. We walked slowly home and each step I took I thought I was going to throw up. It was almost worse than drinking too much, except that I got to enjoy each bite with delight. We got home and I immediately had to go right to bed (I know that probably wasn't the best idea, but I could not stand being awake and feeling that way any longer).

All in all, an amazing dinner. I'm pretty darn lucky to have had the chance to go. Although, if you ever go, do NOT eat four desserts, even if you want to.

A Tale of Two City Chickens

The last time I was home, my mom, aunt, grandmother and I were sitting around the kitchen table discussing cooking and recipes (in classic 50's television show fashion). Somehow we got on the topic of city chicken. I may have brought it up as I had recently been thinking about making it, but had no idea how to make it (nor did I even know what meat was in city chicken). Now, I know it sounds silly, it IS called city CHICKEN. But I was sure that it wasn't actually chicken. And I was right. City chicken is actually pork (which is very deceiving, hopefully no one ever went over to my parents house on city chicken night who didn't eat pork). How a pork product took cover under our poultry friend's name, I'm not actually sure. I think I asked once and the answer was something like, the people on the farm didn't have a lot so they tried to make their pork taste like chicken like the rich city folk.

Now no one in my family has ever lived on a farm, so I'm still not exactly clear on whether or not that was a BS story, but believe it or not, wikipedia has an entry on it. I'm stunned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_chicken
..it says nothing about farm folk, but the idea is the same, so maybe it wasn't entirely a BS story...

So if you're still wondering what is city chicken exactly, essentially it is cut up bits of meat (my mom always made it with pork, but wikipedia seemed to think it could be any meat nugget) skewered on a stick, breaded and pan fried. Sounds simple, easy, and not really high class dining (obviously). But I remembered that it was always one of my favorites, so I really wanted to make it and see if it was really that good.

Which brings us back to my mom's kitchen table discussing how to make city chicken...

My mom and grandmother got into a HEATED debate over this, which was one of the funniest conversations ever, because the differences in their methodologies were very small. My aunt and I giggled about their argument for a good 5 minutes or so when finally my aunt cut them off and said that she thought they were really saying the same thing or something close to the same thing. Unfortunately I mostly remembered that they fought about it and not actually how they said to make it...but I did remember enough to make it tonight.

A few weeks ago I bought the skewers (I needed the shorter ones, although the long ones would work, I wanted it as authentic as possible), so I'd be ready whenever I wanted to make it. Tonight was finally the night. I pulled out the pork tenderloin to cut it up for breading. (yes, I realize this defeats the whole purpose...cheap meat made to taste good, but my mom said she uses tenderloin now) That was when Jeff walked into the kitchen and asked what was for dinner. When I explained to him what was for dinner he had a sad disappointed "what is she doing to my pork tenderloin" face, even when I quickly added that it was a childhood favorite of mine. He was definitely skeptical.

It was at this point that I realized that it would have been helpful if I would have listened to what my grandmother and mother said. Was it milk and then breadcrumbs? eggs and breadcrumbs? milk and eggs? flour first? no flour? all I could remember was that my mother would put them on the skewer first and then egg/milk them and then throw them into a bag with bread crumbs and let them sit, while my grandmother would put them on the skewer after breading and not let them sit. I guess that makes this a tale of three city chickens since I proceeded to do it my own way.

Not having a clue of how to actually make it, I decided to use one egg, a very hefty spash of milk and soak the pieces individually in a bowl (simply because that was easier than pulling out a large pan big enough to soak all of them already skewered) and then skewer them and then into a baggie with breadcrumbs. I didn't have time to let them sit post-breading, so I skipped that step.

I heated up a pan with olive oil and then realized this is probably a recipe that would be better with butter so I threw some of that in the pan too. I knew that my mom always sauteed them in a pan and then put them in the oven, so I cooked them a few minutes on each side and threw them into the oven in the pan. I checked them after a couple of minutes, they felt about medium so I took them out.

We dug hungrily into our dinner (city chicken + roasted sweet potatoes + salad) and I was afraid to try the city chicken (I think Jeff was still pretty skeptical himself) so I ate everything else off my plate. I was sure that it wouldn't be nearly as good as I remembered it. But I took my first bite and it was amazingly just as good as I remembered it. Jeff gave me his "this is good" look as he took a bite of the meat right off the stick. I reiterated "a childhood favorite" as he went for the third and final skewer from the kitchen. He was relieved to hear that this would become a more regular dinner meal for us.

Who would have thought that I could pull it off? So rarely do these kinds of meals taste just like I remember it as a kid, mostly because I think those types of favorite childhood recipes are primarily nostalgic. I'm also guessing that it doesn't actually matter how you make it, as long as there is breading and there is pork (at least if you want it to taste like the way my mom made it)...so mom and grammy: unfortunately, I think your argument was all for naught.

So it's not much of a recipe (clearly, you can do whatever you want to it and it'll taste good), but here's what I've got:
1/2 pound pork tenderloin, cut into ~1 inch cubes
1 egg
somewhere between 2-4 tablespoons of milk
~1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 T olive oil
1 T butter (or 2 T butter, no oil)

Sprinkle the pork with salt and pepper. Somehow get the pork into the egg and then into the breadcrumbs (put it on a skewer first, then egg, or not, whatever, it doesn't matter). Heat oil and butter in pan and pre-heat oven to about 350 deg. Add the skewers to the pan and brown the pork on all sides (maybe 1-2 min per side) and then put the pan in the oven (make sure it's an oven safe pan) for about 5 - 10 minutes, until the pork gives just a touch for medium or is very firm for well done. I actually prefer it at room temperature (which may have actually been why it tasted so good, because it was the last thing I ate for dinner so it cooled significantly), so you can serve right away or wait until cooled a bit.

...and enjoy the chickenless city chicken!

Can I have a bite?

NO!

For those who know me and my eating habits well, know that I do NOT share my food. ESPECIALLY if it's a dessert. Good luck getting a fork in there. Not going to happen. Actually, that's not true, the ritual goes something like this:

1. Everyone's food arrives
2. I survey everyone's food and see what I'm missing and then dig in to my own, sometimes asking for a bite of others
3. Someone will ask to have some of my food (before I'm done)
4. I respond in the negative, and indicate that I'm perfectly willing to share when I've eaten as much as I want and if there is still some leftover (if it's a dessert, there won't be any leftover).
5. The questioner doesn't believe me and tries to eat some of my food. It never ends well when this happens.

I have begun to tell others this fact when I'm eating with them. Often to the point that they think I'm moderately crazy. Someone will say "wow, that looks good" and I'll respond "I'm sorry, I don't share." Or, someone will offer me their food and I'll say, "I'd love to try some, but I won't share mine"

There are certain circumstances in which I am perfectly willing to share, as long as I know ahead of time when I'm getting into. Fondue, for instance, definitely a share food. Ethiopian, Thai, Indian, pizza (obviously)...all foods that I actually like to share. But I must know before I begin eating my meal that there will be sharing involved.

So I have speculated this crazy behavior stems from my childhood (what doesn't, really?) when my sister would take usurp my food from under my fork. AAAAAHHH! it was SO annoying. And my parents wouldn't do anything about it (the issue was that everyone knew I wouldn't finish my food, but still..) We finally worked out a ritual in which she was allowed to partake in my meal only after I had finished (which, I admit is kind of annoying, because if you just want a french fry, you do not want to wait until I'm done and then they're cold and gross). This is the ritual that I continue to this day. Jeff knows the deal, and has lovingly accepted my non-food sharing idiosyncrasy. And he will even share his food with me knowing that I won't share until the bitter end. That is, until this weekend.

We went out to brunch Sunday morning and agonized over our decisions on what to eat. We finally decided and I went for an Eggs Benedict of sorts: the base was a popover, (we were eating at a restaurant called "Popover Cafe"), with smoked salmon, eggs and a lemon hollandaise. It was everything I love in a breakfast, runny eggs, smoked salmon and saucy goodness...and, as it turns out, everything Jeff dislikes. He ordered a "flopover" (I told you the name of this place was Popover Cafe), a pancake like thing with some sweet yummy fruit filling.

So our food arrived and mine looked and tasted DELICIOUS. The lemon in the hollandaise was a perfect match for the smoked salmon. But Jeff's too, looked very very yummy. Recently, I have fallen into a weekend breakfast routine in which I crave both sweet and savory things. So, I clearly had the savory covered, but I really felt like I needed some sweet to round out my brunch. I obviously turned to Jeff's breakfast and very politely and sweetly asked for a bite of his breakfast. He looked up at me with my outstretched fork with a pained look on his face. And then, all of a sudden the pain in his face melted away to a smile and he responded "No."

What?!
And he then said "See? it comes back to bite you in the [expletive]"

What?!
My friend that we were eating with got a good chuckle while Jeff continued to clean his plate. I quickly offered some of my food, which he took a look at and nearly threw up all over. He then started a discussion of how runny eggs are the most disgusting thing ever.

Needless to say, I was shocked. I began to understand how it feels to be rejected at the food request. However, it was definitely not enough for me to change my ways. I definitely will never ever learn to share desserts. I tell myself that no one could possibly enjoy the dessert as much as I, so I would really be doing a dis-service to the dessert if I shared.

I am hopeful that this wasn't a sign that Jeff is going to share his food less, that would just simply, not be fair!

pre-party cinco de mayo style

I'm not exactly sure what Cinco de Mayo is all about (last year it was about me drinking WAY too many apple-tinis and "soiling" my sister and brother-in-law's neighbor's lawn on Seis de Mayo), but it's certainly a superb excuse to overdose on Mexican food. Plus, it happens to fall about 4 months after I get back from Mexico (where I eat Mexican food morning, noon, and night), which is right about the time when I'm craving it again.

Regarding the history of May 5th, Wikipedia says: It commemorates the victory of Mexican forces led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin over the French occupational forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. It also says that it is NOT Mexico's independence day. It also sounded like it is celebrated more in the US than Mexico (not sure about that one)...clearly everyone else wants an excuse to eat Mexican food too.

Miraculously, this year I forgot that this Saturday was Cinco de Mayo, and planned for tacos one night this week (actually, I mostly just felt like tacos tonight so I made them). Somewhere between deciding to make tacos tonight and actually making them, I remembered that Saturday was the national celebration of Mexican food and drink, and thought for a brief moment that I might not want to have tacos three nights before I most definitely will be eating Mexican food again. I re-assured myself that I love Mexican food enough to have it twice in one week, after all, I eat it every day for 10 straight days every year (although that's real Mexican food, not the fake stuff I make).

So I got home late (went to the gym first) and went straight to the kitchen for taco night preparations. I chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic (for beans) and lettuce; I got out beans, tortillas and the meat. All of which took about 10-15 minutes. Jeff got home and I threw the meat in one pan and onion, garlic and beans in another pan. In about 5 minutes the meat was done, I mashed the beans and dinner was ready! I definitely surprised myself on this one, we don't have taco night very often, but we definitely should. Dinner is ready in 20 minutes! That's crazy! Why isn't every night taco night? It's SO good, and SO fast! I know that my "tacos" are not even close to those tacos we get at the taco party every year in Mexico, wow, those are great, but still it's a delicious meal that is super quick and super easy. Plus, we have no good real Mexican places around us, so we can't even get delivery that easily.

Tonight's taco "pre-party" merely wet my appetite for Saturday's feast. I'm not sure what I'm going to make yet, but there will definitely be margaritas (NO apple-tinis). I think every year I should do a pre-party for Cinco de Mayo, just to get excited for the food I'm going to eat. Or, maybe I should just eat Mexican food more often and I won't have these silly epiphanies anymore.

I'd put a recipe in here, but really, who needs a recipe? Tacos are as easy as pie (actually much easier than pie, infinitely easier than pie). hmmm...what about a taco pie?! That would be great! But for the regular (non-pie) tacos, all you have to do is throw some meat in a pan, add some seasonings (I used cumin, chili powder, oregano and salt and pepper or you can just use those silly packets, if you must) and it's ready. Although, you really don't need me to tell you that...you just need me to remind you to make tacos often (actually, you probably don't even need me to tell you that, you just need me to entertain you for a few minutes while you're bored at work).

For the beans, I added garlic and onion and red pepper flakes and sauteed those together for a few minutes before adding black beans, about 1/4 cup of broth (depends on how dry you like them) and salt and pepper. After a few minutes I used my potato masher and mashed it all together. Delicioso.

Egg House

During my weeks of very exciting travel, I made my way south of the Mason-Dixon line for a week. It was much better than the weeks I spent far north staring across the border at foreign lands (well, just one not so foreign land). While I was south of the Mason-Dixon line, I was in the midst of yet another real estate nightmare crises, and I did not manage to explore the town much. I was able to explore the room service menu (good selection, reasonable prices, but they get you every time with the delivery fee plus the standard included 20% tip). Although, I was only there a couple of nights thanks to the monsoon that hit NY the night I was supposed to go down there.

So really, my only food experience in the southern lands was the Apple Bee's in the airport (BARF). HOWEVER, while in the taxi on the way to the airport I passed a Waffle House, followed immediately by a Pancake House. Which left me wondering, why no Egg House?

It's true, you always see waffle and pancake houses, but never an egg house. I confirmed my suspicion with Jeff who agreed he'd never seen an Egg House (perhaps he was agreeable because we were running through the park and he wanted me to stop talking). Realizing Jeff may not be the expert on the existence of egg houses, I did a search on google. No egg houses. But the 2nd result was "How to wash egg off a house" - good to know.

So, then, why no egg houses? One assumes that you'd be able to get eggs at a pancake or waffle house, plus you can do a million billion different things with eggs. WAY more than you can do with pancakes or waffles. Let's see..omelets (obviously), regular eggs (any way you want 'em), fancy frittatas with smoked salmon and goat cheese, or perhaps chorizo and avocado, baked egg casseroles, plus technically, eggs are in waffles and pancakes, so you'd have those. And crepes, those are actually mostly eggs, and french toast. Not to mention the egg sandwich, the best thing since sliced bread (get it? ha! sliced bread is needed for the egg sandwich...so it wasn't invented until...never mind, if I have to spell it out for you it's not going to be funny anymore). You can serve cake and cookies and meringues and any breaded meat dish; you can have lots of challah, and ice cream...seriously, the possibilities are endless.

Perhaps the issue is that no one has been able to narrow down the options and that's why there are no egg houses. Maybe it's just the simple fact that "Pancake House" sounds a bit more appealing than "Egg House" - it does kind of sound like you're going to egg a house (like google suggests).

If I ran an "Egg House" I would definitely have the egg sandwich as the center piece of my menu. It celebrates the egg but enhances its goodness with a porky accent (any good egg sandwich has ham or bacon). Plus, again, the possibilities are endless...you can do the standard BLT&E or an egg wrap with ham and cheddar, or for something fancier, fried eggs with prosciutto and pesto and goat cheese, or if you're in the mood for an egg sandwich with mexican or spanish flair, chorizo and manchego with roasted red peppers. Plus, you can vary the bread options tremendously, bagels, rye, wraps, you name it, you can do it. Wow, I could go on and on...this may be my hidden talent, discovering new egg sandwiches...I bet I can't sleep tonight while I am discovering all the new possibilities.

While I never discovered why no Egg Houses exist, I certainly found a way to pass the time while I waited on the airplane for 3 hours to take off.

...italian sausage and mozzarella...chives and cream cheese and smoked salmon (hey, there's one without pork)...feta and tomato (there's another)...grilled onion and peppers with prosciutto and parmesan...