Strawberry Pretzel Cheesecake

You know that jello salad that appears as just about every summer picnic in Southwestern PA? You know the one...the one with the usually stale & not quite busted up enough pretzels under that waxy under-whipped layer of cream cheese & cool whip that is topped with a gelatinous layer of strawberry jello & frozen strawberries. The one that as it sits on the picnic table the pretzel pieces start to get soggy and pink from weeping strawberry jello? The bright red center piece of a Yinzer Buffet!!

Yeah...its a favorite of mine too. Always has been. I have had fabulous versions of it and I have had abominable versions of it.....but I always try at least a little. There is just something about the salty crunchy pretzels, sweet cream and tangy strawberry that taste like summer to me.

I do love it in all of its 1964 jello salad with fruit floating in it glory. BUT. It could be much better. Its potential plagued me. The flavor combo & textures are excellent. The jello aspect less than desirable in my opinion.

Aside: I suck at making Jell-o. Yes. Really. Stop laughing. Jell-o. Well, if you ask to me make jello shots I will exceed all expectations and they will be the very best you will ever have. But if you want just normal jell-o, ask someone else. Mine never sets, it gets that hard ookie layer, it separates. Whatever. It used to bug me but Ive learned to accept it. Since its apparently confession time I also cannot make instant pudding - it always comes out super runny & gross. Im so odd.

Since I was unwilling to fight with jello & wanted to perfect this picnic staple it needed to be reborn. And it was. As a cheesecake. A custardy, light, creamy, melt in your mouth vanilla bean cheesecake on a graham cracker pretzel crust topped with crushed strawberry preserves.

Oh yes. This kicked strawberry pretzel jello's ass and made its mother apologize for it ever being born.

Some notes before I get to the recipe ~

I abhor dense cheesecake so this one has no thickeners or starch in it on purpose. It is closer to a dense cream cheese custard than a heavy brick-like cheesecake but it will still cut & plate gorgeously, just be gentle. I also am not a sweet freak so the cake itself doesnt have a crap ton of sugar in it.

Use a Spring Form pan. This is a WRECK to unmold if you dont and wont layer prettily either.

I use vanilla beans in it because I have a bazillion of them in my freezer (make my own extract w them) and I think its divine, but hardly necessary - just up the extract by 2 tsp & it will be just as good.

I used fruit pectin to thicken my fruit. It is a vegan jelly thickener that is at the grocery store - you could also just use a package of jello - but I fear the jello & also didnt want that artifical flavor when strawberries are so awesome straight this time if year. If I were making this in October I may feel much differently.

Cooks Disclaimer: I am not a measurer, I am a taster & a looker, even with baking & pastries when I can be and with cheesecake I can be.

Crust:

• 2 cups crushed pretzel pieces
• 1 package of graham crackers, crushed up
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 2/3 stick unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350. Put all of the dry ingredients in a food processor & pulse until broken up & combined. Slowly drizzle in butter and mix until its all together. Press into the bottom of a 10" spring form pan and bake at 350 for about 20-25 minutes. Crust is done when golden & smells all toasty. Set out to cool. Reduce oven to 300.

Filling:

• 2-8oz packages Cream Cheese
• 1-8oz package Neufatel Cheese
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 whole egg
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 each cut & scraped vanilla bean
• 6oz Greek yogurt (plain, honey)

Put both the cheese in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle and mix on medium until combined & softened. Scrape bowl, add the sugar & mix on medium high until light and fluffy. Scrape the bowl.

While mixing on medium add the whole egg than egg yolks one at a time beating well between additions and scraping at least once in the middle.

Add the remaining ingredients and mix on high until light, glossy and thickened.  Pour on top of cooled crust and smooth the top out. Pace on a sheet tray, put in middle of over and fill tray with at least 1/2" of water.  Bake at 300 for 45 minutes.

Test at 45 minutes. Give it a wiggle. The center should be set like jello, jiggly but set. It may require another 10 or so minutes at this point, set timer for 5 minute intervals and keep an eye on it.

When done remove it from the oven & set at room temp until pan is cool enough to touch then transfer to refrigerator to completely cool.

Strawberry Topping:

• 2 pints fresh strawberries - hulled & quartered
• 3/4 cup sugar (more or less depending on taste)
• 4 Tbsp Fruit Pectin
• 6oz water

Put the berries in a bowl with 1/4 cup sugar & toss to coat. Let sit at room temp until they start to get saucy, smash with a fork.  Put the water, remaining 1/2 cup sugar & fruit pectin in a small pot on stove & bring to a boil stirring constantly. It gets weird thick because of the pectin. When it is thickened pour over macerated berries and continue to fork smash to get a nice consistency. Let sit at room temp until ready to use on cake.

When cake is TOTALLY cool & set spread the preserves over the cheesecake, return to the fridge to let it all set up completely.

When ready to unmold run a paring knife around the edge to loosen the preserves & I use a blow torch to release the cake from the side of the pan, but you can just use a cake spatula or knife if it suits you better.

I served it as is. I didnt think it needed much else to be honest. Garnish wise you could do lots - choco dipped pretzel pieces or strawberries, whipped cream, fresh berries sauce....whatever blows your hair back.  If you like your cheesecake thicker or want one that is more firm add 4 Tbsp of flour in with the  sugar & cream cheese.

Hope you dig & let me know how it turns out if you make it!!

I also have made this in the mega muffin cups with the muffin cup liners, I just dont parbake the shells. Really cute individual dessert idea.

Happy baking!!

Delicious Food & Fond Memories

Oh I have made some deliciousness to send out into the world in the last couple days and will be heading home today to create some more!

So next month we are doing a special feature menu centered around Belgium and I want the cheese boards to be the real deal. I spent yesterday making up a country style pate with pistachios and orange & fennel chicken terrine. Love them both. Ive been on a pate buying kick lately for home, but just havent found one that I am over the moon about. I compare them to my own and am always kind of disappointed in the flat flavor. Ive gotten it from Crested Duck at Pittsburgh Public Market, D'Artagnan from Market District and they were both good, but fell kind of flat for me. Honestly I think its because when they are made the folks forget that anything served cold has to taste over seasoned when hot to taste right when chilled. If you cook off a sample piece it should taste salty almost when its eaten so when pressed & chilled its right. Either way I had a how to make & press pate lesson with my production guy, unmoled those puppies today and they are PERFECT. This makes me happy.

The terrines are something I like a lot. They are a bit "old school" as far as when they were popular, but when they are made well they are simply divine.  They are generally made with a relatively universal meat - like chicken, turkey, even pork - and are garnished with so many different things.  Personally I love a dried cherry & cashew terrine, or a spinach & feta.  More or less they are a shaped & seasoned forcemeat that is poached very slowly, chilled & served cold.  The one I made yesterday was fresh fennel braised in fresh squeezed orange juice with some orange zest. I generally am not a fan of fennel, but these came out absolutely perfect. The terrines are really nice as a luncheon dish, accoutrement for a cheese board or on finger sandwiches with some flavored mayo.


Also made a beer brined roasted half chicken that is going to be served with a dried cherry stock reduction sauce.  This dish w that sauce may get me into my restaurants to eat multiple times when Im off work in May. Brined the chickens for about 36 hours in a Belgian beer brine, spritzed them with some extra virgin olive oil and then dusted with herbs de provence & cracked black pepper.  The brine makes them so tender & the skin crisped up beautifully. The sauce for this is one of my absolute favorites veal stock reduction sauces made with a cherry lambic & dried cherries, oh so perfect for this chicken dish. I cant wait to eat it fully assembled.

Loving that I am having a close to flawless cooking week :-)

Tonight I am adventuring into the wide & wonderful world of sausage making. My Popop (Dad's Dad) was a foreman for Armour for years & used to make, every Christmas & Easter, a special fresh Kielbasa  with my Nana that was a family favorite. He didnt use any curing salts so it was gray, but it was rich & loaded with garlic and spices. It is one of those food memories that I will never ever forget. I remember watching him make it, getting yelled at by my Nana to get my fingers away from the manual meat grinder, the smell of it simmering on the stove when I walked into their house that meant HOLIDAYS, the amazement of watching him stuff the natural casings with ease and wondering if I could do that too (for the record every time I tried back then it was an amusing FAIL, but I never gave up); it didnt start out as one of my favorites, but I always ate it and as I got older I learned to love it ~ the gray color was a turn off for me, once I got over it it was wonderful!

Fast forward to now - I'm no longer a kid, my Popop has been gone for close to a decade now, my Nana, thanks to a fall, is just starting her new life in an assisted living home and the huge family gatherings of my past are no more.  I actually miss having the 30 of us all together for the holidays like we used to, but it just doesnt happen that way anymore. My uncle & his family moved to Florida. My Aunt & her family have decided their status & their McMansion make them too good to spend the holidays at home with their family so they are skiing, beaching or golfing for every major holiday. I can honestly say I dont think Ive actually spoken to my Aunt in about 5 years, not due to some huge falling out - we just live on different planets and she happens to think my planet is a scary scary place.

Since Popop passed my Dad has tried, valiantly, to recreate what Popop used to make. Now in traditional old school methods there are no recipes to follow ~ you ask Nana now and she says "oh you need a bowl of fresh ground pork the size of my favorite ceramic mixing bowl I got as a wedding gift, you need the marjoram from the 4 plants in the yard to dry over the winter (thats a measurement in her world) and enough garlic so you can smell it"...so yeah not very helpful.  But I get it. Thats the way I cook. I cook from taste, not from a book or recipe. If Ive eaten it there is a really good chance I can recreate it next to perfectly within 2, at the max 3, shots at it. Its a pretty awesome skill if I do say so myself. Dad's attempts have been pretty disastrous, really. He kept trying to make it lean. Lean & sausage are not ever meant to go together. He also isnt a fan of seasoning, so his 2 or 3 attempts have been dry, hard & bland....sounds delicious, huh?

So this year I have decided to try to resurrect this tradition and am going to try to make Popop's Kielbasa for Easter. Ive got the goods at home (sans the marjoram dried from the plants in Nana's yard, some dried from Penzy's will have to do) and plan to spend my evening with The Mister grinding 20 pounds of pork butt & salt pork, seasoning it up & stuffing it into yards of natural casings. If I am lucky I will be able to make the neat coils of kielbasa he used to make and neatly wrap in butcher paper to take to Mom & Dad's on Sunday. I miss my Pops...he was a ornery old man but he was our ornery old man & I hope I can do it justice. At the very least I know Ill be able to get it closer than Dad did :-)

I will have to let you know how this turns out - if it is a success I am also going to try to make Nana's Cinnamon Cake on Saturday. it isnt really a cake as much as it is a sweet egg bread, similar to a Challah with raisins actually, but instead of braiding its loafed up and topped with this cinnamon crust that kind of reminds me of that sweet cinnamony stuff on top of the sun dried tomato bread at Panera. Its one of those recipes that you have to follow to the letter or it doesnt come out right. Mom has been making it for years and its pretty good, but she goes back & forth between undercooking, which makes it wicked heavy and doughy, or overcooking, which makes it dry & hard. Its not a recipe I have ever struggled with & Mom is up to her eyeballs dealing with 2 Nanas in 2 different assisted living joints that both want her undivided attention ~ not jealous of her at all.

Hope you all have a great holiday however you plan to spend it.  I plan to spend mine in a food & beer induced coma :-) Happy Weekend!!!

Woopsy!

I got so tied up in some minor domestic goddessing yesterday that I forgot to post. This is getting monotonous I am sure but still smoke free.  I found out yesterday though that my car still has a little bit of that funk when you turn the heat on - I guess my nose is now working a bit better, too. I can only assume that the smell will go with time...and if it doesnt I will have to detail the interior of the car which sounds kind of shitty for as cold out as it is at the moment. Truth be told Im just happy that I can smell it.

So some fun news! Tim at Craft Pittsburgh Magazine has asked me to write another cooking with beer column for the next issue.  I had written the Cooking with Beer feature for the Pilot issue a couple months ago and was pleasantly surprised when it showed up in print almost exactly as I had written it with a delicious recipe for Beer Braised Chicken Thighs & Cauliflower Smash and all of my beer tip rambling.  Im flattered and excited to be participating in the next issue as well.  It will probably go to print & be available for download sometime in late January early February.  Honestly I was quite impressed with the magazine.  Tim believes, and I happen to agree, that our fair city has one hell of a beer scene that is grossly neglected in most of the regional beer rags and could be well served by a local publication so he started one.  If the pilot is any indication great things are coming and I love his website for keeping up with the latest info on beer goings on around the Burgh.

I also decided to donate some homemade cookies to Secret Agent L and her fundraiser for the CHS Christmas Cards & Cookies event coming up so that'll be fun! Gotta love it when I can help out with a charity by doing something that I love doing anyway, its a beautiful thing!

We are supposed to get some snow today...it was originally predicted at epic level proportions...I now hear maybe an inch. A note to all my fellow yinzers: CALM THE FUDGE DOWN! Its winter. We live in SWPA. Its going to get cold. Its going to snow. These are all facts. Facts we can do nothing to change. We dont need to flood the grocery stores for Milk, Bread & TP.  Wind does not require that you drive 20 miles under the speed limit because there is snow on the ground somewhere. I know Snowpocalypse is still fresh in your minds...but really, was that the worst thing ever? Lynch me if you wanna but I kinda dug it, even the shoveling part. I would rather look at snow blanketing the earth than dormant trees and dead leaves, it feels more like the holidays when there is snow on the ground and this twisted soul really genuinely enjoys the extremes of all 4 seasons we are lucky enough to experience here!

I FINALLY sort of started my Christmas shopping....I am such an AWESOME procrastinator!

Random Woooos!

Still not smoking and it gets better everyday.  Its funny how different things taste to me in less than a week.  I love it. I noticed it first on, of all things, a Diet friggin Coke and since then have found that EVERYTHING tastes better, or at the least more pungent. This is a pretty important thing for a chef...obviously.  This is really the longest I have ever made it without some type of cheat or just a plain all out fail...so if you see me daily and youre sick to hearing me woooo! about my accomplishment Im afraid youre just going to have to deal with it...I am WICKED proud of me.

Another bonus ~ I havent had to step foot into a "convenience" store in over a week. I love that. I can actually take my life in my hands and go to *GULP* Get Go (you guys know what Im talking about - that place is fucking insane no matter what or when you get there) get gas and go without having to go through any of the crap inside the store. This makes me happy.


Unrelated me & Mister went out for a late lunch yesterday & I have a note to all the dive bars/bar bars out there - stop with the frozen bullshit breaded fried chicken. Please? Seriously...it is really not all that challenging to bread and fry chicken parts to order, its actually cheaper and you can take a relatively pedestrian sandwich to another level by that one simple thing! I usually stick with wings and other bar-like noms there and decided to go for the gusto and get a sandwich ~ I know I'm living dangerously ~ but it SOUNDED good - fried chicken tenders, bbq, fried onion straws & mozzarella. The bun was perfectly grilled, the bbq was pretty good, the onion straws salty & crisp...and then those damn stupid prebreaded dry as hell flavorless yucky chicken tenders. The sandwich would have been worthy of some raves except for that one part. Two more minutes and a little bit of give a fuck and it would have been next level. Its lazy. And dumb. Bread your chicken to order. Feel the same way about places that use frozen burger patties ~ and it makes me ragey when I see people RAVE about them being the best burgers ever when I KNOW they are those damn puck burgers you can buy at Sams Club. Want a good burger? Portion fresh ground beef, dont freeze it, dont smash it into oblivion when its on the grill and put it on a good bun. Frozen burger patties? Really? You should be ashamed. Pattying ground beef is not rocket science & the end result is just a eleventy times better than ANY frozen burger patty.

It was another good day...The Pens kicked come C-Bus ass tonight and it was epic, Angkor made me my most favoritest Cambodian fried rice for dinner {note to self: figure out what that delicious sausage is in there would ya?!?} and imma bout to practice some Grand Turismo so when Mister decides he wants to challenge me I wont embarrass myself with my suck.  Also might toss together some snickerdoodles because, well, they are delicious and I want them.

Happy Saturday Y'All! Hope it was as awesome as mine if not better!

My favoritest Friday!

In the famous words of Ice Cube....today's been a good day!

Its Day #3 and I am still smoke free.  Today was actually a pretty easy one - I wasnt around any smokers all day since I was off. I had some shizzle to do this morning so I had to RO the day from work, completed obligations and then had a day with Mister. The days with Mister have become a rarity...I pretty much work all daylight and his bartending gigs are mainly at night so yeah, we see each other in passing upon occasion and if we are REALLY lucky have a matched day off ~ today was one of those days. And for the record it was an EPIC day.  I will divulge more details as to the Epic as I can, but rest assured it was the best day I have had in a very long time and barring unforeseen bullshit it will only get better from here.  WOOOOOO!!

I was feeling inspired to make us dinner tonight ~ Paupiettes of tilapia stuffed with shrimp mousseline topped with lobster hollendaise with broccoli & purple cauliflower couscous. It was friggin delicious. I forget sometimes how damn easy it is to toss together something that sounds wicked complicated in about half an hour. Felt good to cook a real meal at home as opposed to grabbing something at the restaurants, take out or cereal.

Talked Mister into getting the steering wheel doohickythingie for the Grand Turismo 5 game he bought. This is going to be a cant beat 'em join 'em scenario and the steering wheel looked kinda cool.  Thank god I can really drive better than I can in that game....prob didnt help I'm imbibing a St Bernardus Christmas while playing...but regardless I kinda suck. This is going to require some practice. I dont like hes better at me at it and I will need to fix this. Yes, I am 34 and play video games...got a prob with that?!? :-)

So today I give thanks to chewing gum for saving me from myself, for lights at the end of some tunnels and for Mister for sharing a pretty awesome day with me and supporting my crazy while I try to kick this crap habit Ive acquired. Somewhat related: He has agreed to not make me walk the dogs the whole winter when hes home if I stay smoke free ~ that is some SERIOUS motivation right there, its effing COLD out there!

Cinnamon Roll Cookies!!!

I'm going to double post today, but first the cookies. The next story kinda shook me up and needs its own posting.

I made them over a week ago & thought they were so yummy I should share...well that and the recipe was requested by a couple folks so here it is.

I will preface with this ~ it would be totally ok to use a premade sugar cookie tube thing for this recipe. Personally I wouldn't, but if you're not a baker, dont have the tools/time or just want to make them fast it would be ok.  Personally, I wouldn't. Those tube-o-cookie things have a very odd flavor that I dont particularly like & have never been able to identify...well that and read the ingredient list. I dont put any of those super long nonsense words in my cookies.

For the record I use a KitchenAid Pro stand mixer (yeah, it really is as badass as it sounds like it is, basically has a honda motor in it) with a paddle for all cookies and for this recipe following the right mixing procedure is important because you have to form & slice these...

The Recipe.

2 sticks Salted Butter - softened
3/4 cup Granulated Sugar
1/2 cup Light Brown Sugar
2 whole Eggs
2 Egg Yolks
1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract
1 Tbsp Butter Extract (optional)
2 Tbsp Heavy Cream (can sub sour cream or milk)
2 1/4 cups All Purpose Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp salt

•  Cream the butter until light & fluffy. Add both sugars and continue to cream until light again. Add the eggs & yolks one at a time beating well between additions. Add the extract(s) & cream and mix in to combine.
• Place all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix with a wire whisk to incorporate. Add in small increments to the butter mixture and mix until well combined. Have to make sure you get it all mixed in thoroughly or you'll get weird blops in your dough.
• Eat some of the dough...it really is pretty damn delicious.
• Line a half sheet tray with plastic wrap so it over hangs on the left & right sides (yeah-not parchment. The wrap is easier to deal with later, I learned this the hard way. Benefit from my frustration) and dump the dough on top. Use your hands or a rolling pin to evenly spread the dough out to cover the pan evenly.  I start w the hands and finish it off with the pin to even it all out. Side Note: flouring your hands a little makes the dough not stick to everything.
• Eat some more dough...I heart cookie dough. 
• Place the tray in the fridge until the dough has chilled enough to be workable by hand.  Mix up a bowl of roughly 1 cup brown sugar & 4 Tbsp cinnamon* (you can add other spices here too, like ground ginger & some allspice or nutmeg - go nuts!). Pull the dough out of the fridge & remove from the pan using the plastic wrap to help you.
• Cover the top with the brown sugar mix. Should be a light, even coat so dont dump it all on, it may be too much. cut the dough sheet in half vertically, making more of less 2 almost squares.
• Use the plastic wrap to roll the dough up cinnamon roll style. Dont stress about perfect seals or anything, the dough can be pinched & forced into submission- its a cookie. When its a lovely tube wrap it tight in saran wrap and refrigerate until it is firmly set.
• Preheat oven to 375, slice the tubes into 1/4" slices and lay on parchment lined trays to bake. My oven took 11 minutes so thats a good place to start. Cool on the tray for 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack
• For a glaze I mixed up 2 cups powdered sugar with 3 Tbsp of Milk & 1 Tbsp of vanilla. I also tossed a chunk of really soft butter in there because I like it that way.  When the cookies are TOTALLY cooled use a spoon to drizzle the glaze over top, let it set for a couple minutes then devour. 

These were very pretty pinwheels & easy enough my nephew could handle making them with some direction if he wanted to, so they are good for fancy schmancy cookies or to just make at home with the kiddies. Not to mention they are buttery, soft & chewy & packed with cinnamon. LOVE them.

The *cinnamon - I use a Vietnamese cinnamon, so its rather pungent and spicy. Would highly recommend & you can find it at Penseys or online. It really is much different than the crap on grocery store shelves and takes a good cookie and makes it aromatic & dreamy. Like an oatmeal cookie is next level with this cinnamon.

I also make my own vanilla extract so its more pungent than store bought as well....

I am a baking dork.

But I dont care. My shit's delicious!!

Hope you make them! They really sound more complicated than they are. Start to finish I probably spent less than an hour putting them together, the hard part was patiently waiting for dough to chill so I could bake them....but I always suck at patience.

Let me know how they come out!

PS - I bet these would be good with orange zest in the dough & an orange glaze too...like those Pillsbury orange cinnamon roll thingies my mom used to make...

Happy Happy Weekend!!!!

So I know its only Saturday night but its been a pretty awesome couple days so far!!

First Mister FINALLY got the ice maker & water doohickeythingie (that is a VERY technical term) on my 10 month old refrigerator fully operational. It makes me giddy that I will not have to make stupid ice in stupid ice cube trays ever again...or at least as long as the maker keeps working anyway...because I do not know the recipe for ice ~ and this drives Mister nuts! (psssst- dont tell him but I really do know how to make ice I just absolutely hate doing it!)

I bought my tickets to Scarehouse for the Tuesday Night Tweet-Up shenanigans on 10/5 that is described ever so fabulously by BurghBaby right here. It benefits a couple of awesome charities, as she explains, and I am asking that if any of y'all would like to join that you do so via HER link on HER page. Please and Thank You! I have also managed to get Mister to agree to take me to this event, which would be our first haunted house trip in years. See...I LOVE this kinda stuff but him not so much but because he loves me he has agreed to deal with me there and buy me some depends just in case. I thank him for playing along and promise not to do too much damage to him as I am getting the bejesus scared out of me. Should be an excellent time!

Attended a seminar this morning & afternoon held by SCORE Pittsburgh about entrepreneurial types of things that provided confirmation that I DO know more than I thought I did (yaay!) and learned a few other things that will be helpful.  I think me & Mister have finally decided on the smartest path for us to take that will get us where we want to go with far less head bashing and am actually looking forward to starting this process. We have had a bazillion ideas about "what we want to be when we grow up" and all of them have been pretty awesome, but this one feels right and makes the most sense in my head. We need to think of an awesome name and start the planning, but because Im me half of the plan is written in my head already...now to get it on paper.

Since we were in town all morning & afternoon we decided to have lunch down there. Let me first say that holy hell all the Market Square construction bullshit is going to be well worth it once it is all complete. It was very reminiscent of a Grand Place in Europe and was gorgeous! We had a delectable Mexican lunch at Las Velas (if you dig Mexican you HAVE to go...it was delicious) and had a walk around the Cultural District. They had a bunch of the street lights wrapped up in that colored cello paper stuff and I dont know why though... It was a beautiful afternoon for a walk and as we rounded the corner to head back up Penn I HAD to go get a Burnt Almond Torte from Prantls. I got THE last one and wanted to squeeee because I have been jonesing for that cake since my birthday in August.

I finally got a meeting scheduled for next Tuesday with a financial planner dude so we can get our personal affairs in order and get a plan of attack for getting that all squared away. Im sure it wont be the most exciting meeting ever but its a baby step toward bigger ones so win. I kinda felt bad for the guy, 3 weeks hes been trying to get me to set an appt...we finally found a day that works. He wanted to come by the house...I didnt think that was such a great idea unless he happens to be a dog person. Little puppy butt likes strangers a lot and can be a bit much to take if you dont dig beasts.

And in case anyone missed it....IT WAS A HOCKEY NIGHT IN PITTSBURGH!!!! In case you cant tell I'm a tad excited. Baseball - hell freaking no. Football - meh, if Misters watching it I will but otherwise I could care less. Hockey on the other hand - I will watch that alone! It was awesome to see all my boys back on the ice tonight at Consol! Chris "Sex Hair" LeTang had 2 fights, Geno (my hard core hockey crush) beat a guys ASS, I was impressed from all 3 preseason games with Mr Hillary Duff (Comrie, I know but my way is funnier) and Fleury looked really good in net. I will miss Staal until he is back but honestly Im just happy to have hockey back...I missed it so. I also decided that I will sell a kidney (or maybe even kill The Wizard for his tickets) to get into Consol at least once this year to see a game live. Anyone have 2 tickets and need a kidney? I haz an extra one & am willing to sell!

Mister & I also made a mostly final decision...we plan to sell this house sometime spring/summer next year as quickly as possible and move. We want to go downtown/East End and rent. After years of trying to force ourselves to be "responsible homeowners" we have decided that it just isnt us and would rather not deal with all this bullshit. We work way too much & would rather spend our down time doing things we want to as opposed to shit we HAVE to because of this house. If we had kids and had to worry about schools or whatever that would be one thing, but the dogs dont really care where we live and we just plain dont want to. It is going to be a project & a half getting this shit ball rolling but I am motivated to get the fudge outta here. Between the shitty neighbors, abandoned houses, ridiculous borough and just an overall unhappiness with the 'hood its time to roll! Yay!!!

Who knows what tomorrow will bring...but its Sunday so it cant be all that bad. I see a trip to an orchard to I can get some apples to make applesauce and some fall stuff I want in the very near future and as soon as my replacement paddle comes for my mixer I will be regaling you with a recipe for these cinnamon roll cookie things Mister found on line that just look like they should be awesome.  Hope you all are having a great weekend too!!!!

An adventure in food blogging

I blog about food alot. I know this, its what I do and what I like. I wouldnt call this a "food blog" though. I was quite disappointed that I wasnt able to join PghPodCamp this last weekend, but I was able to listen & watch a few streaming while I was at work and that kind of rocked. I got to see Michelle from BurghBaby and loved her presentation and caught a little bit from a food blog focused presentation that I also liked & introduced me to some food blogs I didnt even know existed. I will be making it a point to get there for at least 1 day next year...I dont wanna miss out!

So Ive spent a few evenings checking them out and just seeing what they say.  I, personally, couldnt run a food blog. I kind of feel that would somewhat a conflict of interest. Running local restaurants I dont feel it would be considered kosher for me to critique the work of others...well that and I really dont have time to go out so many nights a week to make that worth it. But I found a few to be great and a couple others that made me stabby.

The good ones are well written, objective and informative. The ones that have made me stabby bring to mind people who have watched too much TV, have a key board and feel the need to share. I will not list names or link to their blogs, I dont think that is fair and Im not looking to start a food blogger war but if you are a food blogger and you are reading some things to consider...

• You cant go into a restaurant to review it, modify a menu item from its original form and them bitch you didnt like it. Of course you didnt like it. Chefs dont put menus and foods together because we have nothing better to do - it is done that way because that is the flavor profile we were going for and all of the components need to be included in order to get the dish. If you change it its now YOUR dish and we cannot be held responsible for your poor taste.

• You cant go once and thats it. No food writers does that, even the really really good ones. You have to go back 3-5 times on average to get a solid feel for the consistency of the service & food, check out a variety of menu items and get a feel for the atmosphere. To only go in once, order 1 item and then make a snap judgment about a place is unfair. I mean seriously, just as a customer I would never go someplace once, have a bad or mediocre experience and write it off completely. Thats narrow minded & short sighted. It isnt possible to get a full scope of any business with 1 visit, especially a restaurant or bar.

It was painfully obvious reading some of the blogs that about half of them have never stepped foot in a professional kitchen and the knowledge they are basing their "reviews" on is from reading Bon Appetit & Gourmet and watching Food Network. Im sorry, but liking to eat and liking food doesnt make you qualified to review someone's work. I know that I can go into a restaurant, order a dish and when its put down in front of me know that the fish doesnt have a crisp crust because a line cook didnt heat their pan enough, or the mashed potatoes are gooey because they were allowed to cool too much prior to mashing or the green beans are shriveled because they were cooked from a raw state with too much acid - that puts me at a distinct advantage and in a unique position to honestly evaluate the food in front of me. I dont feel some of these self proclaimed food writers are able to do that...so how do they objectively review anyplace? Can they identify that the plate put in front of them was at one point perfect, but because a server took too long to get back to the kitchen and it sat under a heat lamp and is now lamp burnt - which doesnt mean bad cooks - it means bad servers. I also noted a bunch of "I" statements going on...food reviewing isnt about your personal tastes or preferences, its about the technical merit & flavor of a dish. I personally cant stand curry powder - but you put a curried dish in front of me I can appreciate it for what it is and tell you if it is good or not - personal feelings about curry aside.

As an industry professional I take bad reviews of my work personally...especially if it was literally MY work. In my current position yeah, I might create a recipe, but I depend on my staff to execute them and rarely am I actually the one making your food in any of my restaurants...so I tend to get irritated by them, but not hurt...and a hell of a lot more likely to go find the offending KM and crawl up his ass and out his mouth so he understands exactly what they did wrong and it never happens again. But reading some of these blogs I actually felt bad for the chefs. We do what we do because we love it, and its a bitch having to read what some dude wrote about the ONE night he came in that you were training a new grill cook who over cooked a steak or burger, didnt tell his server about it so we could fix it and then writes a post saying the cooks at This Restaurant cant cook. Harsh man...and not true.

I have a few notes for you folks...

1. If you are so damn good at what we do and think you can do it better come on down and give it a shot. I will be more than happy to sit idly by and watch over a beer while you drive yourself nuts trying to do what we do everyday...and when you collapse in tears in a corner I will also happily jump in and bail you out. I dont come into your full time marketing job (or whatever it is these folks do to as their day jobs) and and tell you how to do your job. I would never assume I could walk into your office and proceed to tell you what you need to do to make your operation better - why would you assume your qualified to that to us? Eating in a restaurant doesnt qualify you to run one - ask any of the millions of people who have failed at operating a restaurant & try to be objective about what you experience.
2. Restaurants are operated and staffed by humans. Seriously. Real live humans. And guess what...we have bad days too! Ever have one of those days at the office that the fax machine blows up or you forgot to do something for a flipping out client or clicked the wrong button and lost 4 hours of work because you forgot to save...you know, the days that make you want to walk in front of a bus? Restaurant employees have those days too. We have days where shit just doesnt click, the day that you forget to ring in a tables apps, or forget to run their salads, or just cant get the timing right for shit coming off the grill or drop the last item on an 8 top on the floor and have to hold the whole check back for the refire or the managers didnt order liquor so your out of well vodka or the bartender is fighting with her boyfriend and just cant it together to get service bar drinks up in any kind of a timely fashion. We are people, not robots, and we have lives too and as much as we would love to be able to leave that bullshit at home it doesnt always work. Only differences are 1) we dont get "personal days" to handle our shit...we have to go to work and 2) we get to take the abuse of patrons who think we should be infallible and think its ok to treat us like garbage because we made a mistake. Believe me - there is not a single person I know who works in the food industry that sets out to make sure their guests have the worst experience ever or to fuck up their food order. That would be stupid.
3. Realize that it is entirely possible that you just dont get the restaurant you are at. One of the reviews I read basically had the writer raking a place over the coals because the menu wasnt "pretentious" enough for the location. Ummm...Ive been to the place he was referencing, multiple times...and that was their point. The point of this place was to create an environment that fit aesthetically into their neighborhood without loosing their comfy feel and in my opinion pulled it off beautifully. This guy just didnt get it and then felt the need to make this the basis for half of his review. Um no. Thats bullshit. And yet another reason to visit a place a couple times, get to know it and then pass judgment on it - but after reading a few of his other reviews I feel he has that problem more often than not...well that and we just do not agree about food. 
4. I read quite a few that were obviously written by people with crushes on the owners/staff/ management. Thats some epic level bullshit. I read about places that get constant raves about how fanfreakingtastic they are...in my experiences at these same places its less than awesome - which I feel comfortable saying because Ive gone to them. Are they good bars/restaurants? Yes. Do they have a pretty great atmosphere? Yes, in most cases. Is there food amazing? No. Not by a long shot on most of my experiences. Is their service exceptional? Not at all usually.  Are they cheap? In some of the cases, yes; in the majority of them, no. BUT I know why these places get sucked off (pardon my french) by anyone who reviews the place...they know how to pimp and who to pimp to. I havent read one review of most of these places that I would say reflects any of the experiences that I have had at them. They are some of my more regular watering holes because I like them, I like the staff, I like the menus & regardless of the imperfections I will go because I want to. Some of them I will get fed up with and wont go back for awhile, but I always end up giving them another shot eventually.  As an operator its a brilliant marketing strategy for creating a loyal customer base, but that isnt the purpose of a restaurant review & isnt bait that a reviewing blogger should take. Facts about their operation shouldnt be skewed by personal feelings about the staff. Go ahead and hang there all you want...but the review should be honest & unbiased.

As a professional I welcome valid feedback. I want to know what people think of my food. I want to here that I made you a dish that made you quiver or that I missed the mark on seasoning whatever. I like that level of interaction - will I get defensive - SURE! You are attacking what is in essence a part of me that I gave you and I should take that personally, but it makes me better at what I do. I enjoy reading what others think about my places and that of my competition to stay ahead and see what my guests want and react to it. I just think less emotional attachment and more objective observation is key if you are going to label yourself a "foodie blog".

I dont know if I have said this before, but if I have you get to read it again. Every human on the planet should at some point in their lives have to work in a restaurant. EVERY human. The life skills learned in that environment are priceless. You learn conflict resolution, tolerance, patience, how to multi-task, how to handle difficult customers & coworkers, team work and immediate deadlines. You learn about all kinds of people and their backgrounds and cultures, you learn to laugh, how to not be so goddamn PC & sensitive and how to curse like a champ.  It would also teach people to treat service employees like humans...because there are far too many out there who are just out of line with their behavior & expectations when they are out to eat.

And if youre going to blog about food and "review" restaurants like a pro then do it like a pro and follow the basic etiquette about food writing. Realize the effect you have on the business you review and the potential customers you are either driving there or driving away. Yippie for you that you got a bazillion hits to your site...but in the mean time you have given a small restaurant a "bad service" tag that might not be true because you didnt do your homework adequately.

All that being said I still found some great bloggers that do objective reviews that actually give you a great scope of a place and have made me try places I might not ever have gone to and thats pretty damn awesome...and I promptly removed the ones who seem to be writing for their ego from my feed, their tabloid story like reviews are not valuable to me at all. I dont want to hear about your idiosyncratic dietary issues that led you to not like what you ordered...I want to know objectively what your experience was.

I think maybe I should read more & save myself some irritation...

Well 2 days back to work. The first was 13.5 hours...today was 12. I really do feel like vacations are some times not worth the pain in the ass catch up I have to do when I get back. Granted I'm loving having the time to get some stuff done around the house, but 15.5 hours in 2 days, hours in meetings with my managers and problems galore.... ilovemyjobilovemyjobilovemyjob. Hopefully by the time I get to the Steel City Big Pour 4 portion of my weekend I will have sorted out some bullshit and be able to enjoy it as opposed to be on the phone dealing with crap all day. *fingers & toes crossed*

So anywho I got home from The Great Day of Meetings Hell Part 2 and my DVR was kind enough to record Master Chef for me. So I made myself breakfast (yeah...I was totally up at 7am today and literally the first piece of food that touched my lips today was at 10pm) and sat down to watch.

Now I avoided the first half of the season because it was some epic level stupid. I've never watched American Idol, but the concept for getting to the final 16 was kind of like the AI auditions & I had no interest, so I picked it up once they were down to the actual competition. Tonight's episode was getting down to the final four. Overall the show is less than stellar. The winner gets a cookbook deal and some cash I think. So I've watched the last few episodes and this one tonight has made me stabby.

I am a chef. I went to school & have the degree...but in all honestly that doesnt mean shit. Im a chef because I love food, because I have worked a lot of hours in a lot of kitchens. I have cooked fine dining in some of the best restaurants in this city, I have cooked upscale fast casual, I have cooked in a pool snack bar, I have catered, done banquets, worked with one of the best pastry chefs in the country & done full scale commercial from scratch baking. I can make you a batch of chocolate chip cookies off the top of my head that will make your mouth sing just as easily as I can make you sauteed halibut cheeks dusted in fennel pollen served over sauteed fiddle head ferns with a meyer lemon vinaigrette that will make your eyes roll into the back of your head. I havent met a protein yet that I havent been able to butcher or break down and I dont mind getting dirty. I am a chef because I EARNED that title through a lot of blood (work with knives a lot & youll bleed eventually), sweat and definitely tears. I am a chef because that is what I am. I am one of the fortunate few who figured out early that not only do I love being in a kitchen but I'm good at it and I can make a living doing it. Cooking for me is an instinct. I am one of the most klutzy people I know. I drop everything, trip over my own 2 feet constantly and am just generally a danger to myself....right until I walk up to that stove. I can make up recipes with a 90% success rate off the top of my head.  Food makes sense to me the way science & math make sense to other people. I hope I'm not coming off as egotistical...I am not. The greatest thing about what I do is I always get to learn, meet people who have so much to teach and constantly explore the food around me. I do not think I know everything and I hope I never will...but that doesnt change the fact that I am good at what I do & for the most part love it. Even now when most of my job entails managing my managers & orchestrating the operations of 5 restaurants I can still step on that line and out cook anyone who works for me....I kinda have to, thats my job.

Now the Master Chef bullshit is all non-professional cooks. They are home cooks. I give them mad credit for their passion and ability but it NOT the same as being a chef. Being a chef doesnt mean standing in front of a small stove making some intricate delicate dish for you & your nearest and dearest or cooking the food for your cousins bridal shower or making a holiday feast for the family. It is also NOT the crap they sling on Food Network. They make it look so fun & ideal...and some days it is...more often than not it isnt.

Being a chef means researching ingredients & methods, tasting, sampling and trying out new things. Its getting up at the ass crack of dawn to hit your line early. Its balancing your food cost, labor cost, budgets & staffing needs. Its hiring, firing, training and leading a team of not always so dedicated cooks. Its standing on a line over a saute stove in 120 degree heat sweating your ass off while perfectly crisping the bacon on a wrapped filet before searing and getting it in the oven to finish while a stock simmers on a back burner and you're cooking 3 other dishes and their sides. Its hefting heavy cases of all kindsa shit and rotating them into coolers, its educating waitstaff about your food so they can sell it. Its dealing with retarded dishwashers that dont get that they need to give you CLEAN plates and that all pots & pans have outsides, too. Its dealing with irrational customers that think you should be able to do whatever it is that they want you to just because they are customers & why cant you hurry up and make me that olive tapenade you had as an amuse bouche a week ago in the middle of a friday diner rush and then bitching out your staff when they are told that isnt possible. Its working 12-14 hours a day until the wee hours of the morning cleaning up a wrecked line after service. Its drinking way too much, smoking far too much pot to maintain your sanity, chain smoking cigarettes and mainlining caffeine to make it through the hangover. Its dirty, sweaty & rewarding work. Being a chef means that inevitably no one will ever tell you you're LOW on anything, just that you're out of it and stopping yourself from launching yourself through a window to ring that idiots neck for not watching the station stocking levels & telling you before you had 4 orders hanging on the board and only 3 left to cook. Its working with many purveyors, watching all your products and foods for freshness & going nutso when they drop the ball so that they know not to do that again. Its stress, its love, its passion, its frustrating.....its fucking awesome & I wouldnt change a thing even if I could.

Because being a chef is also creating the perfectly balanced bernaise sauce that is thick yet fluffy with that divine tarragon white wine tang. Its taking a perfectly seared steak off the grill, its seeing that gorgeous rich purple of sashimi grade ahi as you remove the skin, its getting all a flutter when you get word the Copper River salmon is coming in...or Dover Sole is out & about. Its the smell of toasting almonds and crispy bacon...its the pop of a perfectly heated pan when you slide a filet of Chilean sea bass into it or the crackle of the oil as you drop in something delicious. Its the clanking of plates, the chatter of a busy staff, fast paced-angry & sometimes violent. Its getting the perfect sear on a seasoned pork tenderloin, or the golden brown of a caramelized shallot reduction, the snap of a fresh pea, the ripe richness of perfect tomatoes & the earthy delicateness of wild mushrooms and the sweet crunch of an in season apple. Being a chef is having a vocabulary of curse words that is almost unequaled & using those words daily, speaking a secret restaurant language civilians dont understand & being extra raunchy - seriously I have worked on lines with cooks that would make Richard Pryor blush and that was just the idle chit chat going on between the service & kitchen staff during service. There are about eleventybillion more reason I could give you for why I love what I do and all is better than the next while I am thinking about it.

And now back to my original point...I swear to great fictional dieties if I heard this toolbag on this show call himself a great chef one more fucking time I was going to hunt down his over testosteroned egotistical ass where ever it was in California and drag him to the nearest restaurant and throw this "chef" on a hot line and watch him cry like a little girl who lost her dolly. Watch him get burnt by the guy on saute slinging pans like a mad man putting out 4 dishes while cooking 5 more & setting 3 more up for firing while listing to an expo holler out orders that you have to keep in your memory and telling the guy on fry what sides & garnishes he needs to plate. See if he can call himself a chef when the host comes back to tell you that we just had a walk in 20 top off the menu that was just sat & needs to be out the door in an hour for a show they are going to or having the Skippy the Wonder Server (every restaurant has one I guarantee it) come back while you're 20 checks deep with a pasta dish that was supposed to be the dinner special and he got confused when taking the order and you now have to fly the right item out because the guest was pissed or my personal favorite the steak/burger/fish that is cooked to a PERFECT medium rare that is sent back because "its too bloody, I just wanted it pink" was the reaction of the lady who ordered it that makes you want to go out onto the floor, find her and inform her with great anger then order it MEDIUM you fucking twatball!!! I wonder if he could call himself a chef when he finds out half way through service that Jackass the Prep Cook (every restaurant has one of these as well) SAID he made the minoinette sauce only to find out mid service he didnt and you are chopping shallots like a mother fucker while cooking checks because 86ing that item isnt an option with ingredients in house & orders on the board.

I doubt it. I am willing to bet that these "chefs" would no more be able to handle the pressure that your average line cook does every shift than I would be able to pilot a rocket ship to the moon.  It pisses me off to hear the term "chef" used so loosely.  Chef is a title that is earned, it is a title that you work for...and Master Chef - fuck me. There are chefs that work their entire careers to actually attain that level through certification programs, and it offends me that it is used so cavalierly. Not one of those people, regardless of their skill level, would last more than an hour on any of my lines & its a bunch of bullshit they are being proclaimed as Chefs by anyone. I cant throw a bandaid on a cut and call myself a surgeon - how the fuck can you saute off a piece of salmon butchered by your fish monger and call yourself a chef? Any asshole can put a pan on a stove - it takes love & talent to make that pan give you a dish that will make your mouth smile & belly happy.

I'd like to take a minute to thank Food Network for making every idiot with cable think they can cook and that being a chef is this picture perfect overly romanticised delusion of grand cuisine- its not - sometimes its tearing apart a clogged dish machine drain & scrubbing pots. And shows like Master Chef for equating really good home cooks to real chefs who would eat those people alive in the real world of chefdom. There is so much more to being a chef than reading a recipe and cooking. Its a hard job, a demanding job and for me, an amazingly rewarding one some days and a frustratingly irritating one on others...and I wouldnt change a thing about it. I do love what I do.

I have worked with some amazing chefs & cooks and for all of them and myself I finish with this - you want to be called a chef then earn that right with the blood, sweat and tears we did - not by winning some reality TV show that brings you 15 minutes of fame followed by a career of mediocrity that embarrasses us all. Real chefs dont need to tell you how great they are...they show you that on their plates every freaking night. Reading a cookbook or getting on a reality cooking tv series doesnt make you a chef any more than driving a car makes you a mechanic. Know that.

Side note - the jackass that inspired this post (Sharone for any who watch the show) was eliminated tonight and I did the happy girl dance while reveling in his embarrassment. Perhaps if he talked himself up a little less & learned to combine flavors & textures a little more he would have been a chef....after about 10 years working in a real kitchen.

Foodie BS on the Brain!!!

I stick my foot in my mouth alot. I cant really help it, although with age & maturity I have gotten slightly better. See my problem is I suck at and generally dont believe in sugar-coating things. Yes, there are times and places that warrant the use of my self editing program, but those occasions usually involve children or old people and thats about it. But overall, as anyone who has had the pleasure of dealing with me for any amount of time can vouch, I pretty much just call them like I see them and if you dont like it you can bite me. Ive told people for a long time - be careful what you ask, because I will answer, and you may not like what I have to say.  On the plus side rarely am I told that people dont know where I stand or what I expect in any situation or the people involved in it and I consider that a plus.  So my Twitter feed is littered with my personal brand of snark...and last night I was snarking about Chopped.

And as I am sure I have mentioned once or twice I am a chef....and my television viewing habits reflect as much. My recent DVR faves are Top Chef, Top Chef Masters, Chopped, Hells Kitchen & Master Chef. I LOVE seeing real cooks cooking for real, and all of those shows (some I will admit go a bit over the top with the editing for drama but thats not why I watch) are people who cook to pay the bills. I appreciate that. I cant stand watching the cooking shows, those people arent chefs, they may have been at some point, but they are now TV personalities that happen to cook. Mario Batali, Rachel Ray, Bobby Flay (who might I add NEVER wins on that goddamn Throwdown show and that is hysterical to me!), and the Satan of the Culinary World Emeril Lagasse - that man is just a tool bag - I do not watch any of their crap shows. I can see why they would be helpful to an average home cook, but not for me. But the reality show contest format ones - cant get enough.

So last night Mister was at work and I was catching up on some of my DVRs and was watching Chopped. Through the course of watching I had a couple of tweets about it...

WTF is with the arugula? I swear to god every damn episode I have watched each of the 4 competitors has a dish that includes "a nice arugula salad".  Arugula is good, dont get me wrong, but it is not the be-all end-all of greens and has become so trite it annoys me to see it on a menu, any menu really.

I tweeted "Also Chopped related: Scott Conant can be such a pretentious prick. I'd love to see him try to do this w no technical flaws. Douche." So hes a good chef based out of New York that specializes in REAL Italian food...not Yinzer Italian. Scott is a successful restaurateur and accomplished chef, much respect from me on both counts. This doesnt change the fact that he tends to be a pretentious prick. He seems to think that 1) if seafood and cheese appear on the same plate you have just committed a crime against humanity and should be shot on sight,  2) that if you improperly cook pasta it is a personal attack against him and all things he holds near and dear to his heart and 3) that he is above reproach in taste, execution and skill - which I do not believe he is. 

Geoffrey Zakarian is the only other judge who enrages me like Scott Conant does. I can at least respect Scott - Geoffrey on the other hand doesnt really appear to know what he is talking about 90% of the time and gets so condescending I dont know that I would be able to resist the urge to punch him in his little face if he Chopped me. Between the 2 of them though, when they are on the panel together, there tends to be ridiculous hyper-criticism & snark about finite details of the dishes and an overall attitude of they are better than you. Really? I challenge either of them to put there money where their mouths are and do Mystery Basket meals under such time constraints in front of a camera (most of the competitors for the first time EVER, mind you) without making ANY mistakes. I would bet they would crumble like saltines and weep like children.  Takes balls to do what those competitors do and I dont know that either of them, regardless of their culinary pedigrees, could do any better. I think Tom Coliccho from Top Chef needs to have a lesson with the Chopped judges about constructive & blunt criticism. Tom is not nice, hes is very straight forward & will totally tell them if their food was crap or sub-par without flinching and he manages to do so without coming off as condescending, rude or arrogant - take notes Scott & Geoffrey! You dont have to be an asshole to make your point!


So this morning I open my Twitter and Scott apparently searches for himself because he re-tweeted by pretentious prick comment from last night. This made me laugh my ass off...at least he appears to have a sense of humor about himself and his dickish behavior. Hell I didnt even know he was on Twitter...so I followed him & asked him about the arugula thing...it really bugs me. Well that and they will bust on people for lack of creativity and never say a damn word about the cop out arugula salad ever. We shall see if he answers me...I kind of hope he does & I also hope that he really isnt as big of a dick as he comes across on that show.


Even if the judges annoy me I still will watch. I like to play along at home with the chefs competing and see what I would do with the Mystery Basket ingredients. But I do think that before any of the judges should be allowed to judge they should have to compete and see what kind of magic they can pull out of a basket...seems only fair that if you are going to sit at your chopping block and pass hard judgment on those competing that you yourself should have to be judged. 


Completely unrelated - I think I have perfected the chocolate chip cookie recipe I have been tinkering with. I made the most perfect, soft, chewy, buttery cookies the other night. A year well spent tweaking that out until it was what I wanted the end product to be. I started with 5 recipes and then isolated what I liked and what I didnt from each and what caused those characteristics until I came up with my own. If you dig that style of choc chip cookie let me know and I may post the recipe. It couldnt be easier to make and seriously - so much better than any cookie you will buy!


Also mostly unrelated - Ive been making my own vanilla extract. I bake a lot and go through gallons a year. This gets pricey. Pure Vanilla Extract can run up to $50 a quart depending on quality. Personally I feel that the better extracts are worth the money - if its worth making its worth making as delicious as you can. So Mister did some research for me (seriously - hes better than the Googles, I kid you not) and we discovered extracts are wicked easy to make and rather inexpensive compared to what I buy. I accepted delivery on 1/2# of Madagascar Vanilla beans earlier this week and have set another bottle of vodka to turn into delicious vanilla extract. I put 12 split beans & 1 Tbsp of sugar into a middle of the road vodka (Smirnoff for example) and let it sit for a month. I top off with more vodka & refresh the beans as I need to and I have a perpetually refreshing vanilla in my liquor cupboard all the time. It genuinely makes a difference in the end product. The vanilla flavoring is more true, the aroma is divine and its so much better that I hope to never purchase vanilla again. Its also so easy anyone who bakes a lot should try it. I think I am going to attempt lemon & orange next...why not? I want to try other flavors too...any suggestions or requests? 


Up next in Mindy's Kitchen Adventures - Mindy Learns to Can Shit - because I have enough tomatoes to feed an army and would like to save them. I attempted to can last year, but failed miserably due to technical errors. This year tomatoes, applesauce, apple butter and maybe peaches just because I can. No technical errors allowed...because this time Im going to read all of the instructions twice before I start...and just to be extra sure have Mister read them over too so I can blame him if it doesnt work :-)

Monday Funday & the Perfect Brownie

I was off today. That's weird. I'm generally not ever off on Mondays. I used to be off every Monday, and that was pretty damn awesome...but I digress.  So this Monday started off with a 10am appointment with my attorney in the South Side to discuss a partnership agreement for me & the woman who would like to partner & partially finance my little cafe venture~I'm going to have to give her a nickname.  It was buncha questions and then a buncha answers and background info that ended in me knowing I'm having the first draft of that document in hand within a week. Then it gets signed, then I get a check and then I push this big ass ball down the cliff and hang on for dear life!! Woo Hoo!!

This is it. This is the beginning. This is the part that I quit TALKING about doing something and I actually do it. This is the best part. Ive never been a big on worrying on things. I have thought this out every which way I can and I see no option for anything but success so its just a matter of leaping.  So ive found the proverbial cliff...and off I am going to leap.  Once I have formed my LLC there is no changing of my mind, there is just mission accomplished. I am hoping that with the investment capitol I will have and my business plan I should be able to secure the rest of the money I need with relative quickness...and the rest of the money makes the rest details. I can handle details.

Me & the Mister are also on weird schedules for the next couple weeks. Hes closing one of the stores, Im opening them...short staffed and shift coverage necessary. This will suck balls. On the plus side we got to go to Primanti's in the Strip for lunch (delicious!), got some coffee from Prestogeorge & got some new spices at Penzeys...Vietnamese Cinnamon & Herbes de Provence~ HIGHLY recommend the Vietnamese Cinnamon.  Its spicier, you can smell the difference and the flavor is more hot for lack of a better word.  So it was a great Monday. And those are ridiculously rare. Most Mondays suck.

Im also testing recipes.  Most of them are for baked goods at the moment.  Ive been on a search for my Great White Whale - a good brownie recipe.  I like them a certain texture, in my opinion a good brownie is a very rare thing to find.  They shouldnt be cakey, they should be chewy; they shouldnt be gooey or raw, they should be dense & rich. I will rarely order a brownie from anywhere...they are almost always not good.  I also happen to think a good brownie should have walnuts...this is necessary! Mister will totally disagree - he is anti-nut in almost every baked good because, well...hes wrong. So ive tested at least 4 recipes, probably closer to 6. All of them had their redeeming qualities, all of them had their meh qualities...but none have been perfect. So I've studied the brownie. I know what I like to get the almost bitter richness of the chocolate, I know that butter is important to get the texture & deepness of flavor, I know what I do to the eggs makes a huge difference in the texture...its been a learning experience. My test batch last night was ooooh soooo close....but not perfect. And it was loaded with chocolate chips & walnuts, so I have to make a recipe without as well...more brownies!!!!

I think I know what needs to happen though to fix it. Im almost certain that with a couple tweaks I can get rid of the crumbly texture and make it chewier & denser.  So Ill try again...as soon as I find some poor souls to pawn these off on.  I dont think RK & the Mister are going to want to eat this entire pan or brownies...and Im going to need to use them as testers for the hopefully perfect batch that I make next.

Once the brownies are done Im going to have to test a couple other recipes...croissants, cinnamon raisin rolls,  muffins.....pierogies.

Anyone interested in signing up for care packages let me know ;-)

Aaaaaahhh...a break!

A few posts back I was whining about Baltimore ruining my life by having like 30 some inches of snow and *pout* postponing the beer fest we were supposed to go to...and yeah well me & the Mister did get to go - restoring balance to our lives and order to my kingdom.  Oh and it was AWESOME.

We took off early afternoon Friday for the 4 hour drive that courtesy of the PA Turnpike & weather aftermath ended up being 6+ hours instead, but the sun happened to be shining and that in and of itself was enough to make it not all that awful.  With all the BLAH & MEH of the last couple weeks even cold cant ruin a few hours of sunshine & I love to go on drives so traffic was a minor annoyance.  The roads were still far from fabulous coupled with people who were all terrified & driving stupid and you'll have traffic.  We did see a semi that had gone off into a ditch in Maryland that caused the longest of our delays.  But the truck was full of potatoes and watching them try to offload these poor spuds was kinda of amusing...it was like a potato Pearl Harbor....

So we arrive in Baltimore, head to our hotel which was right outside the city, settle in a bit and then program the GPS for a bar named Max's Taphouse for their 72 hours of Belgians beer fest that thanks to the Clipper City postponement we were able to go to as well *SCORE*.  This place was epic. It was packed, a bazillion taps, smelled like bars we went to in Belgium, dull roar of a crowd, music strains filtering through every now & again...it was a very welcoming atmosphere in all honesty, but odd to be on that side of it.  So we snatch a menu up & are both just WOWED by this line up.  There was shit on this list that I hadnt heard of, shit we last had IN Belgium, beers we didnt even know were in the US. Color us fucking impressed...no small fete. AND (yes it really does get better) we discover they offer "samples" of their draught for $3 each. Their "sample" is a 5oz white wine-style glass filled with delicious beer. This is awesome news for me, I dont have to commit to a big beer, I can drink a buncha small ones! I love this concept and take full advantage of it.  I think I had 6 or 7 different beers, all delicious, and Im not certain which ones I had, but I bet if you ask Mister he could probably tell ya....hes awesome like that.  So we stayed there for a good bit, had a buncha beers & reveled in all that was Belgian...and for the record there is nothing as sweet as a warm Belgian beer buzz...delicious!

 Well me managed seats when we bumped into some of the regulars from one of our bars here that were down for Max's festival right before they were leaving & made friends with our table mates.  Dinner. We hadn't eaten outside some snacks on the way down and we were both hungry. So we asked for a recommendation from a local...something good, something local, something close enough to walk to preferably. He gave us a couple options and we decided on a tapas place around the corner and go for a walk toward the harbor and hit a small warm simple place, go in & take a look at a menu where like 10 things jumped off at me.  Tapas rules...kinda like the beer did...I can order a buncha little things and share so I really dont have to make a big fat entree commitment. We ended up with 4 divine dishes ~Tuna Carpaccio with arugula, shallot & balsamic vinaigrette ~Roasted Duck Confit with potato puree and demi glace reduction ~Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes with aioli ~Spanikopita homemade & perfect.  It was an amazing meal, washed down with a pitcher of sangria made with a nice dry Spanish red wine and finished with a decadent bittersweet chocolate torte & homemade baklava both of which were sinfully rich.  We wandered back to our car, drove it out of the snowbank we had parked in & headed off to bed...have to rest up for the Clipper City fest at noon tomorrow :-)

Got up in the morning, sent Mister to Starbucks to get some big coffees & then headed off to Clipper City for the beerfest.  It was fantabulous. They had all of their Heavy Seas line on draught with unlimited samples and a shit ton of oysters, all the raw ones were fresh shucked (my personal fave of the 8 or so varieties was the Blue Points for sure!) by these men that were obvious pros & they had a 4 different cooked ones too (Garlic butter parm - meh, Coke, BBQ & Chevre - pretty good, Coconut milk, bacon & thai hot sauce - DIVINE!) that were all good.  I tasted my first raw oyster that day at 12:05pm. Ive shucked more than my fair share while coming up & working hotel raw bars, Mister loves them so when weve gotten them Ive shucked for him, too...but I have a weird texture issue with food and their look always turned me off for fear of them just being one of those squashy textures that would induce the gag reflex.  But I figured if I was driving 4 hours to go to a beer & oyster fest that I HAD to give hem a shot. Delicious, briney, taste like the ocean...i will so totally be eating them more often, Ive been missing out!  They also had it beef sandwiches there were awesome! So 4 hours of beer & food & beer & food and we were both ready for a nap...so back to the hotel and we napped for a couple hours.  Then to another local joint for dinner....Ale Marys.

Ale Marys is a beery-kinda bar. It reminded me alot of Piper's Pub in the South Side but they specialize in tater tots!!! So we got Crabby Tots - tater tots covered in crab dip & melted cheese with ranch ~ oh yeah they were as good as they sounded! I got a crabcake sandwich - all jumbo lump crab, barely any fillers, just  simple garlic butter sauce & some herbs on a grilled bun that was perfect.  Mister got a fried catfish po'boy that he assured me was just as awesome as my crabcake.  We were stuffed to the gills after that so we decided to go for a snowy hike back up to the harbor. Just as we started to feel human again we just HAD to stop for gelato (hazelnut & bourbon vanilla for me, bittersweet chocolate & espresso for Mister - both decadent & delicious!), then back to Max's for another beer then back to the hotel to pass into a food/beer coma.....

We decided to find a good diner for breakfast before we went to the National Aquarium.  Found a Greek diner that seemed to be a local-y kind of feel to it that was very well reviewed on the intarwebs...so we sought & we found.  Had killer challah french toast & ham and Mister got a crab omlette that looked awesome.  Great breakfast! Sat with near a table that provided infinite amusement, too.  They were a group of Jersey Housewives with a gay couple.  The gay couple had an adorable son, infant, they were just so cute fussing over...the Jersey Housewives were such a riot.  One of them had probably been told over 10 years ago she looked like Marissa Tomei, and she did with much thinner lips, so to fix it she did the I'll line my lips waaaaaay outside my natural lip line and fill it in and no one would notice. FAIL! She just looked like someone who didnt know how to apply make up. And they were chatting about how ridiculous that dumb show The Real Housewives of NJ women were & absurd, etc....ironic :-) Oh and yeah, THIS restaurant was just down from the diner...it amused me so Mister took a pic....

Breakfast complete we head to the National Aquarium. Its unbelievable huge, it was incredibly packed, yet well organized as far as entry.  I was impressed, but I still kind of liked the aquarium at our zoo better.  Granted, we dont have a dolphin show, but I feel like its better laid out & designed for ease of movement & flow for larger crowds than this one was...or perhaps I'm just biased because its our aquarium and its newer.  Either way we had a very nice afternoon wandering around the ships in the harbor while we waited to go in...

We saw a 4D nature movie & saw the dolphin show & they had a jellyfish display that was pretty wicked cool.  Overall worth the afternoon.  Their admission prices werent terrible, but the $22 to park at a nearby garage was a tad recockulous. I get its in the city & its a touristy area, but that seems like highway robbery. Everywhere else wed been we managed to find on-street parking for free, even with 3 feet of snow, but since wed checked out of the hotel & had all our stuff in the car we figured the garage was safer...and it damn well better have been for $22 for 5 hours. 

Some pics that came out pretty cool from the aquarium...

So when we were done with the aquarium we headed back home.  Turnpike sucked then too, but whatcha gonna do.  As nice as it was to be away for a bit....I was sure happy to be home.

I really missed this face...