Posts Tagged ‘christina lee’
Food Puns for Word Nerds at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, May 14th, 2009
In February, the famed New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz asked Dinner Impossible‘s Robert Irvine to cook dinner for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament . . . with one little catch.
Every course had to represent a food-related saying or pun.
Crossword enthusiasts attending the dinner had a riot solving the puzzles that came out of Irvine’s kitchen (watch the video here).
Here’s a small sampling of the gastronomic brainteasers unveiled at the dinner. How many can you solve?
1. ”A cream casserole with a medley of exquisite vegetables.”
2. “Duck leg, duck breast and duck sushi.”
3. “A dish for the vegetarians that has a vegetable filled phyllo streudel. No seafood, no chicken.”
4. “Fingerling potatoes with butter balls.”
5. “Sweet bread pudding made with Bacardi 151.”
Answers:
1. cream of the crop
2. ducks in a row
3. neither fish nor fowl
4. butter fingers
5. the proof is in the pudding
– Christina Lee
Would you ever attempt homemade bagels?
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, May 12th, 2009
Photo by rusvaplauke/Flickr.
Today’s home baking debate is no longer about the inferiority of Wonder Bread compared to fresh, homemade loaves. That’s been done (and the answer should be obvious).
What bloggers seem to be churning out of their ovens these days are the kinds of bread products that the majority of us tend to leave to the experts: bagels, English muffins, soft-pretzels and other individually proportioned breads.
I’ve also noticed more than a few blog entries by ambitious home bakers who set out to pit commercial baked goods against the homemade variety.
To prove I’m not just imagining things, here’s some evidence I’ve gathered on this trend:
Slate contributor, Jennifer Reese, conducts a cost-benefit analysis to assess the value of homemade bagels (along with a host of other pantry staples like crackers, yogurt and even cream cheese) compared with the store-bought variety. Her vote on the homemade bagel question: “Make or buy? Make.”
Melinda McCamant from Serious Eats reports on the results of “The English Muffin Experiment,” which compared homemade English muffins with commercial muffin brands (including Trader Joe’s and Thomas’). Her verdict: “I wanted my English Muffins to win and in the end, based on overall taste, cost, and quality of ingredients, they did.”
Pioneer Woman invites Smitten Kitchen over to hang out. Smitten Kitchen talks Pioneer Woman into baking homemade bagels. Pioneer Woman’s life will never be the same: “We made bagels today, and while I realize I’m slightly prone to hyperbole from time to time, I will say this: THESE BAGELS HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE.” We’re guessing that they’re pro-homemade as well.
What I haven’t seen are tons of blog posts encouraging us to make our own croissants — and I think I know why. I once made a batch of homemade croissants from a recipe in Rose Levy Barenbaum’s The Pie and Pastry Bible.
And it took me fourteen hours.
Granted, they were the flakiest, buttery-est croissants I’ve ever had (thanks to over half a pound of European butter), but I can’t see myself ever making them again.
Here’s what I want to know about your home baking adventures:
1. Would you ever try baking bagels, English muffins or croissants at home?
2. What’s the most ambitious thing you’ve ever attempted to bake? And was it worth it?
– Christina Lee
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
To everyone who started their weekly diets yesterday (bikini season is just around the corner, after all):
It is now only Tuesday morning, and if your throat is already starting to constrict at the thought of another celery stick or mouthful of sawdust (that Fiber One bar in your desk drawer) then check out the following links for some motivation.
None of them offer recipes for magical low-cal elixirs or links to celebrity workouts that promise chiseled buns in just four minutes a day! No, these links will do you one better. Click through them and watch your appetite disappear.
Photo by The Pug Father/Flickr.
Homesick Swine Flu Bug Hitches a Ride to Visit Canadian Relatives
Rationally, we all know that we can’t get swine flu from eating pork, but the pig=death connection still gives us pause no matter how hard the pig PR reps work to rename it H1N1 (does anyone else secretly pronounce it “hiney”?). It certainly doesn’t help that, as CNN reports, the flu virus can seemingly hop from pork to person and back to pig again, like a transient vagabond:
Canadian officials on Saturday said they have quarantined pigs that tested positive for the virus — scientifically known as 2009 H1N1 — at an Alberta farm in what could be the first identified case of pigs infected during the recent outbreak. They said the pigs may have been infected by a Canadian farmer who recently returned from a trip to Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak that has sickened nearly 660 people.
Thanks to this news flash I now picture swine flu as a microscopic flea, jumping from animal to person and perhaps onto my dinner plate where it takes cover among the bacon bits in my Cobb salad. Delicious!
Which one would you rather eat?
In a Separate Study: Blindfolded Dogs Ravenously Consume Everything
A group of researchers asked 18 willing participants to pick out a dish of dog food (admittedly the premium Newman’s Own brand) from a selection of commonly eaten people foods, ranging from SPAM to liverwurst to duck liver paté. Each sample was ground up into a homogeneous meat paste to rule out the variable of texture.
Of course, the inevitable happened. Fifteen out of 18 participants failed to distinguish the puppy chow from the other USDA-sanctioned foodstuffs.
Goldstein said the tasting demonstrated that “context plays a huge role in taste and value judgment,” even though researchers warned the participants that one of the five foods they were going to taste was dog food.
The moral of this story is: Do not attend cocktail parties thrown by people who hate you. You never know what is spread on that Carr’s water cracker.
I don't think I realized how much coffee beans look like cockroaches. Photo by lifties/Flickr.
Caffeine: Not the Only Thing That Gives Coffee Legs
Dreaming of picking up a calorie-packed Iced Frappuccino instead of picking at the boring green salad you packed for lunch? This story’ll make you leave your Starbucks card in your wallet.
CHOW contributer Joyce Slaton quotes a bio prof at U. of Montana, Douglas Emlen, from yesterday’s NPR broadcast on beetles:
“Preground-you know, your big bulk coffee that you buy in a tin-is all processed from these huge stockpiles of coffee … that get infested with cockroaches,” says Emlen. “And there’s really nothing they can do to filter that out. So it all gets ground up in the coffee.”
Maybe you should get today’s caffeine fix from a nice glass of calorie-free iced tea. Tea leaves, thankfully, aren’t featured in this FDA list of foods with predetermined maximum levels of “natural or unavoidable defects” (that is, “insect filth” or “mammalian excreta”) that Slaton so helpfully reminds us of in the same article.
– Christina Lee
A Blog Devoted to [Insert Food Here]
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, April 30th, 2009
A screenshot of a blog devoted to a dip made from garbanzo beans.
Serious Eats has separate blogs devoted to both hamburgers and pizza, which I think is fitting. If any two foods deserve their own blog, it’s those greasy iconic classics.
But what about the other deserving foods out there? Is anyone giving them blog love?
I searched all over the web for online odes to specific foods (the more specific the better). Some sites, like http://www.thebananablog.com/ (warning: NSFW), were . . . not quite what I thought they’d be. Luckily, I found more than enough food fan blogs out there that fit the bill.
Here’s a short list of ‘em:
What food would you blog about?
I think I’d blog about eggs and all the delicious things you can make with them: frittatas, omelets, soufflés, scrambled eggs, soft-boiled eggs, egg salad, eggs benedict, quiche…I could probably keep that blog going for years.
– Christina Lee
Chef Jose Andres Talks Budget-Friendly Recipes on NPR
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
Photo by giffconstable/Flickr
Yesterday on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Chef Jose Andres, the Spanish mastermind behind Café Atlantico and Jaleo, shared his recipe for a thrifty yet fabulous meal — a garlic and saffron-infused Morrocan-style chickpea and spinach stew — that feeds four people for under $10.
Chef Andres, who the Washingtonian credits with introducing the small plates concept to the area, first tasted the stew when his then-new wife prepared it for him — with less than economical results. It wasn’t the pinch of saffron that broke the budget; it was the long distance call she made to her mother to walk her through the recipe from start to finish:
Andres tells NPR’s Michele Norris. “I remember how good it was, how affordable it was. But the telephone bill is something I will remember forever.”
To bring down the cost of this dish, skip the staggering long distance bill by checking out the recipe here, and use dried chickpeas instead of canned. The trick to cooking dried chickpeas, according to the Chef Andres, is to 1) soak them overnight with a pinch of baking soda and 2) learn the language of peas so that you, like a skilled lover, can tell when they are supple, willing and ready:
“You’re going to look at them, talk to them,” he says. “What if you’re not fluent? I’m talking to them, touching them, and with a little pressure in your fingers, you see they are very soft thing. The chickpeas is telling me, ‘I am ready.’
Those are some lucky garbanzos beans.
Do you have an arsenal of cost-effective recipes that will tide you through the recession? Share them with NPR’s “How Low Can You Go” challenge by May 1, and your recipe might be mentioned on air. Or you can just skim the 60+ recipes that have already been submitted to find something to make for dinner tonight.
– Christina Lee
Would You Serve These with Ketchup or Marinara?
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
Photo by M!ханя.
Some Live Journaling Russians made these oddly-compelling-if-not-entirely-appetizing culinary creatures by poking raw spaghetti into hot dogs and then boiling them whole (see more pictures here, here and here).
A commenter on Boingboing.net dubbed them “trailer park calamari,” which I think about sums it up.
–Christina Lee
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
Photo by wwarby/Flickr
Save the bees with Todd Thrasher’s new honey-infused cocktail
Bon Appetit’s blog, The BA Foodist, reports that local mixologist Todd Thrasher is offering a honey bee-themed cocktail at all the Armstrong locations (Restaurant Eve, Eamonn’s, The Majestic and PX) to support research on “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD), a serious threat to the nation’s population of honey bees. For every “Plight of the Honeybee” cocktail sold, Thrasher will donate $1 to CCD research at UC Davis.
U.K. bar renders chugging obsolete with new vaporized G&Ts
A couple of British guys transform a bar into a giant gin and tonic (complete with giant limes and the soundtrack of “the noise of liquid being poured over ice cubes”). Inside, patrons can simply breathe in the booze-y air:
“Just 40 minutes inside the venue – which delivers an intoxicating vapour of gin and tonic – will leave you feeling slightly merry.”
Screenshot of KFC's website.
KFC hopes to revamp its brand with healthier KGC
Original Recipe, Extra Crispy…or grilled? TIME reports on KFC’s effort to target health-conscious consumers with a new line of Kentucky grilled chicken (4-9 grams of fat per piece compared to 7-21 grams per piece of Original Recipe):
“They still have the credibility barrier to overcome,” [restaurant analyst Larry] Miller said. While achievable, “it’s tough when your name has ‘fried’ in the middle.”
Select KFC locations will be offering customers a free piece of its new grilled chicken on April 27.
Foodie reflects on her reluctantly gluten-free diet
Diagnosed with celiac’s disease, Boston Globe correspondant Louisa Kasdon learns she can no longer indulge in breads, pasta, French fries or even sushi:
“It may sound overly dramatic, but for someone who lives to eat, accepting these huge restrictions was very difficult…Was there anything left to eat?”
– Christina Lee
Fish Sustainability Facts at Your Fingertips with a Free Text to FishPhone
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, April 16th, 2009
"Please text 30644 to find out if it's a good time to eat me." Photo by Chris 73/Wikipedia Commons.
Seafood lovers can get the lowdown on the sustainability and mercury content of any seafood they’re about to consume — whether in the supermarket or the restaurant (or in my case, the office cubicle) — with just a simple text to FishPhone. BlueOcean.org, a sustainable seafood nonprofit, offers this texting service to take the effort out of ethically-conscious seafood consumption.
It sounded easy enough to me, so I decided to try it with the elegant seafood luncheon I have planned for noon: a foot-long tuna salad sub from Subway.
I texted 30644 with the message “FISH” followed by my tasty sea creature of choice (in this case “tuna”). The immediate response came as promised in the form of two texts:
(1/2) pole or troll caught (GREEN) very few environmental concerns; purse seine or longline caught (YELLOW) some env concerns, HEALTH ADVIORY: high mercury;
(2/2) bluefin tuna (RED) significant env problems, HEALTH ADVISORY: high mercury
As thorough as this sustainability report was, I had no idea what most of it meant.
“Poll or troll caught”? I envisioned standing on a bridge with a fishing rod I fashioned out of sticks and twine, hoping to out-catch the gnarly troll skulking in the creek underneath. According to FishPhone, the tuna I’d catch in that Grimm’s tale setting would be given the green light.
What about “purse seine”? I was pretty sure it didn’t mean catching fish with a Dior clutch (not that I have one anyway).
All would have been lost had I actually been handed these cryptic terms while standing in line at Subway. Fortunately, I had texted FishPhone from my office computer and was able to ask Google all about trolls and purse seines.
Trolling is just a term to describe hook and line fishing done on a low-impact, slow-moving boat.
Purse seines are large nets that close up around the catch like a drawstring bag.
Longline is a commercial fishing method that involves, unsurprisingly, a really long line onto which hundreds (sometimes thousands) of individual lines are attached, each with its own hook and bait.
Another problem was I didn’t have a clue what kind of tuna Subway uses in its homogenously gray-colored tuna salad, though I had a suspicion it wasn’t the red alert bluefin of the ilk that got recently auctioned off in Tokyo for $100,000.
Subway’s website doesn’t provide any information on where their tuna comes, so I just entered in the fish most commonly found in “chunk light” tuna — little sprightly fellows called skipjacks. Here’s what FishPhone texted me back with:
skipjack tuna; poll and troll caught (GREEN) very few environmental concerns; longline and purse seines caught (YELLOW) some environmental concerns.
That doesn’t sound too bad. It turns out cheap light tuna contains much lower mercury levels than white albacore tuna — which explains the lack of HEALTH ADVISORY warnings in the status update. In that respect, at least, Subway tuna subs are better for me than fancier tuna sandwiches.
Try out FishPhone if you’re getting sushi for lunch today (even if for no other reason than it’s kinda fun), and tell us what you find out.
– Christina
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, April 14th, 2009
Trader Joe's unveils its newest model of designer eggs -- now with twice the cholesterol! Photo by alx chief/Flickr.
Adam Kuban from Serious Eats reports that one reader bought a carton of Trader Joe’s jumbo eggs only to find found that every single one of them was double-yolked — that’s a total of twenty-four yolks distributed across only a dozen eggs.
I don’t know about you, but I had an immediate visceral reaction when I first laid eyes on that sea of yolks. It’s not like I’ve never encountered a double-yolked egg before. (I once found one while making an omelet and immediately whisked the whole thing together so I could pretend it never happened).
There’s just something seeing mutated foods en masse that makes me feel like the world is falling apart. One egg has only one yolk – that’s an equation that sustains our everyday logic. I can ignore one or two freak occurrences, but a whole dozen of them makes me question my view of reality.
A commenter on that Serious Eats egg post astutely points out that:
Factory farms sort out all the eggs that don’t meet the textbook image of what an egg should be. Eggs that are too long, too squat, too big, too small, unevenly shaped or colored are all picked out in order not to freak out the oh so fragile consumer.
Egg laying is a complex process…you can bet all the things coming out of the hens aren’t picture perfect.
So, what other egg mutations aren’t we aware of?
Conveniently, PoultryHelp.com has a whole page dedicated to odd eggs, complete with disturbing pictures. (Apparently enough people have emailed them with questions about egg mutations that they felt the need to give the topic it’s own FAQ).
Here’s a list of some of the creepiest egg malformations from that page:
- NO YOLK – These are commonly called “fart eggs” in the poultry industry.
- MORE THAN TWO YOLKS – PoultryHelp.com claims that one record-breaking egg held a total of nine yolks.
- NO SHELL – Instead of a hard shell, a thin pliable membrane encloses the egg contents like a squishy water balloon (ugh).
- EGG WITHIN AN EGG– It would blow my mind if I cracked an egg into a bowl and saw another miniature egg come out.
- ODD-SHAPED – One egg found in China looks vaguely like a soup spoon (a Chinese soup spoon, of course).
Have you encountered any of these freaky eggs while making breakfast? More importantly, were you able to bring yourself to eat them?
– Christina Lee
Interview with Owner of Open Kitchen
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, April 9th, 2009
New sign for Open Kitchen at West Metro Plaza in Falls Church
If you’ve driven on Route 7 toward Falls Church City in the past few weeks, you’ve probably seen a fresh new sign up for Open Kitchen, an innovative community kitchen, which will open this summer in the newly-renovated West Metro Plaza.
Roughly 150 community kitchens exist in the U.S. today, but Open Kitchen will be the first facility in the D.C. Metro area, offering commercially-licensed and equipped kitchens that entrepreneurs can rent for their food businesses.
We contacted Open Kitchen Owner Hue-Chan Karels and asked her how she came up with the concept for Open Kitchen and her advice for hosting a successful Iron Chef competition.
NORTHERN VIRGINIA MAGAZINE: How did you get started in this business?
HUE-CHAN KARELS: It all started with cookies! Back in 2007, I had the inspiration to make a lifestyle change and depart from my FDA regulatory and compliance consulting practice to start an artisan cookie business.
However, to my amazement I soon discovered that renting a commercially licensed kitchen to launch my business was next to impossible in the Washington DC Metro Area. All in all, it was a very frustrating and demoralizing experience.
As I did more research and talked to people currently in or wanting to get into the food business, I learned that I was not alone in my search for affordable and flexible commercially licensed kitchen space for rent. This process gave birth to the core concept behind “Open Kitchen” which is to provide licensed kitchen facilities for rent on a cost-effective and flexible basis.
NVM: Do you have clients currently lined up to use your services? Are they mostly Northern Virginians or do you have folks willing to commute from the District as well?
HCK: I’m happy to say that we have received multiple follow-up emails from many of those who have inquired about our kitchen rental facilities. Regarding the locations of our anticipated kitchen rental clients, the majority of the caterers, food producers, personal chefs and cooking instructors that have inquired about our services are in located in Northern Virginia (37%), followed by Washington DC (29%) and Montgomery County (25%).
Also, we already have several private events planned for activities that bring people together in the kitchen such as cooking parties and corporate team-building events. Regarding our targeted clients for cooking classes, many of those who have attended our past events are from the DC/Northern Virginia area, although we had several participants who came from as far as Annapolis and Frederick, MD.
NVM: I saw that your website mentioned the potential for families or groups of friends to host “Iron Chef” competitions in your rental kitchens. Has anyone contacted you to express interest in holding such competitions?
HCK: Yes, we have had many inquiries for “Iron Chef” competitions from people planning family reunions, birthday parties, or simply a fun and out of the ordinary get-together with friends.
NVM: What advice would you give to groups interested in hosting an Iron Chef contest at Open Kitchen?
HCK: Most home kitchens do not have the space to accommodate multiple teams cooking at the same time. In addition, the task of coordinating and managing the event so that everyone has fun, including the host, is a challenging one.
For those interested in hosting such an event at Open Kitchen, I’ve provided some basic planning steps to get started:
How to Host an Iron Chef Competition at (Open) Kitchen Stadium
Anyone have an ice cream maker? How about some squid sorbet? Photo by watchsmart/Flickr
STEP 1: Identify “Iron Chef” and “Challenger Chef” Teams. Minimum of 2 teams and maximum of 3 teams; 3-4 members per team. From these teams, decide which one is to be given the title of “Iron Chef Team” (that is, “the team to beat”).
STEP 2: Determine who would make up the “audience.” Maximum total of 25 guests. It may be helpful to solicit ideas from these guests on who should be the Iron Chef Team and who should be the Challenger Chef Team(s). The Iron Chef should be an experienced cook known to all the guests. The challenger may be an amateur.
STEP 3: Create a list of rules and judging criteria. The most common rules include all cooking must be done on premises, it must be completed within one hour and all dishes prepared must showcase the secret ingredient. All teams must prepare enough food for the judges and guests.
STEP 4: Identify a Panel of Judges (3 is a good number). Make sure these individuals are well regarded, have an interest in food, can be objective, and have a creative sense of humor. As an option, Open Kitchen can provide our professional chefs as judges.
STEP 5: Designate a host to address the guests. The host should explain the format of the competition, announce the rules and then introduce both contenders.
STEP 6: Call Open Kitchen to book a date and let us do the rest!
Our entire Open Kitchen facilities will be reserved for the event, which typically spans about three hours, including our three commercial kitchens, bistro indoor dining room and terrace area.
Before the event, we will provide all kitchen equipment, set up the space and do all the clean up work, work with the event organizer to determine the theme of the Iron Chef, including the “secret ingredient,” supply these ingredients the day of the event, and assist the event organizer (if requested) in creating a list of rules and determining the judging criteria such as taste, presentation, creativity and the use of the secret ingredient
During the event, we will provide each team with a market basket of foodstuffs, including the secret ingredient, designate a Floor Manager and the appropriate number of kitchen assistants to help manage the flow of activities, provide a professional chef to help guide the teams (if requested), and provide finger food and beverage for guests during the cook-off.
PRIZES: The winning team will be named “Open Kitchen Iron Chef” and given a kitchen award. All participants will receive a cotton apron and a chef’s hat.
COST: For a 3-hour event and all the services describes above, the basic cost is $135-$150 per person, depending on selection of ingredients, with a minimum of 20 people and maximum of 40 people. Additional costs would apply for the services of our professional chef(s), additional rental hours, and for beer and wine.
– Christina Lee
