August 2005 Archives

(Photo:Gourmet Magazine- Puffy Corn Omelet)

Sorry to take so long to get this posted, but lots going on at Desert Island Foods™.com, and life in general.

Paul "Chile" Brown has submitted a recipe he found in Gourmet magazine called a Puffy Corn Omelet that I don't have a link for yet. Paul is also a recent runner up from Food Fight #3:

This recipe is from Gourmet Magazine. I liked it because the ingredients are few and simple. Right now corn is the bomb. I want to make this recipe with my Homemade bacon. I saw a recipe that you use this cure on Pork Butt for 10 days. You rinse and then smoke to 140 degrees. It is supposed to turn out like a cross between Canadian Bacon and country Ham. We will see. I should be smoking it next Tuesday.

Peace, Paul

Paul's heading out on vacation soon, so we probably won't see his version before the contest ends, but you gotta like the idea of adding bacon to just about anything. Right? I have a few more entries to post yet. Keep em coming by emailing them here! See the posts below for rules and guidelines.

Chile's recipe is below the fold.

(Photo: Shauna James, glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com)

Wow, Shauna. The Gluten Free Girl has set the bar high with her "grilled cheese with amaranth leaves and blackberry sauce". The entire post is so informative and entertaining I'd like us all to read it, in order to factor in Shauna's great writing when we vote on the original recipes.

So well done. Stunningly simple flavors smashed together. Wow.

I'm creating two new catagories in the side bar so we can all reference the original and the interpreted recipes easily- FF4- Original and FF4- Interpreted.

Shauna's recipe for the blackberry sauce and her sandwich notes are in the extended entry.

Okay, Food Fight #4 is afoot! Here's how it will go:

Everybody interested needs to email me your recipe by Monday, Sept 5. I'll put your version up as they come in. I'll put them into a grab bag and dole one out to each of us. As everyone's finished dishes come in, which hopefully can be by Monday, the 19th at the latest, I'll feature one or two of them each day for everyone to ooh and aah over.

Once everything's in and we've all had a chance to 'digest' them, we're going to cast 2 votes, one for the best recipe submitted and one for the best execution/interpretation. Make sense? More below.

Shauna James, the Gluten Free Girl, has been tearing it up.

Shauna has been doing a great job educating me about Celiac Disease, the body's inability to tolerate gluten. She's been forced to do more cooking at home, and her blog is filled with post after post that are focused on pure food sources and clean, simple flavors. You know I'm all over that.

I love her blog, big time. She's inspired me to try to develop gluten free products.

(Photo: http://www.kokoespresso.com/)

Researchers are now finding that coffee has many of the same health benefits found in tea and vegetables, and hints that Americans may actually get more anti oxidants from coffee than any other food source. The whole AP article has a lot of good stuff, and is worth reading with coffee in hand:

The findings by Joe A. Vinson, a chemistry professor at the University of Scranton, in Pennsylvania, give a healthy boost to the warming beverage.

"The point is, people are getting the most antioxidants from beverages, as opposed to what you might think," Vinson said in a telephone interview.

...

They concluded that the average adult consumes 1,299 milligrams of antioxidants daily from coffee. The closest competitor was tea at 294 milligrams. Rounding out the top five sources were bananas, 76 milligrams; dry beans, 72 milligrams; and corn, 48 milligrams. According to the Agriculture Department, the typical adult American drinks 1.64 cups of coffee daily.

Okay, I drink a few cups of joe in the morning, so I'm happy to hear it, but I really hate studies. Wasn't this stuff supposed to be bad for you?

(Photo: www.smokehouse.com)

Drat. I thought I had found a bacon blog that even Meg at I heart Bacon didn't know about, but when I checked her blogroll, there it was. I did notice that I'm on there too, so I better get mine together, pronto.

Anyway, here it is. Commited to providing a bacon recipe daily, Bacon Show's mission is noble and their motive pure. Check it out, there's some good-looking recipes, especially if you've got a few pounds of bacon in the fridge that need some lovin'.

Big shout-out to Chuck for the link, who's always known good bacon when he Z's it.

Happy Friday, everybody! Congratulations on those wrapping up the week, and condolences to those who aren't.

This week's Friday Funny came via email from Val, who email inbox seems to attract these terribly interesting yet useless tidbits. Not overly food-oriented, but a few are. Thanks!

It's all below the fold:

The restaurant industry received the highest customer-satisfaction ratings of all 25 major industries in a recent Gallup poll I read at Restaurant.org:

Fifty-eight percent of Americans had a positive attitude toward the restaurant industry, 8 percent had a negative attitude, and 31 percent were neutral toward the industry, for a net image of +50 percentage points.

There's a lot of people bustin' their butts cranking out great food night after night. And a lot of crap, too, but let's skip them for now.

Here's the chart, below the fold:

I read an interesting article in the MJS that I found through EGullet on the popularity of hotel guests cooking in their rooms:

"We don't look for people to use the guest rooms as kitchens, unless they're set up that way," said Joe McInerney, president and CEO of the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Although hotels generally don't have a policy to specifically address the issue, "we wish (guests) wouldn't do it," he said.

Although it's customary for hotels to turn a blind eye to the practice, McInerney said that housekeeping personnel do keep an eye out for anything suspicious; while it's OK to make a meal, they don't want rooms being used to cook up illegal drugs.

When it comes to food preparation, industry insiders such as McInerney are well aware of the strangest of tricks. When asked about the practice of preparing cheese sandwiches, wrapping them securely in aluminum foil and hauling out the iron and ironing board to press them until the cheese melts, he doesn't even flinch.

"Everybody's done that once in a lifetime," he said, laughing.

Uh, everyone? All I know is that if someone fires up a deep fryer on my floor, I'm going in like Rambo. Grill all the cheese sandwiches you want, but no deep frying.

I've gone as far as carrying my own coffee maker, back before they were fairly ubiquitous, but that's about it. Room service, and the service charges that go along with it, have gotten really pricy, so I can see why this is becoming more popular.

Have you ever cooked in a hotel room that didn't have kitchen facilities? C'mon, fess up. You know you want to.

(Photo:Ananova)

Okay, this is about as sensationalist as I get around here, but Ronnie Woods of the "Strolling Bones" has offered to do a portrait of Jools Oliver, wife of TV Chef Jamie "The Naked Chef" Oliver. Ronny apparently made the offer after Jamie catered a party at the home of the Stones guitarist.

This is just chock full of irony, especially as it turns out that Jools is the naked one, according to the Ananova article:

"The girls go to bed and I send Jamie out of the room, then call him back in, dressed in nothing but a pair of jingle bells on my boobs, and do a silly dance.

"It's more funny than sexy. After two kids, my bum and boobs leave a lot to be desired, but it makes him laugh and it's the sort of goofy thing I like. I have no complaints from Jamie."

I feel so cheap for posting this, I'll make it up to you, I promise. How about 2,000 words on the secondary denaturization of meat proteins? I could go on and on about that.

[crickets]

Right.

Or, denaturization of proteins during cooking. I heard the crickets when I mentioned this before, believe me, but I had an interesting conversation during an excellent brisket dinner I had over the weekend, so I thought I'd share it.

Brisket is an excellent example of a cut of meat that can easily be ruined by improper cooking. The cut, located at the breast area of the cow, is heavily exercized and contains a great deal of elastin and collegen, the two types of connective tissue found in meat. There is a third type, located only in the hide, so a cook never encounters it. Elastin is the tougher of the two, it is the tough thread-like sinew you find and is little affected by the cooking process, so proper fabrication and slicing before service are required to remove as much of it as possible.

The other type of connective tissue, collagen, can be mitigated by proper cooking. A piece of meat has pretty much done all the contracting it's going to do by the time it reaches around 170º. As this contraction occurs as collagen begins to denature, liquid is squeezed out that used to be trapped between the fibers that used to allow them to move freely. This is the time that fat is so important. Without fat entering to keep the collagen fibers seperated, it becomes more difficult for the fibers to break down and you get the dry, mealy, over-cooked pot roast most of us grew up with. (Except me- Mom makes an excellent pot roast! Whew!!)

Let's talk about temperature now. We know that the meat has shrunk and lost as much juice as it's going to by the time it reaches 170º. Is it time to eat? The answer is, sometimes. If you've been lucky enough to get a cut with a nice fat cap, and you've cooked it fat side up so the fat can melt through the collagen fibers, they may be denturing nicely and you're good to go. But if you're not so lucky, you're going to dry your brisket out at 170º while you're biding your time.

The solution? The breakdown of collagens happens most effeciently around 205º, just below boiling. By smoking or baking at 205º, you're going to expedite the secondary denaturization, and you're going to do it more quickly, so your brisket will actually retain more of the fat that's dripped down into the fibers and keep the afore-mentioned mealy texture from developing.

And slicing. Terribly important. Take the time to figure out exactly which way the grain is running, and slice across it. This helps cut whatever elastin is present and any collagen remaining into short enough pieces that you won't notice them.

Our host, Chad, was doing all this instinctively. Served with a great homemade BBQ sauce, some awesome mashed potatoes and a terrific selection of grilled veggies I almost felt guilty about not helping to cook. Almost.

(Photo: Becks & Posh, of Sam's English Muffins)

Well, I've got a busy first day back and I haven't cooked anything lately, but these folks are always cooking and writing up a storm:

Sam, the proprietoress of Becks & Posh, makes English Muffins and continues to eat locally. Always an interesting read.

Meg at I Heart Bacon is blogging up a storm as usual. Check out her post on the Ballard Seafood Festival and her terrific recipes section.

Dr. Biggles, over at MeatHenge describes in detail his latest orgy. Okay, it was a fried chicken orgy, but y'know...

The Food Whore introduces a potential client to reality, and they seem to have never met.

Kiplog has tons of great food blog links and some terrific restaurant reviews. Go visit Paul when you get a chance.

Great to be home, blogging will resume tomorrow. Anything going on I should know about?

I'll be out of town until Monday night, so blogging will be light or nonexistent, not that I blog much on weekends, anyway.

I'll try to check email as I can, but please don't count on a response until Tuesday. I will be checking voice mail on the DIF toll-free number fairly frequently, though.

I've been working on a Survival Spice™ flavored tortilla chip idea for a while now. I think it's a great combination of flavors and I really like the heat profile of what I'm getting.

Try sprinkling some on a salted tortilla chip sometime and tell me what you think. Survival Spice™ has a hint of sweetness that backs up the heat, do you like that quality on a chip? Please let me know if you try it, via the DIF contact form, which is where you can find our toll-free number as well.

A big part of why I'm doing this blog is so I can get direct feedback from our friends and customers. From my perspective, there's nothing worse than dealing with a company through a cold, impersonal corporate interface, so we're doing things a bit differently here. Thanks for reading, have a great weekend!

(Photo: Food Fight #3 winner Dr. Biggles)

I'm starting to think about the next Food Fight, but I'd like to throw in a twist.

Here's what I'm thinking- Instead of just cooking dishes and submitting them, which is great, why don't we each enter a recipe? Maybe set some guidelines as far as cost, say no more than $15 or $20. I think maybe non-vegeterian this time but I'm certainly into doing a vegetarian version next go-around.

Here's the twist. You don't make your own recipe. Once they're in, I'll assign them randomly to all of the entrants and away we go. You make the recipe you're given, tweak it in you own style, shoot it and enter it, along with the revisions you made.

Does is sound like fun? Should we maybe have some sort of theme? I've always enjoyed the 'market basket' competitions I've been in, and I know I've got a bunch of bad-a$$ cookies that read this every day. Who's up for a little challenge? I'd be willing to up the ante as far as the prizes this time, too.

Let me know what you think, and what changes you might suggest.

18% of the American food buying public now consider gourmet versions of food products first, according to a Simmons Market Research Bureau report. More here:

"More gourmet products are using natural and organic ingredients (and appealing to consumers' social consciences by offering products that are good for the environment and for the workers who produce them), and more natural foods retailers are carrying upscale, gourmet food and beverage items that meet their quality standards," said Don Montuori, publisher of Packaged Facts.

I fully expect this trend to continue. As reasonably priced gourmet products penetrate the market, economies of scale come into play and will motivate other companies to follow suit. Eat local, and buy smart!

Not to beat you over the head with a sales pitch, but that's good news for use at Desert Island Foods™.com. Have I mentioned our all natural, fairly priced gourmet products lately?

I feel so cheap.

Wow, shades of "It Could Happen To You".

A 19 year old Swedish waitress, Josefin Justin, received a 1979 Porsche as a tip:

"At first I was a little suspicious but I didn't get the feeling he was hitting on me or anything, he just seemed really nice," she said.

...

The man, who asked to remain anonymous, told the paper he couldn't really explain why he gave her the car.

"I was just sitting there in the restaurant and looked her in the eyes and saw an angel and thought to myself 'The Porsche, she should have it'," he said.

Asked if he had any regrets, he replied: "No, absolutely not."

I mean, it must have been great service, why else would an older man give a Porsche to an attractive 19 year old Swedish waitress?

Oh.

Notice the cooks never get the cars. I guess all the money is in the front of house.

Here's a shot of the Hollandaise I made last Sunday, before it was plated with asparagus and a nice fruit salad.

There are a zillion ways to make Hollandaise and its related sauces, but my favorite way is to make it in a steel work bowl directly on the heat. No side towel or pot holder. If it's too hot to hold, it's definitely too hot for the eggs you're trying to gently cook without scrambling. I've seen a lot of cooks break sauces over a double boiler, including me as I was learning.

How do you make Hollandaise? I generally eyeball it.

(Photo: Meathenge Labs)

I missed Dr. Biggle's San Francisco Bay Area Food Bloggers Picnic last weekend, and I'm still kicking myself.

45 Bay Area chefs, food writers and bloggers convened at Meathenge Labs to eat, drink and be merry. Oh well, maybe definitely next year. Strap a bib on, go visit Biggles and follow the links.

Warning: Don't go hungry!

(Photo: Reuters)

Couldn't he have just built a ship in a bottle? I mean, that's tough, too:

A replica Viking ship made of 15 million ice cream sticks is to be launched in Amsterdam on Tuesday by a former Hollywood stuntman who hopes eventually to sail it across the Atlantic.

The 15-meter ship, which took Robert McDonald two years to build, is to be launched in Amsterdam harbor with a crew of around 25 in a bid to set a world record for the largest sailing ship made of ice cream sticks.

...

McDonald, whose Sea Heart Foundation (www.seaheartship.com) helps provide leisure activities for children in hospitals, hopes to sail his Viking ship across the Atlantic next year.

May the wind be at his sails! More here.

Awwwww.... A couple has recently tied the McKnot at an Irwin, PA, McDonalds restaurant:

On Monday night, Sinchar rolled through the drive-thru in his white minivan, just as he had done day after day, hoping to chat with "that blue-eyed brunette named Lori."

But on this night, Sinchar rolled down his window, Sherbondy slid open hers and the couple grabbed hands as a district judge pronounced them husband and wife.

They found love in a drive-through. Hey, take it where you can find it, I guess. Best of luck to Ken Sinchar and Lori Sherbondy! No word if the bride was asked if she wanted to Super Size it.

Now why did I have to say that? I was being so nice...

From Mark in Mission Hills, CA:

"I recently made deviled eggs for a BBQ we were having. I noticed that we were out of paprika just as we finished, so we used Survival Spice instead. It went over great and everybody loved it."

Nice one! I have to add that I made my first Bloody Mary with Survival Spice™ after hearing about via email from Jim in Wisconsin. I added some to the mix, but also crusted the rim of the glass with Survival Spice™ and some extra kosher salt. Seriously tasty, it adds a nice heat and it sure is easy.

Thanks, guys for making us look good!!!

Okay, this is so geeky that your slide rule is liable to pop out of your pocket protector.

When esteemed scientist Albert Einstein visited the city of Catalonia, Spain in 1923, local scientists quickly established a few unified theories:

1) Einstein might be hungry.
2) It might be fun to feed him.
3) Generally speaking, it had to be special, relative to other meals he might have had recently.

The menu they created that night has been discovered by Spanish physicists Emma Sallent and Antoni Roca, who are planning to recreate it, according to AFP. One of the eight courses they've mentioned?:

Platonic Man according to Diogenes, a fourth century BC Greek philosopher considered a founder of cynicism, with Michelson sauce after German optics expert Albert Michelson.

The Latin name of the dish was Homo platonicus secundum Diogenem cum jure Michelsoniense and comprised a chicken feast in response to Plato having defined man as a two-legged animal without feathers.

Those wacky scientists, hope they served it with a nice salad of "field equations of Maxwell" greens.

Any other suggestions for his menu? Sharpen up those pencils!

Okay, it's not Friday, but this joke was so topical to the Einstein story, I had to throw it in. Thanks to Jerry for the email. Got a good food joke? Email me!

An American touring Spain stopped at a local restaurant following a day of sightseeing. While sipping his sangria, he noticed a sizzling, scrumptious looking platter being served at the next table. Not only did it look good, the smell was wonderful. He asked the waiter, "What is that you just served?"

The waiter replied, "Ah senor, you have excellent taste! Those are the bull's testicles from the bullfight this morning. A delicacy!"

The American, though momentarily daunted, said, "What the hell, I'm on vacation! Bring me an order!" The waiter replied, "I am so sorry senor. There is only one serving per day because there is only one bullfight each morning. If you come early tomorrow and place your order, we will be sure to save you this delicacy!"

The next morning, the American returned, placed his order, and then that evening he was served the one and only special delicacy of the day. After a few bites, and inspecting the contents of his platter, he called to the waiter and said, "These are delicious, but they are much, much smaller than the ones I saw you serve yesterday!"

The waiter shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Si senor. Sometimes the bull wins."

This is a really fun flash game. This went around the 'Net before, but I haven't posted it yet.

My high score last time: 311 feet. Can you beat it?

Caution: Highly addictive, and I'm not even a big gamer.

Thanks to Jim for the link.

Update:Because of spammers, comments have been disabled.

I just can't let it go. White Castle has a 'Cravers' Hall of Fame and has recently announced their list of the next inductees:

The Hall of Fame was established in 2000 to single out and honor the most loyal customers of White Castle who submit their best "crave stories" in anticipation of being inducted into the Cravers Hall of Fame.

Over 400 entries were judged for this year's contest by a select panel of White Castle team members. Contest rules require that "the submitted story is accurate and truthful, and reflects your honest opinions, findings, beliefs and experiences. Any entries judged not to be original will be disqualified." Additional criteria include originality, creative presentation, appropriate use of the product, and overall demonstration of the 'Crave'.

Follow the link for lots of stories of inductee Cravers. Did you know that White Castle was the first fast food chain?

Sadly, I'm guessing that Major John doesn't have a chance. Should we nominate him anyway? Nah...

(Photo: www.wayward.com , which looks like a nice B & B)

Love it or hate it?

Have you ever tried to make Hollandaise or Bearnaise?

Horror stories or tips to share? Me, I've got a few but I want to hear what you have to say.

... according to the president of the Sugar Association, Andrew Briscoe:

"Every major, comprehensive review of the total body of scientific literature continues to exonerate sugars intake as the causative factor in any lifestyle disease, including obesity,"

The Reuters article goes on to explain his logic:

The group's main point is that excessive consumption of calories and a lack of exercise would spur weight gain, regardless of sugar consumption.

Briscoe said that U.S. per capita consumption of sugar has declined to an estimated 63 pounds in 2002 from 102 pounds in 1972. Including waste, spoilage and other loss, the actual per capita sugar consumption figure declines to 45 pounds per person.

Not sure I'm buying that. You?

Update: For another great Hatch green chile stew, here's one sent in by Dennis.

This is not a traditional New Mexico stew by any means, but there are no rules, right? As I went through the market, I grabbed things I was in the mood to eat, and figured out a technique to smash it together. This is the fun of being a good home cook, and why I urge home cooks to learn techniques, not just parrot recipes.

The technique I did was the complete opposite of the Traditional New Mexico Pork Chile I made recently, where I simmered the pork in plain water. This time I built a pecan fire in my grill and roasted the pork, onion, garlic, carrot and Hatch chiles first, then trimmed the pork and got it started in water with a bit of homemade chicken stock because I didn't have a lot of time and I wanted to make sure I had a hearty stock. You can see that the pork got a nice amount of smoke in a fairly short time.

After 90 minutes of gentle simmering, I added the chopped veggies, except for the corn, and a bit of dry oregano. More simmering, then the corn I had taken off the cob went in for the last few minutes.

Rustic, hearty, inexpensive and easy. Good stuff.

I found a very good article at Slate on the re-emergence of sous vide, or slow cooking. It's such a good read that I won't belabor it here, other than to emphasize what Sara Dickerman said about the idea of cooking something at its finished temperature to eliminate the possibility of over-cooking. This is especially important when poaching fish or chicken.

Why hasn't sous vide cooking been more prominent until recently? Sara has some good points:

Initially, American chefs may have avoided sous vide because they had concerns about food safety, but I suspect a more significant reason for this delay was aesthetic. For a couple of decades now, we have been carrying on a romance with the fire-bitten flavors and textures produced by high-heat roasting, pan-searing, and grilling. Because we Americans are so closely associated with the bad aspects of the food industry—mushy white breads, microwaveable pap, skinless boneless chicken breasts—high-minded American chefs have felt more of a need to distance themselves from the food industry than Europeans. Burnished, crackly food was the obvious alternative. In the late '80s and '90s, restaurant menus were rife with crusts, be they horseradish, potato, cornmeal, or just the dark amber veneer of a well-seared piece of meat. Barbara Kafka, who had written the definitive microwave cookbook, wrote a very popular book on roasting that advocated daringly high oven temperatures. Photographs in magazines like Saveur further fetishized the crust, lingering on the caramelized pan juices, for example, pooled beneath a glorious roast. And we shouldn't overlook dentistry: Food scientist and texture specialist Malcolm Bourne also argues that as more Americans kept their teeth longer in life, they chose to eat more challenging foods: "A lot of [the] crunchier, tougher food on the marketplace has been a result of a revolution in the dental industry."

Good stuff. Check it out if you have the time.

The harvest for Hatch green chilis is well underway, so I couldn't pass them up. I grabbed some and half of a pork shoulder, got home and fired up the grill. We'll see what happened tomorrow.

Update: Due to moronic spammers, comments have been turned off on this post.

Camel milk chocolate?

A chocolatier from Austria is trying to get "over the hump" by creating a new delicacy. Apparently camel's milk has a higher sugar content and is lower in fat, according to thisarticle:

Vienna-based Chocolatier Hochleitner took six months to develop the treats using milk from the Al Ain Camel Farm and Dairy in the UAE. ... "We have combined camel's milk from the farm in Al Ain with honey from Yemen and have developed a healthy and delicious new type of chocolate," said Hochleitner.

May their journey to profitability be blessed with the sweet milk of 1,000 camels...

A Nebraska man has made it his quest to visit every corporate-owned Starbucks in the world, visiting 29 locations in one day.

Rafael Antonio Lozano, now known as Winter, has caught the attention of an aspiring filmmaker named Bill Tangeman, who is filming a documentary of the saga that he hopes to screen at Sundance this year.

Winter has now visited 4,988 of the 5,715 comany stores and has been at it since 1997. He's set up a web site to track his progress. Which I would think would be tough, being that a new Starbucks unit probably opens every 9 seconds, it seems.

Is he nuts? Is he a genius? Is he just wired on caffeine?

Fair Disclosure- the pragmatic chef™ is a Starbucks shareholder but doesn't drink the stuff.

(The Pragmatic Chef's™ "Cowboy Cupcake")

These are so decadent I'm almost afraid to post this. These are not a true cupcake in the classic sense. Just thought I'd say that up front. It is more like a soufflé stabilized with a bit of flour, I just thought "Cowboy Cupcake" was kind of catchy. They're not really spicy, the peppers and the coffee just add a nice warmth, scale it back or even omit them if that's not your bag. They have a bit of a cakey texture with a great gooey center.

I developed this technique because I needed to prep them early and them cook them in an oven I'd never used before, so I wanted to make it as bullet-proof as possible. This makes it an excellent recipe for a first attempt if you want to learn to make soufflés. I made this recipe as easy as possible, no electric mixers or food processors required.

Soufflés get their leavening solely from eggs, so the trick with cooking a soufflé, or any baking really, is to have your oven hot enough to get the batter rising, yet low enough that the structure of the batter doesn't firm up and set before the leavening process has finished. For this recipe, I tried a few things and settled on a 325º oven with no convection and used a 5 oz. ramekin.

I found that focusing the heat on the bottom of the ramekin helped keep the molten part of the cake more in the center, as opposed to the bottom, which is what I was going for. I also found that I didn't need a water bath for the same reason, I just put the ramekins on a sheet pan.

You owe me for sharing this. Here we go, the recipe is in the extended entry.

Wow. Sonya Thomas (center) has done it again. The day after eating 22 grilled cheese sandwiches, she wins again by eating 35 Johnsonville Brats in 10 minutes. Seriously. 35 brats/10 minutes.

I've mentioned her before here and here and find myself fascinated with her. She weighs 100 pounds and says her stomach can expand to hold 16 pounds of food. That's a bowling ball!

I read that she manages a Burger King in Virginia. Do you think she trains there? I guess it could be worse, she could be in a White Castle uniform eating left over French Onion burgers by the sack.

Ow. I actually shuddered as I typed that.

What's keeping you from being a competitive eater?

Busy day today, so I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the first time in a while. It's a pantry staple, but generally there's something more interesting around, whether it's leftovers or a recipe I'm working on.

I got a real kick out of it, I have to say. The ingredients were a bit more upscale than what I had as a kid, whole grain bread, all natural peanut butter, etc. but the effect is the same. The crowning touch came as I spied a bag of tortilla chips. Inspiration struck, and I smashed a few on the sandwich before I buttoned it up.

The thought I took away from my sandwich was another reminder of something I've been really conscious of lately anyway. Great, simple, well prepared and well-executed flavors. It's always a temptation to 'gild the lily' when putting a meal or a menu together, but I think it's a real tribute to the cook and the discerning diner that can find and eliminate the superfluous elements of a dish.

How about you, have you reconnected with a dish from your childhood lately? What have you eaten in your past that you'd love to have again?

Idiots among us...

Thanks to Will for sending them along.

Read all about 'em in the extended entry.

When life deals you lemons, set up a lemonade stand and then get squashed by "the man". Er, something like that:

A dispute between two boys hawking lemonade and a rival vendor who forced police to shut down their unlicensed stand was resolved Wednesday after the mayor orchestrated what he called "a corporate merger."

Mayor Stanley Usovicz said sausage stand owner Kevin Kefalas agreed to allow Dominic Serino, 9, and Ryan Decker, 11, to operate as subcontractors under his vending license following an impromptu outdoor meeting initiated by Usovicz.

The agreement expires when school starts.

Gross receipts before the shutdown, $130.

No word if the boys from Salem, MA have soured on the idea of starting another business.

Someone has taken the French Onion burger challenge. Major John, who mil-blogs at Miserable Donuts, has provided the necessary photo evidence to convince me that he indeed has ingested White Castle's latest morsel.

Semi-coherent remarks from his stretcher, "The horror...the horror..." "I'm....hurting" "...urk...one syrup of ipecac, three fingers, neat. STAT!", and finally "Oh, and they are, in fact, worse than the regular slider..." before passing out.

When/If Major John recovers consciousness, I'll send him some Survival Spice™and a DIF T-shirt.

Major John, thank you for your service to your country and to us fascinated foodies everywhere.

A big shout-out to Gail for hosting the event, and most likely talking him into doing it in the first place.

(Source: www.candyboots.com)

Normally I wouldn't post anything this unappetizing, but this collection of vintage 1974 Weight Watchers cards is absolutely classic. Some of the captions are a bit over the top, but this could very well be the worst looking food ever 'professionally' photographed. Apparently Weight Watcher's thinking was that if it was revolting enough, you'd just lose your appetite. No points there!

Check it out, but let me just say that the Frankfurter Spectacular was the most appetizing dish I saw.

Thanks to Ana for the link, who I'm quite sure has never made any of these dishes.

Google is seeking out 2 executive chefs to feed their growing Mountain View, CA workforce.

The executive chefs will oversee the development and continual refinement of an eclectic menu capable of suiting every Googler palate, from vegan entrees to pad thai, grilled burgers, and wood-fired pizza-all while using organic ingredients whenever possible.

"These two chefs will play an important role in managing the company's growing appetites," said Sergey Brin, president, Technology, Google Inc. "We welcome all culinary engineers to try out for our exceptional team."

"Culinary engineers," heh. No word from Google on what keywords will need to be submitted, but applicants are urged not to include the words pr0n, vi4gr4, and p0k3r. A 4,529,307,189,881 word vocabulary is a plus.

My post on sushi a few weeks ago got a lot of great comments from those familiar with sushi and some who had never tried it, so I thought I would link to an interesting series of posts from Noriko Takiguchi on how to eat sushi along with some of sushi's great traditions. Check it out.

h/t Instapundit

(Photo credit: Hog on Ice)

It's a slow news day, so I thought I'd take a lap around the 'Net and see who's cooking. Note: I refuse to lump politics together with food, if someone has something interesting to say about food, I'm happy to read it. This blog is all about food, so leave your politics at the door, please!

Okay, here we go:

Dr. Biggles has found the ultimate bacon.

Hog in Ice has been working hard on his Fried Chicken with Milk Gravy and Cinammon Roll recipes. Definitely not for dieters or the politically faint of heart.

Meg at I heart Bacon is on fire. Just go to her main page and start drooling. She's recently done a North African feast, a tea braised pork in a doufeu, and roasted a whole wild boar for her birthday party.

Barrett at Too Many Chefs has made a Kale and Summer Squash Quiche.

That's it for now. Made something good lately? Email me and let me know. Feel free to attach a picture.

I didn't see much of this series, but I know it's over now. Did anybody watch any of this? How long would you last in a 140º kitchen with someone screaming at you at the top of his lungs?

El Indio, a landmark San Diego Mexican restaurant, is celebrating the 65th birthday of the taquito. El Indio actually opened its doors as a tortilla factory in 1940, but the quick popularity of the taquito (little taco) changed that forever.

There have been so many bad versions of the taquito in chain restaurants, which is just a corn tortilla variation of the flauta, that I'm not sure many people have ever an authentic one. A good taquito is not just a crispy tortilla, it should be full of flavor and a pleasure to eat.

Have you ever had a really good taquito? Go out and try some if you haven't, or make them at home.

Thanks to Chuck for the link.

I had to post this, just because it cracked me up. I have to plead high alcohol consumption, plus this was the last course of a 6 1/2 hour meal yesterday.

This is the Cowboy Cupcake I was working on last week, with vanilla whipped cream, and a reduction of apricot, ancho, honey, lemon juice and cinammon in a squirt bottle.

It was amazing, even if it looks like a bomb went off. I knew it was going to be problematic putting whipped cream around a hot soufflé. I was going to freeze the bottom plates and just put a blob on the plate with the apricot reduction but never got around to it, so I just plopped it all together and called it good.

I'll post the Cowboy Cupcake recipe if you ask nicely...

Do you have a food disaster story? Let's hear it!

Not that I'm obsessed with this or anything (much), but I'm still looking for someone who will try the latest White Castle "French Onion Soup" burger, or whatever they're calling it. I've got a free tin of Survival Spice™ for the first email I get with a picture of the sandwich and your review. Make sure you enclose your mailing address. The original press release mentioned that it would only be available until August 13th, so time's flying by.

I just gotta know and it's killing me that I can't try it myself. Help a brother out, wouldja?

If you had a White Castle in your area, would you try it?

This is cool, a geeky food science story and a detective case all in one. A Canadian dairy owned by the Boivin family is taking advantage of a happy accident:

"A few years ago, a fisherman came to us and said he'd found a piece of Boivin cheese at the bottom of a lake where he'd been diving. He took it, hesitated, ate it and told us it was one of the best cheeses he'd ever eaten," dairy owner Luc Boivin told AFP.

So they've decided to experiment by sinking ten 170 pound barrels of cheddar in 130 foot deep water to see what happens. So far, so good, right?

Oops, they can't find it. Yet, they say:

"We'll definitely find it," Boivin said, watched closely by Canadian authorities who wish to prevent the cheese from hitting store shelves because it is not possible to ensure the quality, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

I don't know much about the theory that water pressure expedites the aging of cheese, but if they want that cheese back I'd start questioning fish in the area that have unusually high cholesterol levels.