With a Last Name Like Mine, Well the Burger Better Be Good!

I'm sorry that I've been so light with my posts these days. Busy busy busy. And by the time I get around to thinking about writing something either a.) I've forgotten exactly what it was that I ate b.) I don't have any pictures or any motivation to really pull something together. Sadly, my lazy ass ways get in my way too much in my life. But anywhooo....

Well, what sort of things have I been eating lately? A lot of homemade meals for sure. With the economy as poor as it is, E and I spend our monies buying groceries that allow us to not only economize but eat well too. Since we're both food lovers, going out for meals can sometimes be costly endeavors. But cooking at home allows us to enjoy some lovely meals for a fraction of the price of dining out, plus we end up with really fantastic leftovers for lunch.

Most of the meals we've eaten have already been documented here...homemade pasta and bolognese, pork chops but this week E made a really nice chili in the crock pot.




While the chili sauce/broth didn't really thicken up as much as what I'm use to the favors were still very good. And what really brightened up the flavor was a pear and orange pepper salsa that E used to top the dish. With cheddar cheese and fresh corn bread crumbled into the bowl, this dish was delicious, comforting and filling! I could barely finish my one bowl of chili. Maybe E will share the salsa recipe with you, or maybe not. But it's a great idea. I like the kinda homey comfort food chili paired with the freshness of raw pears and peppers. Sounds odd but trust me, it was very good.

As well as we've been eating at home, we certainly have been missing our stepping out for meals. Or at least, I have on occasion! I enjoy the act of sharing a meal at a bar or a restaurant with friends. And so last night E and I met our friend J and A for dinner. We decided to meet at Eastern Standard because they had some business to conduct as well as wanted to stop in for a pre dinner cocktail. I arrived and was famished. Since I hadn't had anything to eat, I decided to hold off on a drink right away. E arrived shortly after and we went back and forth about where to go for a nice meal. While E and I had a lovely quick conversation with Garrett Harker (I really do adore that man) and A + J called over to Tommy, the head bartender of Craigie on Main, to see if they had room at the bar for four. A and J have been raving about the burger, and well, I'm always in search for a good one. It turned out Tommie had room for us and after a short cab ride over the river to Cambridge, we arrived at the new Craigie Street.

What use to be a medium sized mediocre Italian restaurant had been transformed into a lovely cozy bistro style dining room with an open kitchen complete with a "chefs table" of a counter top and bar stools at the entrance. I didn't get to see much of the dining room portion of Craigie because we beelined it over to the bar to the right of the entrance. A little, fairly dark lit space, it oozed the word "cozy". We had a bit of a wait but soon enough we got seats and were able to properly greet Tommy. A and J know Tommy well, but I only know him because of his work at Eastern Standard. He would often take care of me and E. And when he first started she called him Dennis the Menace (a term of affection). Tommy was a very good young bartender. A pro at his craft with an easy manner and a very charming smile...he's a really good guy.

We ordered four burgers off the bar menu (all of them medium rare expect for me. I tend to like my meat as rare as possible) and an order of pate to share as a starter.

The pate was lovely. It was served with small dollops of grainy mustard, minced gherkin pickle, minced shallot, salt and black peeper and a tiny salad of frisee and baby greens on the plate. We all got served good sized bread points (toasted and big!) so we could spread the pate on. I was a little cautious at first and just took a little bit in case I didn't like it. Too bad that wasn't the case! It was absolutely delicious. It was meaty, fatty and creamy. The texture was both smooth but not so smooth that you didn't think it was house made. If I could have toast always spread with this stuff, I'd probably never eat anything else ever. That pate was so good and it truly didn't need any of the other stuff on the plate. I guess the salad was there to break up the meaty fatty richness of the pate but I didn't eat any of it and didn't want it. I was fine with fat and meat pulverized and spread on my toast!

The burgers came soon after. And they were lovely to behold. The buns were so perky and the sea same seeds looked as though they had been lacquered so the bun appeared to be almost looked fake. The burger came with fried sweet potato threads and more of that frisee salad. Tommy said that the buns were made in house especially for the burgers.

Okay so first thoughts: I wasn't happy that traditional french fries weren't served with it. I also wasn't happy that we weren't offered ketchup or mustard. I also forgot to ask for bacon for my burger for which I'm sure I would have been stoned by the chef. Anyway, all that aside...

The burger was very seasoned with salt. I liked that but I could see how that might be off putting for some people. I mean, I like salt and have been known to add salt to potato chips at times so that should tell you something. The meat was very loosely packed almost to the point of falling about too easily for it to truly be a "burger". While I don't love a dense pack, I do like a burger that holds together well. The meat was almost fork tender in terms of texture. Apparently it was a mix of lamb, beef, marrow, fat. It had a very good meaty mouth feel and I liked the amount of fat they used. The taste was everything a burger should be but the texture of the patty threw me a bit. I was pretty happy with it and thought it was so delicious that I didn't need mustard or ketchup but like the pate we were served prior, at least the grainy mustard was on that plate so I'd like to offered those staples.

The fried sweet potato fries or threads were very good but not my favorite. They got very cold fast and I actually found them hard to eat. I gave most of mine to Elizabeth (who loved them!) who traded me the other half of her burger. The little salad was a nice touch and I enjoyed it as a way to break up the meatiness of eating one and a half burgers. At this point, I also order a regular coke so I could enjoy the sugary sweet carbonation against the backdrop of the burger. I get a little nostalgic when I eat burgers. It reminds me of Dad grilling burgers when I was young. And the drink of choice back then? Well, regular coke, of course!

Overall, I enjoyed the burger quite a bit. I felt that it was well made and actually worth the $19 price tag. Yes, I would go back for the burger and definitely rate it higher than the Radius burger hands down!

However, is it possibly the best burger I've ever eaten? No. Burgers serve all sorts of different purposes for me from the nostalgia of Dad grilling to my poor college student days at Mr and Mrs. Bartleys eating a triple "Clinton" burgers elbow to elbow next to my fellow starving student friend to a relax burger at brunch with friends just because I can! I think that Craigie's burger certainly has its place and is possibly one of the best in Boston for sure. But I also think it shows the caliber of Craigie (it was very thoughtfully made and well executed) and made me more hungry to try other things on their menu. I want to go back for the chef's whim menu and some of those Nova Scotia smelts (think they're better that New Castle, PA smelts?).

But what made the evening so great was being able to share the meal with E, J and A and Tommy too. I will definitely rate that evening at Craigie very highly for the company and the food. So everything combined, the evening rated a perfect 1o for sure!

And on closing, I will say I finally had a drink after my meal. Tommy mixed what I think was called a 50/50 with this beautiful Vermouth I think that was called Doylton. It was a perfect end to a lovely night out with friends and loved ones.

Thanksgiving, My Single Contribution

Elizabeth did all the cooking this year! I was so happy to just chop veggies and make my daring bakers cake. I did contribute one item which I will detail later.

We ordered a locally raised turkey from Savenors and had to go pick up it. So after work on Wednesday (only a half day!) E and I took my rolling suitcase over to Beacon Hill to pick up the bird. I think the key to urban living sans car is a rolling cart or suitcase of some sort, fo' sho!

We decided to make the most of our time on Beacon Hill and went to Bin 26 for a lovely romantic pre Thanksgiving Day dinner. True to form, the service was great as was the company. The chef changed and so the food, while usually quite good, was a bit too salty. Actually a lot too salty. I felt awful but I actually (me, Queen of the Salt) had to send my entree back. It came back and was pitch perfect. Yum. A lovely evening spent with my favorite person.

So Thanksgiving dinner...I had nothing to really report. The meal was very good and there certainly plenty of food. The only thing I made was the cranberry relish which is a family tradition and one of my favorite things in the world. You can use it to cover the turkey or any other part of the meal that you might not find as tasty as other things. It's a wonderful little side because this relish is still really tart. Plus it's really simple and can be left on the stove to just simmer away while everything else cooks. Try it!

1 package fresh cranberries picked over for bad ones or stems
2/3 cup oj
3 tablespoons orange zest
2/3 or less cup brown sugar (clearly the less you use, the more tart the relish)

put all of the ingredients in a pot on the stove over medium heat. as the cranberries start to heat and pop, you may turn the heat down if desired but keep cooking the relish until all the cranberries had pretty much burst and the liquid has thickened.
can be eat hot or cold.

Daring Bakers Challenge November

This month's challenge comes from:
Shuna Fish Lydon’s recipe (http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2006 … he-recipe/)

And hosting this month:
http://culinarycuriosity.blogspot.com/
http://blondieandbrownie.blogspot.com/
http://forayintofood.blogspot.com/

I'm late in posting due to a weekend of missing internet access. Oh well. Better late, then never?

I admit that I let out a long sigh when I saw that this month’s challenge was yet another cake with buttercream frosting. I’ve made so many cakes since joining this group and well, I like cake as much as the next person but I’ve never enjoyed buttercream frosting in any form. It has a mouth feel of biting into a stick of butter for me. So to say I was a tad bit disappointed might be an understatement. But you know, I joined this group so I could bake more and learn more. And well I had done those two things so being a part of Daring Bakers is well worth mastering buttercream!

This month’s challenge was a caramel cake with a brown butter frosting. I saw that there was a homemade caramel syrup that had to be made and immediately that was where I’d tweak the recipe just a bit.


I had a new bottle of Bittermen’s Bitters that had been created just for my clothing shops. It was cleverly titled the “Sexy Freudian Slip” and had the essence of ginger, lemongrass, anise and hot peppers. What I wanted was a bitters that not only worked as something edible but also something wearable as personal scent. And did it succeed? It did! It’s a lovely earthy little perfume that is rather interesting and a bit musky and spicy. Plus it helps to make damn fine cocktails too!

So I decided to shake some drops of my “Sexy Freudian Slip” into the syrup once it cooled. Upon tasting the syrup, the flavor of the bitter really came through very nicely and I was surprised how well all those flavors went with the caramel syrup. It was quite a tasty little creation and I imagine it might be fun to use as a sauce for vanilla ice cream. It would definitely keep your guests guessing what you used to flavor the sauce!

Once the syrup was done, I moved into making the cake. I didn’t have a cake pan that I thought would be deep enough so I made two cakes instead of the instructed one. I cut down the baking time but I still think I might have overcooked the cakes a little. I considered soaking them in something to moisten them up, but personally, I felt that to do so would have been cheating a bit. However, the dry cake might have more to do with my crappy electric oven. Cakes never seem to cook well in my oven. Sadness!


Once the cakes were done, into the frosting. And here is usually when I sigh deeply and think “oh yet another buttercream.” But this recipe was different! And actually really kinda cool. Browning the butter was kinda like a fun science experiment. Who knew that butter contained so many solids? I strained the butter filtering out most of the lumpy solids but some of them did get into the frosting. The frosting was ridiculously easy and came together quickly. I took a quick swipe at the bowl mostly to test the consistency. As I started before, I hate buttercream so I wasn’t expecting to like what I was about to taste.



And what a complete shock I was in for! The frosting consistency was a bit more tender that most stiff buttercreams I’ve tasted plus browning the butter gave a really kinda complex flavor to the frosting. It was in short, freakin’ delicious! Sadly, the flavored caramel syrup taste didn’t come thru at all but the frosting was still an interesting and tasty creation. I was quite pleased with it. And definitely will be making the frosting again. Who knew that browning butter would make such a huge difference in taste?

The next day, in time for Thanksgiving dinner, I assembled the cake. I toasted coconut and pecans to put between the layers with the frosting. And began frosting my cake. The frosting was a bit firmer due to time in the fridge overnight. I had to nuke it for a couple of seconds to get it pliable. My finished product:




I think that the cake came out a little too dry as a result of my two cake solution or perhaps due to my oven. The short term eating solution? Cutting a slice of cake and pouring a bit of milk on top of it. It sounds odd but it’s really good and solves the dryness isse. Besides who am I to throw away cake?!? The frosting was kinda this amazing thing and I wasn’t about to throw that out! Sadly, even though the “Sexy Freudian Slip” shined through in the caramel syrup, the flavor was all but lost in the final product. Perhaps I could try soaking the baked cakes in the syrup next time?

Overall, this cake definitely will take some tweaking from me to get it right! But it’s definitely a keeper and I’m thrilled that I had a opportunity to make it. And this praise is coming from someone who was not thrilled at having to make buttercream, so you know this sh_t is the tight!!!

Suisse Enchiladas

My Mom is a fantastic home cook. I have many fond food memories from my childhood: thickly frosted homemade chocolate birthday cakes, apricot bars, meatloaf, beef stroganoff, turkey tetrazzini, sweet and sour meatballs and creamy enchiladas. I have fond memories of frozen Weaver chicken too but that’s another entry for another day.

She was self taught and learned by trial and error. Most of her recipes are very reflective of the 70’s back when my brothers and I were still mighty young. By the time I was off to college, she had added salmon and healthier food to the mix and even used such exotic spices as cilantro.

I think many of us long for the foods of our childhood but lately my craving for my Mom’s enchiladas was getting a little out of hand.

So this past Sunday, I called my Mom intent on getting the recipe for the enchiladas of my childhood. Little did I know that E was listening as I was getting the recipe and was starting to get a little alarmed.

“Whipping cream? Do you think I can use half and half and milk instead?”

Yeah. So since I grew up with these enchiladas, I never once thought they might be “odd”. But as Mom went thru the ingredients which included whipping cream, tomato sauce, I realized that perhaps this dish might be only delicious to me and was hardly “authentic:.

Nevermind that E might find my enchiladas repulsive at least she’d get a taste of what 7 year old Leah liked.

The dish took a bit of time because I decided to use chicken quarters and I needed to roast those. I used my beloved Goya adobe seasoning and generously sprinkled it on the tops and bottoms of my chicken. Once cooked, E and I skinned and shredded the meat so it could get combined with the chopped spinach.

Once the enchiladas were assembled and popped back into the hot oven, the dish was quickly done!

But how did it taste? Awesome! No, really, it was good. Rich and creamy and just like I remember as a kid. I think E liked them too but I doubt that they are crave worthy for her. But they are delicious. Sure, they are fat filled and kinda decedent but perfect for a chilly day dinner. I think pairing it with a crisp light salad would be lovely and very complimentary.

When I called my Mom back to give her the full report on how the enchiladas, she mentioned that the original recipe is a James Beard creation called “Suisse Enchiladas”.
I don’t know about the original recipe but here is the one I got from my Mom, enjoy!

8 Flour tortillas (I used 12)
3 Chicken Breast or a whole roasted Chicken (I used 5 chicken quarters)
Tomato sauce, enough to moisten (I used tomato paste thinned out with water b/c it’s what I had on hand)
1 package chopped Frozen Spinach
1 medium onion, chopped (I omitted b/c E doesn’t like onion)
3 cups whipping cream (I used half &half and 2% milk again b/c it’s what I had on hand)
3 chicken teaspoons of chicken granules
A generous slice of jack cheese for every whole enchilada

Step by Step
1) Sauté onion in olive oil until soft. Add chicken, spinach and just enough tomato sauce to moist but not be wet and simmer 20 minutes.
2) Heat cream gently; dissolve chicken granules in cream.
3) Fill tortillas with chicken mixture, roll and place in a baking dish that has been sprayed with a non-stick coating.
4) Pour cream over.
5) 375 degrees for 20 minutes or less.
6.) Put cheese slices on top and bake until golden and bubbly.

'Zza: October Daring Baker's Challenge

I had a friend who called pizza, "zza". It took me a while to figure out what she was talking about but once I did, I was glad to have a friend who's deep love of pizza meant that she had a pet nickname for the food.

One of my absolute favorite foods, all my childhood memories is a moving evolution of pizza. My family moved every two years and so every move meant a new pizza supplier had to be found! Stouffers French Bread to Pizza Hut to Little Caesars and finally to Bertucci's, I loved it all! When I was 14 I found a wonderfully simple recipe for homemade pizza dough in the back of seventeen magazine. I still use the recipe and have the ripped out pages to refer back to.

So when I learned that this month's Daring Baker Challenge was pizza, I was over the moon! I couldn't wait to try a new recipe for dough. I looked over the recipe but was a little bummed by one small issue. It was a two day deal, which was okay, I could do all the work one day but the issue was timing. The second day's instructions said to pull the dough out of the refrigerator two hours before it needed to be ready. Sadly, with my schedule the way it is with the store and all, I'm lucky to get even an hour to prep before guest arrive for dinner! Luckily, E was doing the challenge with me and had the day off so she was able to come over to the apartment and pull out the dough.

Yay! But back to the actual process. I followed the directions and kneaded the dough a bit more than the 5-7 minutes instructed. I was concerned about the consistency of the dough. It seemed a bit tough to me and I was wondered it would turn out too hard (like the Ina Gartener pizza dough had done on me). I kneaded for more like 10-15 minutes and crossed my fingers that the resting time would allow the dough to really get soft and tender.

The Challenge this month also called for sauce. Didn't matter what kind of sauce but I like a simple pizza and so I thought if we made a tomato and cheese pizza well, a jar sauce wasn't gonna be very tasty. I decided to make a simple tomato sauce from scratch. It was so simple. I simmered a can of crush tomatoes and a couple of cups of red wine with a spoonful of tomato paste, a bit of chicken broth, a handful of dried and fresh basil, dried oregano and two cloves of garlic, Later, I added a slug of olive oil and pat of butter and tasted. It was good but something was missing. I sprinkled in some crush red pepper and tasted again. Still good but missing something still! I stood around and pondered, "hmm..."

I added freshly ground nutmeg and the tasted again, the sauce was awesome! Simple but yet complex. The nutmeg seemed to amplify all the other flavors in the sauce. It was quite lovely. Seriously, why is nutmeg not used in more recipes? Hmm... anyway, I highly recommended it for fall soups and sauces!

On Day 2, I came home to E prepping the toppings. A lovely sight indeed :) She had been kind enough to take out the dough and we were ready to rock and roll. I started to follow the instructions on how to toss the dough but I chickened out. I also chickened out on turning the oven up to 500 and left the oven at 485. (I've been a little scared since my oven door glass shattered due to roasted cauliflower). Luckily, E was kind enough to toss the dough for us. I did notice how tender the dough had become. It was perfectly stretchy and soft. Perfect!

E topped it with my homemade sauce and locally made fresh mozerella and slipped it on the pizza stone.

The final product? Awesome! It was a very, very, very simple pizza all made from scratch, but it might have been the best pizza I've eaten in a long time! The sauce was fantastic but the crust was really quite delicious. It was crisp and light and it cooked perfectly with no soggy edges anywhere!

For pictures and more detail, you should check out E's blog entry...here.

I've very pleased with this Challenge and will definitely keep this recipe handy! However, in the future I'll need to play around with the 2 hour ahead of time step. I'm thinking more like 1 hour or 30 minutes before instead ;)

Thanks for letting me play again Daring Bakers!!!!!!

Envy

It’s not often that I read something in Boston Magazine that gets me thinking about the deeper moral implications of one’s actions. But there is an article in October’s issue, the entire issue is dedicated to “Envy”, that got me to think about what it means to be authenticate in a world of copy cats.

The article is here:
Envy

Essentially there is a newish restaurant in town that has gotten a very large amount of critical acclaim in a seemingly short amount of time. After Frank Bruni gushed about it in the New York Times (he did say that all the places review was only stellar because they had the handicap of being outside of NYC, um thanks Frank?. A move that is sooo typically Frank Bruni), the place seemed to explode in terms of exposure. I would talk to people about Oisshii and instantly, I’d get the one up stance of “Yes, but have you been to Oya? Really, no? Then you have no idea what sushi truly can be!”.

Seriously? As someone who happened to own one of the first stores to appear in Boston dedicated to jeans, I know first hand what it’s like to be suddenly told that the younger, newer kid on the block is outshining you. I’m of the belief that there is room enough for all of us. But Bostonians tend to believe, in true Highlander form, that “there can be only one”. It’s a mentality not exclusive to Boston, but in a town trying to called a cosmopolitan city (look we have a new Mandarin Oriental Hotel and a new huge Apple store, look look!), well it’s very, very cut throat because there aren’t as many people to impress as say New York. However, even with how competitive Boston is, there are certain rules of protocol and decency.

I think that because Boston is small, most people in any given service industry know each other…And it is mostly through personal encounters. It’s not surprising when a Sales Rep calls me at work and says amazed “Everyone in this town who owns a shop knows you!. Well, in a place as small as Boston that’s not surprising. If I go into a locally owned shop, even if I know I’m just there to pick up a dress or a candle, if I find myself mentally taking notes of the layout or the brands, I will then make an effort to introduce myself and honestly, let the person know what I’m doing. This not only clears my conscious but is the right thing to do in such a small town. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m taking clues from them in a dishonest fashion.

Our new store has a dressing room fashioned after the one’s at Stel’s. I went in and told Tina and John exactly what I wanted to do and with their blessing was told how-to. I know that Nilda from Parlor has called other shops to make sure it’s cool with them to carry a line and I’ve also placed similar calls to other shops and even canceled orders because a friend told me that they wanted the exclusive to a line which they made a good case/point about. This might sound a lot like we’re mixing business with personal but none of us entered this industry for purely business reasons. Granted we all want to make money and make a living, but owning a business is like sharing a huge piece of your personal side. You sell the things you love and you talk about how it came to appear in your shop. Those stories are often hugely personal. Very rarely, did anyone else to see a performance chart regarding what brand/models/colors sell the best and go from there. It’s often about gut and feeling. I had a gut feeling that Rag &Bone would explode. I had a gut feeling that Sevens would do well for us.

As a chef, I would imagine, a lot of it is gut as well. But you can’t make the call to a supplier and say “I’d like you stop selling ketchup to XYZ” because I have ketchup too. You can’t protect the brands/supplies but you can protect the way you put things together and the way you display your talent.

Pictures, films, music and words are easily protected from plagiarizing. Just look at even food blogs these days. One of the major ones I read on a regular basis went after another blog for not only stealing her photos but her recipes as well. We’re talking almost came to a lawsuit. Another one I use to follow shut down, because the food blog community for not sighting properly where her recipes came from shunned her. This might seem like a lot from food blogs…but it’s now a clear understanding of a violation of a larger theme. There are few things that a chef can really protect and doesn’t he/she have a right to do so?

So in a city/town as small as Boston is, for the owners of O Ya to not come entirely clean about what they were up to, even if it meant nothing to them (which clear is not the case because the guy was taking copious notes) when visiting Uni and Oisshii is not only very dishonest and bad form, it should border on illegal. This might seem like a harsh thing to write but think about it. The entire Cindy McCain stolen recipes from Food Network might had not been so bad had someone on staff just added the caveat that the recipes were “inspired” from ones on the Food Network website. We’re clearly all influenced by other things around us and for the owners of O Ya to even just say, “yes, I was very influenced by my meals at those places but it’s deeper than that. He really studied that was going on there. He had the menus faxed to him twice a week and appeared at the restaurants for dinner and was never honest about who he truly was.

Perhaps, any place else, this man’s actions might make sense but not in a town like Boston. And it’s not about a “fraternity of chefs” or a “fraternity of store owners” or even about ENVY. Rather, it’s about being able to wake up every morning knowing that YOU came up with the ideas for what to carry in your store, that YOU made the decision how to put ingredients together. It’s about true integrity and honesty and how we as a community (small or large) and society award such efforts.

Fried Unicorn

It's no secret that E and I have dated off and on for a couple of years now. And all this time, E has talked about her fried chicken. She speaks of it in boastful sentences. "My fried chicken is off the hook!", is a constant refrain. E has made it for other people in her life...ex's, friends, acquaintances, randoms but not for the likes of me. Hmp! Finally one day, after hear her boast yet again about her fried chicken, I said that her friend chicken was a unicorn to me. Actually, I kinda lost it.

"Your goddamn fried chicken is a f_cking unicorn. I've never seen it!!!! Stop talking about this freaking fried unicorn already".

So after much freaking out on my part and much boasting of her, she offered to make it for me. We invited a couple of friends along for the ride. And so it was that last Saturday I had fried unicorn.

Now, please keep in mind, I don't make fried chicken. However, I am a fried chicken lover...I mean, for goodness sake, I am Korean American and we're all about fried chicken so I like to say it's in my blood. I have fond memories of frozen Banquet fried chicken out of the box, KFC, Popeyes etc. But nothing really compares to my friend Caroline's fried chicken. She's a master of the chicken! She spent an entire summer perfecting her recipes and I was one of her happy guniea pigs. I think she uses cornmeal in the crust and keeps it wam after it's fried in the oven. The result is a juicy chicken and a crisp, light crust that shatters upon impact with one's mouth. Yum. Caroline has made a bit of a snob out of me. Once you have really good homemade fried chicken, it's something that sticks with you. You dream about it all the time. Seriously.

So E set out to make something for me that had already reach mythical preportions in terms of the brag as well as something I already had high expectations regarding. If I had only had commericial fried chicken all my life, perhaps my standards would be low but alas Caroline ruined any chances of that.

E soaked the chicken in buttermilk over night. She asked me what sides I wanted for this imporant meal. I wasn't sure. Almost every chicken meal I had eaten with Caroline only involved chicken. I mean, afterall, wasn't it the star. I think I made something up about wanting biscuits. But then I got an idea. I'd make waffles to go along with the chicken! What could make fried chicken better? Why waffles, of course. And not just any waffle, but a Hello Kitty waffle! (A gift from Caroline, no less!).

So Saturday I made up a mess of batter. I ran out of milk and so used some buttermilk in it's place. I also developed a trick for making the batter a little lighter thanks to Emeril. I watched him use egg whites. He whipped them up and folded them into the waffle batter. Genius! So I do that now everytime I make waffle batter.

E decided that she would make biscuits, gravy, mashed potatoes and collard greens. All some of my favorites. She was going to send me to the store to buy bacon for the collards but spotted the ham bone in the freezer from my crock pot pork picnic and threw that into the greens.

How she was able to whip up all that food in two hours is kinda amazing. My kitchen was a bit of a disaster but eh.

So finally I sat down to the mythical fried chicken. (Sorry no pics. I took them all on my digital camera that I haven't bothered to download yet.) And how was it?

It was good. It was a little spicy and the crust was a little less dense than Caroline's. I liked it a lot. But perhaps it's because I've eaten Caroline's fried chicken for so long that I wasn't insane over it. Or maybe because it has been built up so much for so long? Hard to say. It was very, very good though and all the sides were fantastic. My waffles were great but got a little dense as they got cold, so eh to that! But overall the meal was beyond tasty. I can see how E is proud of her friend chicken skills.

And I got a fridge full of leftovers too! I made potato pancakes out of the leftover mashed potatoes and eat them with apple sauce on the side, yum! I heated up the biscuits for breakfast and even though they had cheese in them, I drizzled a little honey over them. Delicious!

I guess I can check eating fried unicorn off my to do list now :)