Finn Jr.

I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of our household. My sourdough starter that I named Finn Jr.

I got the idea for making a sour dough starter from a Twitter pal named "Finn". He started tweeting about his sourdough starter dying and having to start a new one. I got curious and asked him if a very infrequent non-baker such as myself could create a sour dough starter and only use it once and a while? He said yes. Finn claimed that sour dough starter took little to no time to take care of and was worth it.

I did a little bit of online research and found this recipe: Beginner Sour Dough Bread It was not only simple but also very comprehensive in the steps. Other recipes I found online seemed a little bit vague or called for yeast (I didn't have any) or even potato starch. King Aurthur (my flour of choice btw) goes as far as to sell a sour dough starter kit online. I think it was only $35 or something but still it seemed a little bit lame and cheaty.

I also chose this recipe because I loved the idea of using the "wild yeast" in the air and all around us to create my sour dough. It seemed like a super neat science experiment and as a kid who excelled at science fairs (I went to regional in 9th and 10th grade) that seemed really neat to me.

And so I began. I used the instructions I found online as my chief guide but after three days I was a little skeptical that the sour dough had fermented enough or produced enough yeast. My Twitter friend Finn said that he had been feeding his starter ("Veruca") for 12 days and it was now time. So I asked him if he thought my starter was ready? He confirmed what I thought and said no. So I've been letting "Finn Jr". grow and grow. Last night he became a rebellious teenager and we woke up to him trying to escape the safety of his jar to explore the world (thus the picture above this posting).

He seems to be doing just fine. Lots of bubbles and activity for sure! See:


Speaking of which, I need to go feed him again now. I'm going to make my sponge with him on Sunday and if all goes well, I will be able to share my first loaf of sour dough bread from Finn Jr. on Monday with some friends we're having over for dinner. I'm actually going to be sad when it becomes time for me to put Finn Jr. into the fridge and I don't have to feed him everyday but like all children, he will need to move out of the nest and learn to fend mainly on his own.

But I certainly am one proud mamma for now!

Tidbits

March is one of my favorite months. To me, it's always been the beginning of spring. Here in Boston, it still feels like winter (except for the past few days but it was a bit of a fluke, a lovely fluke but a fluke nonetheless) but I don't care. March = Spring in my book.

Also, March is my birthday month. Let me be clear about exactly what day my birthday falls on, Saint Patrick's Day!

When my family adopted me, my mother and her side of the family were all filled with glee. Why? Well they're hardcore Irish Americans and any child born on Saint Patrick's Day was meant to be theirs.

I grew up with the luck of the Irish always on my side! Or least always with birthday cakes with green frosting and every Saint Patrick's Day birthday card ever produced given to me at least twice.

This March I was extra lucky and gifted with a new Nespresso maker from my very thoughtful parents. This is the model they got me:



Granted it's not the fanciest of all the models but since it's mainly me using it, I don't need a lot of bells and whistles. Oh man, I love this machine so damn much. The espresso is fantastic. We're talking crema on top and amazing flavor. And the milk frother is straight out of the Jetson's. It froths and warms my soy milk in what feels like seconds. And the container never gets hot. If you like espresso based drinks, I recommend giving Nespresso machines a shot. There is a Nespresso store here in Boston and it's really a relaxing and being zen lil spot. I went there to get new coffee capsules and was treated to an espresso while I shopped. It was lovely. The entire experience of owning this machine and visiting the store has been awesome thus far. I'm fairly certain that my new espresso machine and I will have a long and happy relationship!

This year for my birthday dinner with my friend Walter (who also has a birthday on the same day as me), we opted to go to Lineage. It's a place I've been to before and never been disappointed with the service or the quality of the food. It was a nice meal with two of my favorite people, E came along this year. Since this year our birthdays fell during restaurant week, we opted to order off the RW menu. We had a steak with a salsa verde that had me absolutely come close to licking the plate clean. I also enjoyed the parsnip soap that I ordered as my starter. But it was almost too rich and buttery for me. Luckily Walter and E were there to help me finish it off. The 4 desserts we tried were good but fairly unmemorable. Overall a lovely birthday dinner!

And lastly, E and my friend Ed had arranged to have a pizza party at Picco for me. As is well documented here in this blog, I love pizza and I love Picco. Plus they got me a birthday cake from Eldo cake house in Chinatown. I really do have great friends. Thanks you guys!



A great time was had by all!!!

I Suck

It's been way too long since I last posted. I even had a fairly good food trip to NYC that I never got around to posting about. The store has been sucking my mine. Oh sure, I always blame it on the shop but seriously, small business owners definitely know what I'm talking about when I talk about my lack of time and energy.

So what has gotten me out of my non-posting slump? A change of seasons perhaps. Fall is certainly upon us in New England. Luckily our CSA share doesn't end until the end of October so we've gotten to see what the change in seasons brings.

Tonight we're having a couple of friends over. One is an old friend I've known forever and another is a fairly new friend I'm introducing to E. Infact the old friend asked what time for dinner, I said 8 and she said she'd be here around 6:30. That's how we roll.

So when I went to the CSA on Monday, I knew I wanted some stuff that we could cook or share with friends. I was happy to see heads of lettuce and some last of the summer cherry tomatoes. I grabbed a couple of green peppers so I could make a salad and Beth's favorite salad dressing to go with it. I also was thinking of making an apple tarte tatin. In my family, the only apples we cooked with were Granny Smiths. We're a family that really enjoys tart with our sweet. So alas no GS were to be found but they did have plums. I found this kinda cool because I always only thought of plums as an early summer or late spring fruit. I didn't know they were still even really in season. So I grabbed a container of plums and decided that I wanted to try and make Evan Kleiman's plum sour cream pie. The recipe is here.

I also really wanted to try and make an apple tarte tatin. My friend Caroline makes one every fall and she uses puff pastry dough. So I went ahead and looked for a recipe on epicurious and found this one.

So I was going to attempt two new recipes. I wasn't 100% that either would work out well. Infact, I was a bit concerned that the desserts would be a big fail but I hadn't been baking in so long that I wanted to try something new.

I started by cutting up the plums. Look how pretty!




It seemed like a lot of plums and Evan didn't really say now many. So I decided to make two pies. I ended up doubling the sour cream mixture. Unfortunately, as I was pouring the plums and sour cream into the pie crusts I started to realize that maybe there was too much sour cream stuff and should have just stayed with one pie. My hunch was confirmed because the pies took close to 2 hrs to cook. Eeek. They looked cute coming out of the oven though:



Look! Pie crust cozies, teehee. Anyway, I let the pies cool and snuck a piece. The filling wasn't right at all. It was lumpy and not sweet enough. I was kinda bummed but hoped that the ice cream a guest was bringing would help disguise the issue.

I moved into the apple tartin.


I followed the recipe down to the letter and when it came time to flip, the middle of my apple tartin was completely burned. I was so sad. I even used less time than what the recipe asked for just because I knew our oven ran hot (damn electric!)

Sigh. Well luckily, Jenny did bring ice cream that that helped. It also helped that E made an amazing pasta dinner. But E making an amazing dinner is to be expected.

Since it's fairly early in the fall season, I think I will be attempting the apple tartin again. Watch out apple tartin, I'm gonna make you my bitch for sure! ;)

Danielle Chips

It's no secret that I'm a small business owner right here in Boston and as a result I meet a lot of other small business owners too. One of my friends owned her own chocolate shop here and it was thru her I met my buddy Ed. Ed owns a company called New England Herbal Foods. They produce dried fruit snacks called Danielle chips. They're really good. I especially like the jackfruit chips and especially dislike the durian chips (but hey, I wasn't raised eating durian so I never acquired a liking for it).

Okay, so I was pretty darn pumped when I saw that Danielle chips were cool enough to be picked up on one of my favorite style blogs Cool Hunting. I alerted my friend Ed who didn't even know about this shout-out. Honestly, the product really does speak for itself. And the packaging is kinda urban cool too.

Anyway, this has been Danielle chips year for sure! Besides getting a shout out by Bobby Flay on the CBS morning show, they also picked up a sofi gold medal!

Being that I don't really know a lot about what the sofi award means or a ton about the Fancy Food Show either (other than the Barefoot Contessa was there!!!!!!), I'll just link you up to stuff that kinda explains it all at the bottom of this post. I do know that when your business wins an award, of any kind, it's a big deal. And to win a national award and national press is a huge deal.

All I can say is that these two guys that have this company rock and my friend Ed is one of the best guys I know. Seriously, if you wanna great snack, great product look for Health Spa stuff or Danielle Chips. They're SOOOO good, no really they are. Like I said, the jack fruit is my fav but the pineapple is good, hell even the durian (if you're into that stuff) is good. I'm so proud of my friends. Congratulations you guys! Ed, I'll see you at the cook out tomorrow so expect a big congratulatory hug from me!

SOFI Awards

Here!

CBS News!!!

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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.

'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!!!!!!

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 :)

The Best Burger in America?

At this year's South Beach Food and Wine Festival, sponsored by Food Network, a competition over the best burger was waged. It was a contest hosted from Rachel Ray. She's a food personality I have very little tolerance for. Over exposed and irritatingly (and fake) perky, her speciality seems to be telling America how to not tip when working with only $40.00 a day and how to "figure friendly" hamburger stew is. Yum-o and sammie are not words and yet RayRay seems hell bent on always using them. Ugh

So since she was the host of this competition, I have very little belief in it's true validity. In any event, the burger at Radius was name #1. And I've been kinda curious about it ever since. It was only after meeting the bar manager from Radius that I decided a trip had to made to see for myself. I dragged E and a few friends along for the ride.

As an aside, I had been to Radius before for lunch during Restaurant Week about two years ago. I thought it was going to be a really fantastic little treat for myself. A lovely lunch to myself. The best thing about the meal? The space was unique and interesting. But the meal? Perhaps one of the worst I've ever eaten. I had an "spice" encrusted fish fillet. The spices were left whole. Have you ever tried eating whole coriander seeds, cumin, black pepper? After a few bites, my tongue actually went numb. It was an awful experience and I hated the fish. The dessert I chose was the german chocolate cake and it amounted to a very dry little lump of cake with caramel and coconut on top. It was like it came from a box mix. It was absolutely lame and I left very disappointed. I chalked it up the overall suckiness of Restaurant week in Boston and vowed that I would never do another restaurant week experience ever again. I feel like people in the food industry hate Restaurant week from the chefs to the servers. Why places participate and always do a half ass job is beyond me. If you don't want to do it, don't!!

And so I was a little wary of returning to a place where I had one of the worse meals of my entire life. But like I said before, curiosity got the best of me.

We met our friends at a table considered still part of the bar but big enough for all six of us. It was nice because it was still located in the bar section but was still part of the main dining room. The bar menu looked decent enough. Nothing too crazy...burgers, fried things...the usual. The only unique sounding thing on the menu was something called "low country" eggs and bacon. Hmm, when we asked about that appetizer, it was explained. It was deviled eggs. Too bad, E and I thought maybe it mean grits would be involved somehow. I was hoping white or red eye gravy. Oh well.

Our friend Avery ordered them. And I ordered the crispy oysters to start.

My oysters:

Avery's "low country eggs":


My oysters were fantastic. They were panko breaded and covered with perhaps $30 worth of saffron stems. The saffron did nothing for the overall taste but did look nice. The oysters were apparently local. They were quite small. I wish they were a bit bigger because much like fried clams what I love about fried oysters is that kinda creamy inside that tastes of the ocean. These oysters didn't have that but they were light and very well seasoned. I did enjoy them.

Avery said the eggs didn't suck but they certainly weren't the best he had ever had. We all loved the whimsical presentation of the bacon. Like a bouquet of bacon!

E, being the expert on alcoholic beverages ordered a lovely champagne for us to share. What the heck it was, I haven't a clue. I think it was rose in color. And it was expensive and special enough that the bartender scolded me when I tried to leave without finishing my glass. I passed the 1/3 left to E and she downed it for me. It was lovely and tasted crisp and bright. I did enjoy it but I'm such a lightweight when it comes to adult type drinks.

Onto the burger. E and I split one and the kitchen was kind enough to cut it half and give us our own plates.

Here is mine:

The burger cames with the cutest little copper pot of french fries. I have thoughts on both the burger and the fries. First the burger.

We ordered the burger rare. It was well cooked but very, very densely packed. Infact, I almost thought for a second the burger had been medium rare but it wasn't. The bun to burger ratio was decent.

Cheese and horseradish were already on the burger. Since I love horseradish I was ok with this but I think it's odd to make that choice for a customer right off the bat. It kinda reminded me of people who put liption french onion soup in their burgers. I don't know why but it felt like a very odd presumptive move. Plus the cheese really did nothing for me. It seemed almost tasteless or lost against the horseradish.

No lettuce, no onions and no pickles are offered. I guess for a $20 burger they're kinda making the statement that this burger doesn't need such things. But I love condiments and I love the way they enhance a burger. And since it is summer and produce is so great, a slice of heirloom tomato or a crisp leaf of local lettuce would have been a welcome addition for me.

The french fries were on the pale side. I like my fries with a little bit more golden. And while they were fried just fine, they weren't seasoned! It was a very obivious blunder after the intense seasoning applied to the burger. No salt, no truffle oil, no pepper, nothing! It was kinda odd.

Alright, so clearly Radius doesn't get my vote for the best burger. It was decent and by far much better than my earlier experience with the restaurant but overall, a bit pretentious and not completely well executed.

My favorite burgers in Boston still go to Eastern Standard (homemade pickles!!!), Aquitaine (anyplace that put creme fraiche in their mustard and boursin on their burgers is alright with me!) and U-burger (cheap and fantastic "fast food").

However, I was pleased to finally try the burger at Radius and look we even got two fantastic desserts as well. A goatcheese panna cotta thingie and something we all dubbed the chocolate unit.

Both were fantastic! As was the company for that evening. We had a great time and ended up being the most ruckus causing people in the joint. What can I say? I roll with some very fun peeps.

Circa 1999

When I was younger, straight out of college, it was important to me to connect with other queer Asian folks. Thus I had what I called an Asian queer posse. Now that I'm older, I don't really seek out friends based on sexuality or race but I definitely understand the necessity and the desire to do so. Because not everyone understand it when I say I'm so over being asked if I'm Chinese or not. Or the assumption that I need a man in my life. Anywhoo...

One of the best things to come out of that stage of my life (besides some very important and profound friendships) was the great belief that food is much better shared and the seasons for food are somehow honored. Hot pot parties were held in the winter and summer roll parties were always in the summer.

A lot of my Asian posse is gone now. Many have moved away from Boston and well even though I stayed here, my life is supremely different than even I could have imagined. I'm happy and in love and most days I love what I do for work. But did I ever see myself discussing what fashion styles are "trending" with most people? Did I ever see myself telling someone that their ass looked amazing in a pair of jeans? No. The answer would be an emphatic no.

So a lot of my immediate friend circle in Boston isn't Asian or even gay for that matter. But that hasn't put an end to my longing for summer rolls. My lust for them begins around this time every year and often I find myself satisfying my summer roll needs on my own. Since I wasn't raised with a ton of Asian culture, I never felt quite up to task for hosting such an event. What if I bought the wrong rice roll wrappers or tofu. Would I know which chives to buy? And rolling the suckers???!!!! Omg, don't even get me started.

I am, perhaps, the worst summer roll wrapper on the face of the earth. Sheer greed and laziness take over as I pile more and more things onto my poor little rice wrap. In the end, I'm always left with something resembling a fat burrito from El Pelon (no offense to El Pelon). I say I like to make them big because I don't have to get up for more very often, but the truth is, I'm a complete glutton. And out of shame for my fattie summer roll technique, I've never hosted a party on my own. I mean, what kind of Asian would I be if I showed non-Asians how to roll summer rolls and they all looked like over stuffed burritos. Nevermind that I'm Korean and raised by white folks, still, the shame, the shame!!

Finally, this summer I decided to own my internal summer roll issues and hold a party of my own. I got up early and went to Super 88 in Chinatown. There I found everything I needed. Infact I was so impressed with myself, I knew what tofu to get based on what I remembered the label looked like from years ago. I would like to say that getting all the stuff wasn't a hassle and in a way it wasn't because everything I needed was right there but it was kind of a pain. If you haven't been to the Super 88 in Chinatown on a busy Sunday morning, you might not understand. But it got to the point where I became okay with mowing down old ladies in the aisles. I know, I know, but dude, seriously, they were shoving me and cutting me off first! I'm just sayin'.

I got pretty much everything I needed and everything you see on the table picture above and guess how much it cost? $15 bucks! Woohoo, I was wicked excited. I need to start buying my veggies someplace other than the ghetto Shaws. That place really is expensive and horrible.

Anyway, I got home and prepped the veg. I triple washed everything and trimmed it all up, which took me a good hour to do. I took a cast iron pan and after wrapping the tofu in a tea towel, placed the pan on the tofu and left it there for a couple hours. This ensured that the tofu would be firm and not watery in the rolls. I prepped the shrimp and noodles and made the peanut sauce (1 part peanut butter, 1 part hoisin, 1/2 part soy, water to thin to whatever consistency you like).

It turned out to be an easy, cheap and fun way to entertain. My guests enjoyed the experience and some of them turned out to be summer roll rolling masters (I'm looking at you E) or least better than their host.

I was so happy to share my love of summer rolls with a new batch of friends and in turn realized that sometimes it's not about being "authentic" with the food when you host a dinner party but it's about being "authentic" with your desire to make sure everyone has a great time.

Go West!

This past holiday weekend found me on a plane to Denver. My very dear friend Mikey lives there and since it's been over a year since we last saw each other, we were long overdue for a visit. I arrived in the early evening. Mikey and I stopped off at Jet, this tiny boutique hotel in the downtown area of Denver to pick up his partner Fisher. Fisher manages the hotel, all 18 rooms ;) It's really cool and if you ever find yourself needing a swanky place to stay while visiting Denver, definitely look up Jet.

Mikey and Fisher had decided to take me for Mexican that evening. Fine by me! Being from Boston means that there is hardly any decent Mexican food. We lack that and Korean food, but that's a discussion for another day. Quickly, we arrived because it was just a short walk from Mikey and Fisher's house (a converted church btw). I wish I had remembered the name of the place but it was super cute and there was a mariachi band too!

I don't really feel very bad for not remembering the name of the place, because in Denver, there is a ton of fantastic Mexican cuisine. I had the standard fish taco, but it can with a sauce bottle filled with a slightly sweet sauce I wasn't accustomed to. I was expecting the usual crema but nope. The sauce was good with the fish at first but after a few bites, I found it too sweet for my taste. It was like a poppy seed dressing flavor but without the poppy seeds. However the fish was very fresh and the taco portion was super generous....five tacos on my plate and I couldn't finish the last one.

Walking back home, we passed by the local "ice cream" truck. A guy pushing a cart, with Spanish words on the sides, down the sidewalk with little Christmas bells strung on the handle. He was selling frozen fruit pops and other cool delights. It was a charming sight and so much more environmentally aware than an ice cream truck. Over the course of the weekend, I'd come to see those little sidewalk carts quite a bit. Sadly, everytime I'd spot one, I was already full from the meal I'd just consumed. Alas, next time!

The next day, we went to Winter Park and just had a quick breakfast of yogurt and coffee before we hopped on the 8am train. A day of sun, mountains and hiking meant we came home and crashed on the couch with take out pizza and movies.

Sunday, Mikey and Fisher suggested we go to Dozens and I was quick to agree. I was pretty sure it was the same breakfast place I had been to years ago with them as well. I remember having a really good breakfast there, something involving biscuits and gravy. Indeed, it was the very place I remembered.

The dish I ordered was called "how the west was won". It consisted of two homemade biscuits, white gravy, sausage and a side of hashbrowned homefries. I remember it being quite good and since I'm a sucker for anything covered in white or red eyed gravy, I ordered it again.



The picture doesn't look like it was very appetizing, but let me reassure you it was very good. The biscuits are actually fairly light and even smothered in gravy and sausage, I could taste the butter and still see the flakiness of the biscuit. It was quite soul satisfying. Especially to be eating outside on the restaurant porch and be able to see the rocky mountains in the background.

My last morning in Denver, we went to this hip spot called Snooze.

It was done in a retro modern style so it looked part dinner and part new school. Anyway, once we sat down in our booth, I noticed the card display at the end of the table. It was all about the choice of coffee that the owner had made for the restaurant. Infact, it was a good 4 page dissertation on his trip to Costa Rica or someplace and how he chose the coffee. Um, yeah. My eyes glazed over after reading the first two paragraphs. But as Mikey put it, the coffee was very good.

Mikey, after seeing me all but moan from my breakfast at Dozens, order Snooze's version of biscuits and sausage gravy (which I think he very much enjoyed). I was still on a South West kick and ordered the Huevos Rancheros. I also got the extra meat (chorizo) and extra vegg added on. What came was quite delicious but part of me had to wonder how much the additional chorizo made it super tasty? I mean, chorizo is sorta like the bacon of the West. And we all know bacon makes everything better!

Overall, it was a very enjoyable visit to one of my favorite cities. Next time I gotta remember to try a frozen treat from the sidewalk cart guy and find a place to feed my chicken fried steak craving. I look forward to my next visit out to Denver. Thanks for hosting me, Mikey and Fisher. Look, even their pups are wondering when I'll come back! Never fear, I'm sure I'll be back to visit soon.

Bare Bones

I own a small shop in the Hotel Commonwealth. Soon after I opened my store, four years ago, plans got under way for a massive space in the Hotel right next door to me. When I say massive, I mean it really is the size of a stadium sized soccer field. The space was huge but it was also cavernous. I would ride the elevator up to just check out the space and stand in awe. It was kinda like looking into the Grand Canyon of retail leasing space. It was raw area and didn't have anything covering it's cement foundation or gray metal walls. It was truly bare bones and sometimes it's hard for me to still remember what that space looked like before it became Eastern Standard.

Before Eastern Standard opened, there was only Great Bay for dining in the Hotel. It was a fine place to have a good meal. It's still there and because the original chef is gone, some of the magic is really gone too. I've been told that they do a great brunch and only do it for big holidays. But I haven't been back since Jeremy (the chef) left. He was part of the charm. His food was simple, honest and good. He now owns Lineage in Brookline and I adore that spot as well. I'm sure I'll get around to reviewing it sometime soon. So the Hotel only had Great Bay and it was fairly good.

Eastern Standard opened and I won't lie. The first few times I went I was rather disappointed. The food seemed rather heavy, salty and boring. The cavernous space I use to sneak into to gaze upon was transformed into a dark walnut and burgundy leather sorta bistro with a beautiful marble bar and lovely over sized photo pictures on it's dark walls. It was lush and dark. It was lovely space. And so it happened that 9 times out of 10 my friend Caroline (who also owned a store in the Hotel) and I would opt to go to ES for comfort food after work. We kinda gave up on Great Bay and made ES our place. And maybe because we got so use to feeling at home at ES or maybe because the food truly got better, it began to top my list of places to eat/drink/meet friends. Perhaps I became more accepting that I wasn't ever going to have "diet" fare at ES but came to accept that the food would always be on the heavy side with salt and butter galore. And anyone who knows me, knows I'm not one to say no to either of those things!

I certainly became more trusting with my food choices. And the chef that opened ES, this really sweet tattooed kid name Jamie, certainly knew his way around offal and other random offerings. Liver, sweet breads and I think marrow were pretty consistent offerings on the menu. I had the marrow once and it was dreamy. Think butter but with meaty flavor and amplify that 100% over and you have marrow.

Jamie has since moved onto greener pastures and Caroline has moved away as well. But one thing stays the same. I still go to ES when I need comfort in the form of food and atmosphere. Before we ever even met, I think my fiancé already liked ES quite a bit. But her affection for it grew when she realized that the Sazerac was a regular bar offering. In fact, ES has become the place to go for amazing cocktails and our friends Ian and Garry are regulars at the bar. They are folks who enjoy a beautifully made drink. So ES will always be on my list of places to go. I know I'll always find something I like and I also know it will be sure to impress my cocktail guzzling pals as well.

One Can't Live on Food Alone

I'm at work today and dreaming of when it will be time for me to clock out, hop in the T and meet up with my dearest love and our friend G for some dinner.

We'll be dining at a local Thai restaurant which is decent but nothing spectacular. I wish the noodles in the soup were homemade or that the pad thai was a little less sweet. The soup comes and it doesn't have quite the toothsome bite I want, but that's okay because I'll be eating with people who matter so much more than the food.

We all eat for various reasons...typically because our bodies have signaled that it's time for food. Sometimes we eat when we're sad or happy or bored. Sometimes we don't want to eat but know we need to and other times we can't get enough of something yummy to stuff in our pie traps. I tend to fall in the latter camp, especially when things are good. I tend to forget to eat during the course of the day but if I'm with friends, family or loved ones, my stomach signals eating time quite regularly.

I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but eating is such a communal activity for me. I do love my food and I can sometimes be a little piggie when it comes time to share but I really enjoy eating with others.

So tonight, it's not about the "quality" of the food as much as the company. I know I'll leave dinner feeling very well feed!

Dear Ina,

Hey lady, what's up? I'm loving that I'm seeing new shows and that you are still loving life out in the Hamptons. I haven't heard you mention Chris and Joey lately, so I hope you haven't lost your cute little token lesbian couple on the show. And where the hell has that adorable Parker Hodges gone to? I loved that episode where you made him set up a BBQ fire grill for a "surprise". Poor Parker is probably thinking, "sweet, I'm going to have me some Barefoot Contessa grilled shrimp, lobster, steak!" What was the surprise? Grilled pizzas. Um yeah, Parker probably hasn't been over since he got duped into thinking he was getting a surprise only to get something he could recreate in his toaster oven.

But you're as cute as a button and how could anyone stay mad at you? Especially when you seem to always bear gifts of brownies, carrot cake and free form plum crostata. Everyone knows I adore you and then some (my offer to come live with you and have you feed me every day still stands) but I really do need to sit and have a heart to heart with you.

See, here's the thing. I love your show and your cookbooks make everything seem simple and yum. But lately all the recipes I've tried from any of your three cookbooks I own, well, they haven't gone so great.

It all started with the 40 clove of garlic recipe. Peeling blanched garlic cloves and 40 of them, hmm, well it was time consuming but I figured it was for you. I thought, "This is for my girl, Ina, and well if she said so, I'll do it". So I did and the chicken was nice but it wasn't amazing and certainly was a let down. My own crispy roasted chicken recipe could have kicked your average 40 clove chicken anyday. "Oh well", I thought, "I've had great success with your chicken and biscuits recipe and your pasta, pesto and peas is a magical creation". So I blindly continued to follow you.

My issues with your cookbooks continued into a tiramisu recipe. If the word for tiramisu comes from the Italian phrase, "pick me up", well your tiramisu was sure to knock someone out! It was boozy and so boozy that the minute I opened the fridge, my entire kitchen reeked of rum. It was completely inedible b/c of the booze and I ended up throwing it out. I almost cried over having to waste all that beautiful mascarpone cheese. I pondered how you, dear Ina, could have made such a recipe. Is being married to Jeffrey so hard that you have to numb your woes with boozy desserts? Why Ina, why? Eventually, I took the rum content down A LOT and suddenly the recipe was able to shine. It was simple and lovely. It's a keeper recipe but one that has red sharpie crossing out the rum content to a much lesser AAA membership level.

But this last issue comes over something I hold very near and dear to my heart...Pizza. See, I was having some friends over to try that summer buttermilk and radish soup I had made (it was good, the texture was weird though) and thought I'd finally get around to using my new pizza stone. I was so excited. But what pizza dough recipe to use? I've had this one recipe that I've used since I was 15 and well, don't laugh, it came from Seventeen Magazine. Hey, I told you not to laugh! It's a great recipe, easy to make and fantastic results. And well, I also had your Parties cookbook that I had been given for X-mas (I want to give her a copy too but can't seem to find it anywhere, sold out, or pulled off the shelves for faulty recipes, hmmm...) and I remembered a recipe for pizza dough.

So, who would win the dough contest? You, my dear Contessa, a royal of food network and the Hamptons or Seventeen magazine, a publication that taught me to hate my body and decide I wasn't white enough to ever be pretty? It was a tough contest, well, not really. So I flipped to the pizza dough recipe and followed your directions.

I noticed that the dough didn't rise too much and well, when it came time to roll it out into six rounds, it was no easy task. The dough was tough, tough, tough. And the final outcome? The pizzas were more like cracker crusts than doughy. It was as though I didn't even need to put the yeast into this one. Was my yeast old? Did I over mix the dough? Sigh. Your pizza dough left me disappointed and doubtful.

I have to admit, as much as I'm sure it was a user error (meaning me), I also think perhaps it might be something to do with the recipe. I'm kinda disappointed. I miss the days when I trusted you unequivocally. The days I'd dream of frolicking with you on the beach eating bbq chicken, pasta salad and other delights. Oh Ina, Ina, where did it all go wrong? And more importantly how do I get back to our former magic? I'm afraid to choose another recipe to try, for fear that it will just be another tangled mess of average, disappointment and rum.

I'm going to go back to Epicurious recipes for a while and nurse my wounds. I promise I'll try and come back to you soon, but for now, I need some space. I'm hurt, but I hope we can patch things up enough that we can stay friends. It's not you, it's just me.

Sincerely yours,
L

Sweet Boston Or Why My Customers Rock!

I have a fairly large sweet tooth or as one friend use to often say about me, "Leah has a high tolerance for butter, salt and sugar. It's like a holy trinity for me :)

I, of course, love anything cute and packaged well. So it comes, probably, as no surprise that I adore cupcakes. They remind me of being 8 years old and the days when I was invited to backyard birthday parties. They make me think of carefree days and how wonderful my childhood truly was. I was a very happy kid. Or maybe they are a close enough approximation of my childhood nickname, "Muffin". Apparently my Dad called me that ("Peach" came later) because I was cute, small and warm.

So when I had heard about a new cupcake place opening up in the city, I got really excited. But given my ever expanding waistline and my crazy work schedule chances were good I wasn't going to get a chance to try it out anytime soon. Bummer, but oh well.

Lucky for me, I have wonderful store customers and a dear, dear, dear one came by when I wasn't in the store and left cupcakes from Sweet for us to try. I did try and share them with the one staff person on with me today but she claimed to have an upset tummy, oh well...I did try, right? ;)

The box for the cupcakes was clever. It was sized perfectly for the goodies but it was reminiscent of a happy meal box. The shape was familiar and fun to carry but it was super cool with the plain brown cardboard that I felt kinda cool swinging it along as I walked home.



The cupcakes were small compared to the others I've had at places like the Buttery in the South End. The Buttery cucpakes are so huge that four of these minis would make one entire Buttery monster.

The presentation of the cupcakes was cute and they looked very polished. The frosting was piped out and the final touches dainty and tasteful. I think I got a box with: vanilla, chocolate, carrot cake and mocha (or maybe spice cake).


The cupcakes had waited two days in my fridge before I got a chance to sample them. So they were a bit dry. I have to say, I'm not sure when it became such an issue keeping cupcakes moist. It seems to be a refrain I hear a lot about cupcake places in the area. I remember as a kid always having moist cupcakes. I do think we use to put a bit of oil in the batter but still. A bit of canola in the batter might keep these cupcakes from getting too dry over time. I think it's hard to always buy bakery goodies the day you need them i.e. planning treats for someone's birthday so being able to keep cake and have it taste good even a day after purchase is important, well, I think it's be important at least.

Back to the cupcakes. I like the size quite a bit. They were the small perfect three bite treat. I like the frosting on all of them quite a bit. It wasn't a heavy overly buttery frosting. The vanilla frosting even with it's specks of vanilla reminded me of duncan hines can frosting and that's not a bad thing. I didn't like that the carrot cake cupcake had a vanilla frosting. I like cream cheese with my carrot cake and was disappointed that they didn't do a cream cheese one for the carrot cake.

Overall, I liked the favors a lot and even dry they were nice cupcakes. I like the vanilla the best because the flavor was sweet and very simple. The spice cake or maybe mocha cake one just kinda confused me and the chocolate one was a bit too milk chocolate-y for me. I tend to like my chocolate dark. But make no mistake, I eat every single crumb :) Like I said before, I liked them!

It was a nice treat and such a wonderful surprise to receive from a Jean Therapy customer. I'm so blessed to have such sweet store patrons!

Peach Farm

One of my oldest and dearest friends was in town for the week and we decided to meet up in Chinatown for a little dinner nosh. She suggested Hong Kong Cafe which I like a lot and so as I was waiting, I got a call from her "I'm on my way, but how would you feel about Taiwan Cafe instead?" I was down for it but being that I just came from work, I was schlepping a huge amount of heavy things with me and I needed to find an ATM for some cash. Most places in Chinatown are cash only, which would be fine, but there is not an ATM in chinatown, ANYWHERE!!!

I walked down the few blocks to Taiwan Cafe where HyeJohn was waiting and she said "um, I need an atm too". Oh boy, so a few minutes later we decided to go to Peach Farm instead. Not a huge loss at all. Lucky for us Chinatown has a plethora of really good food options. And lucky for us, Peach Farm takes credit card.

We walked down the stairs to what looks like a sketchy basement rec room. It's got beaten up carpet and the walls are coated in layers of food grease. The air is thick with lots of food being cooked up and lots of people. They also have the required huge fish tanks of live seafood. I gotta say, I know the idea is to show the customer exactly how fresh the food truly is but sometimes those tanks kinda bum me out. The fish look awfully bummed out. I mean, yeah they are about to eaten and who would be happy about that, but I dunno, I guess I like to be under the illusion that my food is kinda happy and content before become dinner. Whatevahs....

Luckily for me HyeJohn likes to eat as much as I do. How else do you think we could be friends for so long.

There was a bit of a wait for a table and as we waited, HyeJohn moaned about how hungry she was. Well, I had topped at a cute newish Vietnamese sandwich place diagonal to the Hong Kong cafe and got a beef sandwich to try. I offered it to HJ and before I could really explain why I had the sandwich or anything really, she had taken the bag from my hand and was munching away on the sandwich and said it was good. I'll post about the sandwich place another time. Anyway, it was quite amusing to watch her wait for dinner while eating a contra ban sammie.

So as you know HJ was hungry and so was I. We decided on having a seafood dinner set for 2. I also wanted some dumplings b/c I had seen some get served up to a table as we waited to be seated and they looked delicious. I also watched some oysters get served up to another table and was able to beg HyeJohn to let us order oysters too but she said "um Leah we can't order everything!". Um why not?

Alright so the food started coming fast and furious. I like that everything comes out piping hot as it's ready. Yum!

We started with the crab and maw soup.


This was my least favorite of the dinner set. Whatever maw is it's "spongey" as HJ put it. Yeah, she's right. The soup relied heavily on corn starch to thicken it up and I tend to hate soups that are falsely thickened that way.


Next came the dumplings, which you can see above hiding behind the clams in black bean sauce. They were quite delicious. Nothing extraordinary but decent and being dumplings they certainly hit the spot.
Next came the star of the dinner, the crab cooked with ginger and scallions. Messy and hard to eat but really yummy and worth the sticky fingers!

The clams and the Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce were my favorite of the entire meal. The black bean sauce was so good. I seriously wanted to just scoop up the sauce and put it on everything! Black bean sauce on toast, black bean sauce on chips, black bean sauce on...well, you get the picture. And the broccoli was perfectly cooked. It was still crisp and the sauce to veg ratio was perfect!

And this was the dinner set for 2! It was a lot of food and the couple who shared the table with us looked both amazed and a little disgusted as we plowed our way thru the entire meal. Seriously, we ate it all! But it was really good. I like Peach Farm because the food is better than decent, fresh and yeah a little greasy but seriously perfectly executed.

HyeJohn and I left after making little piggies of ourselves and laughed that everyone there probably thought "damn those Koreans can really eat!" And the truth is yes, yes we can.

Spicy

(More on this photo later!)

It's really no secret that I love spicy food. I also love pickled foods too but I'll save that for another entry entirely.

Luckily I'd dating someone who also likes her food spicy too. The first time we ever met, I introduced her to a little friend of mine, I like to call Green Papaya Salad. Yeah, I really like to put it out there when first meeting anyone...if you can't take the heat, well, we might not be well suited for each other. Thankfully, she was able to take the heat and then some; I kinda love her for it.

Another joy we've discovered is our ability to host small dinner parties and invite our friends over to dine with us. Lately, it's been mostly her friends (you guys need to represent already!). It's a great excuse for us to spend a leisurely day together. In the afternoon we try and get started on the dinner and sometime we fall really behind. I've had to learn to go with the flow more when I feel like we fall behind in our prep. She has to deal with another cook in the kitchen with her. And we manage. But more than managing we also have a really great time.

And this particular evening E wanted to make lasagna. I know she doesn't care much for ricotta so I asked what she was going to use instead. She replied, "well goat cheese, of course". Did I mention how much I love this woman?

E also decided she wanted to make the pasta yet again. Simple but time consuming indeed. I was actually worried we wouldn't have enough food. When I mentioned this concern, she reassured me that over 3lbs of beef, veal and lamb ground meat mixture would be enough. I let her do her thing and I did mine. I decided I wanted to make a Kentucky Derby pie. I had watched an episode of Martha Stewart and it was all about the Kentucky Derby and I watch her make this pie. I found a recipe on the front web page of Saveur and used that. I was delighted that it called for bourbon. I don't really drink a lot but I really do like the flavor that various liquors and distilled stuff impart on food.

When the guests arrive. We usually start with cocktails and cheese. And depending on how far along dinner is finished, we move into a meal. I'm a big believer in salad with dinner. I was raised with a mom who always served a fresh vegetable salad with every supper. It was just my family's way. So salad is always offered, along with bread and dessert (of course!).

And, of course, the star of the show:
It was mammoth. This picture really doesn't do it justice in terms of size (that pan was deep). But I think the picture does capture the general yumminess of the situation quite nicely. E had not only used goat cheese in place of ricotta but, instead of the usual chopped spinach, she used kale. And it was spicy too! I think that one of the things that lasagna always misses is a little punch of spice. It's nice and comforting with pasta layers and cheese and meat but a little zing would be nice. I love that E likes her food spiced well and spiced well kinda on the spicy side. The lasagna was kinda amazing. It was tangy, spicy and the kale gave it a different texture profile. The homemade pasta was a bit thicker than I would have liked but over the course of the week (there were ALOT of leftovers even though everyone who came was stuffed), the pasta really loosened up and picked up more of the flavors of the sauce. It made for crave worthy lunches and dinners for me for an entire week!

My pie was a lot more simple:

Well, partially because I cheated and bought a frozen pie crust (please don't revoke my Daring Baker badge!!!) due to our time constraints. But pie is basically a pecan and chocolate chip cookie in a pie crust. Ridiculously easy, it came together in a matter of 10 minutes. How'd it taste? It was okay. I really liked the bourbon flavor...maybe I was a wino in a former life? However, it wasn't really a show stopper which was okay because it wasn't like I toil forever over this pie. But the biggest surprise for me was how decent the crust was. I was shocked that a frozen pie crust was actually worth eating. It was adequately flaky (not super) and buttery. I liked the crust. But I've been dying to make my Mom's crust on a rhubarb pie but sadly, I've hardly seen any this season.

And as a random aside, I wanted to post this picture of friend Cris's shirt:
Her head is purposefully cut out because she didn't want her face in the picture (Cris is a really hot chick just a little FYI). Anyway, her shirt is a "peace of toast". Hahahaa, how awesome in that? Well, sorta keeping with the subject title on this entry, this picture was taken during lunch at Mary Chungs in Cambridge and let me tell you, their food is loaded with hot! I've always loved Mary Chungs and even now just writing about it is making me crave some dun dun noodles. Yum. I wrote a review of them on yelp so I won't repeat it here. If you feel like seeing it, go to yelp and type in Mary Chung for Boston as your city.

My First Daring Baker Post

The question has often been posed: does bacon make everything better? And actually, I fall in the camp that bacon does make everything better. But it was high time to test out that theory. And since I had a birthday coming up and a Daring Baker Challenge to complete, I thought what better way to test my theory than a bacon themed birthday party with a party cake made with bacon too?

It was during a dinner date with E that a brainstorm of sorts happened. What would the menu of a bacon themed party look like? E thought it was would great to take food typically not made with bacon and re-envision them with bacon as an ingredient. I agreed. She came up with a bacon "maki" with grits as the "rice" wrapped around egg and topped with a slice of bacon. I wanted to serve bacon cheeseburgers, bacon "spring rolls" (which later became salad with homemade buttermilk dressing and bacon) and also the party cake for Daring Bakers. I had thought about tweaking the recipe to include bacon but since it was my first challenge, I didn't want to earn the label of "rebel" this early on.

But I did go home that evening and read the Daring Baker recipe a couple of times and decided that this challenge was in fact flexible enough for me to play around with. And since I loved the combination of chocolate and peanut butter, I thought I'd use that with the bacon as decorative flavor and texture component on the top of the cake. Chocolate, peanut butter and bacon?! Well, it sounds good to me!

The first thing you should know about me is that I love cooking and baking, but the "science" often alludes me. I know to follow baking recipes almost to the letter because most baking requires precision. So it's rare for me to add or sub in anything when it comes to baked goods. But this bacon party inspired me to be a little bit more, well, "daring" (hah).

The set up was rather easy. And I decided I would bake the cake the night before the party and cover the cakes and ice and assemble the day of the party.

I added a cup of hersey's baking cocoa to the dry ingredients and I was sure to use cake flour for this challenage too. I used swan down brand. In the pic below you will also see my late Grandma Howley's trusty hand beater. I love it because it works like a champ and well, every time I use it, I think of my Grandma H.
I also added a bit of instant espresso powder to the dry mix too. I'm a devotee of Ina Gardener and she says that coffee brings out the intensity of chocolate and often combines the two. I used this stuff. I've had this jar for ever and I use it when I make tiramasu too. Anything calling for chocolate means this stuff gets added to the mix as well.
I finished mixing and when I took a look at my final cake batter, it looked, well a lot thicker than most cake batters I've ever worked with.

It was more of a brownie batter and this caused me a bit of concern. I decided I'd just loosen it up a bit with a buttermilk. The batter was still thick but I poured it into the cake pans and baked anyway.

The cakes came out and looked, well, hmm...
cracked. I cooked them for only 31 mins...maybe I should have done even less time. I was a little nervous about the cakes because of the cracks. I hadn't ever baked a cake and have it crack like that. What did it mean exactly? How would it taste? I was also disappointed in the lack of rise. But I read other Daring Bakers' entries and noticed that many of them had trouble getting their cakes to really rise either.

I will say that it smelled divine. But what's better than the smell of chocolate, butter and sugar? Not much, if you ask me! And um, cleaning the cake batter bowl with a spoon was a tasted endeavor. It tasted great in raw form, so I hoped that it wouldn't be much different in cooked form!

I made the frosting by halfing the butter in the cream and subbing in peanut butter instead. I figured the fat content in the peanut butter would make up for the missing butter. I've never been a huge buttercream frosting fan and so never tried my hand at making it. I have to say, I really enjoyed making this recipe. It was much more time consuming than my usual habit of making cream cheese frostings or confectioners sugar with some milk frosting or just plain old whipped cream, but the end result was pretty amazing. The frosting was shiny and quite delicious. The peanut butter flavor was very apparent. Frosting the cake was a breeze and it looked quite nice with it's crumble of bacon on top. This cake also has a layer of cooked crumbled bacon in the middle. Who needs raspberries when you have bacon!

Here is my finished cake. If I wanted to make a real show stopper, I would have made another batch of batter. It wasn't a very tall cake but the bacon on top was quite a conversation starter.

The food was great and a fun time was had by all. E made bacon martinis for all and my friends Harin and Ed took over cooking the burgers. Sure the copious amounts of bacon meant that the smoke detector was set off three times over the course of the evening but whatever.

And as for the cake? Well, it was pretty dense and dry. I was really disappointed and ended up throwing much of it out. If the cake had been a lot moister, it would have been a fantastic cake! The bacon really brought out the nuttiness of the peanut butter and it was smoky and salty. The frosting with the bacon was the best part of the cake.

My conclusion? Bacon does indeed make everything better!

Thanks Daring Bakers for letting me join. I had a blast with this challenge and can't wait until next month's!