More stupid food similes

Made potstickers today. This is something I haven't done since I was pretty young. I remember sitting with a giant bowl of pork filling, clumsily stuffing and tearing dumplings and setting them on thin, white serving plates that covered every flat surface within reach. I couldn't remember how they looked when we cooked them back then, but the triangular tips of each potsticker promptly flopped to one side as I set them in the pan. They looked like killer whales that have been kept in captivity, their dorsal fins drooping from - what? A lack of freedom? Not sure. Should probably look it up.

Rule: If potstickers touch while they're in the pan, they are doomed to tear when you separate them.

Rule 2: Eating potstickers while they're too hot is definitely not something you only do once.

Le Freak C'est Chic

What do you do when your parents come to town and want to have dinner with you and your long-term boyfriend? Panic.

I mean, impress them with your awesome culinary skills. Even if they refuse to be impressed. So I guess I just mean cook.

Rule: When in doubt, cook something elaborate with too many steps and don't allow yourself enough time. Or... wait. Don't actually do that. I've been making stuff ahead of time tonight for about 3 hours straight. Tomorrow? More cooking.

Do as I say, not as I do. What I'm making for my parents:

Appetizer: Parmesan cones with baby portobellos and red pepper

Entree: Phyllo cups with kale, sausage, white beans and squash on a bed of polenta with mountain Gruyere / side of roasted peppers and onions

Dessert: White chocolate mousse cake with spiced pears and white chocolate curls and this action.

We'll see if any photos happen.

O Hai, Humidity

I made candy last week. Not just any candy though, this candy. Tartelette is an awesome food/pastry blogger, and I admire her skill with food and cameras to no end! I highly recommend checking her blog out.

No, I didn't make the cake. It turns out that in my quest to learn how to bake, I also figured out a loophole to make it so I end up cooking.

Sugar/pasty work is hard. Lots of things can go wrong; even the slightest mistake can lead to your food not turning out right (see also: disastrous, sticky burning), and because of that, it's hard to tell whether recipes actually work. In making this, I was like, "Is the recipe not working right? Is my thermometer not calibrated correctly? Did I heat it up too much? Oh no, did I bump the pot? Is the thermometer crystalizing the sugar and reading incorrectly?" I also did a lot of thinking, "AAAAAUGHHH WHY IS THIS SO HARD???"

To be fair, however, I only failed twice. 3rd time, and ignoring the original recipe's the charm, apparently. Caveat: it is really humid here, so it's also unclear whether that affects the original recipe, even though the writer of the recipe is also in a humid part of the mid-Atlantic (see why this is confusing and complicated?). Fortunately for my sanity, I had previously made candy at a Hollywood Magic (or some other badass name) at a day camp at the best museum in the world: The Science Museum of Minnesota. Go there. Be in awe. So I knew that if I just made something like a lollipop, it would achieve the correct effect. I also found this really ugly and horribly designed website that also happens to be the most informative site on candy making out there. Please beware on behalf of your eyes. Has awesome troubleshooting and tips section.

AAAANYWAY, here was the final result.


Yes, you're seeing that correctly; not only did I not bake a cake, I didn't really have anything to stick it in besides this bread.

It was beautiful, thin, colorful, and delicious. Except then the humidity made it sticky. And bloomy aka ended up looking like it was molding. Then when I brought it to work to share, all the pieces stuck to each other in one giant, pointy, shard-y lump. HOWEVER at that point, they were still translucent and really did look like a stained glass window. I AM STILL COUNTING THAT AS A SUCCESS.

Rule: Sugar gets very hot and above the temperature boils at, and is STICKY. Meaning if you get some on you while hot, not only will be be worse than pouring boiling water on yourself, IT WILL ATTACH TO YOU. Please have a bowl of ice water for dunking hot body parts into just in case. Also, perseverance is delicious. As Tartelette says, do not fear the sugar!

Measuring, measuring, oh god, precision!

So.

Lots of my friends have heard me complain about baking. Mainly, my fears about baking. In fact, I've probably blogged about it right here and completely forgot about it. There's a lot of measuring and precision in baking (or such it seems to me, since proportioning things also requires measuring). I've mentioned lots of times that once you put the whatever in the oven, there's no telling what will happen. It's with god, at that point. A big, fiery, gassy god with a mouth that glows and transforms things into baked goods. You can't add more egg or baking powder once you've tasted it, like when you're cooking. You gotta do everything right beforehand.

But I love cake. And cookies. And pie. I've already gotten good at the non-flour-based baked desserts, and I miss the pillowy, spongey comfort of flour. So I'm gonna do it. I'm going to try to learn how to bake without making myself a complete mess. Now that I have an oven that isn't the size of a laptop and tilted toward magnetic north. Deep breaths, measuring cups, and a patient boyfriend should get me through this, right? Any tips?

Rule: Measure twice, eat once. Wait, that's a shitty rule. If you can conquer your fears and produce cakes simultaneously, that's a pretty good deal. Wait, that's not really a good rule either. No rule this week. Leave your favorite baked-good recipe, and I will attempt it.


This is a slice of my boyfriend's bread. He has far surpassed me in baking skillz.

Read this

Rule: Read this.

If cooking means anything to you, you should like it.

I'm not sure how I feel about her writing (I've only read this, and obviously it's a short work), but she seems like she might be worth checking out. Anyone out there know anything about her?

Rule: Have Internet in the kitchen

This is just a must. Found a recipe on the internet? Eco-conscious and not wanting to print things out unnecessarily? Bring your laptop into the kitchen. Jam out on tunes on Pandora or Seeqpod while having the recipe and your friends at your fingertips.

Other rule: Wash your hands before touching your computer if you have internet in the kitchen. This way, your keyboard won't turn into a dinner roll and your touchpad won't be a hotbed of salmone. colococcus.

I heart you, Michael Pollan.

So I'm reading Michael Pollan's second big hit, In Defense of Food. I'm going to resist my impulse to make it a rule to read this book, but it's super thought-provoking and I think well-written and researched. There is a little paranoid, but if you read it in conjunction with Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser - for a non-Pollan perspective and body of research; certainly one could also read Pollan'sOmnivore's Dilemma - then the paranoia seems a little less extreme and might seem more like hyper-(justified)vigilance.

I won't ruin it for anyone, but he quotes Wendell Berry - an accomplished writer and defender of sustainable agriculture practices - quite often, and one of the quotes near the end of the book is going to be a rule I'm going to attempt to follow:

Eating with the fullest pleasure - pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance - is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend.

Word, Mr. Berry. Word.