Next Stop -- Padded Room

Yesterday, I finished quite a project. I completed the input on a large recipe database. The database contains over 8,900 records. Yes, folks, 8,900. I've been working on this for about a year and a half. I had a large pile to input and had a goal of getting it done by the end of September. It needs cleaning up but that is actually fun compared to doing the actual input which, at certain times yesterday, was close to sending me over the proverbial edge.

You are, no doubt, wondering what this is all about?

It started out with wanting to learn as much about a particular subject as possible. After purchasing a number of books, I started to see some patterns and themes emerging..."oh, so, to be good at this, you have to have this dish in your repertoire". So, I reasoned, if I built a database, I could better capture these patterns and hone in on what is essential about this cuisine. And, I started building and it started getting big and I continued to find authors whose work appealed to me. Some 80 authors later, I have 8,900 records in hand.

Yes, it takes a certain level of whackiness to fashion a vision of something like this. I'm not unaware of that. But, didn't people think Edison was nuts as he was trying to invent an electric lightbulb for the umpteenth time??? Ok, I'm no Edison, but it makes me feel better to make the comparison.

Honestly, the outcome is saleable, but only with changing it a bit to make it less specific to my needs/wants. I'm not sure I want to do that and I never intended it to be for anyone but me. I just thought it would be cool and useful to have.

I have other recipe databases -- I have one that's for recipes that I want to try (almost 3,000) and one for recipes I've tried (over 1,500). This gives me the ability to sort very quickly for something like all the gazpacho attempts over the past ten years. Or, I can run a list of the recipes I've clipped from magazines or printed off the internet for the past three months to give something a try. Another interesting application has been to sort through tried recipes from a particular cookbook and see, on average, how they passed my taste test.

Can you see how badly I wanted to be a researcher at one point in my life? Yes, as I was finishing my undergraduate degree, I thought graduate school was the next stop. In fact, I was well-prepared as I had worked four years straight in various labs for fun on top of going to school and working. But, I looked at the graduate students in their ripped Goodwill sweaters, eating loads of Ramen noodles and rejected that life for the thrill of high heels, high-end hairdressers and high gloss lipstick.

Yet, that need to explore, capture, and quantify information is intrinsic to my nature and emerges in the oddest ways -- like this crazy database.

Last night my mind was whirling with different questions this information will answer. And, then, comes the most exciting part: the information will translate into action -- I will begin to experimenting with the recipes in a directed and purposeful fashion. Blog posts about all of this are surely in the offing.

Food & Kisses, GiGi

Pennsylvania Yumminess

I went to see my dear Auntie this weekend who lives in Delaware. On my list of things to do was to return to the Va La Winery and get some fresh mushrooms direct from the growers -- both destinations are in Avondale, Pennsylvania.

So, first up was the trip to Va La:

Approaching heaven...

This is the interior of the tasting room. There are all sorts of oils to taste as well.

Ah, the tasting...with each wine, there's a little snack -- locally made cheeses (great and they are sold there as well), fresh Italian bread and extra virgin olive oil for dipping. The wines are made with a mixture of French and Italian grape varieties.

Not a great shot because it was overcast but here is one of the vineyards

I did end up buying both La Prima Donna (a white blend) and the Silk (a rosatto) -- I think 5 bottles in total. Some will be given as holiday gifts and Silk will probably be part of Thanksgiving as it is a light red and capable of matching poultry and fish quite nicely. Also, it's a sentimental favorite because it's the first wine I shared with my great and adorable SO.

Then, onto buy some mushrooms -- 3 pounds of Oyster Mushrooms and 3 pounds of Portobellos for $6.50!!!:

These are from the retail outlet of Cutone's -- sorry no website. If you go, just be mindful that on Saturday's this place is only open till 3:00 PM. And, no, I have no idea (yet) what I'm going to do with all these mushrooms.

I highly recommend taking this little trip if you live close enough -- it's also not far from some other cool places such as Winterthur in Delaware and the Chadd's Ford area in Pennsylvania.

Food & Kisses, GiGi

Gitchee Gitchee Ya Ya Ya Ya: Lobster Night at the Reef Grille

Surrounded by the seemingly Vegas-inspired gold, red and orange decor at the Reef Grille in Padonia, we sat awaiting the moment when our $13.99 Whole Maine Lobster Dinner would arrive while the sounds of the original "Lady Marmalade" played in the background. Before I describe how the dinner was, let me give you the context of this moment.

M and I are die hard foodies and two weeks ago we were lounging at my house waiting for her delicious Tomato Tart to finish baking. We popped in a dvd of the old Julia Child French Chef shows and first settled on watching the Lobster Show. There was good, old Julia with her kitchy sixties hair-do wrestling around with various sized lobsters. A significant part of the show was aimed at showing one how to enjoy the head/body fat and meat. We blissfully mused on how much we love lobster and contemplated that perhaps it was time to get out the big steamer pot and track down some to see how we liked that head fat.

Lo and behold, the other night, I'm watching a little televison and on comes the advertisement for "Lobster Night" at the Reef Grille which is fairly close to my office. The Reef Grille used to go by the name The Rib 'N Reef and with the new employment of the word "grille", I've been thinking that they are trying to change their image -- especially with the addition of the letter "e" to the word "grill". I had been to the Rib 'N Reef many times (there was a terrific seafood salad on the old menu) and considered it an "old man joint" if you know what I mean.

So, it was the perfect storm: lobster craving, wanting to use the new info on head fat eating, and a inexpensive price.

I will cut to the chase and tell you straight out that we were not disappointed in the least and in fact, were fairly delighted.




We started out with an order of Grilled Oysters (a special) -- 6 for $6 or $7 -- they were wonderfully flavored with garlic, parmesan cheese and spinach and perfectly cooked. In fact, they were so good, we ordered another round.

Onto the salads -- nothing special there, but that's not what we were there for.

The second round of oysters came which were polished off as we took in the ambience of being the youngest patrons there.

Then came our lobsters with baked potatoes. The set up included little plastic bibs, crackers, small forks, lots of napkins, wet naps, plates for the shells. On the plate next to the lobster was a baked potato and a wedge of lemon -- the waitress referred to the lemon wedge as the lobster's cell phone. Perfecto!

The lobster was perfectly cooked, sweet and delicious...and the head fat was everything Julia promised us!!! Then, my partner in crime, did something brilliant: she mixed the fat into her potato and being the sweet soul that she is, she gave me a bit to taste. We thoroughly enjoyed our lobsters.

Dessert was offered -- in the interest of science and research we bit on the idea of trying the Creme Brulee cheesecake. When it came, it looked interesting: a layer of creme brulee had been somewhat caramelized on top of a slice of cheesecake. Alas, it was just ok, but for you, our readers, we went the distance and ate some anyway.

This was a gem of an experience. We will be back to the Reef Grille on another Tuesday night, I am sure.

Food & Kisses, GiGi

Weekend Wrap Up

Ahhh...As promised, every closet and drawer has been gone through -- purged, organized, and set to rights. The worst was, of course, the dreaded sock drawer. For the longest time, I've been throwing things in there wantonly and without care. I favor black trouser socks for the winter for work and evidently, when I get frustrated, I buy more rather than sit down and carefully pair them.

In any event, since I was home, I snuck a bit of cooking in as I was working.


I had a number of fresh tomatoes and turned that into a fresh sauce that I put in one of my slow cookers.

Once the tomatoes cooked down significantly, I added some fresh basil and a bag of mixed frozen seafood (shrimp, calamri, scallops).


Perhaps this does not look like much, but it was GOOD. It's swiss chard that I added to some sauteed garlic and olive oil and when it was cooked down, I ate it with some whole wheat pasta. The chard was from the farm share from the week before last so it was on must go status.



Here is a riff on the good old Queen Yam Casserole from the "Book of Whole Meals" by AnneMarie Colbin. It calls for yams and parsnips but I wasn't going to the store that day so I subsituted a couple of carrots and potatoes. I was taking it to a GF's house for dinner -- the same GF that turned me onto the recipe about a year ago -- and it was a hit because GF's son doesn't like parsnips so he was happy it was parsnip-free!


Hopefully in the next few days, I will have shots of pickled eggplant to share. I started it last night (Day 1: Salting; Day 2: Vinegaring; Day 3: Oil and Garlic for two months). It will be ready by Thanksgiving!!!

Food & Kisses, GiGi

Friday Musings

Oh, the end of the work week...and so close to the time when I can get my hands around some projects that I've been thinking about. So, the thing is, I've got this real bee in my bonnet to clean out all of my closets -- I can't stand it anymore!!! I can hardly get anything in or out to wear in my bedroom. It's time to move out the summer stuff and see what's in store for fall. The closet that contains my fall/winter things is just as stuffed and crammed. So, it's time.

Last night I practiced by first cleaning out my pantry. It too had become a bit of a nightmare. Mind you, there's almost nothing to eat in there. It's just shelves of ingredients that could be something to eat if I would make something! There is one box of soup and one package of Channa Masala -- everything else needs the transformational process of cooking. I got through this project and then rolled onto the spice cabinet. Sheesh, how long does anchovy paste keep??? I think it's keeps a long time...

Next up was the cabinet where I stash clean, empty, recycled jars. I like having a selection of different sizes and shapes and anything that a label will come off of easily is always near and dear to my heart. However...I cleaned out a whole grocery bag full and the cabinet still looks as full as before the purge.

I've attacked my freezer recently, but still was able to find a couple of things on their last legs -- some old odd bits of ice cream had to go -- ok, it was a good excuse to eat the last of La Lou's Black Mission Fig (La Lou is awesome stuff).

Handling all of my pantry treasurers gave rise to numerous thoughts like, "oh, I should make XYZ...look at this, it would be fun to make blah, blah, blah". And, then my mind starting spinning up the idea that while I'm cleaning out the closets, I could be also baking/roasting/drying/boiling/simmering all manner of things. After all, how long does it take to stir something once in awhile? So, yes, the closets are getting worked on, but I will be fitting in a few cooking projects. I promise a few pictures and still owe a picture for the watermelon popsicles I concoted last week. My darling SO (who is out of town right now and I'm missing tremendously) and I ate them the other night and declared them fine and dandy.

So, stay tuned for some food pics from the next couple of days!!

Food & Kisses, GiGi

Apalachicola...and an Order of Fries!

Back from a little getaway to Florida -- Tallahassee, to be exact where a sister-friend lives. I did take some good pics while I was away and ate some yummy foods so I'm here to share! Please excuse the picture quality. All the photos were taken with my Blackberry.

So...I flew down on Thursday night and Friday we spent the day running to various little haunts: a couple of yarn stores and some foodie-places.

First stop was to a yarn store --


Notice that this place looks "sketchy" -- in fact, it was smack dab in the middle of a whole crop of sketchy places. Chief among the dubious spots was the curiously named, "Papa Smokes". As we drove the maze of corrugated tin shops, many of the shop workers were lounging out in front of their respective establishments, all looking very happy and moving around rather s-l-o-w-l-y. I believe this to have something to do with the calming presence of the Papa Smokes shop.

Another one of our stops was the largest local Asian market with the interesting name of "Mike's Seafood". One great thing about Asian market is the wonderful and rather inexpensive dishes usually available. Mike's did not disappoint.
















After a full day of shopping, we girlies needed to put our feet up and enjoy a fermented beverage. And, while I would have been happy with just two glasses of wine, we had gotten an unbelievable deal on a great bottle of sparkling wine so we ended up opening that too and drinking it. All of this gave way to experiments with cookies:



To clarify, I'm neither wearing the cookie nor holding the cookies!











Then, came Saturday and our plan was to descend upon Apalachicola which is known for its oysters. My favorite spot is Boss Oyster (click here if you are ever in the area!).












I ordered my usual: a combination platter of a dozen different cooked oysters with four different toppings. I ordered the Captain Jack (cheddar cheese, jalapenos, and bacon), the Gouda-Gouda (smoked Gouda and caramelized onions), the Rockefeller I (spinach, parmesan cheese, and hollandaise sauce), and the Ala Artie (Provolone, artichoke hearts and crabmeat). I almost forgot to take a pic, but remembered before it was too late --




And, ah...the view from the back at Boss's --






On our way out of town, I did get one good picture of one of the shrimp boats --

So much fun!!!









Food & Kisses, GiGi

Food & Kisses, Uninterrupted

When M and I first started dishing about an endeavor together, we rather quickly came to liking the name, "Food & Kisses" -- it rang with overtones of the fun of making great food and being great friends. We've batted around all different ideas as to where our collective passion and talents would or could take us.

Last night we had scheduled to get together and work on different tomato recipes and it looked like finally all the planets were in alignment and we would be able to record our efforts. My thoughtful SO had lent his camera as I'm still in the throes of deciding which one to buy. The batteries were charged and I ran out at lunch time to get blank tapes and heirloom tomatoes.

On the way over, M discovered she had to run some extra errands and after a long day for both of us, the prospect of doing a big food "thing" seemed daunting.

BUT, the prospect of hanging out, drinking a little wine, chatting about food and maybe even watching some old Julia Child reruns seemed pretty appealing. Once our self-imposed pressure was removed, the passion and flow of playing in the kitchen returned and before we knew it, things were in full swing in my kitchen with M turning out two beautiful dishes (sorry, I can't disclose details right now).

I whipped out the camera and it seemed like it was recording. Unfortunately, I could not get the tape to play back -- I believe this to be operator error. Perhaps there is some footage to be salvaged...

While we were waiting for dinner to finish cooking, we watched Julia teach us about lobsters and then while dining, we laughed our way through the tripe episode (OMG, the hair!!!).

And, though not much was captured for posterity on film, it's captured in my mind as a special time in the kitchen with a wonderful friend. And, to me, this captures what Food & Kisses is at its heart. What an extraordinary Tuesday night it turned out to be!

Food & Kisses, GiGi

Of Sangria, Fried Green Tomatoes and Other Good Things

It may be Labor Day here in the U.S., but this girlie girl is not doing much labor today. This is what is known as a true day off for yours truly. Yesterday was a different story that included making quite a bit of food for nine people. My kitchen highlights included a substantial batch of potato salad, a fresh peach pie, succotash, and sangria.

The sangria was a last minute addition. The formula, created on the fly, involved several bottles of sweet, light wine -- we happened to have a Blush wine on hand that was combined with a small bottle of blackberry wine and a full sized bottle of apple wine. To that, a hefty dose of citrus-flavored vodka was added. I peeled and cut up several peaches to throw in the brew and then the final flourish was a big handful of frozen raspberries. Alternatively, I could have used apples, pears, any kind of berries. In any event, the entire batch was all gone...no leftovers!

Now, looking ahead, tomorrow night is a cooking night with M and we are working with tomatoes. I like what Julia Child said about tomatoes: "Summer miracles of sun and light, sweet soil, and gentle handling". I could pick anything to work on, but I'm finding myself unable to contemplate anything other than Fried Green Tomatoes. I sure hope that mine look like this:



I've been going back and forth in my mind all afternoon as to whether I'm going to bread the tomatoes with a mixture of flour plus cornmeal or panko bread crumbs...??? In the end, I remembered a lesson I've learned from my friend, Maryann: forget the word "or"...use "and" instead. So, as I sit here writing, my plan is to try the tomatoes both ways. Wish me luck -- remember it wasn't all that long ago that I had the cantaloupe soup disappointment, but I shall press on with my kitchen experiments!!

In thinking about making fried green tomatoes, the movie, "Fried Green Tomatoes" came to mind -- not exactly a food-oriented movie, but a good chick-flick in any event.

Kathy Bates and Jessic Tandy are both brilliant! Rent this oldie but goodie if you haven't seen it.




Now for a confession...I confess that I succombed and bought a Magic Bullet.




I've been missing having a blender when I'm cooking at my darling SO's house. It wasn't very expensive and I like the versatility if offers as well as its compactness. I tried it today by making a smoothie -- It worked pretty well although I do need to play with the proportions a bit. I know, I know, you might be thinking, "Geez, she bought another kitchen appliance?!?" Yes, I did, rationalizing it all the way!!!

Food & Kisses, GiGi

Ah...For the love of bake sales...

My first foray into baking something for a bake sale - occured this past Saturday when I volunteered to bake something for my son's football team. I have to say - I put my name in for this before I realized the following:

Saturday was going to be a very hot day

I had no chocolate chips in house - and was out of white flour & butter flavored crisco (which I tend to find makes for better cookies when you use it half and half with butter)

There was limited time...

It wasn't looking very promising - but nevertheless, after deciding helping my kid was more important than coveting one very large bar of toblerone chocolate that had recently been given to me - I decided to make cookies. Some version of chocolate chip cookies anyway...

I went to my Betty Crocker cookbook

or my tried and true - favorite recipe on page #51. This has been - as long as I've baked cookies anyway - my most consistent go to for no fail cookies. I've tried the Tollhouse version, and the Martha stewart, this does the trick - hands down. The book is so old (it was my first cookbook ever and I permanently borrowed it from my sister's house when I was 12) the pages are falling apart - but I love it.
Anyway - I bake the cookies, the Toblerone was a great addition - I also threw in pecans...so these were some gourmet cookies - considering they were all butter... and packed them up and brought them in.
Unfortunately, they didn't sell well - seems people prefer the frozen dough cookies and these looked too unfamiliar to be a hot ticket item...but it felt good to have made something & if I'm honest - I made a double recipe and so we did enjoy the spoils at home too :)
This got me thinking about the bake sale and the history of the bake sale...I guess this goes way back. I've always heard about fund raising bake sales and secretely wanted to participate in them as to me, it is an iconic part of American culture - and being Canadian - growing up, anything that was American, was definitely better. I remember watching reruns of "Leave it to Beaver", "The Walton's" and the "Brady Bunch" and there was always a mention of the mythical "bake sale". So, if I'm honest - to participate in this timeless tradition - made me feel...for lack of a better way to put it - very American.

Here's some information I found on how to run a successful bake sale-unfortunately there exists very little in terms of history about the "first bake sale" - which I would have enjoyed reading aobut...

but it's better than nothing: http://www.bigredkitchen.com/2008/10/how-to-run-bake-sale.html

As for the recipe for the cookies (including my modifications for this particular batch) here you go:

3/4	cup granulated sugar
3/4	cup packed brown sugar
1	cup butter or margarine, softened
1	egg
2 1/4	cups whole wheat flour
1	teaspoon baking soda
1/2	teaspoon salt
1	cup coarsely chopped pecans
1	cup of coarsely chopped Tobblerone milk chocolate and nougat bar

	Print these coupons...
	About Concordance™

1.	Heat oven to 375ºF.
2.	Mix sugars, butter and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff). Stir in nuts and chocolate chips.
3.	Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.
4.	Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft). Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.

Classic Cookbook Series: The Fannie Farmer Cookbook

When I was growing up, if there was a cooking dilemma posed in the kitchen, the answer was, "Check with Fannie" which meant to consult "The Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking School Cookbook".

Our gal, Fannie, was born in 1859 and published her first version of her book in 1896. The book was a departure from other cookbooks of the time in that the concepts of using standardized measuring spoons and cups as well as level measurement were introduced. In her personal life, Fannie suffered from ill-health and died at age 57. She is recognized in the culinary world as being synonymous with precision, organization and good food.

There are a number of editions, of course, but the one I've pictured is the one that had the last say in my childhood household (click here for purchasing info). And, the love for Fannie ran all through my family -- one of my cousins always travelled with a paperback copy of Fannie everywhere "just in case". I personally own four different editions and my 90 year old grandmother has an edition she acquired in the early years of her marriage.

Fannie has stood the test of time -- as I sit here writing this post, the current edition has a 4.5 star rating from 118 customer reviews on Amazon.com. In looking at some of the reviews, over and over, different reviewers mention the family-heirloom copies that are taped and battered.

I can't help but be sentimental about Fannie -- Amongst her gifts were birthday cakes, baking powder biscuits, blueberry pie, and clam chowder! Thank you, Fannie!!

Food & Kisses, GiGi

Cleaning Out the Fridge

Since today is the day I pick up my market share, I was a bit under the gun to get several items from last week made into something. I set aside last night to see what I could do about making space for today's new items.

The biggest space hog was a big, fat, juicy watermelon. I pureed it in my blender with a bit of lemon juice and half of it went into the ice cream maker to make a tasty sorbet:





But what about the rest of the puree? Probably more sorbet later on tonight.







Then, there was the matter of some tomatoes and peppers -- I remembered that I had a recipe for a Hungarian dish referred to as "lesco" so I made a batch of that:



This reminded me of sofrito but did not have garlic.












Lastly, I decided to harvest the rest of my basil and marjoram from my hanging planters. I was going to make pesto but the basil was looking a bit scraggly so I opted for flavored vinegars instead:




It will be fun to use these in salads!









I still have Japanese eggplant and some summer squash left...I wanted to make Baba Ghannoush but I think the eggplant will be too seedy. I also have a lot of fresh garlic and am thinking about Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic -- was looking around for a slow cooker version of that dish but so far, no luck.

And, I have a book recommendation: "My Life in France" by Julia Child (Click here for ordering info). It's largely about getting "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" written and published. One thing that blew me away was discovering how determined Julia was to get things right -- she reveals that she would personally test dishes ten to fifteen times!!! And, we are talking about some tricky stuff here. I've personally known a few cookbook writers and have not encounted this type of devotion before. Julia was truly a fascinating person -- quite ahead of her time! I was watching some of her old shows from the sixties earlier this week and in one episode she talks at length about knives. The information is completely relevant today!!

Enjoy! Food & Kisses, GiGi

Raw Spirit, Year 2

On Saturday, I attended the Raw Spirit Festival East -- This is a very hippiesh affair with a focus on raw and live foods. I went because I went last year in Sedona and had a great time, plus I bought the tickets back in January when the price was the lowest and also because there were some people I wanted to hear speak. The weather was looking iffy, but other than being warm, things worked out well.

I was excited to see that amongst the restaurant-vendors was a booth for Quintessence which hails from NYC and is a place I've wanted to visit for a long time. At least I was able to sample some of their food. In addition, when one chef didn't show for a demonstration, Chef Dan from Quintessence filled in at the last second and I was able to hear some of his story and the philosophy behind the restaurant.

I learned last year to hit the vendor area early as things sell out and was able to snap this pic:

This young man is hacking open young coconuts so that attendees can drink the yummy coconut water inside. This liquid is said to be very pure and is also used as an IV fluid in some developing countries where medical saline is unavailable. The line to get the coconuts was pretty long so I skipped on this -- also, every once in awhile, I go on a young coconut jag at home and I just recently finished up a bunch.

I attended a number of food preparation demonstrations during the day and one very lovely suprise was the demonstration given by a woman named Linda Carter whose name I didn't recognize. In addition, the program reflected that she was demonstrating apple cake. All of that sounded pretty ho-hum, but it was pretty hot and sticky by that time and I wanted to sit in the cool air conditioned area of the food demo room. Linda turned out to be great -- funny and laid back. I got a picture of her doing her thing:


Linda is the gal in the aqua dress and head scarf scraping out the bowl of her food processor. She has lost 100 pounds and is no longer an insulin-dependent diabetic due to her change in diet. Not only was she very entertaining, but the apple cake was pretty good too.

Now, to go off topic for a moment: I love butterflies. At one point during the day, I was walking back to the food demo area, and this guy was hanging out waiting to have his pic taken:

Gorgeous!!!







I'm sure regular readers of this blog can guess how this day ended for me: After enjoying quite a bit of raw vegan food during the day, I went home and ate ribs!

Food & Kisses, GiGi