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ladyhistorypod · 4 years

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Episode 5: Is a Woman’s Place Really in the Kitchen?

Sources:

Amelia Simmons

The Atlantic

Connecticut History

Michigan State University Libraries

Smithsonian Magazine

Further Viewing: Amelia Simmons’ Thanksgiving Dinner – YouTube

Buwei Yang Chao

“Chinese linguist, phonologist, composer and author: oral history transcript / and related material, 1974-1977”

Chowhound

Brown University

Brown University (YouTube)

Open Recipes Openly Arrived At: Mrs Chao’s How to Cook and Eat in Chinese (1945) and the Translation of Chinese Food

Chow Chop Suey: Food and Chinese American Journey (book by Anne Mendleson)

New York Times

Mary Mallon

Annals of Gastroenterology

History Channel

National Geographic

Smithsonian Magazine

Discover Magazine

Attributions:

Drum Roll

Stove Clicks

Food Vectors

Click below for a full text transcript of the episode!

Alana: I hit my step count for the first time in quarantine today because I was walking all up and down northwest Washington DC looking for brisket five days before Rosh Hashanah. By the time this comes out we’ll be well past Rosh Hashanah, we’ll be like into Yom Kippur kind of area.

Lexi: Yeah. We will.

Alana: But oh my god. I'm so tired. I'm not used to doing that much walking… but… all over… But I found one! I found one.

Lexi: Where’d you find it?

Alana: Trader Joe’s.

Lexi: Of course!

Alana: Trader Joe's, man. I looked at the farmer’s market but they were sold out and that was really sad because obviously…

Lexi: People probably preordered to the farmer’s market.

Alana: That's the thing I only thought about it like Thursday, and the preorders needed to be in by Wednesday.

Lexi: Ooooh.

Alana: So… walking all around northwest Washington. I checked the farmer’s market stand to be like oh maybe they brought extra and I went early like I get there at 10:30 now and they were sold out.

Haley: It’s kind of like Thanksgiving for it, like where you have to preorder your turkey or ham. And I'm kind of terrified for that moment because I'm hosting Thanksgiving. But I need like an eight to ten pound turkey, nothing like– I’ve seen thirty pound turkeys when I was researching this. Like how big is a brisket?

Alana: It depends. The brisket that I got was three pounds. Three point one pounds.

Haley: And that's it for you or for like others?

Alana: It's for me and for my extended quarantine household. Shout out to Maureen and Paul, I don't know if they're listening to this episode but they said they were gonna listen to the first two, so…

Lexi: But you can make a lot of brisket if you want to.

Alana: Oh yeah, I'm gonna make all of it. It reheats really well.

[INTRO MUSIC]

Alana: Hello and welcome to Lady History; the good the bad and the ugly ladies you missed in history class. I'm in the virtual studio with my spice wife Lexi. Lexi, do you want to explain how we got spice married?

Lexi: Well for one we're both really spicy people, um, so that's got to be the first reason. When you put two spicy people together equals a spicy marriage. But no what happened was I was moving out of DC and I had a collection of spices because I love spices and I needed someone to take my spices so Alana took them. And then the other day Alana was cooking and talking about all the spices she uses and it happened to be a combination of the spices from both spice cabinets so it was a spice marriage.

Alana: We shared our spice assets.

Lexi: And hopefully someday we will live together, and our spices can stay together forever.

Alana: Someday.

Lexi: Or they'll expire. But spices last a long time.

Alana: Spices last a while. Also here, “here” in air quotes is Haley. Haley, do you have a favorite dish to cook?

Haley: I love making anything with mashed potatoes. I really like find it just calming to peel potatoes and then chop them up and then watch them boil. I like those like specific steps I can go through.

Alana: I’m inviting you to help me make latkes because that's the worst part. This has been a very Alana is Jewish episode already but I'm inviting you to make latkes with me so that you can peel all the potatoes because I hate doing that.

Haley: I've never had a latke before so I don't know how much help I’ll be.

Alana: Didn’t you live in New York?

Haley: Latkes have eggs. I've never had a latke sans eggs, so.

Alana: I’ll find a way. For you I will find a way to make latkes sans eggs. And I'm Alana and my friends call me a Trader Ho because I grocery shop almost exclusively at Trader Joe's.

(Haley laughing)

Lexi: Which friends are that?

Alana: My internet friends. My sunshines.

Haley: I was like… we don't call you that. You have other friends?

Lexi: You have friends that aren’t us?

Lexi: Okay so the theme today is cooking and because of this theme I would like to dedicate this episode to my great grandmother Eleanor Delucia, who we called Nana most of us call Nana. But the reason I would like to dedicate it to her is because she spent a hundred years of life cooking and living through history and so I think it's very fitting that this episode would be dedicated to her. And because of that I want to ask you guys if there's any family recipes that are weird or unique to your family.

Alana: Yes I do have a very special recipe, actually I have a couple, from my Grandma Louise. I recently started– oh my god Alana’s going to be Jewish on main again– I started making challah every week from scratch and I'm using my grandmother's recipe that is so incredibly complicated. And like you– you have to boil water, but you can't boil water too much, like it has to be exactly 110 degrees when you use it. And then you have to rise the bread– like rise the dough at exactly 90 degrees, and it's so complicated and so I've started using that recipe and I'm crushing it. I’m crushing it. It was my first time making challah by myself and I used this recipe that was super complicated and I nailed it. I nailed it. And then the other one is, I started making a potato zucchini soup and– like when I was a teenager. And I made it for my grandparents at their house once and my grandmother was like “you know what would give this a really beautiful green color is if you left–” like you peel the zucchini but if you leave the peel in the bowl– not in the bowl, in the pot while all of the vegetables are cooking together, the soup will be more green. And it'll be like– the color will be more pronounced and– oh my god, she was so right. And so now that's like how I make it. So those are my fun family stories.

Lexi: That's so beautiful.

Haley: I don't think we have like a distinct recipe or sets of recipes. We will cook Cuban or Persian food. And I've noticed with my mom and myself since we're both like lazy, lazy beans, we’ll take the complicated recipe, like Alana was saying, with all the ingredients, all the different measurements, what you have it, and just make it into a Crockpot friendly, or like one pot friendly recipe, versus making it a three hour long process. Because so many times I’m like I really want Persian food and it wasn't until a few months ago where a Persian restaurant opened down the street from me. And every time I open like one of my marked Pinterest tabs it would be like eight to ten different ingredients that I could not get at my local supermarket. And then thirty plus steps, culminating into three to four hours of cooking, which I just do not have, especially writing a thesis at the moment.

Lexi: I think for my family it's a dessert heavy situation, like on both sides. My mom's family has these German rollout cookies that we make for Christmas, sometimes other holidays– we made little George Washingtons for my graduation party, which was cute, but they're just flat cookies. And then on my Italian family’s side, the thing that we do at weddings as we have a table where all the aunties bring cookies and then it's like a place of privilege or pride to be the best auntie with the best cookies for the wedding, which is really cute. So I think cookies are a big deal in my family.

Alana: Cookies are– are a big deal in my family too, and I find it– like, my grandmother died three years ago… just over three years ago– and I find like, making cookies so spiritual. That I'm like this is something that we used to do together. It's one of my favorite pictures of like little baby Alana and Grandma Louise and she's teaching me how to use a cookie cutter and it’s so cute.

Haley: Okay I have to amend mine because we've brought up desserts. Like I just said probably five minutes ago I'm real allergic to eggs so my Christmas like cookies all egg free, or like before we could do the– the substitutes were oreos like dipped in chocolate. But my birthday cake was a homemade Rice Krispies treat like cake. My mom would just make like a ginormous one and like decorate it. So all my– just because like what were you gonna do with a child that couldn’t eat her own birthday cake? That's just sad and depressing. So my mom basically was like we're gonna have a Rice Krispy treat or we're going to have ice cream cake. So that– I guess that is heavily unique for my family.

Lexi: So cookbooks emerged as a status symbol, and in 15th and 16th century Europe, cookbooks were filled with recipes from palaces and courts and they were favored by kings and queens. And the wealthy loyal followers acquired these cookbooks as a sign of their devotion, eating like royalty… it brought them closer to being royalty. Gradually, as access to print books became more common and literacy rates rose, cookbooks became a staple in households all around Europe. But one cookbook in particular changed the way a nation ate. And that’s the cookbook we're gonna talk about today. In the year 1796, Amelia Simmons wrote the United States of America's first ever cookbook. In doing so, she forever changed cookbooks, shaping a future in which cookbooks were used by people from all walks of life. Amelia’s book was called “American Cookery, or, The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables.”

Alana: Can you spell that?

Lexi: V-I-A-N-D-S.

Alana: I hate French.

Lexi: It was published by Hudson and Goodwin in Hartford, Connecticut. While it was not the first cookbook printed in America, it was the first one written by an American. It was a unique cookbook. It was distinguished from its British counterparts for its attention to more practical methods of cooking and it provided recipes that can make large quantities of food for families on tight budgets. When I say large quantities, I mean the ingredients were prepared in huge, huge quantities. One of her cake recipes called for two pounds of butter. Amelia also believed in saving time, and one of her recipes called for the person making the recipe to milk a cow directly into the mixture. Amelia's cookbook resonated so successfully with America's home cooks that it was reprinted for thirty five years after its initial publication. Amelia's recipes may not be as commonplace in American households as they were during her lifetime, but they are a great resource for analyzing and understanding how food and language are related in history. Some of them you use terms became commonplace in American language such as calling pancakes slapjacks, referring to lard and butter as shortening, coining the Americanization of the Dutch word “Koekje”– I might have said that wrong– which would eventually become the word “cookie.” She actually spelled it like C-O-O-K-Y not I-E like we spell it today. Her legacy continues in her home state of Connecticut, where her recipe for “Election Cake”– a floury bread cake baked in large quantities– became a common after-voting snack for Connecticut's residents and remains relevant today. Plus, Amelia’s recipes let historical chefs recreate and taste recipes, experiencing the history of America through the flavor of food people the past preferred. And, so I guess in summary, Amelia kind of started the whole trend of American cookbook culture. She established the means by which American women make their food– and American people in general I guess not just women– but at the time she definitely was writing as a woman for other women because the recipes were so practical and focused on how a mother might cook for their kids or wife might cook for their husband or how you might cook for a family so definitely she was a woman writing for women but I really think it’s an interesting and fascinating story that she created the first cookbook, and it was a woman who did it, and that's really really cool.

Alana: I like how you said like cookbooks were status symbols and I'm thinking about cleaning out my grandmother's kitchen and there were just like cabinets full of cookbooks and I'm like oh, hello, yes, I am the aristocracy.

Haley: I actually have a question about the cookbooks, Lex, cuz I couldn’t find this in my research. But could you find like what constitutes as a long time for being an in-print cookbook.

Lexi: So, nothing I read said like thirty five– because because thirty five years was how long hers was printed for.

Haley: Right.

Lexi: Nothing said that that was the longest or that that was normal. It was notable but it wasn't a record. So…

Haley: Right.

Lexi: You know. I don't know exactly how long recipes last, but when you think about how trends change so much and how we don’t really eat things today that my grandma used to cook at dinner parties in the seventies. I'm sure cookbooks don't last that long and when we think about Amelia's methods and then we think about what people ate even in the mid-1800s it was totally different already, so even fifty sixty years later so. Yeah.

Haley: That’s the exact train of thought I was using because I've noticed when I was just researching different women to see who I wanted to dive into, a lot of the cookbooks if they weren’t out for those like thirty year chunks, it was revisions. Every few years here's a revised copy. And that's like a thing in our academic world as well where new trends happen, new events happen. And recipes and also just work needs to be updated. So I like that like the thirty years but also that she's just still relevant.

Lexi: Yeah. So we don't know that much about her. Like, all we know is that she was an orphan and that's literally it. We don't know about her personal life, we just know that she wrote this book. There's no other records of her in any way. Yeah, and there's actually a Youtuber I'd like to shout out named I believe it's Townsend's I think that's how you say it– it's like the word “town” and the word “end”– who does these recipes that Amelia put in the book. And he does other historical recipes too, and other historical videos but if you want to see an entire playlist of Amelia's Thanksgiving dinner recipes check out that channel.

Haley: Well that's a great segue into my gal because we're gonna keep going on the cookbook train and also kind of I want to say revolutionizing the American kitchen, in a sense, but we're going to do with Chinese food now. Not necessarily like the American food, which I got from Amelia, sensing it’s more of a not necessarily British take but American classics.

Lexi: Establishing American classics.

Haley: There we go. Yep, that's awesome. So I'm going to preface this, I calling–

Lexi: Something I forgot to say on that, she used like corn and stuff which was not available in Britain so…

Haley: Oh, I love that. That's. So good for what I'm gonna be talking about. So she is Dr. Buwei Yang Chao. And I'm gonna do a little side note: I’m not going to be pronouncing these Chinese words, phrases, whatchahaveits, correctly because I do not speak Chinese. And yes, you heard it, Doctor. But don't worry we'll get into that. Born in 1889 in Nanjing, China Buwei was a Chinese-American physician and writer but most recognizable as a person who brought us, as Americans, potstickers, stir fry, and essentially the first cookbook of Chinese-American food. Before we begin, I just want to go over what potstickers are because I didn't know what potstickers were and I'll get into that more but potstickers are type of Chinese dumpling usually with a crescent shape, pan fried on one side, simmered in some sort of broth. And full disclosure part of the reason why I didn't know what potstickers were because I've only had them from Trader Joe's. I.E. that whole egg thing coming back in. So back to Dr. Buwei. As a female doctor in China, she did have a Japanese training as a surgeon and gynecologist and she actually pioneered the use of birth control for women in China which blew my mind. I was reading like a New York Times article and got into a whole wormhole of this doctor’s just life and bam, coming out with pioneering in birth control and medicine of that nature. And she definitely had a mix of Chinese medicine and then also like Western school medicine because a lot of the Western schools were in Asia so she got the mix of both. And she was credited with that sense of bringing Western medicine to China as one of like the first females to do it. And a lot of the time, her medical like knowledge was noted as quote “new style” and also as a side note I believe that in her entry exam essay it was about women's education, which I thought was really cool. Like how educating women was a good and powerful thing. And I only found that only one article so it might not be true, but I'm praying that it is true because I was just so baller to go into med school with your entry essay being about women's education and like the right that women have to be educated at such a professional level. So why did I bring this all up, because come on Haley we're here to talk about food. Well, while she was in Japan and studying at Tokyo Women's Medical College, she started cooking her own meals because she didn't enjoy the Japanese cuisine. It just didn't sit right with her. Totally different, she wanted the comfort of home and since Japan didn't have–

Alana: Raw fish? I’m with her. I’m with her. I don’t do the raw fish.

Haley: Exactly. Like if we went to Italy and for me, the eggs in all those pastas, I would be going out, buying my own pasta, making my own carbonara, sans eggs. Totally natural. But Japan, kind of like what Lexi was getting to, Japan didn’t have all the traditional ingredients, so she would modify her traditional Chinese recipes to fit in with what she could get from the Japanese markets. And when she returned to China in 1919, she opened the Sen Ren Hospital, and after a few more years, marriage, blossoming career, she was offered to teach at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Thus we get into her time in the U.S. And her and her husband like there are a couple of years where they go back and forth teaching, practicing medicine, living their life. So when she was writing or just before she was writing her first cookbook which is “How to Cook and Eat in Chinese” and that came out in 1945. She would try and test out her food. This was also often in the U. S. so with ingredients that her readers would have, and she added these elements to her everyday cooking. So this wasn't like “I'm going to write this cookbook for people to buy it and make money off of it but not use it myself.” She fully invested, saying “look, if I'm gonna produce something for people to read, I have to use it in my everyday cooking. I have to live by this.” which I really respect. So in a history perspective, 1945 was the tail end of World War II, and for writing cookbooks– writing cookbooks takes years to do. If you saw the movie “Julie and Julia” you kind of get a glimpse of that, where you first write about the outline, what you want to cook. You want to have appetizers, mains, and desserts. And then you get it to the publisher, they say “cool, do these work?” You test and test and test, just years and years and honestly I could be totally getting this timeline wrong. This is just my preliminary knowledge. So 1940s, we’re in World War II, it was also a difficult time for cooking and food in general in the United States because not just having the native Chinese cultural food that she was used to, and now she had to supplement in the U. S., they’re are also going through food shortages and kind of restrictions from food stamps and just what was available during World War II. So she really used some innovative and creative thinking when writing this masterpiece of hers. And a lot of it also came from, just the New York World's Fair happened in 1939, and I don't think this had a direct impact on her writing the cookbook but I think it had an impact on her selling a cookbook and becoming like this wide sensation because that World's Fair was about showcasing food from around the world and pushing having new cuisine in US culture. And then a few years later, we have this cookbook about Chinese food. And on overall note, Buwei’s cookbook was not the first Chinese cookbook in the U. S. in terms of being published in English, but it was more the first that was universally understood in the sense of getting the food, understanding the writing and measurements, it was very comprehensive and accessible to a wide audience. This OG cookbook in 1945 “How to Cook and Eat in Chinese” also had expanded editions in 1949, 1956, and 1968. So what I was asking Lexi before, she kind of kept up with the words, terms, recipes, and just… I tried to find some of the cookbooks but all of them are out of print at this point. Regardless, it brought new terms and techniques to US kitchens and over two hundred different recipes which included terms, ingredients, techniques, tools, but also like etiquette. So how to use chopsticks, what are the polite ways you should be eating dumplings vs fried rice; which I thought was really cool, and I tried to look through like the two cookbooks I had in my apartment and I couldn't find anything where it was like “here's the etiquette you should use.” Granted, they were more US based cookbooks, it wasn't one targeted for a certain cuisine. And she also acknowledged the help from her husband and daughter, Rulan. She would cook and her daughter would write down in English, usually translated from Chinese to English. So if I may dazzle you with a quote from– I believe this is from The New York Times– and also just culmination of an audio source that I found. It was like an interview and I saw– there's just so many, so many things of her using like this quote and a mo– mashup of this quote: “I am ashamed to have written this book. First, because I am a doctor and ought to be practicing instead of cooking. Secondly, because I didn’t write this book. The way I didn’t was like this. I speak little English and write less. So I cooked my dishes in Chinese, my daughter Rulan put my Chinese into English.” And this quote has so many variations, but it's basically saying that she can't take full credit because she was still a doctor, she couldn't necessarily write in English the way that US publications wanted her to, and she needed a lot of help, which is so fair for any cookbook or any writing source. And I just thought that was amazing. Like I kept finding clips and even when people were kind of telling her story years later, we're saying like she was ashamed to like have written this cookbook and taken away from her medical studies. But also values how great of an impact this cookbook had on the U.S. Now you know how I said that she coined the term stir fry and potstickers. Well it's because “cha’ao” and “guotie”– again, we don't speak Chinese, please don't come after me– really didn't have English translations. Like the term Chinese food is really just like a US word. It's not something that's used in China. You can't– you won't go to China and just be like “I want the Chinese food. I'm going to Chinese food restaurant it's because the way Chinese food is broken up in China is regionally so they they don't group it up as one whole country as we do and how someone of this cookbook does it's very specific to where you are in China and it's not a representation of the country as a whole like unit but for this cookbook and us as Americans we just say Chinese food and that's again coming back to what is available in each region so for the US and for this cookbook this is what's available in the U. S. not what's in available in northern versus southern China and there are a ton of other words that were in this book that didn't even stick in our English macular so like that's what is really interesting trying to find a copy but alas I couldn't find one online because I feel like if we re read this we wouldn't understand as shafts not just like with the vernacular but just the way it was written and the way some of the food kind of was presented she also just to wrap everything up she wrote two more books afterwards of how to order in each Chinese and then another autobiography called an autobiography of Chinese women put into English by her husband your friend child so she still just fantastic amazing woman like this blew my mind especially being in San Francisco that's my story of Dr. Buwei.

Alana: So I am going to be talking about Mary Mallon, and there has been a lot of talk about her recently and we'll get to why she's been in the news. So she was born on September 23rd, which is my mom's birthday and also yesterday on the day this comes out, in 1869 in a poor area of Ireland called the Cookstown in County Tyrone. And I am like a little bit familiar with Irish geography, like I know the names of some counties in the Republic of Ireland. Like we've talked about County Mayo, we talked about County Cork, County Kildare, if you know it then you know it. And I was like I've never heard of County Tyrone and I know there are like twenty-eight counties in the Republic of Ireland but– so I was curious, I was like where is that. It's actually in Northern Ireland so it's technically in the U.K. So Mary Mallon immigrated to New York City as a teenager in 1883 or 1884, about then. And she starts working as a cook, around the turn of the twentieth century and she is famous for her peach ice cream. In 1906, she was hired as a chef for the family of Charles Warren, who was a banker in 1906 so they have cash cash. And they go on vacation in Oyster Bay and Mary comes with them to be their chef. Several members of the Warren family contract typhoid over those couple weeks. And typhoid is considered at the time a poor people's disease, because you contract it mostly from contaminated water. Imagine thinking that like, only rich people deserve clean water. Like call me a socialist, but I really think that everyone should have access to clean water. And Warren’s landlord is concerned about being able to rent the property the next summer because there was this outbreak. And so he has hired a sanitation engineer named George Soper, and he's been an expert in tracing the outbreaks, and he tests all the pipes, and he tests everything. There's nothing. So he focuses on Mary. Turns out, several other families that Mary had worked for have also had typhoid outbreaks. And this is where, listeners if you haven't guessed, Mary Mallon becomes… Lexi put in a drum roll here please…

(Drum roll)

Speaker 1: Typhoid Mary. I can see Haley like laughing in her Zoom but they’re on mute so that's fun. So George Soper goes after her. Asks for samples of everything and she chases him out of her kitchen with a fork. Like a– like a barbecue, two pronged fork. Not like a… like a dinner fork.

Lexi: I have a tiny fork are you scared of me?

Alana: Like a FORK. So he returns with cops to have her arrested. And Mary hides under a floor board, but some of her dress is caught. And so they find her, and they arrest her and they force her into quarantine for three years on North Brother Island, which is a quarantine facility– a little dot of an island in the East River near the Bronx. She is tested up and down for typhoid and they all come back positive for salmonella typhi, which is the bacteria that causes typhoid. But she has no symptoms. She's the picture of health. She is released in 1910 on the condition to never cook again. In 1915, there is a typhoid outbreak at Sloan Maternity Hospital in Manhattan. And the health department is called, and the hospital is just like how– like, we’re a hospital, everything is so sanitary, how did this happen? And the health department says who… who's doing your cooking? And the nurse– the nurses are just like “oh, this lovely Irish immigrant. Her name is Mary Brown.” She had changed her name to keep working as a cook. And that sounds kind of like irresponsible, but what else could she do? She had no other skills, she's not married, she originally immigrated with her aunt and uncle but they've died, and she's an Irish immigrant during a time of very high anti-Irish sentiments. She really didn't have another choice. But they catch her, and they forced her back into quarantine for the rest of her life. They’re… say that she could have had a gallbladder removal surgery and they would have let her go, but she didn't want it. And I was like why wouldn’t she want it? But also, the doctors imprisoned her, essentially. And she even referred to herself in a letter to her lawyer as “the kidnapped woman”. So I do kind of understand why she'd say no. And then she died in 1938 of a stroke. And only nine people attended her funeral, which– this is another like Alana’s Jewish kind of thing but I'm like “that's not even a Minyan how are you going to do anything??” Lexi is rolling her eyes at me. But in pop culture she is demonized, she's the butt of jokes and cartoons. But there are other asymptomatic carriers at this point, all over the country and even in New York. So I think she is demonized particularly because she's a woman, particularly because she is unmarried, and particularly because she's an Irish immigrant at a time of anti-Irish-ism. I don't know if that's a word. But she's been in the news recently. A lot of my sources are from like June. People talking about Typhoid Mary because… talking about asymptomatic carriers and being super spreaders.

Lexi: I think that's so fascinating how people are tying her story into our current situation.

Lexi: You can find this podcast on Twitter and Instagram at leading history pond our show notes and a transcript of this episode will be on lady history pot dot tumblr dot com if you like the show leave us a review or tell your friends and if you don't like the show keep yourself our logo is by Alexia Ibarra you can find her on Instagram and Twitter at LexiBDraws. Our theme music is by me garage band and Amelia Earhart; Lexi is doing the editing. You will not see us, and we will not see you, but you will hear us, next time, on Lady History.

Haley: Next week on Lady History, we're talking about our suffragists. Women's right to vote and remember everyone, register to vote please and thank you.

[OUTRO MUSIC]

Haley: I really don't understand eggs on a fundamental level.

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wonderfreakingwoman · 5 years

Text

So this is my @wondertrevnet secret Santa gift for @let-zygons-be-bygones. I hope you had an amazing Christmas/holiday, and wishing you a very happy and healthy 2019!

18:03. The last work email has been sent and the holidays can officially begin.

She packs away her laptop, puts her coat on, and turns the lights off in her office for the last time this year. The keys rattle against each other as she locks up, and the undisturbed sound of her heels hitting the marble floor as she makes her way through the tall hallway is an indication that she is one of the last to leave the museum.

The warm glow from the Louvre welcomes her as she steps out into the cold Parisian air. Traffic is normal for the city, but it’s quiet out. The courtyard is without crowds of tourists, with the exception of the occasional passer-by, and it’s not until she rounds the corner onto a main street that she begins to pass the last-minute shoppers and those heading home for the night.

Before she joins the rush-hour crowd, she makes her way to one of her favourite patisseries. Each couple she spots makes her walk that little bit faster, reminding her of what waits for her at home.

She picks up a box of macarons and a raspberry tartelette from the owner’s daughter who always makes sure to leave one aside for her every Friday. She asks how the girl’s mother and sister are doing, and how her course is going, quickly learning about a class Christmas party that’s happening in one of the local bars tonight to celebrate the end of her exams.

“And is the Paul I hear so much about going to be there?”

“Incroyable,” she hears the girl swear under her breath as a small blush covers her cheeks, “my mother and her loose lips.” They both laugh.

“She means well.”

“I know. She keeps asking me when she’ll get to meet him, as if we’re together or something,” she tells her as she rings her up on the till. “Although, he’s not the only man she keeps asking about.”

“Oh?”

“She’s starting to miss that charming Captain of yours. Told me to stop selling you his favourite dessert so that he’d have to come in himself to get it.”

“I’ll tell him you said that.” She can’t help but laugh at the idea.

They say goodnight and it’s not long before she’s stepping into the elevator to the apartment with the bag of delicious pastries in hand.

As she clears the entrance to her- their- apartment, she has to remind herself, her eyes find him in the kitchen, his back to her as he wipes his fingers on the towel hanging over his shoulder. He mustn’t have heard her come in over the music playing through the speakers, and it makes her smile at the image of him humming along as he prepared dinner for them, taking a sip of red while he worked.

“Smells delicious in here.” She says as she walks to the open kitchen, setting the desserts from the bakery on the counter and greets him with a kiss.

“Let’s hope it tastes just as good.”

Ever since their trip to Italy towards the end of summer he’s been trying to recreate their favourite meals, and by the looks of it it’s one of his tonight, the fettuccine al pomodoro. The only reason she knows that’s it is because he near damn fell in love with it when they did a cooking class in Bologna and ordered it two nights in a row afterwards.

He grabs her a wine glass from the cabinet and pours her one to join him, handing it to her.

“Thank you.” She lifts the glass to her lips and takes a sip.

“May I?” she asks, grabbing a hold of the spoon with her free hand to taste the tomato sauce simmering in the pot. She must admit that she took quite the liking to pasta herself after travelling the country, and at this stage he’s done an impressive job at making the recipes from scratch.

She turns around to ask him if any of the league members had gotten back to him about getting together over the holidays when she finds him holding the tart and a bite taken out of it.

“Mmmm,” he moans around a mouthful of raspberry and filling.

“How you can eat that before dinner, I’ll never understand.”

“There’s fruit on it. Think of it as an appetiser.” He takes another giant bite, practically devouring the tart.

She sets her wine glass down on the kitchen counter next to her, smiling at the small mess left on his face and steps closer to him. “That’s not how it works.”

He wraps an arm around her waist as she does, “People have fruit salads sometimes before dinner. Who’s to say these things aren’t just a fancier, more delicious version of that.” He says as she gently wipes away the bit of powdered sugar on his nose and cheek with her thumb.

“Nice try.” She kisses the corner of his mouth, getting a taste of the sweet cream filling and a hint of raspberry. He wasn’t wrong about it tasting delicious.

He quickly chases her lips before she pulls away, kissing her twice before he straightens, a small smile on his face as his eyes meet hers. “I don’t think I’d forgive myself if I ate two desserts after dinner, so by spreading it out it doesn’t feel so bad.”

“Bold of you to assume I was going to share.”

“I’m sure I could convince you somehow.” He wiggles his hips against hers playfully when he sees her begin to smile at him.

He was right in saying that she couldn’t say no to him. After dinner they moved over to the couch, setting their glasses on the small table in front of them and the box of macarons between them. They half-paid attention to whatever was on tv as they nibbled on the pastries, talking about making plans to return to the States to celebrate Arthur’s birthday at the end of January, and an upcoming fundraising ball for her work in Paris before that, to less extravagant things like what they were going to do tomorrow.

As they’re cleaning up their small mess, readying to call it a night, the empty macaron box reminds her to tell Steve what the baker’s daughter had said to her earlier on her way home.

“I found out I have some competition this evening.” She lifts her brow as her eyes light up with humour, the corners of her mouth beginning to turn up when she meets his gaze.

“Oh really? What for?”

“Mrs Barteau’s daughter, Pauline, told me she’s not allowed to sell me anymore tarts until they see you in the flesh. Seems her mother misses a certain charming American.” She tells him as she walks over to the bin, the sound of his laughter loud enough to be heard across the room.

“Maybe I need to start going someplace else,” her head tilts to the side, smiling at him as she turns back and leans against the edge of the counter to wait for him.

“Maybe.”

She watches his free hand scratch at the stubble along his jawline as he walks over, while the other holds the two empty glasses. She likes the scruff on him, missed it on him. It suits him well. He’s been talking about growing it out, so it’ll be interesting to see what that feels like when he’s-.

“Call me crazy but I don’t think Amandine’s sudden interest in art restoration is to impress me.”

He’s caught Pauline’s older sister throwing in an extra few macarons for Diana whenever they’ve stopped by the shop, or the quick up and down glances when she thinks no one’s watching. He’s pretty confident Diana knows this, but he can’t be sure since she doesn’t act any different towards her than that of her sister.

“I’ve no idea what you’re referring to.” She tries to act indifferent, but her eyes give her away. He doesn’t need to borrow the lasso of Hestia to know she’s lying. She knows exactly what he means, and that makes him smile even more.

Neither say anything more about the matter, but left feeling awake from the light-heartedness of their conversation. She watches him quickly rinse the glasses in the sink across from her, how the muscles in his back move through the thin shirt material as he works.

It amazes her how often her mind wanders to him. She thinks about him when she’s at work, particularly when those meetings go on far longer than they should. She thinks about him at night when she can’t get to sleep, when the bed feels too big because he’s had to go away for work and the smell of him surrounds her when she wears one of his shirts. But it’s not just when they’re separated. He could be doing the most mundane thing in the world and she’d find herself thinking about all the different ways she loves this man.

Two days ago, they were brushing their teeth, his hair was wild from sleep, making him look almost boyish in his navy blue plaid pyjama pants and white t-shirt. It wasn’t hard to imagine what Steve was like a child once upon a time.

Before that she found him asleep on the couch with a book in his lap, his head resting on the top of the couch cushion. He had tried waiting up for her that night when the world called for Wonder Woman’s help, and when she returned she found the tv on one of the news stations, muted.

“Let’s go to bed, Love.” She whispered as she leaned over him from behind the couch, pushing his hair back from his face as he woke.

Before she could straighten, he pulled her down to him so he could press his lips against hers quickly, “Glad you’re home.”

“Me too.”

She pushes herself away from the kitchen counter, suddenly wanting to be close to him.

“Thank you for dinner, by the way. You’re too good to me.”

When he turns, she raises her hand to his cheek, the facial hair tickling her skin as she follows the strong line of his jaw with her fingers, just as he had moments ago. She feels his hand on her waist, his thumb playing with the bit of exposed skin on the same side her arm lifted.

“It’s my pleasure.” He says as he tucks a strand of hair that had escaped her loose bun behind her ear.

“Tomorrow, I want to cook for you. I’m also thinking we sleep-in in the morning.” It’s been a while since they’ve spent the day in bed, and she knows it’s one of his favourite things to do. He tries his best to convince her to stay a little longer every morning before work, but she rarely gives in, and because she wakes so early it doesn’t take much negotiating before he’s hugging her pillow to his chest and falling back asleep.

“I’ll hold you to that, you know.”

“I don’t doubt you will.”

A moment passes, and he glances at her lips. Before she knows what’s happening she can feel his hands slide down behind her legs through her leather pants and is she’s being lifted.

“Come on, let’s get to bed.” He tells her as he heads in the direction of their bedroom, and she can feel his breath on her neck from the sudden closeness. His stubble tickles her skin when he places a trail of kisses along the side of her neck, and it instantly reminds her of the other night.

He trailed his mouth down her chest, kissing every inch of skin as his hands roamed her body. He soon continued the same attention along her navel, over her hip, until his mouth is closing around her, working her up slowly and deliberately until she’s clutching the sheets and her body is arching off the mattress. The insides of her thighs were left feeling slightly sensitive the following morning but it was so damn worth it.

Desire licks her blood, warmth instantly spreading throughout her body at the memory. She trails a hand up through the ends of his hair at the base of his neck, unable to resist touching him more, and shifts against him to hug his waist with her legs for better leverage.

“Steve,” she says, her voice sounding low and breathless when his teeth graze over her pulse point and sucks on her skin.

She turns her face in search of his mouth and he kisses her. Her lips part against his and Steve wastes no time in deepening the kiss.

He pushes her back against the wall in the hallway that leads to their room, pausing momentarily to adjust his grip as he sets her down near the edge of the wooden table, and she can’t help but gasp against his mouth. She feels his hips push into her, and she digs her fingers into his shoulders.

The table could work, but maybe for another time, she thinks. Right now she wants to feel every inch of him against her.

“Bed,” she breathes against his mouth, and he immediately bends slightly to slide his hands back down her thighs and picks her up, wrapping her long legs around his waist once again.

Once they’re in their room, he lays her gently on the mattress and continues to kiss her. His hands slide underneath her jumper, caressing the soft skin until he makes his way around her sides, and up her back where he unclasps her bra. While he does that, she begins to work on his belt’s buckle and pulls it from around his waist where it eventually ends up on the floor.

He wants to take his time with her, to love her. For the next two weeks they will not be disturbed, they have no real obligations for the next few days, and the thought of having her all to himself reminds him to slow down.

Their kisses become less hungry and more tender, their touches turn softer and slower. Time is on their side, and unlike the first night they shared in Veld, they have plenty of it.

For one night, they could only enjoy the snow and each other before the war reared its ugly head at them and destroyed everything in its path. Now, a century later, they have everything to look forward to and can hide from the world as they get lost in each other.

#wondertrevsecretsanta #wondertrev #fanfiction #wtss18

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twiststreet · 5 years

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Progresso Report -- ??? 2018

It’s been a long time since I did one of these (August?)-- things in 2018 got messy.

This is an ongoing series of charts that I keep to track my slow but inevitable ascendance to a higher and more eternal plane of existence than you, a frail normal person bereft of the life force that courses through me. As I believe Paul Atreides once explained to a Reverend Mother of the Bene Gessit order, the First Law of the Mentat is that “A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.” Or as I believe Tommy Lee once said, in The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band, “We partied like clockwork, bro. You could check the clock in whatever time zone we were in and figure out exactly what kind of shit we were into.”

I started new charts in September that I’m happier with, but then everything fell apart in that last half of 2018. Work/regular-life exhaustion-- things just got especially tiring over here; people dying-- this year had a little bodycount there for me; a lot of chart confusion this year; my New Years plans falling apart; people getting sick, me with this cold; dental stuff; housing stress (I’m trying to find a new place) which has meant a resurgence in budgeting stress.

I guess it’s been a long year. But I don’t want to be one of those “oohhhhh 2018 how dare you” people much either, because (a) it’s the same assholes who are like “look how busy I am” on the internet, give it a rest, and (b) they say that every single year, and it’s not like Bowie and Prince died this year.

I stopped cooking sometime in November, so I’m going to skip the numbers. Which means no number analysis for 2018 trends. But things just ... yeah, things fell apart. Except for writing, weirdly, where I’ve filled about two notebooks, since August (which is an unusual amount for me-- I’m usually pretty slow). I think that’s been a lot of it-- when I get in a good place writing, it’s hard to not tune out everything else, but.

So 2019 is going to be a dust it off and start over kinda year as it turns out.

The Weekly Section:

Cooking: I was cooking up until November and then stopped cold around Thanksgiving-- travel always discombobulates. Recipe-wise, though, I fell off on trying new recipes. Chicken oyakodon one night in August or September, which didn’t turn out too good. A lot of messing around with hot pot recipes and a veggie stew, in November-- I was kinda into the hot pot, and want to circle back to that, when I get cooking again. I have Thai Chicken written down for October, but no idea what that means, and I circled back to that Udon-Shrimp recipe again.

Got a little better with tacos, but not fully great there yet. Kept trying to make my own pickled onion, but never got it right.

Project Work: If I added up all the numbers here, this would be the bulk of my time during this span. A lot of writing-- almost every day. Mostly on a comic project, so one of those things that might become nothing (and maybe should be nothing-- it stinky), but. And a lot of reading for that, old comics mostly, the classics, revisiting stuff-- it all kinda devolved into me rereading Uncanny X-Men #260 a lot, though I couldn’t tell you why.

Trying to remember what makes something good. That’s a bit I never figure out how to deal with-- I have a thing when I’m in the middle of a creative thing, where I just kind of throw my hands in the air and go, “I have no idea what makes something good anymore.” Like, what do you want out of a thing?? What makes a fictional thing good? I don’t even know when I’m in the middle of all this.

Or I don’t know what’s good for right now-- what feels hokey or what feels hip and modern; like, you don’t want to be the guy doing ... remember when some Iron Man guys came back with a new comic in the 00′s with like ... an 80′s Iron Man comic except trying to sell that exact sound in 2005 or whatever, and were like “Hey kids”? I think about that all the time.

Looked at a lot of the big hip popular (non-DC) books -- but just from a vulture-y place, so nothing I’d feel comfortable talking about. I don’t know-- I don’t ... I’m a little lost at the moment, I guess! Or I know that I’m not making something good, because I’m not that guy, so wheeee.

I did like a Image book I saw, called the Outer Darkness. I thought that was kinda funny-- kinda cute. I’m really into LOEG: The Tempest-- I think that’s really fucking good. I scribbled down on a sheet that I liked some old John Porcellino comic where he plays football or something with his kids. I finally read the ending of Sin Titulo, which it turns out I didn’t have to do.

Gym: This has been a huge improvement for this year. Except for the last couple weeks while I’ve had a cold, I’ve managed to escalate the gym more. (A) Spending more money on it, (B) involving a trainer for a period of time, and (c) having the gym walking distance from my job so I could make it part of my “At work” time in my head and not my “me doing me” time, those all I think turned out to be the trick for me-- I was angrier about not going, when money got involved, especially. These would have good numbers...

The Monthly Section:

New Restaurants:

I had Okonomiyaki for the first time. (These are mostly not my photos-- I had photos but just changed phones so most of my photos got lost). I didn’t really feel strongly about it, though-- it felt like good hangover food and I don’t drink like that much anymore, so.

A lot of time got invested in Korean fried chicken and chicken wings. There’s a place in Koreatown that I got a little obsessed with (namely, the vaue meals over at Kyochon). Tried some Japanese fried chicken, that place on Sawtelle for comparison-- no question, the Koreans won that battle. (Though, Honey Kettle over the Koreans, but-- it’s a different flavor profile, is all, so).

New places around where I live and work. A new taco place. A new “Asian small dish” place. A vegan Thai place that ... I can’t say I recommend. A westside Korean place, so. In November/December, I’ve gotten really interested in the Indonesian food in my neighborhood so I’ve been eating a lot of that-- it’s like Thai but different ingredients, so a fun little adventure there. Some crappy 3rd street Asian restaurant I didn’t even write down the name of.

Finally went over to Guerilla Tacos. (That’s my photo). I really enjoyed those tacos-- Jonathan Gold had talked that place up for years when it was a truck, but I’m lazy and hadn’t gotten around to it. (I’m not really a truck fan!). Boy, those tacos, though... That’s the (a) Pocho Taco (ground wild boar, pine nuts, raw tomatilo chile, chipotle crema, aged cheddar & pico de gallo in a crunchy shell) and the (b) Albondigas Taco (chicken meatballs, stewd tomato salsa, castelvetrano olives, and parsley).

LA Stuff or Travel: Travel for Thanksgiving.

A Harlan Ellison memorial at the Egyptian theater. They played his Outer Limits and Twilight Zone episodes, and specially cut together videos of him talking or his TV work (his Gidget episode or his Burke’s Law episodes or what have you). LQ Jones talked about making the Boy and His Dog movie; Josh Olsen talked about co-writing that Twilight Zone episode; Leonard Maltin talked about seeing The Terminator for the very first time with Harlan in the audience yelling at the screen. It was nice, getting to be there.

I had car problems so I took some hour-or-two long walks on nights when I was relying on Lyft, just seeing what walking in LA’s like. (It’s fine! I mean, it’s not ideal, but it’s fine). It’s nice knowing that’s an option at the end of the day, at least.

One time at lunch, I walked by Mel Brooks having lunch with friends. I heard him say “I love that we’re doing this” but didn’t stand there and gawk or eavesdrop like I wanted to. But I don’t know-- I was really really excited about that. Mel Brooks!

I went to a comedy thing for the first time in too long-- Superego and Wild Horses did a team-up improv night, where they improvised a play about middle-aged white people, getting together at a house by a lake. I need to see more comedy-- I know that I find that very calming and I don’t know why I haven’t been, but.

Went to another Indiecade, the indie game festival-- two highlights there. One was Flight Simulator-- a game where instead of simulating being a pilot, you simulate being a passenger on a trans-Atlantic flight, in real time. So it’s just a simulator where you sit in a seat and wait for a flight to be over...? That made me laugh-- I really quite enjoyed the creativity of that, and getting to speak with the guy who was making it. (I asked a bunch of questions-- yes, your character will have a book he or she can read-- but not “Why” since that seemed extremely gauche to ask).

youtube

The other thing was as I was walking by a room, a guy was like “hey, want to hear a guy talk about making music for the Star Wars games.” And I was like, “Fuck it, I don’t give a shit about that, but I want to sit down and I got no place better to be, so let’s do it. I GOT NOWHERE ELSE TO GO.”

But it actually turned out to be a really fucking interesting discussion because... because the guy had a job that coincided exactly with where my head’s been at with the stuff I’m working on, with just thinking about comics, old comics, balancing wanting to invoke old shit while still doing new shit, and how that job of writing for comics exists for so many people, especially people not working on their own shit, who are working with pre-existing properties with expectations around what those properties and that kinda experience should deliver.

Which is-- they hire you to be you, but they’re also hiring you to do Star Wars, to do a thing that sounds like Star Wars.

So he talked about having to break down all the different ways that he could approach that problem-- with one way just being imitating the melodies that came before you. But he talked about the better route being how ... He put it in terms of like language-- like the music of Star Wars has a language to it (horns, woodwinds used against bloop blarps, whatever) and it’s about figuring out how to talk in that language, but that doesn’t mean you have to say the same thing once you speak the language. I don’t know.

I’m not doing it justice-- I found it very interesting, and weirdly on point to what I wanted to think about, way more than I expected.

Documentaries: I think I mentioned them all on here. That He-Man one. F is For Fake. (I saw the Lego and GI Joe episodes of the Toys That Made Us). Fighting in the Age of Loneliness, which I was really, really into-- I thought that was really cool. City of Gold. Some Netflix movie I’m forgetting. That last Star Wars video by the Red Letter Media guys, if that counts.

Oh, and ... one night I had a Twitch stream on for noise, because that’s what I do now I guess (???), and the people on the Twitch stream themselves put on a documentary about Logan Paul. It was the Shane Dawson docu-expose of Logan Paul or Aaron Paul or whoever those assholes are. I only saw the first one of those, via Twitch stream, but holy shit, that was... whatever the fuuuuuuck that was. I want to watch the rest of those. Just a window into a completely other dimension of humanity. But the window itself had a history of blackface...? Like, you lookup the host of the documentary, the guy DOING the expose, and it’s like online people going “why he do blackface?” What???????? What the hell is going on with Youtube???

I definitely want to go back to those. I want to see the Darkness That’s Coming.

Movies: I don’t know-- I saw a bunch of movies.

Let me see: Personal Shopper (terrific movie!), Support the Girls, Crazy Rich Asians, Buster Scruggs, that El Royale piece of shit, that Spiderman cartoon, Sometimes a Night Is For Us All (?), rewatched the original Suspiria, a shitty Netflix horror movie called Beyond the Gates, the Other Guys again, a Simple Favor, The Predator, Destination Wedding, Mayhem, half of Rampage. Saw a lot of movies with my nephews (rewatched Knight & Day and MI: Fallout, the Tooth Fairy, Jumanji 2, Castle of Cogliostro, rewatched Ant Man 2-- I know people aren’t into it but I like the wannabe-Elmore-Leonard plotting, Jackie Chan’s Skiptrace, Daddy’s Home 2 (no!), School of Rock).

I rewatched Buckaroo Banzai over Thanksgiving after people went to sleep and I didn’t have anything to do. I fucking hated that movie as a kid-- almost got thrown out of a screening of it because I was yelling stupid shit at my friends during it and whatever. But I always wanted to revisit since so it’s a touchstone for so many nerds -- it improved as an adult knowing what they were up to, at least, understanding better what they were trying to do, but I wouldn’t say that I was wrong as a kid either, not exactly... I’d put it down as “interesting” at the moment. It’s helpful knowing the reason it looks like shit is they hired the cinematographer of Blade Runner, but then the producers made them fire that guy after only two or three scenes...

I think I’m missing some stuff on this list, but...

(Saw a few episodes of that Jack Ryan show with my family, too, since that’s their kind of thing, apropos of nothing-- it was not great! Like, some guy’s in Vegas getting beat up because he wants pervy sex and then Jim From the Office frowns-- or I don’t know how to describe it, but ... not great).

Highlighter Videos: I did a bunch. I should do a separate video wrap-up for the year though, like people do. That might be nice to have done.

Goals:

Three Scripts for the Project: Technically I wrote way more than 3 but most of them got ripped up along the way. But yeah, goal met.

Flowchart for Game: Still in progress on the flowchart-- kind of feeling inspired again to tackle all that, after Bandersnatch though. The game within the game, not the show itself. I love the fake games people imagine when they make shit like that, how vivid they always seem as compared to the real thing. There’s a game that gets described in a Kelly Link short story that I think about more than I think about games I’ve spent 90000 hours on.

I didn’t do a favorite games of the year list, but this year was all about discovering the Yakuza series for me. And just... the way those games are all about excavating the same exact, relatively-understandable space, Kamarucho, year after year, game after game. I think that’s really ... I don’t know what the right word to describe that is. I just find that architectural obsessiveness really curious. They’re curious games. I could go on and on about them but instead, no.

2019 Plan: My goal for this year was to create a good plan for 2019-- making a list of movies I want to watch, types of recipes to try, that kind of thing. I think that’s what I’m going to do over the next couple days while I’m sick and have time off work.

Finish Books: I didn’t finish one! Got too consumed by reading ... some comics I will never admit to having read. Hoo-boy. I have gone all the way down the rabbithole.

Cooking Class: Nope.

Major Tidy: Nope. Smaller tidiness, yes, but I need to get rid of a lot of clutter. But like I said, I think I’m going to have to move (and I’m thinking to a smaller place-- I think I have more space than I need right now) so that’s going to happen whether I like it or not.

Finish Best-Of Assembly: I’ve been preparing a best-of this blog in case / when tumblr invariably goes down. But in the course of that, a lot of things have to be slightly rewritten or edited down-- a lot of weird raving pared off things, so.

Overall: There was more that probably I was too lazy to scribble down on the charts. Things got lazy. Things got derailed. Things have to get put back on track. I’m not back at square one-- I feel good about having written as much as I have at least (even if I have a lot of work left before any of that’s... anything??). But. I’m glad a new year is coming-- it’s my favorite holiday; it’s the only holiday that promises anything really valuable. A fresh start beats candy anyways, after you’re old enough to eat candy all the time because no one’s around to stop you. A fresh start sounds nice...

#what gets measured gets managed

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ilovingcollectiongalaxy · 4 years

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If you’re brand new to mezcal, you’ve probably been introduced to the agave liquor in a cocktail. (Before we get into the nitty gritty, read this explainer on how mezcal differs from tequila.)

The spirit has an intense smokiness. It’s the master of giving a sultry makeover to margaritas and negronis; counterbalancing a tart punch; or acting as a savory substitute in a Bloody Mary, as it perfectly complements crispy bacon.

But just like a good bourbon, mezcal deserves to be sipped on its own, too. Admittedly, some not-so-good bottles might taste like someone added liquid smoke to your tequila. But the very best ones are expertly accented with smoke, and have robust tasting notes that range from floral and herbaceous to fruity and tart to rich and complex, with notes of leather and cacao.

Because the spirit can be made from more than 30 types of agave, you can really get a sense of its terroir. Unlike, say, bourbon, that ages in a cask to get its flavor, mezcal is more of an expression of the land it comes from, with the agave plants sometimes taking more than a decade to mature.

5 Deliciously Savory Taco Recipes (and the Perfect Margarita) to Spice up Date Night

As Will Benedetto, IGC Hospitality’s director of bars, explains it, the flavor comes from the experience of the agave.

“I’ve had mezcals made from agaves grown near jalapeño crops that are shockingly spicy, and mezcals distilled from agaves that grew in rocky mountains overlooking the ocean that taste briny and minerally,” he says.

Whether you’re a newcomer to mezcal or an agave-loving enthusiast, here are the seven best bottles to try.

39 Great Whiskeys You Can Actually Find at Your Liquor Store

Best for Sipping: Del Maguey Tobalá

A remarkably complex mezcal, it would be a sin to do anything but sip Del Maguey Tobalá neat. Many mezcals that make it to the States are concocted with just one type of agave (espadín), but this bottle goes a different route: It's made with a wild agave known as tobalá, which is smaller and harvested from high-altitude canyons. The result is an earthy mezcal. With a hint of mango and cinnamon, Del Maguey Tobalá is a stellar example of how mezcal can be so much more than a smoke bomb.

[$129.99; drizly.com]

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Best for Gifting: Bozal Tobasiche

With a savory and smoky finish that lingers on your lips much like a fine cigar, the Bozal Tobasiche mezcal feels celebratory. It’s made with a wild agave that takes 12 to 13 years to fully mature. It’s smooth, with hints of quince (akin to an apple or pear) and anise. When you crack open the bottle and pour it, you’ll be greeted with a cedar-like aroma. Plus, the muted blue bottle will look handsome on your recipient’s bar cart. Alluding to the terra cotta copitas used for drinking mezcal, Bozal created the rustic ceramic bottles in earthy tones.

[$72; drizly.com]

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Best for Splurging: Farolito Penca Verde

If you’re on the fence about mezcal, the Farolito Penca Verde will turn you into a fan, showing just how complex the liquor can be. The artisanal mezcal is made with agaves from Oaxaca, including a rare variety called penca verde, then fermented and distilled in small clay pots. Enjoy the campfire aroma before you take a sip. The tasting notes masterfully span from soft, sweet honey to juicy, bright lemon to rich leather and smoke. It’s another one you’ll want to drink neat to truly enjoy the flavorful ride.

[$160; thirdbasemarketandspirits.com]

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Best for Your Bar Cart: Mezcal Union El Viejo

Your bar cart is in need of a versatile mezcal that can be sipped straight or mixed into cocktails. Enter Mezcal Union El Viejo. It’s made with a blend of espadín agave and wild tobalá agave. The smooth flavor encourages gentle sipping—but it also boasts a hint of mint and mango, which lend a smoky, herbaceous twist on classic cocktails.

[$50; drizly.com]

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Best for Tequila Lovers: Mal Bien Espadin Mezcal

If you’re a tequila lover who's new to mezcal, meet Mal Bien Espadin. The makers describe this agave-forward, everyday sipper as a “gateway mezcal” they offer to friends who are becoming newly acquainted with the spirit. You can certainly enjoy it on its own; the caramelized banana and leather notes are reminiscent of a reposado. But at 91 proof, it’s also assertive enough to stand up in a cocktail—something that lower ABV mezcals struggle to do.

[$42; drizly.com]

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Best After-Dinner Mezcal: Clase Azul Mezcal

This bottle of premium mezcal will feel like a trophy in your liquor cabinet, thanks to the matte-black decanter, hand-carved by artisans, topped with a multicolored beaded cap. It’s smooth, with decadent hints of peanut, caramel, and vanilla. While it could easily pair with a steak dinner, it’s worth saving for dessert, perhaps with an orange wedge on the side or paired with chocolate.

[$265; drizly.com]

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Best Celebrity Endorsement: Recuerdo Mezcal

There are a lot of celebs slapping their names on liquor brands. But one we’re truly rooting for is Recuerdo Mezcal, which is backed by UFC fighter Jorge Masvidal. It’s a damn-good bottle for its price point: $34.99 for the smokier (worm-less) “Joven” expression or $37.99 with gusano for those who like the silky finish an agave worm lends. Distribution, for now, is limited to Texas, California, and Florida, with more national distribution planned in coming months. (Want to get your hands on another celebrity-endorsed mezcal that's available across the U.S.? Try Dos Hombres Mezcal by Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston.)

[From $34.99; recuerdomezcal.com]

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The post The Best Mezcals to Drink Neat and in Cocktails appeared first on Men's Journal.

from Men's Journal Latest Food & Drink News https://ift.tt/2P6WX9C

#Health and Fitness News #Blogger

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maiddegree71-blog · 5 years

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Our Favorite Videos of 2018

We put out a lot of videos this year, but the ones we've chosen to highlight below were are our personal favorites, the ones we cooked from and watched the most. These videos made us hungry, made us laugh, and helped us become better cooks. We learned how to roll out flaky and crisp paratha, cook dosa batter, emulsify a perfect pasta alla gricia, and more.

[Video: Serious Eats Team]

This is a great video. Maybe it's because Stella uses the term "Flufftown, USA;" maybe it's because of the really sexy chocolate-dipping shot to kind of Batman-ish soundtrack; or maybe it's because "Boop Boop Boop" has made it into Serious Eats vernacular. Aside from that, I truly appreciate the effort Stella made to develop the recipe. These Klondike bars are absolutely perfect, and the video made me feel like perhaps I could be successful at making them myself. —Ariel Kanter, director of commerce strategy and editorial

What Wouldn’t You Do for a Homemade Klondike Bar? »

[Video: Serious Eats Video.]

I don't think Stella will mind me telling you that she really, really doesn't like being on camera. I, however, love watching Stella on camera. Not because I'm sadistic and like seeing someone in discomfort; it's because she so successfully takes that "I don't want to be here" feeling and converts it into a perfectly snarky, yet still very likable, persona. This video is just one good example of Stella doing the thing she hates doing so well. —Daniel Gritzer, managing culinary director

Texas Sheet Cake Forever »

[Video: Natalie Holt]

Every time I eat dim sum (read: every single weekend), I marvel at the enormous towers of bamboo steamers coming from the kitchen. Providing a behind-the-scenes look at how these restaurants function is a fascinating idea, but doing so from the vantage point of a dim sum cart is both hilarious and revealing. Plus, the video illustrates just how talented—not to mention hard-working—the chefs and waiters at our favorite dim sum establishments are. —Elazar Sontag, editorial assistant

A Day in the Life of a Dim Sum Cart »

[Video: Serious Eats Team]

I really love this short and fun video. It’s a great combination of Sohla’s delightful energy and fun camera angles, and Vicky and Daniel’s hilarious cameo certainly help. Not to mention how fantastic the elote risotto pancake looks! —Grace Chen, office manager

Elotes Meet Risotto al Salto in an All-Star Mashup »

[Video: Serious Eats Team]

This starts out as an elegant but straightforward recipe video for a pressure cooker corn risotto, playing out to what looks like an orderly conclusion, only to carry on into an anarchic “next day” epilogue. It's a celebration of the impulsive spirit of making new dishes from leftovers. —John Mattia, video producer

Pressure Cooker Corn Risotto Cooks in Four Minutes, Tastes Like Summer »

[Video: Serious Eats Video]

Before I start, I need to give y'all a preface: I'm allergic to shellfish, and therefore did not eat this crab. But I did get to participate in the filming of it, where we hauled a big vat of crabs out into the courtyard of our office complex and had ourselves a little afternoon respite. I have happy memories of sitting and drinking beer in the sunshine, watching my coworkers savagely tear open crabs with their bare hands while following Daniel's instructions. The final product was one of our most-viewed videos of the year, which incited a lively debate in the comments on the semantics of "crab feast" versus "crab boil," which I moderated with great joy. — Kristina Bornholtz, social media editor

Zen and the Art of the Maryland Crab Feast »

[Video: Vicky Wasik]

I never jumped on the slime video bandwagon, and I think this is as close as I'm ever going to get. Equal parts strangely satisfying, suspenseful, and trypophobia-triggering, it’s got all the components of those videos you watch on the internet but you’re not really sure why. Plus, I learned how to griddle a dosa. —Maggie Lee, designer

Dosa (Indian Rice-and-Lentil Crepes) Recipe »

[Video: Natalie Holt]

In my personal life, I strive to maintain a nonjudgmental attitude, but my professional self knows that strong, sometimes unpopular, and well-founded convictions make good food writing, and, as it turns out, good food videos. (The "well-founded" aspect is an element I find to be missing from a lot of clickbait-y food opinion pieces out there.) Plus, food waste is a pet peeve of mine, so I had to love Wing Hysteric Daniel Gritzer's office exposé/mini tirade against those half-hearted eaters who lose interest in their chicken wings once they catch even a glimpse of bone. C'mon, people! Even your dog knows better than that! I especially like the theatrically sneaky jog into the kitchen around 1:05. —Miranda Kaplan, senior editor

The Right Way to Eat Chicken Wings Is All the Way »

[Video: Serious Eats Video]

I'll be honest: I really thought this video had a chance of going viral. Then I showed it to my sister-in-law, who looked confused and asked me what an Instant Pot is. Having to explain a joke isn't an encouraging sign about its quality; it also isn't really the kind of thing you want to do for a second time when you show it to your mom. And a third when you show it to your best friend. But, BUT! I'll do it for you anyway, because really, I promise, once you get it, you'll think it's just about the most hilarious thing you've ever seen. Premise: Instant Pots are all the rage! And they're great. They're also just...electric pressure cookers. When we decided to do this video, we thought we'd poke some inside-jokey-fun at the fact that Pinterest/Instagram/Facebook/The Whole Internet had become obsessed with a specific brand of a product that's been around for a long time. So...how about now? Is it funny now? DO YOU GET IT? I hope so. It's pretty great. —Niki Achitoff-Gray, executive managing editor

How to Get the Most Out of Your Instant Pot »

[Video: Serious Eats Team]

Toum really is the garlicky eggless mayo that goes with everything—watch the video—and it really is easy to make, and you really should make some yourself. But I picked this video as a reminder and warning for my past and future colleagues and friends: If you visit the Serious Eats office, you, too, might get tricked into singing Toumbop (to the tune of Mmmbop) on camera. —Paul Cline, VP of product

Traditional Toum (Lebanese Garlic Sauce) Recipe »

[Video: Serious Eats Team]

There's a lot to love about this video: parathas are one of my favorite foods; the double-coil technique; the weird, kind of creepy jazz. But the main reason I love this video is because of the "ooh" Sohla lets out when she puts her back into flattening the dough. — Sho Spaeth, features editor

Paratha (Flaky South Asian Flatbread) Recipe »

[Video: Serious Eats Team]

I could watch pasta videos for hours. Let's be honest, I have definitely done that. —Sasha Marx, culinary editor

Gricia Is the Silky, Porky Roman Pasta Everyone Should Know »

[Video: Natalie Holt]

As much as I love copycat recipes AND Lao Gan Ma brand chili crisp, it never occurred to me this was something I could make from scratch. But Sohla's excitement for breaking down the complexities of the recipe and straightforward technique won me over, and I wound up making a life-changing batch for myself. The video made it look like a lot of fun to try at home, and it was! —Stella Parks, pastry wizard

Chili Crisp: Spicy, Salty, Crunchy, Tingly, and Good on Everything »

[Video: Serious Eats Team]

I love this video because it took Stella and Sohla out of their comfort zones, and let their natural instincts shine through. This was one of the more chaotic/labor intensive/challenging shoots to date, but getting them out into the world at the farmer's market and then back in the kitchen was worth it for all the fun moments. I also think it gave the audience a closer look into how the Serious Eats test kitchens work. —Vicky Wasik, visual director

Mystery Box Cooking Challenge: Sohla Versus Stella »

[Video: Natalie Holt]

I'm a sucker for a Sohla video, and this one doesn't disappoint. Not only is it doubly informative, teaching you how to make a pan sauce and fix a broken one, but there's also a bit of comic relief towards the end. Two dogs, a Brad, and Sohla's crack-up laugh really round out a cooking video. —Tim Aikens, front-end developer

How to Make a Pan Sauce, and How to Fix a Broken One »

[Video: Serious Eats Video]

This video has changed my life. Okay, maybe a bit extreme, but it's true—I'll never pronounce "pestle" wrong again. The main reason I love this video so much is that it shows the level of research and obsession Daniel and the rest of the Serious Eats crew have for food, and all the ways you can prepare and cook it. Seeing Daniel test out and speak his mind about what applications each M&P succeeds and struggles with, I finished the video feeling like an expert. —Joel Russo, video producer

How to Pick the Best Mortar and Pestle »

[Video: Serious Eats Team]

How can you not love Stella's videos when she says stuff like, "Scraping a bowl is a way of showing a dough you care." It doesn't matter to me that this video is all about holiday gingerbread cookies, which I don't even like. I love this video for the same reason I love all of Stella's videos for Serious Eats. I think the way she interacts with the camera ends up putting the viewer at ease, and makes her incredibly delicious work seem all the more approachable. —Ed Levine, founder

Quick Gingerbread Cookies for Busy Holiday Bakers »

This post may contain links to Amazon or other partners; your purchases via these links can benefit Serious Eats. Read more about our affiliate linking policy.

Source: https://www.seriouseats.com/roundups/our-favorite-videos-2018

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

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sh1n1doesarchie · 7 years

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Puerto Rican Beans - Recipe”

Ingredients:

26 - Oz of cooked organic beans that are pink or any other type of similar beans will also work such as pinto beans… but pink beans are the best.

1/2 - Cup of organic cilantro - chopped

1/2 - Cup of Racao or Culantro - chopped (which is another type of local cilantro) but if Racao can’t be found add some more regular cilantro. Often Latin Markets have fresh Racao.

1 - Cup of organic onion that is yellow chopped

1 - Cup of organic sweet that is green - chopped

10 - Large cloves of organic garlic - minced

1 - Teaspoon of dark chile powder - this is my personal twist

2 - Teaspoons of garlic powder - This is my personal twist - adds a little more garlic flavor

1 1/2 - Cups of organic veggie stock

1 1/2 - Tablespoons of organic olive oil— I’ve tried not utilizing the oil and it just doesn’t taste right.

Salt and pepper to taste

(optional) Sometimes large cubes of local pumpkin are added to these beans, it adds a bit of sweetness to the beans. (Regular pumpkin will also work)

(optional) If you are like me and like beans spicy add some cayenne pepper or some hot sauce to these beans. clash of clans hack .

Just take the oil that is olive place it in a large pot with the heat on high, then add the chopped onions. Saute' the onions until they are complete brown and then add the garlic that is minced green peppers and saute' every thing until nice and tender. Next add the organic pink beans and all the rest of the greens and spices and the veggie stock, and let everything simmer on low for 30 minutes or so. The peppers that are green thicken up the stock making the beans very tasty.

Most people on the island serve these beans rice&hellip that is white but I use brown rice, it’s much healthier than white rice. In fact I eat these beans as a relative side dish with salad without rice. Experiment and personalize these beans to exactly the real way you like them.

Beans are full of fiber and starch that is resistant are both very important for promoting the growth of probiotic bacteria in our gut. And probiotic bacteria are vital for keeping our system that is immune powerful thriving, thus keeping away disease… and for preventing depression.

Enjoy!

Dr. Paul Haider - Master Herbalist

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lauramalchowblog · 4 years

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How to Get a Picky Eater to Try New Foods

At my house, dinner often looks like grass-fed rib eye, grilled to medium rare with salt and pepper, and broccoli roasted with avocado oil and cooked ‘til crispy. It’s satisfying, satiating, and metabolically in line with the way I like to eat.

Dinner probably looks fairly similar at your place too. Only while grilling up your perfect cut of steak, you might also be firing up a big pot of mac ‘n cheese or popping some dino nuggets and waffle fries into the oven for the picky eaters in your household. Especially if your kids are used to conventional, Standard American Diet type fare.

Instantly download your free Guide to Eating Out

Aren’t Kids Supposed to Eat Kid Food?

This is a question I get a lot from my health coaching clients. And my answer typically sounds something like, “only if you want them to become part of the growing epidemic of folks struggling with obesity and type 2 diabetes2 before they even move out of the house.” I realize that sounds harsh, but honestly, you know all the fake ingredients, sugar, and additives that manufacturers put into overly processed packaged foods. You won’t eat it, so why the heck would you feed it to your kids? Okay, rant over.

Anatomically speaking, we all have the same taste buds. Unfortunately, if your kiddos have spent most of their days being spoon fed something that comes out of a brightly colored box, how easy is it going to be for them to choose different foods? Not very. It’s kind of like when you first started eating Primally. The cravings. The longing for your old friend, fast food. The preference for salty, sugary, and crunchy snacks. Then, little by little, you started to notice that when you ate better, you felt better. Same goes for your kids.

Can You Change a Picky Eater’s Preferences?

There have been a ton of studies on this topic, and you’ll be happy to know that the answer is a definitive YES— you can change a picky eater’s preferences.Research done by Yen Li Chuand Paul Veueglers from the University of Alberta3 showed that children who were involved with food prep were more likely to make healthy choices at mealtime.

In the study, one-third of the kids surveyed said they helped their mom and dad up to 3 times per week, while one-quarter of them helped about once a month, and 12.4% didn’t help at all.

While the frequency of involvement differed (3 times per week vs once a month), the result was the same. Kids who helped their parents in the kitchen were more interested in eating healthy foods like vegetables than their non-helping peers.The data also showed that kids who participated in meal prep were more confident about the importance of making healthier food choices for themselves.

Does that mean that once you start cooking together they’re going to be begging for an extra serving of kale salad before bed? No. But they might start asking for full fat yogurt instead of ice cream. Or enjoying roasted chicken instead of the processed nugget variety.

My How-to Guide for Getting Picky Eaters to Eat

So, how do you do it? Check out these 9 strategies for turning a picky eater’s habits around. These are the same tips I use with my health coaching clients to make mealtime less stressful. Give them a try — I’m confident they’ll work for you too.

1. Don’t force it

No one likes to be pressured into trying new things, especially if they’re someone who already has a preconceived aversion to it. It might be tempting to force-feed your family, after all you are the parent, but there’s a good chance it will backfire. Studies show that kids who have a history of being pressured to eat continued to dislike those foods long into adulthood.4 Just some food for thought…

2. Time it right

You obviously don’t want to feed your kids when they’re not hungry, but waiting ‘til they’re starving, grumpy, and feeling the effects of a drastic blood sugar dip will make them less receptive to eating what’s on their plate. Time it right and you’ll be more apt to get picky eaters onboard with healthier choices.

3. Be understanding

While we all have the same taste buds, some people do have a heightened sensitivity to bitter and sour foods. This could be genetically based or due to years of eating a highly processed diet. Regardless, it’s important to understand that your kids might not jump at the chance to scarf down a plate of wild caught salmon and asparagus. At least not right away.

4. Pair new foods with familiar flavors

Studies show that you can trick pickier palates by pairing flavors they prefer with new ones. In one experiment, researchers gave kids sweetened vegetables a number of times. When asked to taste and rate veggies in their natural state afterward, they reported liking the unsweetened versions more than they did originally.5 Dips and sauces are a great way to combine an unfamiliar food with something kids know and love.

5. Walk the talk

I’m assuming that you’re well-versed in the benefits of the Primal lifestyle, but if you’re doing more talking than walking, your kids could be getting mixed messages. Notice the foods you keep in the house and what your meals look like. Be a positive role model whenever and wherever you can.

6. Avoid being too strict

It’s easy to go overboard in the all-non-Primal-foods-are-evil department, so you’ve decided every processed food is off-limits, you might want to back off a little. Make simple swaps like fresh fruit instead of juice or an occasional treat made with better-for-you ingredients.

7. Try new things

There’s a correlation between the number of new foods you feed your family and your picky eater’s willingness to eat them, so keep at it. Repetition and continuing to reintroduce foods (without force or frustration) has been linked to an increased liking of those foods.6

8. Get kids involved

As I mentioned above, kids who help out in the kitchen have a greater interest in eating healthier foods. So, look through recipes together, chop veggies together, and have them set the table. Being a part of the prep process gets kids’ curiosities piqued, which makes them more interested in participating in the end result — eating dinner.

9. Keep it simple

I’m not a fan of fussy meals anyway, so I always recommend keeping things simple regardless of who’s at the table. Remember that sometimes kids aren’t being picky, they just prefer simple and separate foods. Instead of serving up a complex flavor-filled recipe, keep it plain and simply prepared without a lot of sauces or seasonings.

Wondering what to do with your picky eater?

The main idea here is to take the stress out of making healthy food choices for your family. That means stop forcing, worrying, controlling, restricting, or walking on eggshells around your kids. Make it less of a battle and more of a fun, engaging experience. After all, no one chooses to be a picky eater. They’re not trying to make dinnertime a daily struggle. You just have to use the right strategies. Keep in mind that your kids’ eating habits won’t change overnight, but they will change. Just remember these 9 tips:

Don’t force it

Time it right

Be understanding

Pair new foods with familiar flavors

Walk the talk

Avoid being too strict

Try new things

Get kids involved

Keep it simple

(function($) { $("#dfc0ThU").load("https://www.marksdailyapple.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=dfads_ajax_load_ads&groups=674&limit=1&orderby=random&order=ASC&container_id=&container_html=none&container_class=&ad_html=div&ad_class=&callback_function=&return_javascript=0&_block_id=dfc0ThU" ); })( jQuery );

References

https://ift.tt/1vTzEjJ

https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/prevent-type-2/type-2-kids.html

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/public-health-nutrition/article/involvement-in-home-meal-preparation-is-associated-with-food-preference-and-selfefficacy-among-canadian-children/C4347E7475C945893A82B19E5F93CC90

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195666301904829

https://eetonderzoek.nl/wp-content/uploads/publikaties/havermans_en_jansen_appetite2007.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14702019

The post How to Get a Picky Eater to Try New Foods appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

How to Get a Picky Eater to Try New Foods published first on https://venabeahan.tumblr.com

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jesseneufeld · 4 years

Text

How to Get a Picky Eater to Try New Foods

Instantly download your free Guide to Eating Out

Aren’t Kids Supposed to Eat Kid Food?

Can You Change a Picky Eater’s Preferences?

In the study, one-third of the kids surveyed said they helped their mom and dad up to 3 times per week, while one-quarter of them helped about once a month, and 12.4% didn’t help at all.

My How-to Guide for Getting Picky Eaters to Eat

1. Don’t force it

2. Time it right

3. Be understanding

4. Pair new foods with familiar flavors

5. Walk the talk

6. Avoid being too strict

7. Try new things

8. Get kids involved

9. Keep it simple

Wondering what to do with your picky eater?

Don’t force it

Time it right

Be understanding

Pair new foods with familiar flavors

Walk the talk

Avoid being too strict

Try new things

Get kids involved

Keep it simple

(function($) { $("#dfXF3eF").load("https://www.marksdailyapple.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=dfads_ajax_load_ads&groups=674&limit=1&orderby=random&order=ASC&container_id=&container_html=none&container_class=&ad_html=div&ad_class=&callback_function=&return_javascript=0&_block_id=dfXF3eF" ); })( jQuery );

References

https://ift.tt/1vTzEjJ

https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/prevent-type-2/type-2-kids.html

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195666301904829

https://eetonderzoek.nl/wp-content/uploads/publikaties/havermans_en_jansen_appetite2007.pdf

The post How to Get a Picky Eater to Try New Foods appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

How to Get a Picky Eater to Try New Foods published first on https://drugaddictionsrehab.tumblr.com/

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juniorformulamotorsport · 4 years

Text

January/February 2020 – The Great British Chefs Cookbook Club

As if I don’t have enough to do, I’ve recently allowed myself to be sucked into a rather fun group on Facebook (I know, I know…), the Great British Chefs Cookbook Club. The idea of this is that every month a cookbook by a British chef is chosen as the book of the month, then everyone who wants to buys/borrows a copy and sets about cooking whatever takes their fancy from the book, before posting about the recipe, usually with photos.

There have now (not including March 2020) been 24 books, but I only started to join in in January this year, so I have no opinions on 22 of them as yet. There is a throwback Thursday where you can cook from/post about previous books, but I’m not going to buy them just for that, and I may well not buy every book on the grounds that a) I have more than enough cookbooks, and b) I’m not a baker! The books so far that I have not even touched on are:

Hong Kong Diner – Jeremy Pang

New Classics – Marcus Wareing

Planted – Chantelle Nicholson

Little Viet Kitchen – Pham Thuy Diem

Eating Well Everyday – Peter Gordon

Happy Food – Bettina Campolucci Bordi

Great British Chefs Cookbook

Simple – Yotam Ottolenghi

80 Cakes From Around the World – Claire Clark

Scandinavian Baking – Trine Hahnemann

Andina – Martin Morales

Asma’s Indian Kitchen – Asma Khan

Crumb – Richard Bertinet

Casablanca – Nargisse Benkabbou

Bazaar – Sabrina Ghayour

Moorish – Ben Tish

Island Kitchen – Selina Periampillai

Charred – Genevieve Taylor

Mandalay – MiMi Aye

Salt & Time – Alissa Timoshkina

The Book of St John – Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver

Adventures with Chocolate – Paul A Young

The two I have used are Wok On by Ching-He Huang, and Fire Islands by Eleanor Ford. So how did that go? Well, it was a somewhat mixed bag, it’s fair to say.

I’ll take “Wok On” first. It was a winner for the UK in the World Gourmand Cookbook Awards 2020 in the Easy Recipes category and does what it says on the tin. And what it says on the tin is: “Perfect for sautéing, braising, frying and steaming, cooking with a wok is a way of life all over Asia. In Wok On, bestselling author Ching-He Huang celebrates the huge versatility of this magical 2,000-year-old cooking pot with a modern collection of recipes that are simple enough for every day as well as every cook.

Featuring dishes from across Asia, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Macau, almost every recipe can be made in 30 minutes or less and has been created with nutrition, taste and affordability in mind. Many are suitable for those with gluten and dairy allergies, and because Asian food typically includes lots of vegetables, many are also vegetarian or vegan too.”

So what did I make of it? On the plus side, it has some incredibly easy recipes that can be flung together in double quick time with minimal prep and one pan, usually a wok, but on the negative side, you may need to make quite drastic cuts to the amount of soy sauce used, unless that is you want to only be able to taste salt. It’s an award winning book and there are certainly some very appealing recipes in there that I have still to try, but I will be cautious about the seasoning after my initial experiences.

I discovered this issue with the first thing I tried to cook, which was Macanese Rice (with Portuguese Chouriço, Baby Scallops and Coriander). I went for that because, as some of you will know, I have a history with Macau going back to 2001, and the idea of this dish was too much to resist. I couldn’t get the correct chourico and had to settle for a Spanish chorizo instead, which I find to be slightly less intense and definitely less meaty than the Portuguese variety, but beggars can’t be choosers and out here in the sticks you sometime have to settle for what you can get. With the correct seasoning, it would have been very tasty indeed, but instead it left us in need of water, lots of water… I suggest reducing the amount of soy sauce used by half.

Another dish that suffered from too much soy was the Boozy Drunken Prawns, and again, it would probably have been fine with less soy.

By the third dish I’d decided the fault was either with the book or the brand of soy sauce I was using and not with me! As a result, the Chunky Black Pepper Honey Beef (which became venison because that was what I had to hand) was fabulous, because I only used half the soy sauce that the recipe suggested. The result had just the right amount of saltiness but you could also taste the other ingredients!

Chunky Black Pepper Honey Beef

Serves: 4 Time: 15 minutes preparation. 5 minutes cooking

Ingredients:

500g sirloin steak, cut into 5mm thick cubes

Pinch of salt

Pinch of cracked black pepper

1 tablespoon tamari or low sodium soy sauce (I recommend the low sodium variety use half the quantity)

Small handful of coriander leaves for garnish

For the stir fry:

1 tablespoon rapeseed oil

1 garlic clove, whole, peeled and crushed

2 large white onions, cut into 5mm chunks

1 tablespoon Shaoshing rice wine (or dry sherry)

2 red peppers, deseeded and cut into 5mm chunks

For the sauce:

100 mls cold chicken stock

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

1 tablespoon tamari or low sodium light soy sauce

1 teaspoon dark soy sauce

4 tablespoons runny honey

1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper

1 tablespoon cornflour

Method:

Put the beef in a bowl with the salt, black pepper and soy sauce and mix well.

Put all the ingredients for the sauce into a small jug or bowl and mix well.

Heat your wok over a high heat until smoking then add the rapeseed oil and swirl it around. Add the garlic and cook for a few seconds, then add the onions and stir fry them until they are translucent.

Add the beef and sear on one side for 20 seconds, then turn them over and cook to your liking (medium is probably best). Season with the rice wine or sherry.

Add the red peppers and toss for 30 seconds or until slightly softened.

Remove the beef, onions and peppers from the wok and set aside on a plate.

Add the sauce to the wok and cook it until it reduces and becomes sticky.

Return the beef, peppers and onions to the wok and toss it with the sauce.

Garnish with coriander and serve it with jasmine rice and Garlic Wok Tossed Baby Pak Choi.

Far more successful was the fabulous “Fire Islands”, which has a catch-all description of “recipes from Indonesia”, and which became an even better experience when it became clear that the author, Eleanor Ford, was happy to get involved and comment on what people had done, and how it had gone. She even agreed to a live Q&A session on Facebook where she proved most engaging. As a result I intend to lay hands on her other book, “Samarkand”, as well, especially as there is a plov recipe in it! As for “Fire Islands”, it’s already won two Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in 2020 (in the categories International and Spices), plus it won in its category (Food and Travel) in the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards for 2020 as I type this. I think those awards are thoroughly well deserved.

But first, the blurb: “Steep verdant rice terraces, ancient rainforest and fire-breathing volcanoes create the landscape of the world’s largest archipelago. Indonesia is a travellers’ paradise, with cuisine as vibrant and thrilling as its scenery. For these are the original spice islands, whose fertile volcanic soil grows ingredients that once changed the flavour of food across the world. On today’s noisy streets, chilli-spiked sambals are served with rich noodle broths, and salty peanut sauce sweetens chargrilled sate sticks. In homes, shared feasts of creamy coconut curries, stir-fries and spiced rice are fragrant with ginger, tamarind, lemongrass and lime. The air hangs with the tang of chilli and burnt sugar, citrus and spice. Eleanor Ford gives a personal, intimate portrait of a country and its cooking, the recipes exotic yet achievable, and the food brought to life by stunning photography.”

This time I got started early in the month, when I’d planned a few of the dishes for Sunday dinner (and the leftovers to be used up during the following week). An unexpected visitor meant it turned into a late-ish lunch instead. I had realised that I had all sorts of things that were suitable for use with these recipes, and thus we ended up with a veritable feast.

There was an excellent, tangy Sweet and Spicy Mushroom Tongseng, the luxuriously creamy Potato Tuturuga, a melting Sumatran Lamb Korma, with Golden Lace Pancakes, and portions of Spice Rice to mop it all up with. Our guest went back in for seconds of everything so I’m taking that as a vote of confidence! There certainly weren’t as many leftovers as I’d been counting on once we all slumped on the sofas to nurse our food babies. The only thing I didn’t succeed with were the pancakes, and that was because people were getting very hungry so I didn’t have time to mess about making them thin and lacy. I just needed to get food in front of them as soon as possible.

Sweet & Spicy Mushroom Tongseng

Serves: 4 Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

2 lime leaves

1 lemongrass stick, trimmed and bruised

2 cm galangal, skin scrubbed, bruised

1 tablespoon oil

500 g (1 lb 2 oz) oyster mushrooms

3 tablespoons thick coconut milk

1 1/2 teaspoons dark palm sugar (gula jawa), shaved

2 teaspoons kecap manis

1 1/2 large red chillies, seeded and sliced

1 ripe tomato, cut in wedges

For the Bumbu spice paste:

1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds

4 peppercorns

1 small red Asian shallot, roughly chopped

2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

1 candlenut or 2 blanched almonds

1 cm ginger, peeled

1 cm turmeric, peeled, or 1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric

Method:

Start by making the bumbu spice paste. For this small quantity I find this easiest to do with a pestle and mortar. Start with the coriander seeds and peppercorns, then add all the other ingredients and grind to a paste.

Put the bumbu in a large frying pan with the lime leaves, lemongrass and galangal. Drizzle in the oil and stir-fry until fragrant. Loosen the paste with a ladleful of water.

Add the mushrooms and turn to coat in the spices. Add the coconut milk, palm sugar and a good pinch of salt. Cook for 5–10 minutes. The mushrooms will release liquid as they fry. Towards the end of cooking, stir through the kecap manis, sliced chillies and tomato. Taste for seasoning.

Another night saw me tackle the equally delicious Javanese Sea Bream and Spinach, which became Monkfish, Water Chestnuts and Spinach because there was stuff which needed using up before I could even consider shopping for new ingredients. The Sweetcorn Rice went with it brilliantly and my version of Vegetable Urap with Dessicated Coconut was good too with all sorts of things (sausages, steak) as well as the fabulous fish dish. Again, I made changes to the recipe, and used yellow peppers and leeks in place of the edible fern tips or seasonal greens, the fine green beans and the beansprouts because that’s what I had to hand.

Vegetable Urap with Fresh Spiced Coconut

Serves: 2-4

Time: Varies according to your choice of vegetables!

Ingredients:

140 g (5 oz) edible fern tips or seasonal greens, roughly chopped

100 g (3. oz) fine green beans, cut in thirds

100 g (3. oz) beansprouts

1 tablespoon coconut oil

6 small red Asian shallots, sliced

4 garlic cloves, sliced

1 large red chilli, seeded and sliced

100 g (3. oz) grated fresh coconut or 80 g (1 cup) desiccated coconut

100 g (3. oz) cooked black-eyed beans (optional)

juice of a kaffir lime or lime

1 tablespoon crisp-fried shallots

Method:

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and add the fern tips and green beans. Cook for 2 minutes or until just tender. Add the beansprouts for the last 20 seconds of cooking. Drain and leave to cool. If you have used greens that retain a lot of water, gently squeeze them dry.

Set a wok or frying pan over a medium heat and add the coconut oil followed by the shallot and garlic. Cook, stirring frequently, until pale golden, then add the chilli and cook to just softened. Lower the heat and add the coconut along with a good pinch of salt. If using desiccated coconut, also add a splash of water to soften and help the flavours meld. Cook just for a minute, then remove from the heat and leave to cool.

Toss the vegetables and black-eyed beans (if using) with the spiced coconut and lime juice and taste for seasoning. Scatter over the crisp-fried shallots.

Food 2020 – The Great British Chefs Cookbook Club January/February 2020 - The Great British Chefs Cookbook Club As if I don't have enough to do, I've recently allowed myself to be sucked into a rather fun group on Facebook (I know, I know...), …

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topfygad · 5 years

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Ski Like a Girl in Tahoe

A beginner takes on the talcum-white slopes of Lake Tahoe and learns to take things in her stride.

Adventure U.S.A. Shikha Tripathi | POSTED ON: August 7, 2019

It takes plenty of falls and plodding around to just go down the beginner’s slope at Lake Tahoe’s Diamond Peak, but the effort is worth it. Photo Courtesy: Zac Smith/Diamond Peak

On the slopes, just do what I told you. And when you get off the chair, remember you’re Supergirl,” says Jan, my ski instructor with whom I’ve just finished beginner lessons. Her shift for the day is over, but I’m staying put. It’s been half a grueling day at Diamond Peak in Incline Village, Lake Tahoe, and I’m just about starting to get used to the painful contraptions called ski gear strapped onto my feet. I get back on the chairlift of the practice stretch, finish the loop, and fly like Supergirl when it’s time to get off.

All the skiing footage I’ve ever seen, up until I actually try it, is one, dazzling magic show with the skier on a gigantic slide, gliding effortlessly as plumes of fresh snow fly off the sides, made all the more glamorous with slo-mo effects. So when I get an opportunity to go skiing in Nevada’s Tahoe region, I’m eager to recreate in reality the grandeur of the sport in my head.

As an outdoor person with decent hiking and climbing experience, I assume skiing is going to be a piece of cake. I don’t realise at first that, like any other outdoor sport, what looks effortless is the result of years of practice, dedication, numerous falls and multiple bruises, and sometimes even serious injuries.

The first shocker comes before I even hit the snow—with outfitting. After putting on my down jacket and puffy pants, strapping on a helmet, and feeding my height and weight into a gear payment receipt machine, I am directed to a counter where a adolescent hands me my boots. These turn out to be nearly as heavy as snow boots used in mountaineering; each weighs up to two kilos. The pair of skis that comes next leaves me staggering too. Depending on your body and the brand you use, they can weigh anywhere from four to six kilos.

And then, there’s pinning those boots to the skis. Followed by waddling around like a duck with close to six kilos strapped to your feet, trying to stay steady while also juggling ski poles and goggles. It is remarkable how, with training, this very gear that feels like blocks of cement set around your feet, transforms into the vehicle that makes you fly across snow.

Once you get the hang of it, few winter sports are as much fun as skiing, especially when you have company (top-left); Make sure you strap on your skis firmly and don’t drop them midway (bottom-left); The long chairlift ride up Diamond Peak (right) is a thrilling adventure in itself. Photos Courtesy: Chris Bartkowski/Diamond Peak (friends),1000Photography/shutterstock (snowboards), Larry Zhou/iStock/getty images (5ki lift)

I lug my skis outside to where the action is—in a novice’s case, the beginner’s stretch. “Not so quick”, says Jan, who makes us stop even before the beginner’s patch, which is where all my maiden lessons take place. Before you learn to ski, you have to actually learn to stand in skis. And walk baby steps without falling. And climb up (sideways for better grip) a very minor slope with a gradient only slightly higher than zero.

Worse than falling is getting back on your feet confidently (not possible without help if you’re wearing skis, and not possible on your own until many lessons later) without feeling belittled by the three-year olds zooming past you. I’m in good company though; Michelle, the other learner with me, is from Mexico where it rarely snows. And yet, by the end of the day, we will be skiing down Lodge Pole together, a run that even we didn’t believe we would do.

“Pizza!” shouts Jan as I glide down the beginner’s stretch, having been promoted to it from the practice patch. An actual cheese-laden pizza would have been nice at -10°C, but unfortunately, “pizza” is simply a word for the triangular wedge you form with your feet to come to a stop when careering down a slope. The wider it is, the more effective the stop.

In theory that works very well, except for people like me who have what Jan repeatedly calls a “lazy left leg”. I have to unlearn much of my hiking and climbing habits; unlike using your entire body, skiing is by-and-large a sport of the feet, and keeping the rest of the body still is actually conducive to better form. “Edgy wedgies”—clips that keep the tips of your skis together facilitate this, also helping to keep the tails apart, which makes learning to turn smoother.

It is advisable to pick up gondola tickets online to avoid queues (top-left); Don’t miss out on the chairlift ride up Diamond Peak (top-right); The best reward of skiing down Heavenly Peak are stunning views of Lake Tahoe (bottom). Photos Courtesy: Andrei Stanescu/iStock Editorial/getty images (ticket counter), xxz114/iStock/getty images (mountain), Tahoe South (skiing zoom out).

Over repeated runs and countless falls off the ski chair I learn to snap off the “alligator mouth” or brake pedal to unlock the ski, stand up and lock it back on. I begin again. And again—stopping at “Red!” and kicking off at “Green!”, and gliding when Jan yells “Yellow”. My prime learnings are that going steady is more important than going fast, that centering your weight is key, and that looking down instead of ahead is a recipe for disaster. And in a moment of epiphany, just like learning to ride a bike, it suddenly clicks and your body knows exactly what to do. Finally, I am skiing. And getting off that chairlift and swinging back on the slope without malfunction.

At lunch, I sit down for a hearty meal at Snowflake Lodge, which sits at an altitude of over 6,560 feet at the top of the Lakeview Chairlift. I surprise myself with my appetite, but skiing is actually a full body workout. Jan leaves soon after lunch, but we are back on the hill skiing with Paul, another instructor at Diamond Peak. He is eager to push our boundaries, and thanks to Paul the last run of the day is down my first proper beginner’s run, a feat I wish Jan was around to witness. When it’s time to literally hang my boots at the end of the day, I stagger around for a bit. I feel lighter than air, like a tortoise that has been carrying around a shell for 200 years that is finally ripped off. All the shuffling down flights of stairs, balancing on the pot during a pee break, and trying to make carrying skis look effortlessly cool while actually struggling, is forgiven when the Gear Independence bells toll.

The next morning on Heavenly peak with instructor Greg, things look up; it’s sunnier, my confidence is higher, and the falls and public humiliation minimal. I am determined to be at least a “beginner level” skier by the time I leave, so after a half day of practice, I am hitting the green slopes, or beginner runs. I go down Maggie’s Run thrice, and Chris, a veteran skier, is impressed as she spots me zooming up there among others.

When I leave, I’m eager to return to skiing to climb up to the blue slopes (the colour indicates a moderate level). And I don’t even have to imagine flying like Supergirl anymore; all I need to do is to ski like a girl—sassy, and in control.

Getting There

There are one-stop flights between Delhi/Mumbai and Reno-Tahoe International airport, it is economical to fly to San Francisco, which is 3.5 hr away from North Lake Tahoe.

Skiing

The best time to ski at Tahoe is from mid-Dec to mid-Apr. Tickets can be purchased on the spot, but it’s convenient to book ahead online. A typical hourly private lesson costs around Rs9,000 and one for 2-5 people costs about Rs12,000 per hour. It’s better to rent equipment than buy it, especially if you’re a beginner. Drink lots of water despite the cold—skiing is an active sport that dehydrates your body like any other.

Stay

There are plenty of places to stay around Lake Tahoe, but the Hyatt Regency in North Tahoe tops them all with chic rooms and outdoor hot tubs; you’ll be tempted to jump in even when it’s snowing (www.hyatt.com).

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sweetlydangerouscollectiothings · 5 years

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Junk Removal & Recycling

Providing the Capital District area with professional, fast and eco-friendly junk removal services. At The Junkluggers of NYC, we like to think of ourselves as a logistics company that happens to specialize in furniture and Goodbye Junk sydney demolition contractors. At Paul's Rubbish Removal, we understand that time is of great importance, that is the reason why we are always on time when making the trip to your site.

Access the Local Canadian Business Directory featuring local Canadian Rubbish Removal companies, junk removal business, business and services in Ontario. We are also an eco friendly rubbish removal service, so we sort through your items and categorise them into items to donate and recycle where possible.

Yes, we all know if you eat too many unhealthy foods, you will gain weight; however, this shouldn't be the only fear. In Australian English an ambit claim is one typically made by employees which sets the boundaries of an industrial dispute. Funny how, given the apparent "budget emergency", the government has just passed measures that will forego $6.6 billion a year raised from a price on carbon, to be replaced with a policy that will cost the budget $2.5 billion over 3 years.

Our Junk Hauling is the best junk removal service in the entire area. Our professionals will solve your problem of waste removal in very less time and get the job done quickly and in a timely manner. While a little bit of sweetness in your child's diet is fine occasionally or as a sometimes food”, enjoying junk food-fuelled activities every day can become problematic.

Use the recipe collections to find ways to make the most of your leftovers, how to create healthy versions of popular takeaway foods, and how to make delicious one-pot wonders. Personally I think building a house isn't a trivial exercise, and I'd rather get it right from the beginning, rather trying to remediate later.

While the new tax will raise the cost of living for the everyday Australian but will not increase the minimum wage to match inflation forcing us to do more work to make ends meet providing cheaper labor for the corporations. Call Payless Rubbish Removals for cheap garden waste removal.

The word bluey in Australian English has a variety of meanings. According to the International Energy Agency , only 8 per cent of global CO2 emissions face a "price" - after this week, that number will fall. Please be mindful that I build with Grollo in 2012 (contract signed late 2011) and price might have change by now.

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keijay-blog · 5 years

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Build a Memorable Hot Chocolate Bar for Your Next ...

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Buttery Radish Baguette

My dad and brother are crazy for radishes, and this peppery baguette appetizer is a big-time favorite. Add a sprinkle of fresh dill or parsley on top. —Kathy Hewitt, Cranston, Rhode Island

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Spicy Crab Salad Tapas

I served these at a party and everyone went wild! These delicious morsels have a crispy flaky outside filled with creamy sweet crab that has a little kick. I used scalloped edge cookie cutters to cut my pastry, but you can use a small biscuit cutter. —Vanessa Mason, Summerdale, Alabama

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Simple Waldorf Salad

This is my go-to salad when I need a quick little something for a meal. Sometimes when I want a sweeter taste I use whipped cream instead of yogurt. —Wendy Masters, East Garafraxa, Ontario

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Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs with Dill

My family is of Danish heritage, and my husband makes our smoked salmon. To use it, I came up with these dilly deviled eggs. They’re a real treat and nice addition to any meal. —Charlotte Giltner, Mesa, Arizona

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Cucumber Canapes

I always get requests for the recipe for these canapes whenever I serve them. They’re delicate finger sandwiches with a creamy herb spread and festive red and green garnishes. —Nadine Whittaker, South Plymouth, Massachusetts

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Layered Fresh Fruit Salad

People always pass on compliments when I take this salad to covered-dish suppers. It’s nice on a hot day…with a winter meal…or as a dessert! We live on a small farm where my garden gives me lots of possibilities for fresh food. —Page Alexander, Baldwin City, Kansas

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Oysters Rockefeller

My husband and I are oyster farmers, and this classic dish always delights our guests. It’s deliciously simple! —Beth Walton, Eastham, Massachusetts

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Herb-Roasted Olives & Tomatoes

Eat these roasted veggies with a crunchy baguette or a couple of cheeses. You can also double, or triple, the amounts and have leftovers to toss with spaghetti the next day. —Anndrea Bailey, Huntington Beach, California

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Rye Party Puffs

I can’t go anywhere without taking along my puffs. They’re pretty enough for a wedding reception yet hearty enough to snack on while the gang is watching football on television. A platterful of these will disappear even with a small group. —Kelly Williams, La Porte, Indiana

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Dilly Cheese Ball

The whole family devours this herby cheese spread—even my son, the chef. Serve it with your favorite crackers. —Jane Vince, London, Ontario

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Chicken Pot Stickers

Chicken and mushrooms make up the filling in these pot stickers, a traditional Chinese dumpling. Greasing the steamer rack makes it easier to remove them once they’re steamed. —Jacquelynne Stine, Las Vegas, Nevada

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Salmon Mousse Canapes

It’s so easy to top crunchy cucumber slices with a smooth and creamy salmon filling. Guests rave about the fun presentation, contrasting textures and refreshing flavor. —Barb Templin, Norwwood, Minnesota

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Spicy Shrimp & Crab Cocktail

I don’t usually like radishes, but I love them in this shrimp cocktail. Serve it straight up, with tortilla chips or on a bed of butter lettuce. A zippy Bloody Mary mix works just as well as spicy V8. —Heidi Knaak, Liberty, Missouri

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Meatballs with Cranberry Dipping Sauce

With their cranberry dipping sauce, these no-fuss appetizer meatballs make use of traditional Thanksgiving ingredients, so they’re ideal around the holiday or anytime you’re craving those favorite seasonal tastes.—Ann Baker, Texarkana, Texas

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Smoked Trout Pate

This tasty spread is easy to make in a food processor, and it’s a guaranteed winner at any party. The recipe is versatile, so feel free to substitute other favorite smoked fish.—Judy Walle, Toledo, Ohio

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Pancetta, Pear & Pecan Puffs

I was recently at a wedding reception where the menu was all small bites. Here’s my rendition of the pear pastries they served. They’re the perfect combo of savory and sweet. —Arlene Erlbach, Morton Grove, Illinois

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Three-Cheese Fondue

I got this easy recipe from my daughter, who lives in France. It’s become my go-to fondue, and I make it often for our family.—Betty A. Mangas, Toledo, Ohio

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Smoked Salmon Bites

Because smoked salmon is one of my favorite ingredients, it plays a big role here. Best of all, there’s no cooking involved. —Tom Faglon, Somerset, New Jersey

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Autumn Pepper Relish

This colorful pepper relish is a favorite with friends and family—everyone always asks for the recipe because it tastes great on just about everything. I like to serve it over cream cheese with crackers or a sliced French baguette. I also include a jar in gift baskets. —Barbara Pletzke, Herndon, Virginia

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Artichoke & Caper Cream Soup

I adore the flavors of oyster mushrooms, capers and artichokes. So after experimenting with several batches, I came up with this soup. Every year I’m asked to bring it to our office Christmas party.

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Roast Beef Finger Sandwiches

These simple sandwiches are ideal for a bridal shower, brunch or high tea, when the menu is a bit more substantial. The mustard adds a nice kick without being overly spicy. —Anndrea Bailey, Huntington Beach, California

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Pimiento Cheddar Spread

I was a theater major in college, and our director’s mother always made sure we were well fed. I was particularly fond of her pimento cheese sandwiches and tried making a similar spread for crackers. It tastes just as good as I remember! —Katrina Jameson, Brandon, Mississippi

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Crabbie Phyllo Cups

I always like a little extra chili sauce on top of these easy snacks. If you’re out of crab, try them with water-packed tuna. —Johnna Johnson, Scottsdale, Arizona

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Sesame-Beef Pot Stickers

I enjoy having these little dumplings as a late-night snack while I’m watching television. They also work well as a quick appetizer for parties. —Carolyn Turner, Reno, Nevada

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Mini Crab Cakes

Fresh crab is one of my all-time favorite foods so whenever I get the chance to cook with it I will often make this dish. It’s great for appetizers but you can make larger ones for a fantastic dinner with a simple salad. —Ellen Riley, Murfreesboro, Tennessee

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Garlic-Dill Deviled Eggs

In my family, Easter isn’t complete without deviled eggs. Fresh dill and garlic perk up the flavor of these irresistible appetizers you’ll want to eat on every occasion. —Kami Horch, Calais, Maine

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One-Bite Tamales

Clever little meatballs deliver the flavor and rich sauce of a traditional tamale in a bite-sized portion. They’re a delightfully different addition to a holiday spread. —Dolores Jaycox, Gretna, Louisiana

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Shrimp in Phyllo Cups

I almost didn’t make these appetizers for last year’s Christmas party because I was running out of time, but I knew they’d be a tasty hit. Simple to make, the cups have few ingredients and look beautiful on the plate—very gourmet! This turned out to be one of the night’s favorites, and they just flew off the plate. —Terri Edmunds, Naperville, Illinois

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Pressure Cooker Marinated Mushrooms

Here’s a terrific healthy addition to any buffet spread. Mushrooms and pearl onions seasoned with herbs, balsamic and red wine are terrific on their own or alongside a tenderloin roast. —Courtney Wilson, Fresno, California

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Sweet Pea Pesto Crostini

I made a healthier spin on my favorite celebrity chef’s recipe by using hearty vegetable broth and less cheese. To top crostini, use less broth for a paste-like pesto. For use on pasta, add more broth for a sauce-like consistency. —Amber Massey, Argyle, Texas

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Creamy Red Pepper Veggie Dip

I got this recipe from a college roommate. Thick and creamy with just a touch of sweetness, this colorful dip is a winner served with chunky veggies. —Lynne German, Woodland Hills, California

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Florentine Almond Artichoke Mounds

I always enjoyed traditional artichoke cheese dip, and for a drinks and appetizer party, wanted to create a new appetizer that was a spin on that. This original creation is a bit reminiscent of the dip recipe, and works well on a buffet. —Sherry Johnston, Green Cove Springs, Florida

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Calamari Salad

This is one of the seven fish dishes we serve at Christmas time. It is easy to make and quite delicious! I enjoy it served both warm and cold. Either way, it has become one of our traditional dishes each year. The recipe has been passed down to me through my grandparents, who were excellent cooks. —Paul Rinaldi, Easton, Pennsylvania

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Pina Colada Dip

If you like pina coladas, you’ve gotta try this fluffy fruit dip. Scooped up with a slice of fresh pineapple, it tastes just like the beloved beachside drink. —Taste of Home Test Kitchen

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Slow Cooker Marinated Mushrooms

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Shrimp Cakes with Spicy Aioli Sauce

I made these for our staff Christmas party last year; they were such a hit that I was flooded with requests for the recipe the next day. Throughout the year, whenever I needed favors done at school, people gladly helped as long as I promised to bring them shrimp cakes! This year’s Christmas party is coming up, and I’m already being asked if I am bringing the shrimp cakes—I guess I am! —Linda Zilar, Kennewick, Washington

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Italian Steak Bruschetta

This recipe combines my favorite things to eat: toast, steak, bruschetta topping and delicious pancetta. It’s looks so pretty on the plate! This five-ingredient appetizer is easy to prepare but will have everyone thinking you spent a long time in the kitchen. —Devon Delaney, Westport, Connecticut

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Chinese Meatballs

These were a huge hit at a cookout I attended recently! You can use two tablespoons of chopped crystallized ginger in place of the fresh ginger if you like. —Pat Barnes, Panama City, Florida

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Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs

Flaky salmon and creamy sauce go so well over hard-boiled eggs. Drizzle the sauce or serve it on the side; it’s great either way. —Marinela Dragan, Portland, Oregon

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Chutney-Topped Cream Cheese Spread

I’ve had the pleasure of introducing many of my friends and family to chutney, that sweet and savory fruit sauce. Make the spread even faster by using chive-flavored whipped cream cheese. —Michelle Torkelson, Ham Lake, Minnesota

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Creamy Chicken Vol-au-Vent

My friends and I have been getting together for “ladies lunches” for years. These vol-au-vents are the perfect no-fuss fancy food; they look complicated, but are actually simple and fun to make. Whenever I think of good friends and good company, I think of these savory pastries. —Shauna Havey, Roy, Utah

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Oyster Cheese Appetizer Log

When you say “holiday tradition” around our house, this appetizer comes to mind immediately. Every winter, I make lots of cheese logs and freeze them for when I’m expecting company or need to take food to someone’s home. The blend of smoked oysters, chili powder, nuts and cream cheese tastes good-even people who don’t like oysters may enjoy this interesting appetizer. —William Tracy, Jerseyville, Illinois

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Spiced Pickled Beets

With spicy, robust flavor, these pickled beets are so good, they’ll convert any naysayers! —Edna Hoffman, Hebron, Indiana

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Three-Cheese Souffles

No matter when I’ve made these soufflés, they have always been a success. Although I’ve never seen the centers start to fall, it’s best to plan on serving them hot from the oven. —Jean Ference, Sherwood Park, Alberta

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Shrimp & Cucumber Rounds

I always make these appetizers for our get-togethers. They’re easy to prepare and a snappy addition to any party. —Kelly Alaniz, Eureka, California

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Microwave Pickles

You can enjoy a small batch of these sweet crunchy pickles anytime without the work of traditional canning methods. They’re loaded with flavor and so easy to make. —Marie Wladyka, Land O’Lakes, Florida

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goarticletec-blog · 6 years

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Best Cookbooks (Fall 2018): José Andrés, Anissa Helou, Simone Klabin

New Post has been published on https://www.articletec.com/best-cookbooks-fall-2018-jose-andres-anissa-helou-simone-klabin-3/

Best Cookbooks (Fall 2018): José Andrés, Anissa Helou, Simone Klabin

In this zinger of a year, food’s role in our lives felt like it shifted every day. Cooking at home became more of an oasis than ever, a meal with friends somehow more important. Some nights, though, punting and ordering takeout was not a copout but a necessity. This year’s best books reflect this whipsawing, whether it’s about saving the world (or just a part of it), understanding it a little better, encouraging us to take a load off and pour a nice drink, or just tell us what to do because one more decision was one too many. We’re still hungry, though—more than ever!—and these are the books that reflect our appetites.

We Fed An Island: The True Story of Rebuilding Puerto Rico, One Meal at A Time

By José Andrés with Richard Wolffe (Anthony Bourdain Books/Ecco)

The most important food book of 2018 doesn’t contain a single recipe or talk about technique. Instead, it talks about saving lives and keeping people fed in the wake of a disaster. Chef José Andrés is well known for his high-end restaurants in and around Washington, DC, but when Hurricane Maria barreled through Puerto Rico in September 2017, killing an estimated 2,975 people, Andrés made his way to the island just a few days later, fighting through the rubble to hand out sandwiches and bowls of sancocho.

Feeding a localized group of people is noble, but Andrés and his assembled team of local chefs had greater ambitions, eventually going on to serve three million meals, a monster feat on a flattened, demoralized island. We Fed an Island is a first-hand look at what it took to do it.

While Washington politicians struggled to help and shifted their focus to Hurricane Harvey, which devastated Houston, Andrés created a de facto emergency agency in Puerto Rico, forever changing what it means to be a chef. People are still into awards like the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, but for many reasons, those are starting to feel incredibly out of touch with reality. In Puerto Rico and several other disaster zones since, Andrés showed that there’s more important work to do, and in my book at least, he became the indisputable chef of the decade. $28, Buy now.

Prosecco Made Me Do It: 60 Seriously Sparkling Cocktails

By Amy Zavatto (Andrews McMeel Publishing)

It is holiday feast time, and all that reveling requires bubbly and cocktails. For those, food and drink writer extraordinaire Amy Zavatto has us covered. Zavatto’s new book focuses on Italy’s famous fizz, giving some history on the country’s many different proseccos and focusing on its most important grape: the glera. Zavatto gives 60 sparkling cocktail recipes and tells the backstory for each, like the classic Bellini (white peach purée and brut-style Prosecco), the Venetian Spritz she first had at NYC’s Fort Defiance (Aperol, brut-style Prosecco, club soda, and an olive), and the Dance Party (does it matter?), each with Ruby Taylor’s poster-worthy illustrations setting the vibe.

You’ll learn and make some fine cocktails as you go, but Zavatto’s true gift is her take-you-along-for-the-ride charm. Are we learning? Yes! Are we laughing! Hell yes! Do we have a lovely drink in our hand, to boot? Yep! That too. Cheers! $17, Buy now.

Feast: Food of The Islamic World

By Anissa Helou (Ecco)

Art dealer, chef, and author of several cookbooks, Anissa Helou employs most of the skill sets involved in these jobs, and adds a healthy glug of anthropology in this beautiful and important work. For dumpukht/dumpokht biryani, she describes watching a noblewoman in Hyderabad cover goat marinated in papaya, cardamom, cumin, cloves and saffron with long-grain rice and cook it in a tight-lidded pot. When it came off the heat, the noblewoman heated a lump of charcoal over a flame, and dropped it right on the rice for a few minutes, giving the whole dish a smoky flavor.

When Helou finds room for improvement in an established recipe, or finds a way to make something more easily, she trusts herself enough to suggest a change. For complex multilayer breads like Pakistani paratha or Turkish tahinli katmer, where the classic technique can be difficult to master, she suggests a different dough-folding pattern that saves time and still yields excellent results. $60, Buy now.

Food & Drink Infographics: A Visual Guide to Culinary Pleasures

By Simone Klabin and edited by Julius Wiedemann (Taschen)

I may be biased, but while this whopper of a book might be difficult to pick up, it’s surprisingly hard to put down. Infographics are a great way to take a new look at food, and your first impulse with this beautiful tome might be to get out a razor and turn each page into a poster. Resist! At least hold off for a little while and learn visually.

Flip through the pages and certain aspects of food will begin to crystallize in ways they hadn’t before. Meat cut charts reveal the differences between regional and national styles of butchery, maps of cheese production detail mastery, diversity and depth. Conversion charts illustrate volume conversions like the ten tablespoons and two teaspoons in two-thirds of a cup, and if you ponder that for a moment, you might discover the vast superiority of going metric in the kitchen like the rest of the world.

There’s also hidden humor in Heather Jones’ “Correct Plating: And How to Get Through That (Sometimes Awkward) Holiday Dinner,” where she positions three tabs of Xanax just to the right of the soup spoon and not far from the Cognac. There’s also a bit of cross-cultural learning with Pop Chart Labs’ cocktail diagrams labeled “The Poison” across the page from “The Remedy—Hangover Cures From Around The World,” where your interest may be piqued by the Germanic take: mustard berries, juniper berries, and pickled herring. $70, Buy now.

36 Bottles: Less Is More with 3 Recommended Wines Per Month

By Paul Zitarelli (Sasquatch Books)

A confession: I lived in Paris for a decade, where I wrote about food and drank a lot of wine. While I can speak knowledgeably about the latter, my knowledge of individual styles of wine probably isn’t what it should be. In France alone, never mind the rest of the world, there are hundreds of options.

Paul Zitarelli offers a simple, global solution. Focus on just three wines a month: a red, a white and a wildcard like rosé or a sparkler. In November, just drink French Chablis, or Italian Langhe Rosso, and say “oui” to a Thanksgiving-friendly Tavel rosé from the Rhône Valley. Next May, limit your purchases to Austrian grüner veltliners, Oregon pinot noirs, and try a sweet, divine Tokaji or two from Hungary. Each month’s suggestions are accompanied by a couple recipes that quietly affirm that Zitarelli’s good taste extends beyond the bottle.

As someone who’s been overwhelmed by choice, this monthly trifecta strikes me as a great idea. Where 36 Bottles really clinches it is in the writing—both funny and smart—with lines like this: “Ultimately [using sherry in cocktails] reminds me too much of mixing liquid Tylenol into applesauce to get my daughter to take her medicine. If it tastes good in the first place, why do we need to hide it?” $20, Buy now.

Cooking With Scraps: Turn Your Peels, Cores, Rinds, Stems, and Other Odds & Ends into Delicious Meals

By Lindsay-Jean Hard (Workman)

We all do it. After a big trip to the produce stand and a nice dinner or two, we end up with a few pounds of wilty bedfellows in the icebox, and a stale bread heel on the counter, all destined for the compost heap, or worse, the trash.

A whopping 40 percent of food in the United States suffers a similar fate, says the Natural Resources Defense Council, a staggering $165 billion worth, but Lindsay-Jean Hard’s new book is an effort to chip away at that number. Hard breaks it all down by key ingredient, giving recipes for each thing you might have too much of: pestos made from asparagus ends or carrot top greens, or an ingenionus mushroom-stem compound butter. I was immediately attracted to the catch-all dishes throughout the book like frittatas, stratas, and stocks. Got extra cauliflower or okra or half a shallot? You can (quick) pickle that! Have some leftover pickle brine? Use it to turbocharge your potato salad.

Hand’s book isn’t the kind of thing you buy just for the recipes, but if you put it on the kitchen reference shelf, you’ll be happy it’s there the next time you have something that needs to be put to use in a hurry. $20, Buy now.

Food writer Joe Ray (@joe_diner) is a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of The Year, a restaurant critic, and author of “Sea and Smoke” with chef Blaine Wetzel.

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probably-lucifer · 6 years

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I WROTE A THING FOR MY UNIVERSE JUMPERS AU THING

This is my character’s diary of her life to help build Who she is and Whatnot

Entry #1

Okay so since I hate the phrase Dear Diary as I've seen it far too many times in ALL the movies about teenaged girls (Side note, most girls don't actually have diaries, I literally only have one because my therapist suggested it sooooo.) and I happen to be a teenaged girl sixteen-aged girl, in fact, I'm going to write something else, because if I managed to find someone that cares about me enough to read all the way from, whenever I've died, then that, that would be, nice.

So, To Whom It May Concern, I cut my hair shorter today, and I feel so much better about this style so I might keep it for

Entry #34

To whom it may concern,

My therapist is suggesting I write down the daydreams I experience sometimes so I can look over them and maybe even turn them into something. Sometimes it seems like he's the only one that wants me to succeed. I bought a laptop with mother's money, it's hard to call her "mom" doesn't feel right, and I've just finished writing about the girl with wings that had magic so she could visit a town underwater, it was a nice place and

Entry #78

To whom it may concern,

Thomas The Therapist just helped me get into college, I'm so glad I started going to therapy, I've kicked most my bad habits AND I'm doing more to keep my area clean so that

Entry #100

To whomever,

Today is a down day, dad left today so I guess that's why, but you'd think I'd be over that by now. I'm not. Thomas let me skip today's session but in exchange, I have to write out my feelings and stuff, so ya'know I told moms and they gave me a letter from him, he left because mom gave him an ultimatum. Stop drinking or leave and he didn’t think he was strong enough. Mom told me he used to be very BAD and that he gave my that scar under the back of my ribcage before she made him leave

Entry #200

Guys you are not going to fucking believe this, so mom gets home from the grocery store right, and other mom (Mother, I used to call her mother) comes laughing into my room, dudes, someone thought they were fucking siblings, like, oh my gods no, they are way too affectionate with each other (And sometimes me, sometimes we cuddle and watch horror movies and it's, nice.) to be sisters okay like that'd be so

Entry #251

To whom it may concern,

I did it. I have officially moved out of my mom's place and into my own. It's got an attic room with a window seat, AND AND it's a Victorian Style house and it is HUGE, there's an office with lots of natural lighting for my writing, and the rooms are awesome and huge, and the basement is all open and ugh, I love this house, I'm hiring a gardener ASAP because I want fruit and flowers and

Entry #271

Uh, so, I just got a call, and uh, I'm on a plane to go see my moms, they're in intensive care because of some kind of car accident it seemed, so, yeah...

Entry #272

They're not gonna make it

Entry #273

They didn't make it

Entry #274

I haven't left my moms' room in a month but Eric, the cool butler guy, has been bringing me stuff, so that's nice

Entry #275

I wish we got to hug more. Mom (mother's) hugs were always like warm milk and honey and ma's (Not mother's) hugs were like strawberry sunshine.

Entry #276

Adeline, the woman moms' left their company in the hands of is really good at what she does, and her intentions are great, but, she said that I have Mom's smile and I had a really bad panic attack but she helped me by making me count out of order

Entry #277

Thomas passed in his sleep. He didn't feel a thing they say, we're helping with the funeral costs. Least we could do

Entry #278

I started going to a different coffee shop every day but none of these taste like ma's did.

Entry #279

So I met a girl at a coffee shop and her hair was electric blue and we traded numbers

Entry #280

Vienna, blue hair girl, saw me at my new therapist (Whose name is Maria, and reminds me of that something I saw when I visited that Mexican temple with moms once before, can't remember what though) and I found out that she goes to Maria's brother Paul for therapy, and we talked and somehow, I have plans for tonight at 8

Entry #290

To whom it may concern,

I think I could fall in love with Vienna, if I wanted, I think I could fall in love with the way she slips into and out of accents as easily as I, or the way she always leaves her incredibly long hair down when she's outside to "Feel the wind", or the way she smiles and I think that even the sun doesn't shine that bright or the way she dances as though she is apart of the music, and

Entry #300

I'm in Vienna Austria with Vienna and she "hates" loves it, it's so warm here. Adeline helped me set it up in exchange I have to meet with an investor tomorrow. Blegh. But still worth it. We will be traveling around the world for the next six months and I am so glad that Vienna works online so that we can you don't even know

Entry #301

I said I love you during sex and Vienna cried and said it back and we cuddled for like, six hours. No day will ever top this in my life.

Entry #401

Remember when I said nothing will ever top hat day? I was right. Vienna is gone, and I can't find her. Anywhere. I don't know what happened, we were going to move in together. I, did I do something wrong? I hope, at least, that she's okay and happy, but I don't, get it? What did I

Entry #404

Okay so, Adeline is helping me move on from Vienna with work, and I'm grateful, but I cannot spend another day in this fucking office, I will staple Stacy from financings mouth shut if she makes one more remark" about my mother.

Entry #426

Stacy was fired today and I'm taking Adeline out for a drink in celebration!!

Entry #427

I feel like shit but I gotta get dressed for this meeting blegh, I'm just gonna wear my black skinny jeans and a sweater today. Fite me.

Entry #427.2

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUhhhhm. So. Adeline. I ate out Adeline...…………. UUUUUUUUUUMMMM

Entry #427.3

We are getting lunch in a minute and I can't tell if the tension is sexual or awkward

Entry #427.4

We flirted!!!!!!!!

Entry #427.5

IM MAKING US DINNER TONIGHT OH MY GOD

Entry #427.6

BTW It was, in fact, sexual tension.

Entry #428

She made breakfast and I almost cried because it was honey cakes like Mom used to make and they were so good

Entry #458

Sooooo, Adeline said I love you and I couldn't say it back but she wasn't mad and we hugged and cried on each other and in exchange, I made her dinner which was lemon herb pasta with spinach and we ate like, the whole pot on accident. Oops?

Entry #476

I said it back today! I said I love you! I did it!

Entry #492

Found a new recipe for a super fucking moist chocolate cake with blackberry filling and we made it and I think we orgasmed whoa

Entry #527

So for my birthday, Adeline is taking me on a tour of temples in Mexico until we find the one moms took me too when I was like, 17 and I love her so much my heart bursts every time I think about her, is this healthy???

Entry #529

We found it!! I was even given a gift by the local shaman who watches over the temple!!!! It's a beautiful scepter thing, Adeline said we could probably drive it up if I felt better about it that way and honestly where would I be without this women? She's so organized and smart and pretty and awesome and

SO what do you guys think??

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