The Cooking Critic

I love my new air conditioner. Love it love it love it. It is my favorite thing right now (I love it even more than my new white dress that I got from H & M), and it was a long time coming. I ordered my air conditioner online in July of 2005 from evil Wal-Mart, paid far more than I intended once shipping and tax were added, and it didn’t show up until September when summer was over, and I had no use for it. I called Wal-Mart, full of self-righteousness and the knowledge that shipping a seasonal product to a person when the season is over is clearly wrong, and they should make amends.

They felt differently.

They only offered me a measly $20 discount, which they never made good on. And while I’ve heard all sorts of horror tales about Wal-Mart from the book Nickel & Dimed and the movie Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, I felt a little more outraged when it affected me personally. (That’s normal, right?) Therefore, all people should boycott Wal-Mart, if not for their general evilness, then for me and my tale of un-air-conditioned woe and sorrow!

So, anyhoo, the air conditioner was stored in my garage that September and was finally brought out of hiding when its services were needed last month. It should have been released from hibernation earlier, but previously when I opened up the box the air conditioner came in, I found its size and booklet of instructions very intimidating, so I kept putting off its installation. It took an outrageous heat wave and the help of my friend Rob to bring to fruition what should have taken place a year ago when I first ordered the damn thing.

I made Banana Bread after the air conditioner was installed simply because I can (also because I owed Rob an edible thank you, and I needed to make a July breakfast item for my blog.) The oven was on, the air conditioner was pumping, and I felt cool as can be … whenever I was in my bedroom anyways. My air conditioner doesn’t quite pump enough to cool as many square inches as it claims to on its box. But if I strategically place three fans throughout the house to push the cool air into various areas, you can almost feel a difference. And sleeping is way easier in a cool, air-conditioned bedroom than in a hot, muggy one.

Assessment: I’ve made and enjoyed many banana breads in my day, and I’ve determined that this one from the Junior League cookbook is the best. I don’t say that lightly. And since topping always makes bread taste better, I added a Streusel Topping from Family Circle. I blame the heat for the fact may streusel melded and never reached crumbly status when I mixed it together with a fork. My technique could also be at fault, but I prefer to blame the heat (and Wal-Mart too while I’m at it–why not? I’m sure I could think of a way to blame Wal-Mart for my banana bread inadequacies if I thought about it long enough.)

Also, did you know boys love banana bread? I ended up making muffins since my bread pan ran off (the floozy!), but at least this way I got to snag a few muffins for myself and share them with some male friends. Jim said he doesn’t normally care for banana bread, but he devoured mine and especially liked “the stuff on the top.” And Matt, who doesn’t like any food at all, more or less, said the muffin he ate was “like a golden biscuit.” So boys apparently love banana bread. Who knew? And here they are pictured on some hand-me-down plates from your mother.

In this month’s episode, Artichoke Jalapeño Dip and 4 Cheese & Vegetable Dip watched TV, argued over the remote control and then in a fit of fiery rage that suits her name, Artichoke Jalapeño Dip threw the remote across the room and stormed out of the house. 4 Cheese was just glad he could watch “The Girls Next Door” in peace. After the commercial break, Artichoke Jalapeño returned full of self-righteous rage and made a point to say “hi” to everyone in the house and pointedly ignored 4 Cheese (his rapping stage name, fyi). 4 Cheese said in his testimonial he was deeply hurt by this, and he had feelings too.

Later in the evening after excessive amounts of alcohol, 4 Cheese and Artichoke Dip flirted their way back to reconciliation, then, naturally, jumped in the hot tub. While they got cozy in the hot tub, Melissa, Maggie and Christine determined they were sick of 4 Cheese and Artichoke’s antics, and in order for peace to reign in the house, one of them had to go. They determined Artichoke would go since if you didn’t get a bite of jalapeño when you dipped in your cracker, she was basically bland.

The three girls approached their housemates and told the dips they couldn’t live with the two of them in the same house any longer, but everyone would be allowed to vote to determine who would stay. But in a shocking reversal of allegiance, Melissa and Christine voted to keep Artichoke Jalapeño since they decided when Maggie left the room that they liked Artichoke and her occasional kick with crusty bread (crackers don’t do her justice) as well as slathered on omelets. They preferred to kick 4-Cheese out of the house since, as Melissa put it, she found his appearance “disturbing and not at all attractive.” And while Christine felt he might taste good heated on a sesame bagel, she felt he tasted a little too strongly of cream cheese. Also, both Melissa and Christine were really tired of 4 Cheese’s lame raps.

So far, Blue Cheese Roasted Pecan Dip and Spicy Feta Dip have entered the victors’ circle. Now Artichoke Jalapeño Dip has taken her place among the winners. Who will be the next Great American Dip-Off Finalist? Find out in one week? Two? Three? (There’s really no telling.)

Lately the phrase “coconut cream” has a strange, hypnotic effect on me—I basically feel compelled to test any recipes that contains the ingredient. This was the case with Lime-and-Coconut-Soaked Chicken with Cilantro, and it certainly helped that the dish listed only six ingredients total.

My recent coconut cream obsession has come from a fling I’ve been having with the piña colada lately. Frothy and potent, it’s my hot afternoon drink of choice and has made coconut cream a staple in my pantry. I also have another coconut cream infatuation: the Thai soup tom kha. Made of coconut cream and lemongrass broth, it’s rich and borders on buttery, and I find it pretty much impossible to go into a Thai restaurant and not order it.

My grilled chicken recipe did not list lemongrass as an ingredient, but it was recommended as an addition in italics. I figured a tom kha-like marinade couldn’t be a bad thing, so the marinade was thrown together one warm evening that was, despite the recipe’s original draw, sadly void of lemongrass. While coconut cream has reached staple status in my kitchen, lemongrass has not. So the marinade was made with only the official ingredients listed in the recipe proper (coconut milk, chicken, lime, cilantro, salt and pepper.)

Assessment: Since I had successfully paired a lime chicken with polenta previously, grilled polenta became the companion to this chicken as well. My friend described polenta as “filler, like yucca,” the latter being a Caribbean potato, more or less. And then he went on to say I best not rave about this meal on thecookingcritic.com. I lashed out by calling him an uncultured polenta amateur. He reminded me of his art degree and all the culture it implied. I harrumphed.

While the grill gave the polenta a nice flavor, I have to say I much prefer my polenta fried—perhaps this isn’t such a big surprise. The chicken, on the other hand, had a pleasant, mild flavor to it, but I had hoped for something with a little more oomph. Marinating it over night might have helped, and I think it would have benefited from being skewered next to some pineapple. But all in all, I prefer the similar-but-better-tasting Lime-Cilantro Chicken I made before and will probably turn to it next time I grill up some chicken.

When Adam told me about the local Atwater Village Cookie Contest, I thought, Cookies? I know cookies. And yes, I do know cookies, but clearly I don’t know people since the cookies I made were deemed by one judge, and I quote: “Definitely not the best cookie overall.” Sigh. My cookies are so misunderstood.

For this contest, I picked a family cookie recipe that I have tentatively named Citrus Clouds–I’ve never seen these cookies elsewhere before, not the grocery store or the cookie stand or in someone else’s repertoire. This is why I decided to enter them in a contest. When I told a friend I was making Citrus Clouds, he said, You don’t expect to win with those, do you? My response, Why, because there’s no chocolate in them? Him: Exactly. But I thought originality was key (I have since realized, it is not), so I stuck with my plan.

The day of the contest, I hastily made the cookies, which are intended to be iced, but instead I thinned out the icing to a glaze and dunked the cookies in it head first. I didn’t bother with finishing touches, no zest curls, no sprigs of thyme. So basically, I completely ignored the “best-looking” component of the competition, even though I know better—people prefer their cookies to be good-looking. Basically, I’m a bad mother to Citrus Cloud (she sounds like she’s related to the Phoenix family: Joaquin Phoenix, Summer Phoenix, River Phoenix, Rain Phoenix, Citrus Cloud Phoenix). The judges might have taken note of her if I had dressed her up in a decent coat of icing—it’s the equivalent of hip clothing. Instead, I send her out in the world in a sheer coat of barely discernable glaze. I just hope she doesn’t grow up and write a book about me….

At least I had the foresight to rename the cookie, referred to as Orange Cookies in my family (though even the renamed name keeps changing, from Citrus Clouds, to Citrus Pillows, to Airy Citrus Cookies—preferences, anyone?) The name change occurred because I’ve discovered that many people think they don’t like orange desserts—I use the word citrus to trick them because then they assume the cookies are lemon-flavored and generally don’t seem to notice the lack of lemon when they taste them. The orange juice in the batter gives just the faintest sweet citrus hint to the cookies, and everybody likes that, whether they know it or not.

So I didn’t win the cookie contest. Instead a peanut butter thumbprint cookie won with a Hershey Kiss pressed into it (why are people such chocolate freaks?), and sadly, the girl who won wasn’t even prancing around in a bikini, so I can’t complain about that.

Still, I beseech you to try these cookies despite their loser status. Think of the cookie contest as a popularity contest where the cutest girl won. My cookie is delicate and unassuming with a light, cakey texture similar to a madeleine. Citrus Cloud is a wallflower who could be hot if she were just a little more socially inclined, and really, we’re lucky she’s not all-out awkward due to her goofy, inept mother.

Vote for Citrus Cloud!