The Cooking Critic

I have strange whims. Such as the one I recently had to jump in my car and go to the Gilroy Garlic Festival.

But not with this man. Instead, I got to see one of my oldest friends in the world, Sammy, and his lovely wife Jean. Here are our feet.

Yes, I’m wearing black toe nailpolish. No, I don’t know why.

And here’s my lunch–every single item (tri-tip steak sandwich, pesto pasta, calamari, garlic bread and sauteed mushrooms) has a whopping dose of garlic.

The garlic festival probably isn’t the best place to bring a date, what with the garlic breath and all. Carnivores, however, are welcome.

Also welcome? Fire!

These guys are Pyro Chefs. It was HOT outside even without overseeing a giant fire.

The heat, in fact, might explain this line for the garlic ice cream.

I’m at the end of it. The phrase “garlic ice cream” is underneath the word “free” in the distance. I guess it’s not too surprising that they have to give the stuff away. And here’s the ice cream and some shadows.

One of us evidently broke out into dance just as I was taking this picture. Also, my hands are ugly. Why are my hands so ugly?

But I got to give these garlic festival people props on the garlic ice cream. Granted, the first bite is bizarre, but once you get over the hump, it’s surprisingly good, with just the right balance of savory and sweet.

If you want to read more about the garlic festival (as well as onion, tomato and bourbon festivals), you can check out an article I wrote here. This is a lame way to end my post, but I’m going with it.

I had grand plans for this year’s Guac Bowl. My wasabi guacamole was going to herald in a new era of ethnic-fusion guac for Guac Bowl participants, then, the world! People would proclaim my genius! Ask for the recipe! Give me a show on The Food Network! But, alas, things did not go according to plan.

While practicing for the premier guacamole competition in the world, I attempted my “Turning Guacanese” guacamole with various types of wasabi: a wasabi paste from a tube, a wasabi powder, a wasabi-and-balsamic-reduction and that Play-Doh-like wasabi clump that comes with sushi. I determined the latter produced the best wasabi flavor–less-preservative-y than the tube, less heinous smelling than the powder, not as outrageously potent as the reduction. First-place glory seemed near!

Sunday morning I arose, made my guac without incident (unlike last year), but little did I know, the wheels of disaster were already in motion–competitors with similar wasabi guac foresight and a lust for victory were making their guac as I made mine! Unknowing, I went to my old neighborhood of Atwater Village for Adam’s annual Guac Bowl and set up shop with my very zen-looking entry, which Tim said would win “Classiest” if there were such a category. There is not.

I look so hopeful.

The entries trickled in: “Guactopus” had impressive homemade ceramic tendrils groping from the guac, frozen savory “Guacsicles” were disgusting, the “Walking Talking Guac King” featured a live little boy threatening to cry if you didn’t vote for Adam’s guac, which was attached to the child’s head by way of a sombrero. There were, in fact, numerous entries, but most rather complicated to describe, so please check them out here.

The guacs kept coming, and then, disaster struck! In walked Lauren and Dave with “Domo Ariguaco, Mr. Roboto,” featuring both a braver dose of wasabi than my timid attempt AND pickled ginger. You could smell the defeat in the air. Or maybe that was just the guac.

Soon after, Kevin’s “Guaczilla” stomped in with an even heartier dose of wasabi–as Marissa described it: “That’s just wasabi with a little bit of avocado mixed in.” And while the guac seemed a better fit for clearing up sinuses than as a food to eat for pleasure, the presentation was impressive. Wires, plumbing pipes, duct tape, newspaper and twine formed the body’s structure with guac patted around it–the skin of the avocado served as the skin of the lizard. As a final touch, olives were used as eyes.

Someone (who? I cannot remember.) said that Lauren, Dave and I (but absolutely not Kevin) helped prove that Asian and Mexican flavors can peacefully–no, successfully–co-exist together. Thank you, kind stranger, but words bring little comfort at this time.

Then, all the wasabi guacs met their real match in the alternative category–it’s not fiery flavors people crave after all, it’s sweet. “Guacolate Chip Ice Cream” arrived, a surprisingly light and delicious sweet avocado ice cream (though does using avocados necessarily make it guac? I don’t know….) that was downright refreshing after sampling so many heavy savory guacamoles. I even voted for it.

The ballots cast, Adam announced the winners. Lauren, Dave and I tied for second in the alternative category for our wasabi guacs—I’m surprised we didn’t cancel each other out all together. Here’s how the rest shook out:

Best Tasting, Tradtional: Shahan Sanossian’s unnamed guacamole
Best Tasting, Alternative: “Guacolate Chip Ice Cream,” Steve Shoffner and Lara Minassian
Best Presentation: “Guaczilla,” Kevin Seccia
The Icarus Award (or Most Terrible): “Guacsicles,” Shahan Sanossian

Also of note, Dakota built a fountain of guac, called “Guac Grotto,” by rewiring a chocolate fountain so it wouldn’t heat his thin yogurt-based guacamole. As Graham said, “If a fountain of guac can’t win, I’m out.”

And just because I find it vaguely interesting, here’s what Wikipedia has to say about wasabi: “Wasabi paste bears a superficial resemblance to guacamole, a popular staple of Mexican-style cuisine, a similarity which can lead to an unpleasant surprise for those unfamiliar with Japanese cuisine.” And also: “Wasabi ice cream is a recent but increasingly popular innovation.”

Perhaps next year we can expect a wasabi guacolate chip ice cream? We will see….

Guac Bowl season is upon us! (Please see this link to last year’s competition if you have no idea what I’m talking about.) My L.A. friends are thinking only of guac these days as we contemplate puns, secret ingredients and ridiculous contraptions for our guacamole entries in the fiercest guacamole competition this side of the Mississippi, or perhaps, the world!

I’m going for my fourth win–I believe I hold the record at three, but I’m sure I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong. I would say I’m going for my fourth and fifth win except that I’ve opted for a pretty presentation that actually looks like something you’d want to eat (yes, yes, I know–I’m so predictable), so I imagine there’s no way I can win best presentation. I fully expect best presentation to go to a full-size float made of guac. Somebody has got to be planning one.

Here’s my winning entry from last year.

And can I just complain a bit about the price of avocados these days? Not to mention the unfortunate taste and texture of them! I bought a little bag of Trader Joe’s avocados, and it took a week and a half before they were soft enough to cut open. And even then they were weird and rubbery, and I had to throw them out. I will pray every night this week for soft, tasty avocados come Guac Bowl day. And I will give all my competitors a tip out of the kindness of my heart: Buy your avocados very soon, if you haven’t already, and fold them up in a brown bag to help them ripen. Don’t put them in a plastic bag, as I stupidly did one year–I only succeeded in suffocating them. Who knew you can suffocate avocados? Also, an fyi, according to The New Food Lover’s Companion: “It is not true that burying the avocado pit in the guacamole helps to maintain good color.” So douse your guacs in citrus, people! It gives it that beautiful green glow!
How did this entry turning into me passing valuable information on to my competitors when I was planning to talk trash the entire time? I do not know.

So sometimes life gets in the way a bit. And birthdays. And new jobs. And half-marathons. But I’ll get into all of that eventually (as in, not now and what is sure to be beyond belated, if it’s even possible to be “beyond belated.”)

Here’s the super-short entry I wrote months ago. And there’s really no good reason why I couldn’t find the time to post it. I am a bad blogger! Bad, bad blogger! Okay, here it is, for reals:

I’m an adult, and you can be too! Just heat up this super-thin-crusted, fancy-cheesed pizza with chichi toppings (ham! carmelized onions! Gruyere!), cut into small squares, serve to a crowd, and you are golden! Everyone will ooh and aah and comment on how nicely you’ve grown up! And you’ll like the taste too! Because it’s sophisticated without including crazy foreign ingredients to make you scrunch up your nose!

Here is the crappy, out-focus-picture:

And I’m out.

(Please refrain from: we-waited-over-a-month-for-this comments. Think of this as me warming back up before I get into the groove. Thank you.)

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.)

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!

My mother likes to send me forwards. Some of them are adorable (like the old tortoise that adopted the baby hippo left motherless after the tsunami), some addictive (pictures of celebrities as children), some occasionally pointless (sorry, Mom, I still love you!) and some completely invaluable and amazing. Ziploc Omelets fall into the final category.

She timed the omelet forward well since I was looking for something to fulfill my monthly breakfast recipe promise to the world. I’m sure the world would have noticed and been very angry with me if the promise went unfilled….

Ziploc Omelets may sound a little baffling, so a quick explanation: they consist of an egg mixture zipped up in a Ziploc bag then cooked in boiling water for thirteen minutes. And this may lead you to wonder, as I did, why would anyone make omelets that take thirteen minutes when you can make omelets in less amount of time the normal way? My short answer: the novelty of it! Also, maybe you can make omelets the normal human way, but I cannot. I can’t flip them without them falling apart. Inevitably, I give up and make a scramble.

I decided to make a Spinach, Tomato, and Feta Omelet, as described in The Foster’s Market Cookbook, substituting Trader Joe’s Artichoke Jalapeno Dip for the artichoke aioli mentioned in the recipe. Then I fretted about how much spinach to include because I am astounded every. Single. Time. When I see spinach cook and shrink to ridiculously tiny quantities. I threw a large handful (or thereabouts) of chopped spinach into the Ziploc bag along with the ingredients and wrote my name on the bag as instructed. This is recommended if you have a Ziploc Omelet party, as people are apt do sometimes (people are so crazy), so everyone can keep track of their personalized omelets. No one else was at my Ziploc Omelet party, but I wrote my name on my bag anyways:

(Bear with me as my omelet goes through its awkward, ugly stage.) Next, I put it in boiling water and worried about whether or not it would cook through since it was floating. I think I didn’t push all the air out of the bag as instructed.

But it did indeed cook. And as promised, the omelet rolled out of the bag just like the instructions said it would. As a bonus, I was please to see I accidentally used the perfect amount of spinach.

You may notice it resembles a small log. No matter. I slathered on some artichoke dip, topped it with sautéed tomatoes, and had myself a substantial little omelet log.

And here’s the inside:

Color me impressed.

Assessment: Despite my doubts, thirteen minutes in boiling water makes for a perfectly cooked omelet, and Ziploc Omelets get my seal of amazement—they’d be a great activity/conversation piece for a brunch. And I also liked the suggested omelet combination from Foster’s Market as well as Trader Joe’s artichoke dip on this, even if it was a bit of an intense flavor fight between the dip and the feta in the places where the feta had grouped together in the Ziploc bag.

Overall, I highly recommend this. Please let me know what you think of the Ziploc technique if you try it (or even if you don’t.)

In my freezer, items go to die a long, slow death of freezer burn. While I’m constantly chiding myself for not freezing food more often (especially homemade food that makes too much and I’ll eventually get sick of if I eat it three days in a row), the truth is, I don’t use my freezer much except for ice. Since college, I have kept one frozen dinner in my freezer for absolute emergencies—an emergency to me is when I am very very hungry but don’t feel like cooking something. You would agree this is an emergency if you have been around when I’m hungry, and there’s nothing to eat; it’s not a pleasant experience. But when these dire situations hit, and I opened my freezer to eye the frozen meal in question, typically, the meal went back in the freezer, and I ended up making noodles tossed in butter and Parmesan.

But I have bouts where I try to reconnect with my freezer. I will wrap items up and place them in it, fully intending to eat them at a later date. Unfortunately, I rarely mark the item, and this causes some confusion later when I can’t figure out what it is. Despite this, I’ve determined recently I’m going to eat through the items in my freezer. I’ve already had a lovely filet steak thanks to this initiative, and then it was time to try Trader Joe’s frozen manítaropita, which is filo wrapped around a mushroom mixture and is related, by name at least, to spanakopita. Manítaropita had spent way more time in its cold, boxy prison than is fair.

Assessment: One reason this has been in my freezer so long is because they didn’t make much of any impression on me when I opened the box and first tried them. When I ate them this time, they were better than I remembered, and I liked them as a light dinner accompanied by a salad. The mushrooms are nicely seasoned and the dough is flaky, but I think I prefer another Trader Joe’s mushroom product. It’s similar concept—dough wrapped around mushrooms—but the dough is more substantial and buttery (my preference, you may prefer flaky), though I can’t remember the name of the product at all right now; I guess I’ll just have to purchase them, eat some and report back.

I had already started a story in my head about how I called multiple grocery stores in the Los Angeles area asking about red velvet cake mixes, no one knew what I was talking about, and isn’t that strange? But as it turns out, red velvet cake, a mild chocolate cake dyed red and typically served with cream cheese frosting, is a Southern phenomenon, which baffles me since it’s not as if red food coloring and chocolate cake are indigenous to the South. And while I couldn’t find any reason why Southerners are partial to the cake, I did figure out how it came to be: the term “red velvet cake” comes from the fact that the cocoa used in the 30s-40s (or thereabouts as far as I can tell) made the cake reddish-brown. Modern cocoa has more alkaline in it and no longer produces this color, so red dye is added to achieve the hue instead. (Thank you Wikepedia.)

But I doubt my brother cared about the historical and cultural relevance of the red velvet cake when he requested it every year for his birthday growing up. Today he turns 28. I was going to use red velvet cake mix to make some cakey cookies (I’ve done this before with lemon cake mix), and ship them to him. But since California doesn’t carry red velvet cake mix, he got Heath Bar Chocolate Chip Cookies instead, mainly because I’ve been wanting to try them.

Still, I did have Michael in mind. I called Mom and Dad and quizzed them on Michael’s favorite flavors. Their response, “Hmm, I don’t know. Maybe peanut butter?” When I think about it, I realize Michael doesn’t voice his opinion on foods so often. I believe he likes a balsamic vinegar linguine with bacon and goat cheese that I make, but besides that and red velvet cake, nothing else comes to mind. His main concern when we made food in our family was the ease in making it and the ease in cleaning it up. In fact, when we were pre-teens and assigned to make a meal once a week, I’d go about making homemade breadsticks and strawberry chicken. When Michael cooked, he made something along the lines of hot dogs and macaroni and cheese. His specialty was baked chicken fingers well-seasoned and doused in butter. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy them.

But back to the glories of toffee. The reason cookies with toffee candy appeal to me (and hopefully my brother) is because my family went on a toffee bar craze when we first discovered Skors. I’ve always preferred the Skor to the Heath bar, which is why I used it in this recipe despite the fact the recipe is called “Heath Bar Chocolate Chip Cookies.” Perhaps I like Skor simply because I met it first, and it introduced me to the world of toffee. But I’ve always thought it tasted better too, and I felt vindicated when an examination of the ingredients of the two candy bars revealed Heath had more unpronounceable ingredients than Skor. It also revealed both candy bars are made by Hershey, which I thought was very strange.

I suspected Michael must have the same fondness for the Skor bar that I do since we grew up in the same Skor-obsessed household, so I decided these cookies would be up his alley. And here’s a picture of my brother pretending he can operate machinery. He’s got a bit of a Burt Reynolds thing going on these days.

Happy birthday, Bear!

Assessment (of the cookies, not my brother): When I first tasted a warm Skor Bar Chocolate Chip Cookie, I determined they’re better in theory than in actuality. The toffee distracted rather than added to what is primarily a chocolate chip cookie with oatmeal and walnuts mixed in. But I adjusted my opinion when I tried the cookies cold. The toffee added something more when the Skor bits solidified into a buttery crunch rather than when they were sticky and oozy. So my final verdict is: if you’re bringing cookies somewhere with you, than try out these chewy Skor cookies (an adjustment involving 3/4 cup butter and ¼ cup shortening might have helped the texture of this cookie). But if you’re mixing up a batch to eat out of the oven, stick to the tried and true regular old chocolate chip cookie—they’re hard to beat.