Braisin' Hussy

Thursday, March 31, 2005

This won't interest you. I'm talking about D&D and cartoons.

Damn you, Jeremy! Our illustrious DM put some major hurt on us last night. Oh, we all survived, yes, but my GOD did we lose a lot of money. He pulled out an oldie-but-goodie, the rust monster. Cooper and Mynnyd tried to kill it as fast as possible, but we still lost a set of +4 full plate (Cooper) and a +3 animated shield (Mynnyd). This was our second battle of the night. In the first, Merreck conjured a red dragon to fight a yuan-ti dragon (AKA ssvaklor). It was grappling Cooper, and Merreck had his dragon breath fire on the two of them, Cooper being fairly certain he could take the damage. Yes, he could take the damage, no problem. However, he critically failed his reflex save and lost his +5 cloak of resistence to the flames. So, let's see. Mynnyd's shield was 25,170 gold pieces. Cooper's armor was 17,650 gp, and his cloak was 25,000. Damn. Thankfully, we had enough other stuff back in town so we could sort of protect ourselves. The party has a +2 large steel shield that Mynnyd can use, although it means he has to go back to using his dwarven waraxe one-handed. No problem, he's got the feat that allows that, I'll just miss adding strength and a half to his damage. We had some +1 dwarven full plate of nimbleness from Mynnyd's late uncle that Cooper could use, and through some switching around of party gear, he wound up with a +4 cloak of resistance. What I'm saying is this hurt us, a lot, and now Rob and I really need to be thinking about money.

And I'm a moron for forgetting that Mynnyd had a potion of fly on him.

I brought a bottle of Bawls to the game last night. Hee! Bawls. It's got a lovely blue bottle and is apparently hyper-caffeinated. I didn't really feel the effects. I'm sure the D&D Fellows will say, "Sarah, we saw you shaking, you were affected." But I always shake. It was too sweet for me. I think, if I were to drink it again, I'd prefer the sugar-free. Unfortunately, the sugar-free comes in a clear bottle. Not as pretty.

I recently added Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends to my season pass list. I would highly recommend the opening sequence to everyone. The show sometimes isn't great, but I love the opening theme and animation. The theme song features a slightly out-of-tune piano and kazoos. It's pretty awesome. I quite like Wilt (a tall, basketball-playing imaginary friend voiced by Phil LaMarr) and Eduardo (who looks like he stepped out of the pages of Where the Wild Things Are). The music just kills me. Kazoos. Brilliant.

International Channel (which has the same annoying habit as Disney Channel not to have a "The" in front of its name) has recently changed to the all-Asian network, AZN Channel. Not much better a name choice, in my opinion. However, they're showing more anime now, so I say yay. I would just like to give massive props to the person who decided that they should broadcast Descendants of Darkness (Yami no Matsuei). You've got balls, man. Yes, it's the dub, which means Muraki sounds like the villain of a Hammer Horror flick, and Hisoka sounds far too old, and wow, they made Watari British. Usually dubbers make the person from Osaka speak... more roughly, not more refined-ly. Anyway. There's some blood in Descendants of Darkness, which I guess will appeal to people, there are people fighting demons, but the best description I can find for the show comes from the forums at Television Without Pity, where one poster described it as, "I Love My Dead Gay Bureaucrats." You've got these guys who work as shinigami (gods of death) for the Ministry of Hades (argh, these half-assed translations aren't pleasing me), kicking ass and taking souls for the good of Japan. With unresolved sexual tension. And a mad-scientist villain (Muraki) who is very interested in the protagonist (Tsuzuki) for... um, not just research.

Anyway, I just find it fascinating that in the current climate of America, AZN Channel decides to show shounen-ai. What's next? Cartoon Network running Gravitation? Sure, that'd make the yaoi fangirls happy. Not me, though. I thought it was an annoying series. Really wanted to like it, but didn't.

Yeah, food.
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Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Okay, I've actually written out the recipe for the Murgh Dehin. I finished it for lunch yesterday. I have more Indian leftovers today, but these are from an actual restaurant, not stuff I made. On Saturday, Rob, Jeremy, Carolyn, and I went down to the South Jo' to visit Val and Grant. They have a lovely house. And a great kitchen. I want their stove. We got take out from a local Indian place. Mm, tasty. And then we played a game called Bang! in which a dumb mistake I made caused Jer (the sheriff) and I (the deputy) to lose and the outlaws to win. It was still a lot of fun. Val, Grant, and I had never played before, so it wasn't like a situation where you feel dumb because you're the only one who doesn't know how to add up damage on a crit. Er, or something. (I know now!)
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Monday, March 28, 2005

All right. I've got a couple more Katamari Damacy cosplay pictures to share.

The Dashing Near-Sighted Prince. Props to him for getting the bottom of the tunic right. The head's not great, though. As I've said before, you run into problems if you show your neck.

Another Prince. The colors are right, which is really nice. People usually get the leg color wrong. However, the hole in the head is far too small. Seriously, I'd feel mega-claustrophobic in that thing. (Hopefully, I won't have that problem with my head. Hopehopehope.)

Kuro! This lass is going to be wearing this costume to Fanime, same as me. So Lydia and I have to make sure our costumes are better than hers. It's going to be tough! The head's not exactly right yet, it's missing the pointy red accent strips, but she says she's got more additions to it. The bottom of the tunic needs the hoop (or whatever) in it to make it stand out more, and the gloves shouldn't be gloves but more like mittens. It's very good, though. I'm mega-nitpicking it since I'm going as the same character.
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Dark Chocolate Cupcakes
Cook's Illustrated

8 Tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
2 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa
3/4 cup AP flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp table salt (1 tsp kosher)
1/2 cup sour cream

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position; heat oven to 350. Line standard-sized muffin pan with cupcake papers.

Combine butter, chocolate, and cocoa in a medium heatproof bowl. Set bowl over saucepan containing barely simmering water; heat mixture until butter and chocolate are melted and whisk until smooth and fully combined. Set aside to cool until just warm to touch.

Whisk flour, baking soda, and baking powder in a small bowl to combine.

Whisk eggs in another medium-sized bowl. Add sugar, vanilla, and salt. Whisk until fully integrated. Add cooled chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Sift about one-third of the flour mixture over the chocolate mixture and whisk until combined; whisk in sour cream until combined, then sift the remaining flour mixture over and whisk until batter is homogenous and thick.

Divide batter evenly among muffin pan cups. Bake until skewer inserted into center of cupcakes comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes.

Cool cupcakes in muffin pan on wire rack until cool enough to handle, about 15 minutes. Carefully lift each cupcake from muffin pan and set on wire rack. Cool to room temperature before icing, about 30 minutes.
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Easy Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Cook's Illustrated

10 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
5 oz. confectioners' sugar
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp heavy cream

In a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat butter at medium-high speed until smooth, about 20 seconds. Add confectioners' sugar and salt and beat on medium-low speed until most of the sugar is moistened, about 45 seconds. Scrape down bowl and beat at medium speed until mixture is fully combined, about 15 seconds. Scrape the bowl again, and add the vanilla and cream. Beat at medium speed until incorporated, about 10 seconds, then increase speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, about four minutes, scraping down bowl once or twice. (If using a handheld mixer, double the mixing times.)

Use immediately for easy spreading. If you refrigerate the frosting, it needs to come to room temperature to soften before use.
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Easy Coffee Buttercream Frosting
Cook's Illustrated

10 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
5 oz. confectioners' sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp heavy cream
1 1/2 tsp instant espresso or 2 tsp instant coffee

Dissolve the espresso or coffee in the vanilla and cream. In a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat butter at medium-high speed until smooth, about 20 seconds. Add confectioners' sugar and salt and beat on medium-low speed until most of the sugar is moistened, about 45 seconds. Scrape down bowl and beat at medium speed until mixture is fully combined, about 15 seconds. Scrape the bowl again, and add the vanilla, cream, and espresso or coffee. Beat at medium speed until incorporated, about 10 seconds, then increase speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, about four minutes, scraping down bowl once or twice. (If using a handheld mixer, double the mixing times.)

Use immediately for easy spreading. If you refrigerate the frosting, it needs to come to room temperature to soften before use.
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Sunday, March 27, 2005

I'm not dead. I'm resting.

Seriously, I'll write something tomorrow.
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Thursday, March 24, 2005

Recently, my mom posted her thoughts on the whole Schiavo debacle and got a pretty irate commenter on her blog. I figured I might as well open myself up for flaming- not on the same issue, though. I read this in the newspaper yesterday (Carolyn Jung of the Mercury News).

In a jab at the state's new law that will ban the production of foie
gras in California in 2012, chefs Jon Sears of the Dining Room
restaurant and Scott Giambastiani of Viognier restaurant, both in San
Mateo, will host a special 12-course dinner on April 16, with each
course featuring foie gras or duck. It's their way of supporting
California duck farmers and Sonoma Foie Gras, the state's only
producer of the delicacy made from the engorged livers of ducks and
geese.

The dinner will be held at the Dining Room, 1602 El Camino Real in San
Mateo. Dishes include "Ducksicle" (a frozen Popsicle-type creation of
melon and duck cracklings); seared spiced foie gras with brandied Fuji
apple compote; and marinated wok-charred duck with ginger, soy and
coriander. Price is $250 a person; $300 with wine pairings. For
reservations, call (650) 349-5552.

I wanna go! Doesn't that sound like a fabulous meal? The first time I tried foie gras was in January of 2002 at Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence, Italy. It was overwhelming. I couldn't eat more than two or three bites before trading plates with my mom because it was just. too. rich. Seriously. But it was lovely. It was just... an experience. And dude, that Ducksicle? Sounds awesome. Mm, cracklings. But that's a crapload of money for just one person.

Apparently this isn't the first time Jon Sears has hosted this dinner. I googled his name and "foie gras" and got a couple of sites bitching about last year's Foiellywood dinner. Yes, okay, the protesters are right. It is cruel to the geese. And so is everything we do to further the meat industry. The vegans have a right to be harshly judgemental about this case. If I'm going to hell for eating meat, I may as well drop another circle by eating foie gras.

But really, I'm going to hell for reasons worse than enjoying meat.
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Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Happy birthday to me.

I made a bunch of cupcakes last night to take to D&D tonight. It's very second grade of me. I don't know if my body's trying to tell me, "Hey! Don't think just because you're turning 25 you're suddenly going to acquire grace! You're still as clumsy as ever!" or if it was trying to get out all the klutz before 10:12am, when I actually will have been living for 25 years (I believe I was born at 1:12pm EST, and if I'm wrong, my mom will correct me). Because wow. I had many near fatal things happen to my cupcakes. First, when I was making frosting in my lovely stand mixer, the screw that holds the attachment-hole-cover-thing got loose and the cover-thing fell into the frosting. Whoops. Then, after I had wrapped the cupcakes in plastic, I dropped them (at which point, I yelled in frustration- at midnight). Only a few suffered cosmetic injury. Then, this morning, coming into work with the cupcakes, I hit the tray with the door I was opening and jammed the tray into my ribs. Ow.

All that aside, these cupcakes smell intoxicating. And I used over a pound of butter yesterday between the cupcakes and the frosting (eighteen ounces, to be exact). That's good times, right there.
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Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Happy Birthday, Braisin' Hussy!

Actually, that kind of surprised me. Apparently today is the birthday of the blog. I thought it was tomorrow, since that's my birthday and this was a birthday present from my dear sister-in-law, Ryan. But yay! I've been blogging for a year. Interesting statistics:

Posts: 309
Recipes: 85
Recipes that actually involve braising: 4
Average readers per day: 42
Best month: December 2004
Best week: February 27-March 5, 2005

For a girl who claims to have a baking curse, I sure have done a lot of it. It's kind of sad that a blog called "Braisin' Hussy" would have baking recipes outnumber braising recipes by many factors. Maybe I've broken the curse. I make damn good cookies now.

I'm not a terribly aggressive blog pimper, but maybe I should become one. I should have more people coming here daily. 42? That's pretty low. Although I do remember the days when I was excited I broke ten. I'm interesting, damn it! Read my blog!
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Monday, March 21, 2005

Murgh Dehin (Chicken with Buttermilk)
The Art of Indian Cuisine (modified by Sarah)

2 cups buttermilk
2 1/2 Tbsp spiced onion
2 1/2 Tbsp ketchup
2 1/2 Tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
2 tsp kosher salt
2-3 lbs chicken (or, you know, rabbit) (boneless, skinless pieces will work best- white or dark meat)
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 medium yellow onion, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/4 tsp fresh ginger, finely minced
1 1/4 tsp ground cumin
2 1/2 tsp ground coriander
3/4 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cayenne pepper (less if you don't like the spicy so much)
1 28-oz. can chopped tomatoes, drained
2 1/2 Tbsp AP flour

Combine buttermilk, spiced onion, ketchup, cilantro, and salt in a bowl. Add chicken pieces and gently rub the paste into the chicken. Marinate overnight (or at least 5 to 6 hours) in the refrigerator.

Heat oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add onion, garlic, and ginger, and cook until fragrant and golden, about 2 to 4 minutes. Mix in cumin, coriander, turmeric, cayenne, garam masala, and tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes are soft, another 2 to 4 minutes. Remove chicken pieces from marinade and place in skillet. Cook, stirring, 4 to 5 minutes, or until the oil comes to the surface. Add the flour to the remaining marinade and combine, whisking to get rid of any lumps. Pour the buttermilk marinade over the chicken. Cover and cook slowly for about one hour, or until the chicken is tender. Serve with rice.

(When I make this again, I may change the recipe a bit more. Postpone the addition of the tomatoes. Actually brown the chicken pieces and remove them from the pan. Make a roux with the oil, chicken fat, and flour, then add the tomatoes and buttermilk marinade. And finally put the chicken back in. Although that might not soften the tomatoes sufficiently. I don't know. It'll be an experiment.)
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Sunday, March 20, 2005

Feels like forever since I've posted. Sorry.

Went to a butcher on Friday to buy rabbit. Dittmer's in Mountain View. What a cool little place! Oh, their porthouse looked good enough to eat raw. Their frozen cases were filled with really amazing things, too. So many organ meats! I was delighted. I'm going to have to go back there and buy lots of weird things. Er, once I have an idea of what to do with them.

So I made the rabbit curry over at Lydia's yesterday. I thought it turned out really well. I took a chicken recipe and substituted rabbit meat. It worked. The meat was slightly sweeter than chicken, and the texture was slightly different, but it was really good. However, butchering a rabbit sucks. I got the guy at Dittmer's to cut it into eight pieces, and then I tried to further deconstruct it. I wanted smallish, boneless pieces of meat, but that didn't happen. Lydia ate the boneless bits I was able to cut away, and Zack and I each had a hind leg/thigh piece. I will post the recipe probably tomorrow. It was really quite good.

A trip to Lydia's wouldn't be complete without some anime, so we watched an episode of Maria-sama ga Miteru, or The Virgin Mary is Watching. First of all, that's a creepy title. Secondly, that's a boring anime. I guess it redeems itself with pretty character designs, although the animation wasn't all that great. Lydia said she might give it a second chance, maybe, and I said there were better ways to spend 23 minutes. Then we watched the hour special of Yakitate!! episodes 11 and 12. I figured out the two "mysteries" of the baking competition very quickly, which delighted me and Lydia. The first was that was that Azuma had chosen margarine, and the second higher fat content butter doesn't always translate into the best butter to use.

I tried on some of Lydia's wigs- a long ash blond, a long black, and a short brown. I looked uniformly awful in them. I was very sad. Oh, and I lost an earring. That was sad, too. But happy- Lydia converted my extra-large Derrida t-shirt into something actually wearable. Huzzah!
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Thursday, March 17, 2005

So Lydia's having this contest. Make her a bunny, and you'll win a buttload of cute. Generally, I'm one to refuse cute, but Lydia's concept of cute is a good one. What can I do with a bunny that Lydia would like... hm, hm, hm... oh, I've got it! I'll make her a rabbit curry! That combines two things she likes.

Are you free on Saturday, Lydia? Or is that too close to when you're leaving for Hawaii? Otherwise I can just take pictures and tell you how good it was.
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Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Quick post before I go to bed. First day of work was good. I had an artichoke and soup for lunch. Tomorrow we get pizza. D&D was pretty awesome, greater rage kicks so much ass. We all almost died again. We're so good at that. I retired a d20 because it kept critically missing saves.

Today is Kenny's birthday. That means it's a week before I'm officially old. Happy not-mid-twenties, Kenny. I'm totally with you.
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Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Last day o' freedom. I'm cooking a bunch of stuff, but not anything new. Just getting prepared for future lunches. Tomorrow night is D&D, so I'm not going to be cooking anything. I want to make more sourdough bread, but I still have a lot left from my not-so-good batch. Jon was talking about it with Rob, his coworker who gave him his starter, and they say to move my oven rack closer to the top. Also, to make sure my oven's getting up to 500. I forgot to put my oven thermometer in when I baked the bread.

I'm making the apple-rutabaga soup again (I had leftover vegetables, and what else was I going to do with them?). This time, I remembered the apple. I'm trying to lighten it just a little. Half a stick of butter, half and half instead of cream, and no maple syrup.
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Sunday, March 13, 2005

Well, my bread has just finished baking. I screwed up the crust, it's all pale. But it's nicely sour with a decent crumb.
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Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Ah, the d10! While you aren't actually a true regular polyhedron, you are the only die that makes logical sense--metrically speaking. Chances are, others see you as over-analytical or a goody-goody. While that may be true, you also have a gift for patience and tolerance. Growing up you probably had a calculator wristwatch that you never really needed to use (since you were faster on your own), and you probably aced all your classes (except for gym). You use the metric system almost exclusively, but are able to quickly convert in mid-conversation for the sake of your backwards Imperalist friends. You've coded in at least two different programming languages, and have created more original gaming systems than you'll ever admit. You're generally not a show-off, but you do take pride in being called either a geek or a nerd.

(Well, I agree with the last sentence, but the rest of it? Not so much.)
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Saturday, March 12, 2005

And now, links.

Japanese Katamari Damacy commercial (bottom link). It's for the first game, and you've probably already seen it. I don't care. Download it again! It made me laugh a lot.

MST3K on Cheap Seats (bottom link, "Creative Breaking Championships/K-1 Fighting"). Cheap Seats is a show on ESPN Classic that, unfortunately, kind of sucks (which is very sad to me, because I have enjoyed the Sklar brothers' stand-up in the past). They're having Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett on as guests, which is awesome, although it doesn't negate the fact that the show isn't all that good. I do like the episode description, though. "Cheap Seats also welcomes a few very special guests to the show to give some commentary of their own. It's a mystery that is grounded in science but full of theater. " This is just a preview, I'm going to watch the episode over at Jon and Ryan's because I don't get ESPN Classic. I hope it's good.
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Jon made me a batch of starter last night, so that means I can now make kick-ass sourdough bread just like him! Well, hopefully. I'll be posting the recipe and technique, but I don't know how starter is actually made. There's an article on it in the latest Cook's Illustrated, I believe, but I just took a shortcut.

The dough rises in loaves overnight. Jon had said that he sometimes has problems with them spreading too much. One solution, I guess, would be to buy those wave-like pans and rise the loaves in there. What I did was cut up a 2-liter soda bottle into two tube halves. Hopefully they'll stay stiff enough when the dough's in them. We'll see. I'll be baking tomorrow morning, I think.
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Thursday, March 10, 2005

Now that I actually have a job, I can post about this, originally written at the end of February.

At the end of March or the beginning of April, I'm either going to have a party to celebrate the one-year anniversary of this blog and my 25th birthday, or move. (Probably not going to have a party- it's a little late now.) Yes, I'm thinking about leaving Menlo Park for the sunnier climes of Mountain View. It puts me farther away from my brother and sister-in-law, but closer to my other friends (well, except Lydia and Zack, this'll add another ten miles to the trip to the East Bay). So I'm browsing through the apartment listings online, and I am just astounded by how poorly laid-out many of these kitchens seem to be. Clearly, they were not designed by anyone who actually cooks. It's like you don't actually need counter space to work on, nonsense! I mean, look at this picture. There's two square feet of usable counter space. With a mixer and food processor, there's approximately zero. This doesn't even count as a kitchen. I think my cutting board alone would overfill that tiny little bit of space.
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Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Eeeee! They're sending me paperwork and my first day of work is next Wednesday! Eeeee!
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Tuesday, March 08, 2005

I should find out about the job on Thursday. (Still holding myself back on the excitement and celebration.)

I made a braciole last weekend and finished it up tonight. Yum. I made it once before, back in September. This time I wasn't so sure about the salt content of the stuffing. I thought it tasted a little bland. However, it tasted great with the saltiness of the tomato sauce. I didn't really take time to make a tomato sauce. It was the reduced liquid from a couple cans of the Muir Glen Fire-Roasted Tomatoes, an extra can of tomato sauce, some white wine, olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh oregano, and hot pepper flakes. Maybe a little bit of vinegar, balsamic or red wine, I can't remember. Anyway, it was quite tangy and salty, and really complemented the stuffing and flank steak. I still suck at getting the flank steak pounded thin enough.

Jon's been making sourdough bread. It's totally frikkin' amazing. It's incredible that he could make it. That's not what I mean. It's incredible that a human with a normal kitchen could make that. He says it costs him about thirty cents a loaf. It's the kind of bread you'd pay four bucks for in the market. And it's GOOD. I love this bread. I'm really looking forward to the day he gives me starter and teaches me how to make it.
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Sweet Milk Scones with Dried Cherries
Cook's Illustrated The Best Recipe

2 cups AP flour
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1-2 Tbsp sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
1/2 cup dried cherries or other small dried fruit
4 Tbsp unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3/4 cup whole milk

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 450. Allow the oven to come up to heat before making dough.

Place flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and sugar in a food processor and pulse to combine. Add the cherries and butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal with a few slightly larger butter lumps.

Add the milk and puolse until dough just starts to gather into a rough ball. Do not overprocess or scones will be tough. Turn dough onto a well-floured work surface.

Quickly press dough to a thickness of 1/2 inch. Use a lightly greased and floured 3-inch biscuit cutter (or whatever, I used a wine glass with a diameter or 3 inches) to stamp dough with one decisive punch, cutting close together to generate as few scraps as possible. Reassemble scraps and cut more scones. Place dough rounds 1 1/2 inches apart on a baking sheet lines with parchment. Sprinkle the tops with a little bit of sugar. Bake until scones are lightly browned, 10 to 12 minutes. Serve immediately.
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Monday, March 07, 2005

Whoops. I had dinner over at Jon and Ryan's tonight. I made the Apple-Rutabaga Soup and Jon made tacos. They really didn't go together, but whatever. Anyway, I got home just now and was unpacking the rest of my groceries when I... took out a bag of apples. Yeah, I forgot to put them in. Damn it. Sometimes I'm really dumb. The soup was still tasty.

I had a weird dream last night. About Sandra Lee. I was sitting at a computer in a library, and I found all these horrible modeling pictures of her- there was one where her hair was all crimped and fro'd out and she was wearing some bizarre plaid thing. Anyway, I was chortling and copying down the web addresses so I could post them somewhere (probably here) and also writing myself some notes on a piece of scrap paper. Anyway, Sandra herself was about twenty feet to my right, heard my giggles, recognized me, came over, and picked up the piece of paper. I immediately tried to talk my way out of it and snatched the piece of paper back from her. She was glaring at me and decided we were going to a restaurant that made dishes a la Semi-Homemade. (Ew.) She goes back to her terminal and gets her stuff, including a small hatchet which she puts in her handbag. We then exit to a garage. She has a Mercedes sedan, metallic tan, with either a sun or moonroof. There's a Tivo sticker on it. Her license plate and side mirrors have AOL decals on them. She starts the car before unlocking the doors so I can get in (I hate it when people do that). And then my alarm went off. So at least I didn't have to go to this Semi-Homemade restaurant OR get chopped up into bitty pieces by Sandra's hatchet.

Keckler updated The Grub Report with a new article about work, Sandra Lee, and a restaurant in San Francisco called Suppenküche which sounds REALLY good. Anyone up for a trip to the city for German food?

I think I got the job at Stanford. Eeeeeee! (No, Sarah! No celebration until there's paperwork in front of you!)
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Saturday, March 05, 2005

I don't mean to harp on about this... actually, I think I do. Anyway, I'm watching this morning's new Sandra Lee. She's making what she calls a "crepe omelet." First off, not crepes. She's using flour tortillas (who knew you could substitute one for the other?). Secondly, not an omelet. It's a scramble. Basically, what she's making is a breakfast burrito. That's fine. Scrambled eggs and ham in a tortilla? I can get on board for that. However, she decides, of course, to go the extra gross step and makes a sauce for the dish out of store-bought guacamole that she's pushed through a fine-mesh sieve (just to make absolutely sure it looks like something babies spew) and to which she added heavy cream. Ew, ew, EW. Always have to go that extra disgusting step, don't you, Sandy? Leave well enough alone. And call things by their right names.

Oh, I shouldn't blog while watching the show. "Quick water"? What the hell is that?
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Friday, March 04, 2005

Argh, the comments are being wonky again. You know how they get, it's like one post in twenty that starts acting up, either not being able to be read in Mozilla or IE. Anyway, here are the comments for the March third post. I don't know why it's saying that I have negative thirteen comments. Or perhaps that's absolute value negative thirteen.

mm
It is such a mess when fat is spattering all over the kitchen. Even with a spatter guard you can count on a mess. One product that works pretty well on the grease is Fantastic(k?) spray.
My response
When I was stirring the not-cracklings, I had to lift off the spatter guard, and I got grease all over myself (I love aprons). Also, I burned myself twice. In the same place.

Mary Beth
Thanks for taking on FN and the Semi-Homemade travesty! My reviews of several recipes (which I did make, and didn't just slam the host) were also scrubbed some time ago. I included better alternatives from other FN shows, which may just be why they were scrubbed...
My response
Oh, it really annoyed me when all her reviews jumped from two to five-stars. People need to be informed that her recipes are bad, bad, BAD. Your thought about how your reviews were deleted because you advocated alternatives is an optimistic idea, but I don't have that kind of faith in the Food Network. (And thanks for the shout-out on the TWoP forums!)

Lydia
ooh, which job? good luck with that :) and how's the scarf coming along?
My response
It's a receptionist position at Stanford. And the building it's in is right next door to where Ryan and Jer work. That'd be keen. I will need to look up how to start a new ball o' yarn later today. The scarf's at about three feet.
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Thursday, March 03, 2005

Had an interview yesterday. Woo! I would really like to get this job.

Food Network is scrubbing clean the one-star reviews of Sandra Lee's recipes. Two of my reviews were deleted. Now, I can partly understand this. A lot of the reviews were mere bashing of Sandra and her recipes. These reviewers had never made the recipes and were just commenting on how horrible it looked. Conversely, many of the five-star reviews were over-the-top flattery of Sandra and bashing of the one-star reviewers. These people had also not made the recipes. Lots of name-calling from both sides. Food Network has deleted the one-stars and kept the five-stars, presumably to get the Semi-Homemade average up. Her show had the lowest average rating of the Food Network shows, generally around two or three stars for a given recipe.

I had written three reviews of recipes I made- the Raspberry Cooler, Mozzerella Nuggets, and Oriental Pork Wrappers. The Raspberry Cooler and Mozzerella Nuggets were both one-star reviews. The Oriental Pork Wrappers I gave a two. The two-star review has remained, the other two are gone (or rather were, since I rewrote them this afternoon). It's incredibly annoying to me that they are only scrubbing half of the off-topic reviews as well as reviews from people who made the recipes and didn't like them. It's unfair to the writers (of the real reviews, not the flaming) and to the people who are going to be misled into making this crap.

Tried something from Jacques Pepin's Fast Food My Way today, just as an experiment. I bought three chickens from Costco, and after I was done separating them into carcasses and edible bits, I cut up the skin and fat and rendered them in a hot pan to get cracklings. Jacques had done this, and it looked really good. What a mess. Do not try that unless you have a spatter guard. Also, drain the fat when you're done into a heatproof container. Don't be a moron and put it into heat-sensitive plastic. That stuff melts FAST. And then you have hot fat everywhere. As for the cracklings themselves? Bland, bland, bland. And crunchy. Maybe I should have salted them before putting them in. Probably I should have. They ended up a little burnt as I left them in the pan while running around cleaning up the fat mess. Good times.

Yum, lemon curd. I think if I were to make this again, I would cook the lemon zest with the curd and then strain it out afterwards. It's a little distracting to the smooth texture. I was so happy that it didn't curdle. Really quite proud of that.

I did make scones a while ago, and they were excellent, but I just haven't gotten around to copying down the recipe yet.
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Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Lemon Curd
Fine Living

3 oz. unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tsp. grated lemon zest

Beat the butter with the sugar until it's light and fluffy. Slowly beat in the eggs and yolks. Beat for 1 minute more, then stir in the lemon juice. The mixture will look curdled. Do not panic.

Cook the mixture over low heat until it becomes smooth, then increase the heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly, without letting it boil, until it thickens enough to leave a path on the back of the spoon when you drag your finger through it. If you want to go by temperature, you're looking for 170 F.

(I mixed everything in a stainless steel bowl, then put it over a pot of simmering water and whisked for 10-12 minutes.)

Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon zest. Press plastic wrap onto the surface to prevent a skin from forming and chill in the refrigerator.
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