Hand Coding

David Cross is a pretty funny guy. If you can't picture him right away, you might recall him as Dr. Tobias Fünke from Arrested Development or from a variety of characters on the HBO series Mr. Show.

My friend Bryan introduced me to Cross’ comedy by way of some of his albums including, I think, Shut Up You Fucking Baby!. And, whether this next bit was from that album or his anothers, I can’t quite remember — either way, though, I think it’s my favorite of Cross’ by far.

The clip above below covers more than one bit — the relevant part, in this case, starts around 2:55. Oh, and it’s safe for work as long as you have headphones on (if you know what I mean).

As it turns out, I went to Super Target after work for some groceries and what did I find? That’s right — Squagels! I don’t even eat bagels that often, but I just couldn’t resist buying these. (Don’t get me wrong, bagels can be rather tasty — especially with smoked salmon and capers — but I don’t often buy them since they’re pretty much all carbs.)

I just can’t bring myself to call these products by their given name, “Thomas’ Mini Squares Bagelbread” (how lame is that?). Having said that, if anyone wants one of these needlessly square breakfast items, just let me know — I’d be happy to bring in a couple Squagels for you.

The Dallas Camera Club has a potluck holiday party each year and, after thinking about it for a bit, I decided to make some blondies for this year’s party. (Blondies, in case you’re not familiar with them, are like brownies but without the chocolate; they’re a bar cookie which generally have a butterscotch-type flavor.) Well, to be sure, that I kinda had in mind was something like the Sheila’s Dream Bars from Potbelly Sandwiches. To be honest, I’m not even sure if Sheila's Dream Bars qualify and blondies, but that was my best guess — they're moist and dense bar cookies (in the way that a good brownie would be) with oats and chocolate chunks.

As a side note, I’m apparently not the only one looking for something analogous to Sheila's Dream Bars. One guy even wrote to Potbelly to ask for the recipe (but was politely declined). I also came across an attempt at a clone recipe at AllRecipes. Interestingly enough, one reviewer “was trying to duplicate the very addictive Sheila's Dream Bars from Potbelly” and went on to say that “these are EXACTLY what I was looking for” while another reviewer said that they’re “not even close to Sheila’s Dream Bars at Potbelly Sandwich Shoppe”. Great. How’s that for indecisiveness?

Since I didn't really want to take a chance on a recipe which was a toss-up between being “exactly” or “not even close” to what I was looking for, I turned to America’s Test Kitchen to get their take. (America’s Test Kitchen is a half-hour cooking show on PBS. Made by the same group that publishes Cook’s Illustrated magazine, the two groups are known for testing dozens of variants on a recipe before selecting their favorite which they then publish.)

I had recently picked up a couple DVD box sets of past seasons from the show and so I flipped through those to see if there was a blondie recipe. As it turns out, there was (it was from the 2005 season, for those curious). And, pleasantly enough, the recipe wasn’t too complicated either; with the exception of the chocolate chips or pecans, you might even have most of the other ingredients in your cupboard already (flour, eggs, sugar, and so on). The recipe also called for melted butter, so there wasn’t even a need for a mixer — only a spatula to fold some ingredients together.

Next up: the recipe; after that, I’ve included some comments on how they turned out.

Ingredients:

• Vegetable cooking spray
• 1 1/2 cups (7 1/2) ounces unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) firmly packed light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped (These can be toasted by putting them on a pan and placing them in a 350° oven for 5-7 mins.)

Directions:

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 13- by 9-inch baking pan with 2 pieces of foil. Coat the foil-lined pan with vegetable cooking spray.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together. Set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk the melted butter and brown sugar together until combined. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well. Using a rubber spatula, fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture until just combined. Do not overmix.

4. Fold in the semisweet and white chocolate chips and the nuts, and turn the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with a rubber spatula.

5. Bake until the top is shiny and cracked and feels firm to the touch, for 22 to 25 minutes. Place the pan on a rack and let cool completely (about an hour). Cut into 1 1/2- by 2-inch bars.

Makes 36 bars.

I’m generally pleased with how these blondies turned out — they’re tasty and I have few worries about having any left over at the end of the holiday party. Still, I’m not sure they exactly matched how I thought they’d turn out (more on that in a bit). In preparation for writing this post, I took a notebook with me to the kitchen and jotted down a few thoughts as I ate one of the blondies:

• Aroma: Right out of the oven (or out of the RubberMaid cookie container), these have a pleasant butterscotch aroma.

• Texture: Their texture, for the post part, is quite good. They tend to break apart easily in your mouth without being fragile enough to crumble apart in your hands.

• Density: This is one of the few gripes that I had — these have a density quite similar to a cake-style brownie. Now, if that's your bag, you're all set. For me, though, I tend to prefer more of a gooey brownie and I think that type of texture would have been my preference here.

• Other notes: The flavor white chocolate chips came through quite well. That’s all well and good, but I think I would have preferred if the semisweet chocolate chips could have taken a more prominent role. In fairness, some rejiggering of the ratio between white chocolate and semisweet chocolate chips could probably take care of this. (Or, if you really like white chocolate, the recipe could probably remain unchanged.)

In all, I think I’d give these blondies about a 7/10. They’re quite good and, for all I know, they might represent the Canonical Blondie Taste™. I think it just happened to work out that I was making a recipe for something which the recipe might not have been aiming for.

Kottke is reporting on a promotion by Swiss Knight cheese where they're offering 500 American Airlines frequent flier miles with the purchase of each cheese wheel.

Now the big thing is cheese. This weekend I was handed an opened wheel of processed cheeses by a friend. He said that his brother-in-law had caught wind of a frequent flyer promotion whereby you get 500 miles for each purchase of this cheese wheel and had purchased 75,000 miles for ~$300, which also means he’s got more opened cheese wheels than he knows what to do with. […]

I may just have to stop by the supermarket on the way home from work this evening ;). (And, it certainly doesn’t hurt that DFW Airport is one of American Airlines’ hubs.) [Via: BoingBoing]

Update 2006-11-29: I checked the Albertson's just off Arapaho & Hillcrest on my way home from work last night, but I couldn’t find any Swiss Knight products :-/. I wouldn’t necessarily say that Albertson’s as a chain doesn’t carry them, but I didn’t see any at that store.

File this one under I-didn’t-ever-think-that-would-happen, but the US has banned imports of Vegemite, a savory spread which is made from yeast:

An Australian has revealed that US border security police questioned him recently on suspicion of carrying Vegemite into the country.

The yeasty spread is banned because it contains folate, which in the US can be added only to bread and other grain products such as cereal.

Daniel Fogarty told the Geelong Advertiser that he was amazed when he and his partner Sarah Egan, who live in Canada, were asked if they had any Vegemite at a border crossing between the two countries. […]

As it turns out, I haven’t actually tried Vegemite — but I do rather enjoy Marmite. As I understand it, they’re similar in taste in some ways; however, proponents of each product typically declare that the other is a mere impostor and therefore vastly inferior ;).

That aside, I’m not sure if or whether Marmite is affected by this ban. It’s not that easy to find on store shelves to begin with — it’s typically relegated to a grocery store’s import or specialty sub-aisle, if anything — so it could be tough merely figuring out if a given store is no longer stocking Marmite or if it never stocked any in the first place :-/.

Some coworkers and I went to Oliver’s Eatery for lunch yesterday. At the time, they described it as being similar to Baker Bros, but different in some manner which I can't quite recall at the moment. At any rate, as I rather enjoy Baker Bros, I thought I’d give it a shot.

As I approached the counter, I noticed that the menu was divided into sections for salads, sandwiches, pasta, and perhaps one or two others. I’m not one to pass up a good sandwich, and so I perused their offerings — their club sandwich immediately caught my eye and, voila, I ordered one. After paying at the counter, the clerk handed me one of those familiar buzzing-light-up squares to take back to my seat.

I gathered my sandwich accouterments — a napkin and some flatware — and enjoyed some chit-chat with my coworkers while my sandwich was being prepared. Jeremy’s pasta arrived first, and then one or two other coworker's meals, but mine arrived soon after that. As I took my plate back to my table, the first thing that struck me was the subtlety of the sandwich itself: unlike a club sandwich that you might find at Chain Restaurant XYZ, Oliver’s club wasn’t stacked to the ceiling merely for the sake of doing so. Still, it had all the necessary elements — roasted turkey, cheddar, bacon, lettuce and tomatoes.

Upon biting into the sandwich, I knew I had a winner. The sandwich was both hot and cold — a good thing — from the hot just-melted cheddar and cold meat and cheeses. As I enjoyed my first bite, I knew something was extraordinary about the sandwich, but I couldn't quite place my finger on it. It was like a bit like the feeling of trying to remember “Where did I see that guy before?” when watching a movie…

Finally, it dawned on me: the sandwich was made with real cheddar cheese. Not “real cheddar cheese” as a marketing ploy, but actual from-the-cow cheese. Part of what clued me in was that the cheese hadn't melted uniformly; now, cheddar isn’t supposed to melt evenly (that would be gruyère’s job), but it’s not uncommon for fake-cheddars to melt with T-1000-like consistency.

Pleasantly, the bread was also a key player in the sandwich. It was either white or wheat bread — I wasn't quite sure since it was browned due to the toasting — but it was fairly thin. I’d guess each of the slices was around 1/4 to 1/3" thick which, if you as me, is how it should be for a club sandwich (after all, the meat and cheeses are the star of a club sandwich)

Looking over their web page, it would appear that there's only one Oliver’s restaurant (as opposed to being a franchise with several locations). Well, drat to that. I mean, sure, it’s convenient that they’re close to work (they just off Frankford Road and the Tollway), but it would have been even nicer if there was one close to my home as well. I guess I’ll just have to make use of them during my working hours. C’est la vie.

I was browsing through Ask MetaFilter and came across a thread on the weirdness of non-American pork (at least, in from the poster’s perspective). The thread is interesting in itself in some ways, but then about halfway in, a guy who goes by “obiwanwasabi ” busts out with a make-your-own bacon recipe:

Make your own bacon — it’s dead easy. Buy a couple of pounds of pork belly. Rub the pork all over with salt, sugar/dextrose and sodium nitrite (pink salt), then put it in a ziploc bag for a while. The liquid comes out of the pork, making a brine that cures the meat. When it feels firm in the centre (about a week), pop it in a low oven til it reaches an internal temp of 150°F / 65°C. Take it out of the oven, remove the skin while it's hot, chill it &mdsah; voila, bacon. I can post a more detailed recipe from this book tonight if you like, along with a couple of recipes for sausage.

Bacon is tasty, to be sure, but it does seem suspiciously easy to make. I don’t think I’m courageous enough to try this, but I could see some of my meat-adept friends giving this a try (yes, this means you, Ru & Roger).

I brush my teeth — but who doesn’t? Anyhow, on a recent trip to Target, I picked up the Refreshing Vanilla Mint flavor of Crest’s Whitening Expressions line. I had previously tried their orange-flavored toothpaste — titled something like Citrus Blast or something equally ridiculous — and it was a pleasant change from the usual mint flavor that toothpastes generally have. Granted, it wasn't exactly like biting into an orange, or even like biting into a piece of orange-flavored Bubblicious, but it made tooth brushing just a tad more palatable.

Getting back to this other flavor, though, I recently noticed that I was running low on my Citrus Whatever tube and so I picked up “Refreshing Vanilla Mint” to give myself some variety. And, it all just went downhill from there…

The canonical vanilla-flavored food item may be vanilla ice cream (with perhaps vanilla yogurt near the top of the list as well). Well, rest assured, this toothpaste resembled neither of those. There was a hint of vanillaness, to be sure, though it somewhat reminded me of the harsh vanilla-like flavor that you might find in a vanilla-themed hard candies.

As for the mint, well, it was there. What can I say — it was pretty much standard-issue toothpaste-mint. Lowest-bidder, factory-borne mint. That alone is perhaps tolerable on the scale of a few minutes here-and-there, such as when brushing one’s teeth; when fused with factory-vanilla, though, the combination is disastrous. Imagine Crest toothpaste in your vanilla latte. Yeah, kinda like that. (Not that Mermaid Coffee uses cheap vanilla, but the end result would be approximately the same.)

In all, I might otherwise recommend the Citrus Whatever flavor of Crest’s Whitening Expressions line. However, after looking over their site, I don’t see it listed any more and I can’t help but wonder if maybe they discontinued it. All the same, since only one of their flavors turned out to be freakishly bad, the others could conceivably be fine. (And, if you can find their Citrus*.* on store shelves, grab it while you can.)

I work in the West End and my coworkers and I occasionally go out for lunch in the area. And, one common spot is what we call “BOAT” — the Bank Of America Tower (which is just a few blocks from the building that we work in). There’s a food court in its basement level and we’ll often go there if nothing better comes to mind ;).

I usually bring a lunch to work, but sometimes I’ll walk with my coworkers as they pick up lunch just so that I can get some sunshine and fresh air. Such was the case last Wednesday (or was it Thursday?) when I walked with Bryan as he went to BOAT for some Chick-Fil-A. As we approached the counter, we both spied a tray of brownies under a clear dome. I’m not one to turn down a brownie and yet I wasn’t sure if I wanted a full brownie’s worth of sugar; so, I offered to split one with Bryan.

He declined and suggested that I just get one for myself and that I could tell him about it afterwards (well, voila, Bryan). I bought the brownie — 99¢ + tax — and took it back with me to the office to have as a snack sometime that afternoon. Sure enough, I ate the brownie, and here’s how I would rate it on its various metrics:

• Chewiness — the brownie was similar in some ways to vending machine brownies in that it was oddly chewy, almost to the point of gumminess. I blame corn syrup for this (HHOS).

• Texture — while I’m not one to turn down an extra-thick fudge brownie, some of my fondest memories are of brownies with a more cake-like density. Not that I want a brownie to resemble cake, but I like to be able to bite through a brownie without conscious effort. This brownie was dense but fakely-so; I wouldn’t be surprised if flour was absent from their recipe.

• Chocolatiness — the brownie had a chocolate flavor to it (so far, so good) but it was a fairly meek chocolatiness. Then again, I’m a bit of a chocolate fiend — I’m the kind of guy that would want to make s’mores out of 70% dark chocolate (which, come to think of it, would be tasty right about now).

• Nut Coverage — the brownie was topped liberally and homogeneously with chopped walnuts. These were just fine.

• Temperature Bonus Factor — if the brownie was served hot or warm, I would have offered bonus points for that; but, I consider it just a bonus as I’ve had some very good brownies in the past that were just served at room temperature.

I did make my way through the whole brownie, which is saying something. (I have tossed halfway-eaten desserts before, such as a cake batter ice cream + brownie chunk mixed ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery. Their ice creams are normally tasty but the brownie chunks in this one took on a texture resembling melted gummi bears.)

Back to Chick-Fil-A’s brownies, though. Supposing that a 50% rating signified a brownie that was nether good-tasting nor bad-tasting, I’d rate this one at 55%. If someone were to offer one to me for free, I’d probably take one. But, I don't think I’d buy one on my own. Then again, can much more be expected from a 99¢ brownie?

I like cooking shows as much as the next guy (well, ok, maybe a little more than the next guy) and I have a soft spot for some reality shows as well. So, I've been having a great time watching Cooking Under Fire — a cooking/reality show airing, of all places, on PBS. In this show, there’re three judges, Ming Tsai, Todd English and Michael Ruhlman. Tsai is the host of several cooking shows, English owns multiple restaurants in New York and Ruhlman is a successful food author.

There’re twelve contestants and they each cook dishes for the judges; a contestant is eliminated after each round and the winner will be awarded a job at one of Todd English’s restaurants in New York. In some ways, this is my favorite variety of reality show — sure, it’s rooted in reality, but each of the contests is merit-based rather than just luck. So, simply the best cook wins; it's not just a matter of seeing who can balance on a log the longest or something equally obtuse.

Cooking Under Fire is an excellent show and I look forward to it every week. Then, I heard about another cooking-based reality show, Hell’s Kitchen which airs on Fox. This too features a set of aspiring cooks that want to win a job in the host’s restaurant (in this case, there is just a single judge/host, chef Gordon Ramsay). The difference this time around is that Ramsay is an asshole.

I had my TiVo record the premiere episode last night and I eagerly sat down to watch it later that evening. The show opened with the obligatory meet-and-greet where the contestants were in their finest attire in some ballroom drinking sparkling wine as they tried to get to know one another. A little while into the evening, two of Ramsay’s sous chefs were introduced and they addressed the group. They informed the group that the contest won’t be easy and that chef Ramsay demands perfection… blah blah blah.

At this point, they revealed to the contestants that the contest was starting right now and that they had to prepare their “signature dish” for chef Ramsay using the adjacent kitchen. As if riding the cliché wagon for all its worth, the sous chef with the shaved head then yelled to the group, “What are you waiting for?! Go!”. So, the group rushed off to the kitchen to prepare their dishes (still in their fine clothes, of course).

Now, it would have been one thing to have each of the contestant’s kitchen attire (“chef’s cloak”?) on hand, but that wasn’t the case. More importantly, though, the contestants didn’t have access to their own knives; rather, they had to scrounge around to find some knives to use within the kitchen. To you and I, knives are probably pretty similar from one to the next. But, through watching countless cooking shows — all in the name of research, natch — I’ve learned that chefs consider their own set of knives a unique personal asset.

Or, put another way, foisting an unfamiliar set of knives upon a chef would be like requiring a developer to use an foreign editor. Say you like to use Crimson Editor or maybe HTML Kit but then your boss forced you to use Emacs all day? Well, how do you like them apples?! Not so much fun, eh? (And, before the Emacs guys jump on me, I only used your beloved editor as a hypothetical example; feel free to substitute Vi there if you would feel better.)

To show such disrespect for these aspiring chefs astounded me. But, it didn't end there. After everyone’s dishes were ready, Ramsay began tasting them. He walked over to a pasta dish and started by asking who prepared it; a guy in his mid-20s stepped forward and stated that it was “Andrew’s Awesome Penne” (though I have a hunch about the fellow’s name, I’m not certain I remembered it correctly). In any case, Ramsay tasted the food and then spat it out into his hand.

Granted, this guy is probably used to “the best of the best” but that gesture was simply unnecessary. Of course, Ramsay began berating the guy at this point for what he considered a lousy dish and I just (beep-boop-boop) deleted the show and its Season Pass from my TiVo. I’m all for reality shows with civility and especially reality cooking shows; but where does this acridity come from? Maybe I should’t have expected such high standards from Fox.

While I was in England earlier this month, we stopped in a Sainsbury’s to pick up some goodies. I think Adrian wanted some Hobnobs and I wanted to find some more Marmite since I was running low.

I don’t think Adrian found Hobnobs there but he did pick up several packs of Aeros. And, I got some goodies as well. I found the Marmite which I was looking for and I also picked up a couple chocolate bars, one Lindt 85% Chocolate bar and one Nestle Double Chocolate bar (which has “pieces of pure roasted cocoa encased in creamy milk chocolate”). So, I’d say it was a successful trip. However, the unsuccessful (read: bone-headed) part came next — I forgot to pack those when at the end of the trip.

I was flying out before either my brother or my parents and I was hoping that one of them might take my forgotten goodies with them and then mail them to me. As it turns out, I just happened to check my back patio today and I found a package waiting for me. (Sometimes the post office or UPS will drop off packages there, which is usually handy since the patio is enclosed with a fence and any packages there aren’t viewable from the parking lot.) However, I also normally keep the blinds which face the patio closed. So, either the driver would need to leave a delivery slip or I’d just have to check manually.

UPS is good enough to leave a slip on my front door when they leave a package at the back and so does the post office… most of the time. But, they left no slip this time and it was only by chance that I saw the package — I was opening the blinds to let some sun in and I noticed the package there. I opened it and discovered my goodies inside (whee!) but I then took a closer look at the package itself. The postage-sticker in the top-right corner had already become yellowed from sitting out in the sun. And, I then noticed the postmark — April 5th (last Tuesday).

I’m still not sure when the package arrived, but I'm guessing that it could have arrived on Friday (on the early side) or Monday (at the latest). So, the package was sitting outside for two days at least and I had no idea it was out there. Now, were this a package full of books or clothes, that would have been harmless. But, my mind soon turned to the chocolate inside. I gingerly opened the box and pulled out the first bar, the Lindt, which was mostly solid (whew). However, I was not so lucky with the Nestle Double Chocolate bar — as I lifted it from the package, it wilted in my hands.

“Well, it should still taste the same”, I thought to myself. So, I just put both bars in the fridge to reharden. In some ways, this is the same problem as having cookies right out of the oven — they look so tempting but they just need to cool for a little while before they’re ready for eating. And I knew that trying to eat the bars in their current state just wouldn’t help at all. But, I suppose it’s already been over a week since I got back from the trip and I should be able to wait one more day before diving in ;).