Category: food

Making Your Own Bacon?

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

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).

Vanilla and Mint: Two Cromulent Tastes That Taste Bad Together

Ashley Bischoff9 Comments

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.)

Chick-Fil-A’s Brownies

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

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?

Hell’s Kitchen is Awful

Ashley Bischoff6 Comments

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.

Good One, Mailman!

Ashley Bischoff6 Comments

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 ;).