It’s a lot of fun — but completely atypical. Instead of the normal travelogue format, in this episode Bourdain goes home. You see, he hasn’t worked regularly as a chef in several years, since he became an author, TV host and president of the Rachael Ray Fan Club (that last item may have been just a wee bit sarcastic). But tonight, as premise for an episode, he goes back and works his old shift at Les Halles, a New York restaurant. It’s a wonderful, revealing episode about what makes a restaurant kitchen work and how that peculiar chemistry can be altered by the introduction of a new element — say, an older and out-of-practice chef trailing a TV crew.
Ellie Krieger on the Food Network was extolling the nutritional virtues of crab meat this morning, and when I stopped by Food Lion for some groceries after work, darned if crabmeat wasn’t on sale. I mixed it with mayonnaise (there goes the healthy aspect; sorry, Ellie), horseradish and some seasonings and am enjoying some of it on toast, topped with slices of avocado. As it happens, Ellie had also paired her crab with avocado this morning, and I had an avocado in my cart even before I noticed the sale crab meat.
Well, I posted a couple of weeks ago about Fizzies, an updated version of an effervescent fruit drink that was all the rage during my childhood. (One correction to that earlier post — I said that the last revival of Fizzies was five years ago; it was actually longer than that, with the company stopping production about 2000 or 2001.)
The latest company to produce the product does not sell retail quantities on-line, but they do refer you to retailers or online merchants. A friend of mine who runs a gift shop in Monteagle is looking at carrying the product, and I’ll certainly buy some from her if she does, but I couldn’t wait and ended up ordering some from Old Time Candy. This company, which I’d seen profiled on Food Network in the past, is a mail order house specializing in candy with nostalgia appeal — candies which might have been all the rage when you were a child, and which are still in production somewhere, but which are hard to find wherever you are these days. They can put together nostalgia-related gift packs and party favor bags, and have appropriate nostalgia booklets for various decades.
It’s a fun site just to noodle around — I had completely forgotten about Zotz, for example.
If you’re a fan of Mario Batali — and even if you aren’t, but enjoy cooking — you will want to go here and download a free, 32-page cookbook from the makers of Barilla pasta, with Mario as one of the editors. You have to give them your name and e-mail, and they encourage you to sign up for their promotional e-mail list, but for every cookbook downloaded Barilla will donate $1 to Second Harvest Food Bank, a worthy cause if there ever was one.
I like the fact that they have two different PDF versions available and that they give you tips for saving ink if you don’t need glorious full-color photography. For cookbooks, however, I kind of like glorious full-color photography. And my new Kodak printer is ink-stingy anyway, so I may go for it.
Speaking of Mario, this Village Voice article lifts the veil of “Iron Chef America” and shows that the actual competition differs somewhat from what you see on TV. Some of this was old news to me, going back to the original Japanese version of the show, but some of it wasn’t, or at least went even further (if the Voice writer is to be believed) that I had heard. Don’t read it if you don’t want the illusion spoiled.
I had three chicken wings and some leftover homemade chicken stock left over from last weekend’s two batches of Buffalo wings. I boiled the wings in the stock, took the wings out, and then cooked some egg noodles in the stock. This cold has me feeling miserable, but some hot, homemade chicken noodle soup is a wonderful tonic.
This past week, Alton Brown made buffalo wings on “Good Eats,” and I had to try Alton’s method of steaming the wings before baking them. I did, and they turned out well.
I’d bought a big family-size pack of wings, so I had plenty left over, and decided to make them as my Super Bowl evening supper tonight. I went ahead and steamed the wings earlier so that they could be cooling off and drying off in the fridge; I will bake them later.
I’d bought the whole wings, not the pre-cut variety, and so I had wing tips left over from both of my recent batches. Wing tips aren’t good for eating, but they’re great for making stock; they’re almost all bones and connective tissue. I decided to use them, and so now I have a big old pot of stock simmering in my Kitchen Kettle. I may have put in more herbs and spices than absolutely necessary, and the apartment smells absolutely fantastic. The stock will cook for a very long time, so that we can liberate as much of the gelatin as possible from the wing tips.
I am making Alton Brown’s beef stew recipe, which is delicious. I don’t know whether I’ll try to finish it tonight and eat a late supper or whether I’ll hold the short ribs in the fridge overnight and finish the stew tomorrow (which is what I did the first time around).
I may not be able to wait.
I got an about-to-expire discount (which I don’t mind at all, especially for a dish like this) on the short ribs.
Because I come in at 6 a.m., I tend to have lunch early. Here is what I am enjoying right now: original Krystals (cheese, in this context, it tantamount to heresy) and a bowl of Krystal chili.
I don’t think you can name me a better lunch for a cold, wet January day.
I haven’t made ice cream in quite a while, but for some reason I got the urge to do so this weekend. I scalded the half-and-half with sugar and cocoa powder this morning, and it’s been cooling down in the fridge ever since. I have a table-top ice cream maker — the kind where you keep the liner in the freezer. I think the recipe I used (actually, adapted — I just wanted to get the sugar-to-liquid ratio right) is too much for my ice cream maker, but I’m assuming I can keep the excess mix in the fridge and just make another batch from it in a day or two, after the liner has re-frozen.
When I was writing my earlier post about Tony Bourdain’s old show “A Cook’s Tour” being re-run by Food Network, I wondered what Bourdain might think about the situation.
“They’re not putting the show back on because they like it. They’re trying to destroy me!” I theorized. People will surely comment on the striking - even horrifying - decline in my appearance since those few years ago - and will wonder why they would still watch someone who is clearly dying of some hideous hair whitening, skin puffing, tropical bloating disease. Or maybe they’re putting it back on as a deliberate strategy to break off and confuse a segment of potential audience who might otherwise be tuning in to the exciting new season of NO RESERVATIONS (the vastly superior and more expensive series on TRAVEL CHANNEL)! Maybe … maybe it’s vengeance for some of the Rachael Ray cracks. In fact…MAYBE it’s part of some secret deal to keep her on the network … some ultra hush-hush rider to her contract! I’ve been trying to buy those old shows back for ages - to make DVDs. They’ve refused to sell, sitting on them year after year. Until now. Coincidence? Or conspiracy?
The whole post is pretty funny. I loved the comparison of Guy Fieri to “Poochie” from “The Simpsons.” (Bourdain’s post does contain some strong language.)
The wry, cynical chef and author Anthony Bourdain has made a cottage industry out of bad-mouthing his former TV home, the Food Network. He is particularly critical of Rachael Ray, but mostly he’s upset that real chefs who used to dominate the network (including Bourdain’s friend Mario Batali) have to some extent been pushed out in favor of bubbly TV personalities and gimmickry. Much of it rings true; some of it, however, seems like it’s just for effect.
All of this is why it’s so funny that Food Network, apparently prompted by the success of Bourdain’s Travel Channel series “No Reservations,” has suddenly dug out and begun not only re-airing but heavily promoting Bourdain’s old Food Network show, “A Cook’s Tour.” If they had promoted the show this heavily on its original run, Bourdain might never have left!
I went to The Avenue in Murfreesboro tonight to buy a copy of Writer’s Market 2008 from Barnes & Noble, in hopes I might need it in connection with the novel or other freelance projects this year.
While I was there, I had to stop at Harry and David, a couple doors down. I’d been there on my first visit to The Avenue, last month, but I was saving money for Christmas and I bought two gifts, but nothing for myself. Tonight, I bought some yummy green olive spread and a big bag of wasabi peas. Oh, how I loves me the wasabi peas. I shouldn’t have spent the money on overpriced specialty food, but … yum.
I promised you I’d tell you how the overnight slow-cooker oats came out, and I didn’t, and I’ve had some requests.
Unfortunately, I was out of the the pinnacle of modern technology, Reynolds’s Slow Cooker Liners. This was, it turns out, very unfortunate — the oats burned onto the sides of the slow cooker and made a terrible, horrible mess that took forever to clean (requiring liberal application of Bar Keeper’s Friend). And I have an old slow cooker without the removable interior, so I can’t immerse it. I will have to say that I used a slightly higher ratio of half-and-half to water than the recipe called for, because I had some half-and-half to get rid of, but I don’t think that was particularly the problem.
The oats themselves were not bad, and maybe I’ll try the method again using the plastic liners. I think adding the dried blueberries turned out to be a great idea, as they were delicious.
When Alton Brown first did an episode of “Good Eats” about oatmeal, I couldn’t find the kind that he recommends — steel-cut or “pinhead” oats — in our local stores. But I saw them here a week or two ago and tried them. They’re good; they do have a meatier, chewier texture than regular rolled oats. But they take a while to cook, and I don’t have time to cook on weekday mornings, especially since the acting editor’s job requires me to be at the office by 6 a.m. The two times I’ve made them before now were on weekends.
So tonight I’m trying one of Alton’s recipes from that episode: overnight oatmeal, which cooks in the Crock Pot overnight. Instead of the dried cranberries and figs Alton calls for, I’m trying dried blueberries. (I love blueberries.)
Tomorrow morning, I can scoop out one serving of the stuff and take it to work with me. The recipe makes more than I need for one breakfast, but if it turns out well I may be able to refrigerate the excess. We’ll try it and see.
or 
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