A Terrible Secret

So.

I have a secret. Before I enlighten the bored world, let me go into a bit of history.

In General, I don't really like reality shows. The drama just annoys me. All the infighting, the petty, stupid politics, and the bad editing just kill me. I hate them all.

That being said, I've actually started watching Hell's Kitchen. I enjoy it. I don't enjoy everything that I mentioned above about it, but I Do enjoy the look into a line kitchen. It also gives me ideas of dishes that I need to learn how to cook. However, in my defense, I do watch it on my computer, so I can skip the annoying parts. So, here are some of the ideas.

Paella
Risotto
Flambe
Sugar Work (caramel, candies, etc)
Mousse

Souffle
Sauces (not just the normal stuff)
How to plan a multicourse menu to compliment itself


Anyway, that's it for now.

there's never enough R2-D2

This morning Banik sent me a link for commercial by Nikko. If I had absurd amounts of money to burn I could now have an R2-D2 projector and/or webcam of my very very own. Actually one set for me to play with and one set to keep in the original packaging. Banik would have to get his own.



Prices for this awesomeness?

the R2-D2 Projector + Millenium Falcon remote is $2900
the R2-D2 Webcam + Lightsaber remote and IP phone is $400

have yourself a purple cow

For an awesome milkshake combine:
- raspberry sherbert
- vanilla ice cream
- milk

Nobody measures anything for a milkshake, but I can say it was probably about [1 sherbert : 1.5 ice cream] and enough milk to make it work. Introduce to a blender and pour into mugs which have been chilling in the freezer. If you don't need fat drinking straws for the milkshake (ie. not the standard skinny ones) you used too much milk.

This would probably be awesome with any berry sherbert, but then I like berries. And I'd like to try a ratio that is higher in sherbert. And a version that uses vanilla frozen yogurt. And possibly also adding fresh or frozen berries. The possibilities are endless.


Useless factoid: A "white cow" is a vanilla milkshake, and a "brown cow" is chocolate.

Bonus useless factoid: Milkshakes were originally marketed as a health food. (Now that's a health food I could love.)

The Lamentable Lost Recipes

On occasion, enLethe and I will cook something for the first time that turns out extra tasty. Unfortunately, we are not always studious when it comes to recording the process. So much for the cornerstone of the scientific method.

There are a couple examples of this that I can think of off the top of my head, the first of which is the bane of enLethe's culinary existence: Fried Zuchinni.

At one point while she was visiting me at school, we made fried zuchinni. It was Excellent, so she claims. All I can remember is that it was deep fried and it involved an egg bath and some seasoned flour with white pepper in it. We'll figure out what it was, one day.

The other is some rice pudding that we made over our last spring break. We used purple sticky rice, which gave it an amazing color, and the pudding itself was excellent. I know I based it on two different recipes for purple sticky rice rice pudding, and that it involved a vanilla bean, german cinnamon, real cinnamon, eggs, milk, and... I don't know what else. I need to research the proportions. 1# of rice.

Anyway, that's all for now. Hopefully we'll post more after the last couple weeks of school are over. Who Knows.

sauce dishes

There are a lot of pretty dishes out there, and when the time comes we'll assemble our own set instead of getting a box of something generic. Sometimes, though, it's hard to choose.

Sauce dishes are a place where I think it would be more interesting to collect than to choose. There are these ceramic dishes and these glass dishes, and many more to consider. I'm indecisive to begin with....

Instead of having a serving set for 8 or something, we'll probably collect pairs of interesting dishes that we think are neat, and just pick whatever we want to use. This might also carry over to other small dishes and serving bowls or platters. Matching isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Mudflat Gallery

Mudflat Gallery is a little store at Porter Square (Cambridge, MA) that showcases an interesting mix of work from fibers and paper art to glass and ceramics; their website is pretty terrible and useless though. My favourite pieces were the dichroic slump glass dishes done by Judith Copeland, and though her website doesn't do it justice you can see a few more of them at another gallery. Mudflat sells the smaller 3"x3"ish ones for about $14 each, but the craft is very nice. The palette of greens, blues, and violets is obviously appealing to us, and they would easily make a nice set of matching-but-not-identical dishes for something. I have no idea what though. Lisa Knebel also had some noteably nice pottery, which can also be seen at the other gallery's website. Swirly pottery is nice; spotty pottery is ugly.

Cherry Soup?

I've been perusing a book Banik has titled "The Book of Food" which is essentially an encyclopedia of cooking ingredients. (It's a neat book, and most importantly to someone of my background, it has a lot of pictures.) The author often talks about preparation methods of the ingredients, and while reading about cherries I was surprised to discover the eastern European tradition of cherry soup, both hot and cold. I don't care for cherries, but as Banik loves them I thought this was worth a bit of research.

It would appear that Hungarians are most well-known for cherry soup, but the recipes reflect that every family has its own version. All of the versions I found are chilled, but I suppose you can eat anything warm if you like it.

This Cold Hungarian Cherry Soup from Soup-aholic uses:
2 pounds fresh cherries, pitted and stemmed
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons water
2 to 3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 cup heavy cream, Sour cream or plain yogurt for topping
Orange or lemon zest or mint sprigs for garnish (optional)

This Hungarian Cherry Soup from Chef2Chef is also served cold:
1 lb morello cherries, pitted (pits and stems reserved)
3 c riesling or other dry white wine
1/4 c sugar
1 inch stick cinnamon
2 lemons, 1 peeled & the peel reserved, both squeezed
1/2 c brandy (optional)
2 c sour cream

And this Hungarian Sour Cherry Soup from RecipeSource is yet another version:
1 1/2 quart water
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pound fresh or frozen pitted sour cherries (not canned)
3/4 cup granulated sugar