I am terribly fond of martinis, Edward Gorey, and sleeping with many pillows.
You are more than welcome to follow me on Twitter: @procopster
I decided to make my own Kentucky jelly, the old-fashioned way, just to take the bad taste out of my mouth. And when I say “old-fashioned,” I mean like the cocktail of the same name.
And in the middle of everything would be a treat which would really bring home the drama of Christ’s Passion in edible form. Something delicious and filling, but would still remind us of Christ’s suffering with each and every mouthful: corn dogs on a cross.
These jellies are not for children, which is a good thing because in all likelihood, they would not like them. They are what they are, which is incredibly alcoholic. 110 proof. Please serve, suck, and chew them responsibly.
By “eat light,” I mean feed myself with as many (good) mood-enhancing ingredients as I can get my hands on. This Holiday Season, while I still plan on consuming my fair share of spiked eggnog and Christmas cookies, I’ll be self-medicating with more fruits and vegetables and less bourbon.
Michelle Obama’s husband may have won The White House, but her citrus and amaretto-laced shortbread lost the Family Circle Bake-Off in 2008 to Cindy McCain’s plagiarized Butterscotch Oatmeal cookies. To date, she is the only woman to lose the bake-off yet become first lady.
What is interesting about this contest is not so much about how good these cookies are (or aren’t), but rather, what each recipe says about the woman who submitted it. And, by extension, her husband’s political philosophies. Do these treats adhere to their respective party platforms? The only way to find out is to bake them.
When my friend Roy alerted me to this new piece of technology, my first reaction as both a career server at a fine dining establishment and someone resistant to new technology was to view the E La Carte tablet as vilely impersonal and a threat to my profession. Over the last 24 hours, however, I have calmed myself as I weigh what I imagine the cons– and the pros– are of this particular piece of equipment.
I thought long and hard about which singer to single out and pay tribute to. Judy Garland? Too obvious. And the only thing I could think of doing for her was making a meal comprised entirely of pills, which is beyond my scope as a home cook. Bing Crosby? I suppose I could have taken some young, tender chicken, beaten it mercilessly, and marinated it in Minute Maid orange juice, but I didn’t have the stomach for it.
The way I felt about my Ovaltine ice cream was precisely the way I feel about Christmas– what was initially a simple, delightful, and comforting idea had transformed into something complicated, annoying, and stress-inducing. This little exercise in making a malted ice cream became, in it’s own way, an unexpected gift– I realized that it wasn’t Christmas (or my ice cream, for that matter) that I had grown to loathe, it was all the the other stuff– the irritating marshmallowy fluff– that gets in the way.
Thanks to Rosetta Constantino’s My Calabria (written with Janet Fletcher) and the interest it has sparked in me, I feel as though the old toe is finally beginning to heal. The book is a long-overdue source of pride and celebration for those of us whose families emigrated from there. For those who are not of Calabrese heritage, it brings this remote area of Southern Italy closer; it sheds light upon the cuisine of a region that has been largely ignored by the rest of the world.
Let’s pretend for a moment you were asked to translate yourself into a plate of food.
If you were to turn the phrase “You are what you eat” on its ear and attempt to eat what you are, what exactly would you be eating? What would it look like if you laid bare all those little bits of yourself– your own, personal ingredients, I suppose– and put them on a plate for all the world to see?
The crowd was ripe for people-watching, with its delightful mix of food-lovers, the tragically hip, the merely tragic (feel free to ask me about a certain alarming combination of silicone, facial reconstructive surgery, and a gigantic purse with a working clock face), lots and lots of gay men (I am very comforted by the fact that it’s become fashionable for us to eat again publicly), and a vast number of nice people looking to chow down for a good cause.
And then, of course, there were the roving hordes of foodies, who a twitter friend of mine once described as people who “would stand outside a mediocre sandwich place for two hours because of a Yelp buzz.”
I should state clearly that these are not Neiman Marcus popovers. Since it was a Porky Pig cartoon that lead me to this post, I’ve decided to make them, well, porky– butter has been replaced by bacon grease and the addition of chopped bacon to the tops not only gives a bit of added oomph but, like a Western Diamondback’s rattle, serves to warn away unsuspecting vegetarian grazers.
The Greeks– at least the old ones– know about starvation. To let anyone who comes under their roof go hungry is to shame an entire culture. It would break the laws of philoxenia (hospitality) or, worse– it would break the heart of their dear, sainted yia-yias.
Perhaps that last statement was a little melodramatic, but it’s the Greeks we’re talking about here. I mean, they invented drama. I can’t say I blame them for overdoing it on the food.
And then I thought about my cocktail and how it lead me to my current state of mind. A Death in the Afternoon is made of champagne–the drink most closely associated with celebration, and absinthe– the drink of forgetfulness. I thought it an odd combination; a conflict of emotions in a glass. And that damned drink had the opposite effect on me– it lead to the dredging up of painful memories that I certainly didn’t feel like celebrating. It is a drink that caused me to become acutely aware of what was absent from my life.
Bay Area Bites (BAB), KQED's public media food blog, feeds you visually compelling food-related stories, news, recipes and reviews from the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Enter your email address to receive updates each time we publish new posts.
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