Gordon Ramsey was all over ABC this morning. First Charlie (Charles when he does the evening news) Gibson (back for a quickie hosting gig at his old haunt at GMA) incorrectly identified Gordon’s show Hell’s Kitchen as being on the Food Network. Amazingly, Gordon didn’t correct him.
Then Gordon set about demonstrating a chicken dish from his book Fast Food, talking so fast that I had to put the closed-captioning on. Even then I could only catch every other word. He browned some chicken pieces and added sherry vinegar*, soy sauce and then honey to the pan. It looked okay, but not spectacular. Oh, some lemon slices went in too. He served it with mashed potatoes that he calls Champ, which is a mashed potato dish of Irish origin.
Later, Gordon bullied Regis so much during a cooking segment that it became tiresome. He did do an interesting recipe, however, where he POACHED lamb, which got rid of a lot of the fat and served it with barely smashed (or even cooked) peas. The lamb did look beautiful, but I think he could have minded his manners a bit more. Plus I would have liked a bit more highlights in chef’s hair…
*I JUST had an unfortunate experience with Sherry Vinegar. For a vinaigrette, I added it to the blender AFTER my French Maille mustard. Then I got a whiff of something really foul. Luckily, I tasted it (I really shouldn’t have, when it smelled that bad) and it had in fact turned. The lesson? Store it in the fridge and always add it BEFORE your precious mustard.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
The Blind Leading The...Actually, The Blind Rubbing The Daylights Out Of My Feet
They say that Shanghai is like New York and Beijing is like Washington DC, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when our guide Michelle took us to a delightful French bistro in the middle of downtown Shanghai. Franck is an attractive little place in the middle of a new shopping area (Ferguson Lane, 376 Wukang Lu, near Hunan Lu), with some lovely (although bargaining-not-encouraged) shops.
Franck has a fixed menu for lunch. They brought out a huge French charcuterie platter to start and then big salads. Then we had a choice of 3 entrées. 8 of my group chose Poulet Roti, I went with the fish. (I admit I took few pictures and no notes…but I think it was cod…it was perfectly cooked.) We skipped dessert in favor of coffee, very excellent coffee, before we embarked on a walking tour of the neighborhood.
Our second guide, Spencer, took us around on several occasions. Spencer is an architect, originally from Austin, Texas, specializing in renovating Shanghai buildings while keeping or restoring their original features. His walking tours of various areas were information-packed as he showed and explained the diverse architectural features of different properties and neighborhoods. (Email me for his contact info if you want a rockin' tour of Shanghai.)
Spencer knows every building in the French Concession area of Shanghai and many more besides. He has been living in Shanghai for some time and is fluent in Chinese, so he knows all the cool places to go. I have to admit I was a bit apprehensive about one of our stops, but I went with the flow.
I hadn't thought I had led a particularly sheltered life, but I had never heard of Blind Massage. It is exactly what it sounds like...blind people massaging, I suppose for the most part, non-blind people. It really makes sense when you think about it. Of course, blind people have increased sensitivities outside of sight, including, of course, their sense of touch.
6 of us were brave enough to try a blind foot massage, following the tenets of reflexology. We entered with our stalwart leader, Spencer, who knew what was coming and still agreed to have a foot massage.
It was a modest place, more therapeutic than stylish. And the blind people were sitting in a row waiting for us. We each took a comfortable easy chair, draped with towels. We soaked our feet in… water, I guess and then a blind person approached each of us. They motioned for us to put our feet up on an ottoman and they took the first foot in hand. There were no creams or potions or other concoctions used, just hot towels and powerful hands.
It started out okay, but then my person got to the bottom of my foot, which is supremely sensitive. I stuck my fist in my mouth and I couldn’t help laughing in a high-pitched unnatural way. It was my way of letting her know to stop, but she never did.
THEN she started kneading the bottom of my foot (sorry I don’t know the Chinese lingo for all the pressure points…I don’t actually know them in English either.) really hard, really, really hard. Actually, she was killing me. My laughing turned to breathless screams and then my neighbor said something about childbirth, so I moved to panting. It didn’t help.
OMG, it was more than painful. The friend on my right had tears going down her face, the one on my left was stiff upper-lipping it, but admitted it was rather painful. I could only yell. Heck, I'm not even quiet when I find a good deal at the supermarket, so when someone is kneading the soles of my feet up to wazoo, that is certainly no time to fall silent.
Apparently, it means something when they find a particular area knotted up. They said my neighbor and I definitely had trouble sleeping from what they found in our feet. That was spot-on for me (I haven’t slept well for 10 years), but not particularly meaningful to my friend.
We had arrived late, so the usual 70 minute appointment was closer to an hour, THANK GOODNESS!!!
As we left, everyone agreed that while incredibly uncomfortable (I would say excruciating) our feet felt amazing, as if they’d been thoroughly kneaded in all directions (which they were) and were completely supple and flexible. We were leaving Shanghai the next day and I’m not sure my heart could stand another session, but if I ever find myself in Shanghai again, I would certainly give it another try now that I know what to expect.
Franck has a fixed menu for lunch. They brought out a huge French charcuterie platter to start and then big salads. Then we had a choice of 3 entrées. 8 of my group chose Poulet Roti, I went with the fish. (I admit I took few pictures and no notes…but I think it was cod…it was perfectly cooked.) We skipped dessert in favor of coffee, very excellent coffee, before we embarked on a walking tour of the neighborhood.
Our second guide, Spencer, took us around on several occasions. Spencer is an architect, originally from Austin, Texas, specializing in renovating Shanghai buildings while keeping or restoring their original features. His walking tours of various areas were information-packed as he showed and explained the diverse architectural features of different properties and neighborhoods. (Email me for his contact info if you want a rockin' tour of Shanghai.)
Spencer knows every building in the French Concession area of Shanghai and many more besides. He has been living in Shanghai for some time and is fluent in Chinese, so he knows all the cool places to go. I have to admit I was a bit apprehensive about one of our stops, but I went with the flow.
I hadn't thought I had led a particularly sheltered life, but I had never heard of Blind Massage. It is exactly what it sounds like...blind people massaging, I suppose for the most part, non-blind people. It really makes sense when you think about it. Of course, blind people have increased sensitivities outside of sight, including, of course, their sense of touch.
6 of us were brave enough to try a blind foot massage, following the tenets of reflexology. We entered with our stalwart leader, Spencer, who knew what was coming and still agreed to have a foot massage.
It was a modest place, more therapeutic than stylish. And the blind people were sitting in a row waiting for us. We each took a comfortable easy chair, draped with towels. We soaked our feet in… water, I guess and then a blind person approached each of us. They motioned for us to put our feet up on an ottoman and they took the first foot in hand. There were no creams or potions or other concoctions used, just hot towels and powerful hands.
It started out okay, but then my person got to the bottom of my foot, which is supremely sensitive. I stuck my fist in my mouth and I couldn’t help laughing in a high-pitched unnatural way. It was my way of letting her know to stop, but she never did.
THEN she started kneading the bottom of my foot (sorry I don’t know the Chinese lingo for all the pressure points…I don’t actually know them in English either.) really hard, really, really hard. Actually, she was killing me. My laughing turned to breathless screams and then my neighbor said something about childbirth, so I moved to panting. It didn’t help.
OMG, it was more than painful. The friend on my right had tears going down her face, the one on my left was stiff upper-lipping it, but admitted it was rather painful. I could only yell. Heck, I'm not even quiet when I find a good deal at the supermarket, so when someone is kneading the soles of my feet up to wazoo, that is certainly no time to fall silent.
Apparently, it means something when they find a particular area knotted up. They said my neighbor and I definitely had trouble sleeping from what they found in our feet. That was spot-on for me (I haven’t slept well for 10 years), but not particularly meaningful to my friend.
We had arrived late, so the usual 70 minute appointment was closer to an hour, THANK GOODNESS!!!
As we left, everyone agreed that while incredibly uncomfortable (I would say excruciating) our feet felt amazing, as if they’d been thoroughly kneaded in all directions (which they were) and were completely supple and flexible. We were leaving Shanghai the next day and I’m not sure my heart could stand another session, but if I ever find myself in Shanghai again, I would certainly give it another try now that I know what to expect.
Clotilde Cooks On Today
Everyone's favorite food blogger, Clotilde Dusoulier, was on the Today Show this morning, wearing an oh-so-French little gray knit top with white polka dots. Adorable. She made a divine chocolate and pear tart that could be made in minutes (if you don't count the pastry shells, which were baked blind). The recipe is from her new book, Edible Adventures in Paris, which looks like a winner. Host Natalie's only complaint, as she cooked according to Clotilde’s directions, was that C.D. was wasting that wonderful rum and sugar poaching liquid for the pears.
Why not suggest keeping it in the fridge until your next glass of champagne for a delicious Kir Royale Poire? I may make THIS just to get THAT. (Yes, I know it’s not poire liqueur, but it will be delectable nonetheless.)
I had encountered Clotilde recently in the May Bon Appétit travel issue, where, to my delight, she wrote about the Canal St. Martin, which I had just discovered weeks earlier on my last (and H really means my LAST) trip to Paris. There was gorgeous picture of the canal and some wonderful restaurant suggestions. Félicitations, Clotilde!
Why not suggest keeping it in the fridge until your next glass of champagne for a delicious Kir Royale Poire? I may make THIS just to get THAT. (Yes, I know it’s not poire liqueur, but it will be delectable nonetheless.)
I had encountered Clotilde recently in the May Bon Appétit travel issue, where, to my delight, she wrote about the Canal St. Martin, which I had just discovered weeks earlier on my last (and H really means my LAST) trip to Paris. There was gorgeous picture of the canal and some wonderful restaurant suggestions. Félicitations, Clotilde!
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Shanghai Spring Rolls
I didn't realize how truly cool one of our Shanghai lunch (and cooking class) stops was until I got back and read how truly cool it was. I did learn from Michelle, our superb guide, that the Whampoa Club is in a most noteworthy building, which includes Jean-Georges’ Shanghai outpost. It’s at No.3 the Bund and was built for an insurance company in 1916 and is China’s first steel building. Its award winning renovation by Michael Graves (his first project in China) was finished in 2004.
A particularly interesting thing about this building is that it is the only one in Shanghai that is owned outright by a foreigner, Chinese-American Handel Lee. All the rest are leased by the government. A BUILDING may owned by the homeowner, but the LAND that it sits on is leased from the government for up to 70 years. CUR-RAY-ZEE!!!
So after our walk around the Bund, we went to the Whampoa Club for a cooking class followed by lunch. Wow, what a snazzy building. Very Art Deco.
Even the bathroom was noteworthy.
A particularly interesting thing about this building is that it is the only one in Shanghai that is owned outright by a foreigner, Chinese-American Handel Lee. All the rest are leased by the government. A BUILDING may owned by the homeowner, but the LAND that it sits on is leased from the government for up to 70 years. CUR-RAY-ZEE!!!
So after our walk around the Bund, we went to the Whampoa Club for a cooking class followed by lunch. Wow, what a snazzy building. Very Art Deco.
Even the bathroom was noteworthy.
We went directly to a very spacious private room, which had been set up beautifully for a short cooking demonstration. Executive Sous Chef (not a title I’ve ever encountered in the West...or East for that matter) Hans Pan was a capable and skillful guide. The fact that he didn’t appear to speak one word of English was not in any way deleterious to our learning the steps of the recipe. Daniel, pictured in the suit, ably translated the chef’s directives.
The most important part of making the spring rolls is not overstuffing them. The Chef compared an attractive spring roll to an attractive man, not too big. Very apt.
The filling was mixture of minced pork, prawns, black fungus, water chestnuts and shitake mushrooms. I had always known black fungus as tree ears and I must say that I prefer that name to this.
Chef Pan chopped and mixed everything together quickly and then set about filling his spring roll wrappers. After he had done a few, he directed us to fill and roll up the spring rolls ourselves. I won’t say that mine were the best…but I wouldn’t have been surprised by a thumbs up from the chef. He did walk around and watch what we were doing, but no individual assessments were offered. Maybe that’s the community first Chinese way…
The neatest part was dabbing on a thick flour paste onto a good inch at the ends of each spring roll. These were rolled to be open at the ends, not folded. But then we dipped the ends into a mixture of white and black sesame seeds. Most attractive. (Email me for the recipe.)
The Chef fried the spring rolls for us, the most challenging part of which was to give each person back her own spring rolls, which I believe he succeeded in.
After repeated inquiries about the type of oil he was using…I was surprised it wasn’t peanut oil, Daniel brought out some rapeseed leaves…I think…He didn’t know what it was called in English. Since China is a huge producer of rapeseed oil, I guess that’s a good guess.
The most important part of making the spring rolls is not overstuffing them. The Chef compared an attractive spring roll to an attractive man, not too big. Very apt.
The filling was mixture of minced pork, prawns, black fungus, water chestnuts and shitake mushrooms. I had always known black fungus as tree ears and I must say that I prefer that name to this.
Chef Pan chopped and mixed everything together quickly and then set about filling his spring roll wrappers. After he had done a few, he directed us to fill and roll up the spring rolls ourselves. I won’t say that mine were the best…but I wouldn’t have been surprised by a thumbs up from the chef. He did walk around and watch what we were doing, but no individual assessments were offered. Maybe that’s the community first Chinese way…
The neatest part was dabbing on a thick flour paste onto a good inch at the ends of each spring roll. These were rolled to be open at the ends, not folded. But then we dipped the ends into a mixture of white and black sesame seeds. Most attractive. (Email me for the recipe.)
The Chef fried the spring rolls for us, the most challenging part of which was to give each person back her own spring rolls, which I believe he succeeded in.
After repeated inquiries about the type of oil he was using…I was surprised it wasn’t peanut oil, Daniel brought out some rapeseed leaves…I think…He didn’t know what it was called in English. Since China is a huge producer of rapeseed oil, I guess that’s a good guess.
The spring rolls were delicious and they didn’t taste in any way greasy. The paper that they were drained on had almost no oil on it. I think that’s a function of using enough oil to begin with and making sure that it’s hot enough. Chef Pan told us cook them until they float to the top and are golden brown, just a few minutes. He also told us that as they cook, the bubbling subsides. I would guess the oil was about 365 deg F.
After this nice snack of fresh spring rolls. We went into the beautiful dining room. Luckily, lunch came pre-ordered and individually plated. (It would have taken the 9 of us forever to have ordered off the menu.)
After this nice snack of fresh spring rolls. We went into the beautiful dining room. Luckily, lunch came pre-ordered and individually plated. (It would have taken the 9 of us forever to have ordered off the menu.)
We had pork with watercress soup, wheat gluten with mushrooms (good!), poached chicken with soy sauce, egg white fried rice (my fav dish of the day) and coconut pudding and dragon fruit. I love the black specks in the dragon fruit, but I admit it’s just not sweet enough for me.
Here’s Chef Pan doing his thing:
Here’s Chef Pan doing his thing:
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Beautiful Buildings In Shanghai And Pictures That Should Have Been
It’s not often (actually, it's never happened before) that I stay away from blogging for so long, but this Asian cough or whatever finally did me in. Just don’t get too close to the screen and you should be fine.
My Shanghai adventures included a wonderful tour by an expatriate art expert, Michelle, who took us to see the Bund, Shanghai’s most famous street and district, and gave our little group an excellent historical, artistic and architectural appreciation for the area. In some ways, the history of this one street is really a microcosm of Chinese history during the late 19th and 20th centuries – from the Opium Wars through the Cultural Revolution to China today - and it is fascinating.
We took a local ferry to get there, which I admit I was a bit apprehensive about. Gosh, are you lucky that I wasn’t blogging when we went to Hawaii and took a catamaran to Lanai. I hung off the edge during our 2 hour return trip. My kids pretended not to know me and H wasn’t much better.
We followed the motorbikes onto the ferry after Michelle had bought our tickets, worth 7 US cents!!!
In the 7 minute crossing, Michelle told us about what were going to see. Many of the most impressive buildings were built as banks and then after Communism became the law of the land, these were transformed into other uses, including government buildings.
A magnificent example is the HSBC building.
It was built as a bank for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and in its time was the 2nd largest banking building in the world. Especially noteworthy are the magnificent mosaics which remain today only because of the intercession of a very clever architect. During the Cultural Revolution, when the Red Guards were destroying every vestige of the old China, the architect told them that stuccoing over the mosaics was more efficient than knocking them down. Thankfully, they agreed and in 1997, when the building was renovated, the mosaics were uncovered.
Unhappily, this is another place were pictures are not allowed. Since I started blogging, I really resent situations where I can't take pictures. With a guard standing 6 feet away, it would have been a little dicey to try. I still would have, but I didn’t want to entangle Michelle in my shenanigans.
But I want to know how this person got this picture. And after a little (okay A LOT) of sleuthing, I found another picture. Now THIS is what I’m talking about.
There are 8 frescoes around the circular foyer in the HSBC building. Each one represents a different city where the bank had branches - in places as far flung as Calcutta, New York and Bangkok. Incorporated in each one were landmarks of the city. New York’s has the Statue of Liberty and a perfect skyline of lower Manhattan. Paris’s background is Notre Dame and the Seine. These were accurate representations of how these cities looked at the beginning of the 1920’s and still look in many cases. I’m so unhappy not to have pictures…
We walked around many other buildings. Here is some of what we saw:
Okay, food is coming…Here’s a preview:
PS If you're planning a trip to Shanghai and want an excellent guide, email me for Michelle's particulars.
My Shanghai adventures included a wonderful tour by an expatriate art expert, Michelle, who took us to see the Bund, Shanghai’s most famous street and district, and gave our little group an excellent historical, artistic and architectural appreciation for the area. In some ways, the history of this one street is really a microcosm of Chinese history during the late 19th and 20th centuries – from the Opium Wars through the Cultural Revolution to China today - and it is fascinating.
We took a local ferry to get there, which I admit I was a bit apprehensive about. Gosh, are you lucky that I wasn’t blogging when we went to Hawaii and took a catamaran to Lanai. I hung off the edge during our 2 hour return trip. My kids pretended not to know me and H wasn’t much better.
We followed the motorbikes onto the ferry after Michelle had bought our tickets, worth 7 US cents!!!
In the 7 minute crossing, Michelle told us about what were going to see. Many of the most impressive buildings were built as banks and then after Communism became the law of the land, these were transformed into other uses, including government buildings.
A magnificent example is the HSBC building.
It was built as a bank for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and in its time was the 2nd largest banking building in the world. Especially noteworthy are the magnificent mosaics which remain today only because of the intercession of a very clever architect. During the Cultural Revolution, when the Red Guards were destroying every vestige of the old China, the architect told them that stuccoing over the mosaics was more efficient than knocking them down. Thankfully, they agreed and in 1997, when the building was renovated, the mosaics were uncovered.
Unhappily, this is another place were pictures are not allowed. Since I started blogging, I really resent situations where I can't take pictures. With a guard standing 6 feet away, it would have been a little dicey to try. I still would have, but I didn’t want to entangle Michelle in my shenanigans.
But I want to know how this person got this picture. And after a little (okay A LOT) of sleuthing, I found another picture. Now THIS is what I’m talking about.
There are 8 frescoes around the circular foyer in the HSBC building. Each one represents a different city where the bank had branches - in places as far flung as Calcutta, New York and Bangkok. Incorporated in each one were landmarks of the city. New York’s has the Statue of Liberty and a perfect skyline of lower Manhattan. Paris’s background is Notre Dame and the Seine. These were accurate representations of how these cities looked at the beginning of the 1920’s and still look in many cases. I’m so unhappy not to have pictures…
We walked around many other buildings. Here is some of what we saw:
Okay, food is coming…Here’s a preview:
PS If you're planning a trip to Shanghai and want an excellent guide, email me for Michelle's particulars.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Shanghaied By Shopping
I’m baaack...with an enormous suitcase (H was NOT amused) and a terrible, I believe pollution induced, hacking cough and fever (H was REALLY not amused, as he didn't want to catch it before his next trip in less than 24 hours).
What can I say? China is the bomb, except for the pollution, which is ever present and unremitting! Blogging was not particularly easy. I'm convinced that Google sites were being blocked the first few days in Shanghai and in Beijing, my internet access was spotty. I missed you!
THIS is what Shanghai looked like: cloudy, foggy, misty, polluted-y. I saw blue skies one day.
On to the good stuff...Have I shared with you how really touched in the head I am about shopping when I travel? I look at it as an extension of other cultural experiences like museums and monuments. H thinks it’s just because I like to buy stuff. Well, of course, there is that…but, actually, I take great pleasure in seeing various objects around the house from different places and remembering where I was when I bought them.
My 2 greatest shopping hauls until now, were in Cambodia and India – 2 separate trips. I LOVE the silk scarves I bought in Siem Reap and I wear one (or another or another or another) almost everyday, which makes me think of majestic Ankor Wat that I feel lucky to have seen. India was noteworthy for the cushions I bought. Since I know H isn’t reading this, the number hovered around 20. I now have a pillow or silk pillow cover to suit any need or situation. That was a trip with my beloved A, who was living in Bombay (before Paris) and boy, did she know where to take me!
In Shanghai, we were a small group of multinational spouses (this time, no husbands in our group). This one day was basically for shopping. (We enjoyed more cultural pursuits, with a bit of shopping, on following days.)
A few more bits and pieces were procured, I don’t want to go into too much detail, so I don’t blow my line “Oh, this old thing” when new purchases are brought out from time to time.
We made a quick hotel stop and then back out again. This time we were accompanied by a fine guide whose mission was to take us to an antique market and to look at antique furniture. The Dongtai Antique Market starts out as a typical street market - stall after stall of things you never thought you needed, but then decide you can't live without.
Half the time, of course, I had no clue what I was looking at, but then when I found a doughnut-shaped lacquered box for necklaces or another box for bamboo skewers for lichee-gathering in distant parts of China (okay, I made that one up), I had to have it. I never have buyer's remorse, only non-buyers regret.
We saw some beautiful porcelain, old calligraphy pens and many other relics of old China, so many of which have been destroyed at various points in China’s history.
At a later stop, the furniture was striking. If not for the shipping around the world, it would not have been outrageous. I figured new dining room furniture might be a bit much to pull off, even considering that H doesn’t notice much. I’m trying to remember if he figured out we got a new car about 4 years ago…
Dinner that night was a fine banquet at the Xiao Shan Qing Restaurant in the Shile Boutique Lifestyle Centre with these beautiful folks entertaining us before dinner.
I'm guessing the name of the restaurant referred to the flute one of the musicians was playing.
What did I like? I loved the bao with the soup. I liked the seaweed egg roll and the lotus root was good in a very spicy, very delicious sauce. The fried rice was greaseless and without a trace of soy sauce. In fact, the fried rice I had everywhere in China was superb.
Next time, a cultural tour of Shanghai with architectural landmarks and spring rolls made easy…
What can I say? China is the bomb, except for the pollution, which is ever present and unremitting! Blogging was not particularly easy. I'm convinced that Google sites were being blocked the first few days in Shanghai and in Beijing, my internet access was spotty. I missed you!
THIS is what Shanghai looked like: cloudy, foggy, misty, polluted-y. I saw blue skies one day.
This was the only picture I have of the lobby of our hotel in Shanghai, the Grand Hyatt, because they’re very touchy about photographs in certain places, except you never know where those places are until the always-present minders tell you no pictures.
On to the good stuff...Have I shared with you how really touched in the head I am about shopping when I travel? I look at it as an extension of other cultural experiences like museums and monuments. H thinks it’s just because I like to buy stuff. Well, of course, there is that…but, actually, I take great pleasure in seeing various objects around the house from different places and remembering where I was when I bought them.
My 2 greatest shopping hauls until now, were in Cambodia and India – 2 separate trips. I LOVE the silk scarves I bought in Siem Reap and I wear one (or another or another or another) almost everyday, which makes me think of majestic Ankor Wat that I feel lucky to have seen. India was noteworthy for the cushions I bought. Since I know H isn’t reading this, the number hovered around 20. I now have a pillow or silk pillow cover to suit any need or situation. That was a trip with my beloved A, who was living in Bombay (before Paris) and boy, did she know where to take me!
In Shanghai, we were a small group of multinational spouses (this time, no husbands in our group). This one day was basically for shopping. (We enjoyed more cultural pursuits, with a bit of shopping, on following days.)
3 of us tagged along with one wily shopper (she was French…need I say more?) and we went to an indoor silk market, The Shanghai South Bund Soft-Spinning Material Market , where we found stand after stand of silks, cashmeres, scarves and bags and more...
We split up and I fell for one girl’s “Hi Lady!” I LOVED a green pea jacket (not green pea…jacket – a pea jacket that was green) and then, as we were bargaining - I AM a prodigious bargainer - she asked me if I wanted one in red too. I figured I wouldn’t be coming this way again anytime soon (after H saw my suitcase, he concurred) so why not? (The wrinkles are from the 24 hour trip.) It was my very first completely made to order clothing item(s). And since we're dishing, each CASHMERE jacket was about $65 - remember it was made just for me and ready in 48 hours. (Amazingly, I could have had it in one day, if I had needed to.)
We split up and I fell for one girl’s “Hi Lady!” I LOVED a green pea jacket (not green pea…jacket – a pea jacket that was green) and then, as we were bargaining - I AM a prodigious bargainer - she asked me if I wanted one in red too. I figured I wouldn’t be coming this way again anytime soon (after H saw my suitcase, he concurred) so why not? (The wrinkles are from the 24 hour trip.) It was my very first completely made to order clothing item(s). And since we're dishing, each CASHMERE jacket was about $65 - remember it was made just for me and ready in 48 hours. (Amazingly, I could have had it in one day, if I had needed to.)
A few more bits and pieces were procured, I don’t want to go into too much detail, so I don’t blow my line “Oh, this old thing” when new purchases are brought out from time to time.
We made a quick hotel stop and then back out again. This time we were accompanied by a fine guide whose mission was to take us to an antique market and to look at antique furniture. The Dongtai Antique Market starts out as a typical street market - stall after stall of things you never thought you needed, but then decide you can't live without.
Half the time, of course, I had no clue what I was looking at, but then when I found a doughnut-shaped lacquered box for necklaces or another box for bamboo skewers for lichee-gathering in distant parts of China (okay, I made that one up), I had to have it. I never have buyer's remorse, only non-buyers regret.
We saw some beautiful porcelain, old calligraphy pens and many other relics of old China, so many of which have been destroyed at various points in China’s history.
At a later stop, the furniture was striking. If not for the shipping around the world, it would not have been outrageous. I figured new dining room furniture might be a bit much to pull off, even considering that H doesn’t notice much. I’m trying to remember if he figured out we got a new car about 4 years ago…
Dinner that night was a fine banquet at the Xiao Shan Qing Restaurant in the Shile Boutique Lifestyle Centre with these beautiful folks entertaining us before dinner.
I'm guessing the name of the restaurant referred to the flute one of the musicians was playing.
The Menu
Mushrooms in Smoked Dried Bean Curd
Pears in marinade
Pork Terrine in “Huai Yang” style
Seaweed Egg Roll
Xiao Shan Qing Consommé
Five Wellness Bao
Sautéed River Shrimp with Long Hing green tea
Money Bag Chicken with Asparagus
Beef Fillet with Black Peppercorn Sauce
Thousand Layer Lotus in light spicy flavor
Braised Mushrooms with Abalone Sauce
Xiao Shan Qing Fried Rice
Fruit Platter
Mushrooms in Smoked Dried Bean Curd
Pears in marinade
Pork Terrine in “Huai Yang” style
Seaweed Egg Roll
Xiao Shan Qing Consommé
Five Wellness Bao
Sautéed River Shrimp with Long Hing green tea
Money Bag Chicken with Asparagus
Beef Fillet with Black Peppercorn Sauce
Thousand Layer Lotus in light spicy flavor
Braised Mushrooms with Abalone Sauce
Xiao Shan Qing Fried Rice
Fruit Platter
What did I like? I loved the bao with the soup. I liked the seaweed egg roll and the lotus root was good in a very spicy, very delicious sauce. The fried rice was greaseless and without a trace of soy sauce. In fact, the fried rice I had everywhere in China was superb.
Next time, a cultural tour of Shanghai with architectural landmarks and spring rolls made easy…
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Recipegate - Just Plain Pilfering
You must forgive me for not commenting on this huge new story earlier, but it hasn’t been front page news in China…yet.
Recipegate, in some circles, is apparently THE big political story at the moment. So what if ABC held an issueless debate or the gap keeps closing in Pennsylvania, what I’m most concerned about are the reports that Cindy McCain tried to pawn off one of Giada’s recipes as her own.
In a closer examination of the facts (okay, it was 30 second perusal of some garbage-y and other websites) I have discovered that the McCain campaign is blaming an intern. In my political experience (I did run for and lose by 11 votes the presidency of my high school), things this egregious - claiming credit for a pasta dish from Everyday Italian and a cabbage salad - never happen without at least a wink from above.
I think I may know what’s happening here. I don’t think the senator’s wife wanted to be dragged into the division in this country between RR haters and RR boosters. It’s so much easier to call the recipe her own than to admit that she’s a follower of the perky infidel.
Political candidates these days have to walk a fine line between appealing to one group without alienating another. And is there a more compelling issue at the moment than the cons and pros of RR?
But this entire recipe issue is not just a problem in the McCain campaign, the presidential race or even in food journalism; it is a society wide problem with a reasonably easy solution. If you provide any intellectual matter that is not your own, say so!
If it’s a recipe, give credit to the originator. I often do that in the title of the recipe as in Madhur Jaffrey’s and My Zucchini Meatballs. Not only does that let me fantasize that she and I developed the recipe together, it is an accurate representation of how the recipe came about. I started with Madhur’s recipe as a guide and, basically, changed whatever I had the gall to think would make it better.
Eons ago, I worked my way up to the Food Editor job at the Johannesburg Star newspaper in South Africa. (The food editor was known as Angela Day and we were a team of food writers and home economists who wrote AS Angela Day. I started as the American Angela Day and moved up the ranks….) ANYWAY, the rule of thumb was if we changed 2 or 3 ingredients, we could call the recipe our own.
I’m even more careful these days, because I’m writing about professional cooks and chefs and I WANT to talk about their recipes and let you know whose food I’m cooking or whose recipes I’m ripping apart.
I am ambivalent about posts that print actual recipes from other sources, giving credit to them, of course, but nevertheless, posting an entire recipe that belongs to someone else. I know it is the most convenient method for the reader and blogging is 99.9% about the reader, BUT I still personally feel uncomfortable posting a recipe that is not my own, the author cited or not.
I have a policy on my blog of not printing anyone else’s recipes without express permission of the author. Unfortunately, I haven’t had sit-downs with Ina, Giada or even the Neelys and those permissions have not been forthcoming and so I provide links to the recipes. If I talk about a recipe that isn’t available online, I do invite readers to email me and I’ll email them the recipe in question.
The problem with the Cindy McCain recipe scandale is that it could have been so easily avoided. She could have talked about how much she loves the Food Network and these are the recipes she constantly uses.
It’s just not that complicated. Stealing is stealing, whether it’s a wallet, a term paper, another person’s theories as your own OR a brownie recipe.
Recipegate, in some circles, is apparently THE big political story at the moment. So what if ABC held an issueless debate or the gap keeps closing in Pennsylvania, what I’m most concerned about are the reports that Cindy McCain tried to pawn off one of Giada’s recipes as her own.
In a closer examination of the facts (okay, it was 30 second perusal of some garbage-y and other websites) I have discovered that the McCain campaign is blaming an intern. In my political experience (I did run for and lose by 11 votes the presidency of my high school), things this egregious - claiming credit for a pasta dish from Everyday Italian and a cabbage salad - never happen without at least a wink from above.
I think I may know what’s happening here. I don’t think the senator’s wife wanted to be dragged into the division in this country between RR haters and RR boosters. It’s so much easier to call the recipe her own than to admit that she’s a follower of the perky infidel.
Political candidates these days have to walk a fine line between appealing to one group without alienating another. And is there a more compelling issue at the moment than the cons and pros of RR?
But this entire recipe issue is not just a problem in the McCain campaign, the presidential race or even in food journalism; it is a society wide problem with a reasonably easy solution. If you provide any intellectual matter that is not your own, say so!
If it’s a recipe, give credit to the originator. I often do that in the title of the recipe as in Madhur Jaffrey’s and My Zucchini Meatballs. Not only does that let me fantasize that she and I developed the recipe together, it is an accurate representation of how the recipe came about. I started with Madhur’s recipe as a guide and, basically, changed whatever I had the gall to think would make it better.
Eons ago, I worked my way up to the Food Editor job at the Johannesburg Star newspaper in South Africa. (The food editor was known as Angela Day and we were a team of food writers and home economists who wrote AS Angela Day. I started as the American Angela Day and moved up the ranks….) ANYWAY, the rule of thumb was if we changed 2 or 3 ingredients, we could call the recipe our own.
I’m even more careful these days, because I’m writing about professional cooks and chefs and I WANT to talk about their recipes and let you know whose food I’m cooking or whose recipes I’m ripping apart.
I am ambivalent about posts that print actual recipes from other sources, giving credit to them, of course, but nevertheless, posting an entire recipe that belongs to someone else. I know it is the most convenient method for the reader and blogging is 99.9% about the reader, BUT I still personally feel uncomfortable posting a recipe that is not my own, the author cited or not.
I have a policy on my blog of not printing anyone else’s recipes without express permission of the author. Unfortunately, I haven’t had sit-downs with Ina, Giada or even the Neelys and those permissions have not been forthcoming and so I provide links to the recipes. If I talk about a recipe that isn’t available online, I do invite readers to email me and I’ll email them the recipe in question.
The problem with the Cindy McCain recipe scandale is that it could have been so easily avoided. She could have talked about how much she loves the Food Network and these are the recipes she constantly uses.
It’s just not that complicated. Stealing is stealing, whether it’s a wallet, a term paper, another person’s theories as your own OR a brownie recipe.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
A Banquet, Bamboo And A Whole Bunch Of Extraordinary Food
H’s colleague M, a grand gent with knowledge of all things Eastern, hosted a banquet at his 1930’s house in the French Concession area of Shanghai. This was a part of the city controlled by the French from the 1850’s until 1940’s, when the French and other foreigners cleared out of Shanghai.
We walked through a wide alleyway surrounded by older apartment buildings into a walled garden, gently lit by lanterns. We entered the house through a large room divided into dining and living room spaces. Two enormous statues kept guard near the doorways. A beautiful tree (shaped like a giant bonsai) held colorful lanterns of different sizes and shapes which illuminated the room.
We moved to the long large roughly hewn wooden table, smartly covered with glass. Dish after dish appeared by the phalanx of folks in the kitchen. We were just catching our breathe and M informed us that those were just the appetizers and we were only halfway done! Gracious!
I may have left out a dish or two. We had gotten off the plane (14 hours from Chicago) hours earlier but here goes:
Fresh Tofu with lots of fresh cilantro on top. Very soft texture, mild flavor. Delicious.
Cucumber Salad, refreshing (my picture was too dark to show you.)
Salted Duck from Nanking
Spring Bamboo, imagine hearts of palm with an even more delicate flavor and that’s what you have. I imagine these are boiled first as here (agsyst.wsu.edu/bambroc.pdf) and then stir fried. Very delightful.
Crispy Bean Curd Skin stuffed with spinach. These were wonderful. A meaty flavor without the meat. The skin was chewy as it should be but slightly crispy.
Eggplant. The eggplant was cut into long very skinny strips. I think it was cooked in a chili sauce. It was very spicy and tasty. The eggplant was completely white inside and there wasn’t a hint of bitterness.
Whole fried fish garnished with strips of chilies.
Stir fried bok choy. The leaves were fairly soft, but the stems retained a bit of crunch, which was a nice contrast within the same vegetable.
Lion's Head is a tradtional dish of Shanghai and named for its large pork meatball representing the head of the lion, and the shredded cabbage (sometimes bok choy) its mane. This dish, to me, was really all about the cabbage. Recipes vary on cooking times, but the cabbage, in this rendition, must have been cooked for an hour of longer, because it was completely soft and meltingly tender and offered no resistance to being slurped up with the broth.
Pork surrounded by broccoli. I didn’t have the heart, actually the stomach, to try this, but it looked like a fine specimen.
River shrimp with vinegar
Vegetable soup (there was also chicken soup)
Dim Sum
It was an amazing array of dishes. Each dish was brought out separately on it own, which meant that everything was freshly cooked and could be appreciated by itself. The best part of the meal? M’s hospitality and dining in such convivial surroundings.
We walked through a wide alleyway surrounded by older apartment buildings into a walled garden, gently lit by lanterns. We entered the house through a large room divided into dining and living room spaces. Two enormous statues kept guard near the doorways. A beautiful tree (shaped like a giant bonsai) held colorful lanterns of different sizes and shapes which illuminated the room.
We moved to the long large roughly hewn wooden table, smartly covered with glass. Dish after dish appeared by the phalanx of folks in the kitchen. We were just catching our breathe and M informed us that those were just the appetizers and we were only halfway done! Gracious!
I may have left out a dish or two. We had gotten off the plane (14 hours from Chicago) hours earlier but here goes:
Fresh Tofu with lots of fresh cilantro on top. Very soft texture, mild flavor. Delicious.
Cucumber Salad, refreshing (my picture was too dark to show you.)
Salted Duck from Nanking
Spring Bamboo, imagine hearts of palm with an even more delicate flavor and that’s what you have. I imagine these are boiled first as here (agsyst.wsu.edu/bambroc.pdf) and then stir fried. Very delightful.
Crispy Bean Curd Skin stuffed with spinach. These were wonderful. A meaty flavor without the meat. The skin was chewy as it should be but slightly crispy.
Eggplant. The eggplant was cut into long very skinny strips. I think it was cooked in a chili sauce. It was very spicy and tasty. The eggplant was completely white inside and there wasn’t a hint of bitterness.
Whole fried fish garnished with strips of chilies.
Stir fried bok choy. The leaves were fairly soft, but the stems retained a bit of crunch, which was a nice contrast within the same vegetable.
Lion's Head is a tradtional dish of Shanghai and named for its large pork meatball representing the head of the lion, and the shredded cabbage (sometimes bok choy) its mane. This dish, to me, was really all about the cabbage. Recipes vary on cooking times, but the cabbage, in this rendition, must have been cooked for an hour of longer, because it was completely soft and meltingly tender and offered no resistance to being slurped up with the broth.
Pork surrounded by broccoli. I didn’t have the heart, actually the stomach, to try this, but it looked like a fine specimen.
River shrimp with vinegar
Vegetable soup (there was also chicken soup)
Dim Sum
It was an amazing array of dishes. Each dish was brought out separately on it own, which meant that everything was freshly cooked and could be appreciated by itself. The best part of the meal? M’s hospitality and dining in such convivial surroundings.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Where Am I?
Maybe the fruit bowl in our room will help you guess.
I'll make it easy. Take a closer look.
Do these help? 
Okay, I'll tell you.
I'm in Shanghai for a few days with H. Yes, CHINA! He's on business, as usual, and I'm not (as usual). It's pretty quick visit with a couple days in Beijing tacked on at the end.
This is my first trip to China and I'm fascinated. It does and doesn't look like I thought it would.
I had heard the streets were teaming with people...not so much, but it WAS a Monday afternoon when we arrived. There were tons of trucks on the road, mostly big blue banged-up ones, with people occasionally riding in the back of the flat beds. There were no hordes of bicycles, in fact I saw more in Copenhagen a year and a half ago...
The amazing thing about Shanghai is the buildings. There are tall, very tall, very, VERY tall buildings that dwarf the people on the streets below. In fact, the lobby of our hotel doesn't even start until the 54th floor. We're on the seventy-something floor, out of 85. This is the view from our floor to that lobby...Yikes!
Okay, stay tuned if you want to hear about a banquet that had so many dishes that the bamboo trees thought they were going to be next...Wait a minute. They were!
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Giada Springs Into Action
Everyday Italian with Giada De Laurentiis
Spring Forward
Herbed Chicken with Spring Vegetables
Strawberry and Mascarpone Granita
Baked Artichokes with Gorgonzola and Herbs
This week Giada is doing a spring menu. She does looks springy, I must say, smelling flowers and walking around the beautiful outdoors.
Giada starts with chicken breasts stuffed under the skin with an herb mixture using parsley and thyme. She chops the fresh herbs, noting that chicken can be a bit bland and this gives it a lot more flavor. She adds that parsley is crisper and brighter in taste and the thyme is warmer...Hmmm.
She chops and adds 3 cloves of garlic, fennel seeds, red pepper flakes and a little salt and pepper. Giada stirs that together and heats olive oil in a sauté pan.
Giada shows us chicken thighs and boneless chicken breasts WITH the skin on. Can you even buy boneless chicken breasts with the skin still on? She separates the skin from the chicken gently and tucks the herb mixture underneath the skin carefully.
I love tucking stuff under chicken skin. (Orange slices rock!) It really is a great way to boost the flavor of the meat.
G puts the chicken skin side down in the hot pan. She cooks each side for 5 minutes and they'll get finished in the oven. Wow, they look crispy and yummy. Nothing takes the place of chicken skin. She removes them from the pan and they go into a baking dish and in a 375°F oven for 15 minutes.
Giada peels cipollini onions with their “UFO shapes”. Giada says they’re at their sweetest in the springtime. She adds a tablespoon of butter to the sauté pan and then adds the prettiest carrots I’ve ever seen. Where did they come from? They go in with the onions and salt and pepper.
The chicken comes out “nice and crispy with the herbs peeking through the skin”. She adds one cup of chicken stock to the sauté pan to get all those browned bits up. She adds snap peas and morel mushrooms with a bit more salt. Shouldn’t the mushrooms be quickly sautéed first? I guess not.
Rather suddenly, she plates the chicken. Did the vegetables really have time to cook? The vegetable go around the chicken. It looks good. She pours the juices from the pan all over. She tastes it and we learn that the breast is her favorite part of the chicken...All I'll say is that that's not the part with the most flavor.
Next she goes on to artichokes, I’m anxious to see this, because I tackled some last week, with great difficulty. She cuts the bottom off, and about 1 inch off the top and trims the leaves. When I made them, I had to pull off MANY tough outside leaves.
She boils them in water with lemon. That was where the recipe I was using differed. I had to deal with the artichoke choke BEFORE it was cooked. What a pain.
She takes the artichokes out and cools them before handling. She spreads apart the center leaves just a bit, and using grapefruit spoon, gets the choke out. It comes out nicely in mostly one piece, then she scrapes out any remaining choke. I had to wrestle my artichokes to get rid of the spiky center.
For the filling, Giada mixes 10 ounces of gorgonzola with one minced clove of garlic. I see the green stem in there as she’s chopping. I really have come around to the idea that it’s that center bit of the clove that’s indigestible and leaves you with the reminder of the garlic. So most of the time I do remove that.
She chops thyme and adds that to the cheese. And she chops parsley for later. 2 tablespoons of cream go into the gorgonzola with salt and pepper. In a separate bowl, she mixes breadcrumbs with the parsley. She spoons a large amount of the cheese mixture into each artichoke and sprinkles plenty of breadcrumbs on top. A little drizzle of olive oil and into the oven they go at 400°F for 25 minutes. We see a winning shot of the cheese melting in the oven. How did they do that?
Giada takes them out and shows us that the cheese melted in the middle of the artichoke and it’s made its own dipping sauce for the artichoke leaves. NOW that is cool. I really like that idea. I wish I had seen this recipe before I needed the WWF to help me in the kitchen.
Her last recipe is a granita. Can it be a granita if it’s made with mascarpone? The strawberries look so vibrant against her green top that it can be if she wants it to be.
Giada adds the cut-up strawberries to a food processor and purées them quickly. Then she adds ½ cup mascarpone cheese with half a lemon and some simple syrup which has been steeped with fresh mint. Excellent idea. She pours it into a glass dish and into the freezer for 4 hours. (A metal bowl would chill faster.)
We see Giada drinking lemonade outside. Back in the kitchen, she scrapes at the granita with a fork and serves herself some topped with a few fresh strawberries. Naturally she loves it. She can taste a bit of the mint.
Fresh as a daisy in this episode, Giada will be spending her real life springtime with little Jade. Lucky kid. 
These are my artichokes (different recipe from Giada's). They look ok, but it was a struggle to get the choke out of the uncooked artichoke.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Top Chef Turns Into Top Gun With Knives Blazing
Plus Another Gunn Could Really Help Things
Top Chef - The Elements Of Style
Push ups and knife sharpening are going on. Zoi is mad that she got "jacked” in the last challenge. Ryan notes that 2 guys and 2 girls have gone home.
Quick fire challenge with Ming Tsai as guest judge. He’s testing their sense of taste. He says a chef’s palate is a powerful weapon in his/her arsenal. The chefs get pairs of items to taste - one is high end, one is not. 20 seconds to tell.
Ryan first - Maple syrup that’s easy. He gets it right. Bacon correct
Stephanie - Crab wrong.
Dale - Chocolate correct
Stephanie - aged cheese correct.
Dale - Asian ingredients right…caviar wrong.
Richard - correct.
Spike - wrong.
Kinda confusing the way they did it.
The loser is Stephanie. She only got 6 out of 15.
Tying for runner-up are Ryan and Jen with 11 correct out of 15.
Top place goes to Antonia with 12 out of 15.
The Elimination Challenge is cooking for a Meals on Wheels celebrity ball. They have to create, in teams, a first course for 80 people. Ming says to keep it simple and execute it perfectly.
Each team represents one element - Earth, Water and Air.
They draw knives to determine teams and have 15 minutes to plan their menus.
Team Water - Richard, Mark, Andrew
Richard says 15 minutes is not enough time and he seems to be taking control, which may not be such a bad idea.
Team Air – Jen, Ryan, Nikki
Jen says air is birds. That’s just dumb. It has to say AIR, people!
Plus, Top Chef folks, PLEASE give us the names of the chefs everytime they appear. I don’t who they are. They all look alike. Why can’t they have their names tattooed on their foreheads?
Team Earth – Antonia, Spike, Zoi
Antonia is completely against Spike’s and Zoi’s idea of squash soup. She says it has to be higher end. Spike and Zoi go along somewhat reluctantly. They finally decide that carpaccio is much more elegant.
Why couldn’t they do little pots of a really great soup, with some amazing garniture, that would add the elegant element they are looking for? And as long as they put white chocolate somewhere, they would be fine.
Team Fire – Dale, Lisa, and no clue what her name is
Dale’s my boy! He likes the idea of a seared beef tartare (Is it beef TARTARE then, if it’s seared?) He’s working with 2 gals…One is Lisa, the other? NAMES, Please! Lisa puts the kibosh on tartare.
Dale wants to wrap the beef around tuna or maybe an egg. He doesn’t want to take the fire element so literally. Oh I get it. Fire=Devil=Devilled eggs.
Nah, Dale, don’t do it. What if the judges don’t think it was technically challenging enough? But the other nameless gal/chef likes the idea. Dale is getting fed up with Lisa, because she’s too negative.
Lisa says the egg idea is weak and she doesn’t think it’s enough as a first course. Obviously, this episode has been edited with this exchange getting a lot of time.
What could it mean? Dale and Lisa will have a humongous fight? Dale and Lisa will make passionate love on the kitchen floor in front of Padma, Tom and Ming. (Oh wait, is Lisa part of the gay couple?) Or maybe Lisa and Padma will…or Dale and Ming…I just don’t know.
No, what will happen is that either Dale will be the hero, because of his genius idea or he’ll be the goat, because the judges will agree with every word Lisa says.
Care to place a wager? I say……I don’t know!!!! To be honest, I think they’ll hate it, but Dale won’t go home. Maybe the third one will, whose name they refuse to show, because she just went along with everything OR Lisa will go home, because her opinion didn’t prevail. Okay that’s what I think. I’m taking a stand. They’ll hate the dish and Lisa will go home.
On to the supermarket (Whole Foods), they go. Richard likes his idea of fish cooked in water. He’s directing the whole thing. Richard tells us he’s going to poach it in a controlled water bath. What makes it controlled, I wonder? If he adds a hydrocolloid, I’ll have to smack him.
Team Air – Ryan says to go with duck: Air…Seared…Cold….Huh? I don’t think their theme is going to go very far.
Dale is proud of his concept and thinks the judges will like that it’s been thought out so carefully. Lisa obviously hasn’t signed on, because she says to the camera that it’s really stressful to go shopping without a clear idea of what they’re doing. Oy!
Dale wants to get a beef tenderloin and rub it with “crazy hot spices”. Lisa likes the idea, but thinks they should implement it differently, which basically means she DOESN’T like the idea. She thinks they should go strictly Asian. Asian Dale, says he doesn’t want to go Asian. Lisa thinks it would be a good idea for guest chef Ming Tsai. Stephanie is their teammate, by the way. They finally identified her.
Spike is worried that carpaccio and salad isn’t enough. NO, says Antonia, we’re going KU-AHL-IH-TEE. Huh? Oh, quality, she’s trying to say. For a minute I thought she was saying Koala. Spike says he’s not enjoying this. He’s suspicious because Antonia has immunity and it doesn’t matter to her what they cook….Dumdum dumdum. He could be right…
Okay let’s move this along…Spike is getting annoyed. Zoi can’t make a decision. She likes BOTH carpacchio and butternut squash soup. Spike wonders if they go together. Ok, Spike, that’s an easy one…NO!
They’re at the fish counter getting fish for carpacchio and Dale’s team sees they’re doing the same thing. His team walks away and Lisa says she’s just not comfortable with their idea. Uh-oh. You gotta go with something and then stick with it! Suddenly Stephanie wants to do spicy grilled shrimp. They stop and talk about the dish and, yay, finally they’re all on board.
Meanwhile, there are actually some other teams in the challenge this week too. People are grabbing their last ingredients. Richard’s team likes their fish in water concept. Of course, he will execute it beautifully, I’m sure, but it doesn’t really grab me.
They’re cooking in the old Marshall Fields kitchen, it’s huge. They have 2 ½ hours.
Team Earth gets to work, so does Team Water. OH, I see where Richard is going now. He’s cooking his fish sous vide. Of course he is…(But I sure hope no one is poisoned. Read this.)
Mark is doing a parsnip vanilla purée. (Of course, all my dedicated readers remember the potato purée that H had in Paris last year. It had vanilla and was served with scallops.)
Richard says his role is basically executive chef as he cuts the fish into portions and carries on with his sous-viding. He is a little pompous, but he is definitely leading this group.
Team Fire’s Stephanie dealing with the shrimp. Dale is putting together a really gorgeous chili salad and Lisa is taking entirely too long to explain how she’s cooking her bacon with the fat all facing the same way and she’s going to put something sticky on it. That was the gist of it… yada, yada, yada…
The Air folks (WHY didn’t they air pop popcorn….I just thought of that!) have a harder time. I haven’t heard anything that indicates that their dish has any air elements in it. Isn’t there something you can do with duck breasts and a hair dryer? Or is that just a kinky scene I remember from a Saturday night of my youth?
Dale explains how negative Lisa always is. She keeps ranting at people. Ooh, girl, you gotta stay cool…Lisa is unhappy with her bacon. It’s too thick. Maybe if she had talked about it a little less and done more, she wouldn’t have had a problem.
Nikki comments on Ryan being frazzled. He uses all the pomegranate juice for one thing and doesn’t save any for the Pomerini. THAT could be problem…sort of like a Bellini without the champagne. They decide to juice something…I can’t tell what, but it’s all under control.
Tom strolls into the kitchen. His visits serve absolutely no purpose other than to disturb the chefs. At least when Tim interrupts the contestants, he has something to contribute. Tom just wants to see how much they’re messing up.
There is something really sexy, though, about Tom’s confidence. Has he ever been unsure about ANYTHING? (You know what they say about bald men? It’s the same thing they say about men with big feet…as in, what does it mean if a man has big feet…it means ahem, ahem that he has really big…
shoes.)
Tom asks Spike how he likes working with Antonia and Zoi. He says, very smartly, it’s been a pleasure. I want him to ask Dale and Stephanie about that witch Lisa. Richard is kind of a blowhard with Tom, making him guess what they’re doing to the fish.
Tom, talking to the camera, says the Air Team doesn’t seem to have an idea of where they’re going with the dish. YES, Tom, right! Have I said lately, how smart I think Tom is and how I think his kitchen walk-throughs always add something valuable to the competition. (I’m more of a suck up than Richard.) Tom is worried that Dale’s team dish will be too spicy.
As for Richard…TC's not impressed by his cockiness and he says THAT’S when mistakes happen. Hmmm. Another clue to the future, perhaps?
The Ball starts. The teams have to plate 80 servings quickly. Team Water finds scales in its fish. That can't be good.
The servers come into the kitchen looking like undertakers ready to roll the casket out.
Here are the dishes and comments:
Team Water
Poached Salmon (Remember sous vide!) with faux caviar, parsnip purée and watercress salad.
The judges like the fake caviar, noting that that had been done before. Andrew was worried about the scales left on the fish. He should have been…
As far as the forward thinking sous vide technique, Tom said “some things aren’t good sous vide and salmon’s one of them”. That’s bad, really bad.
Team Fire
Grilled Shrimp with pickled chili salad, deviled aioli and miso smoked bacon
Padma: “The shrimp is amazing”. Ming agrees.
GO Dale’s team! Can I pick them or not?!! Oh, wait, I said the judges would hate this dish...Never mind.
In my defense, though, how could I know that the dish would come together so well? And that the flawless Richard would stumble so badly? Tom did note that the dish was spicy, but the others said not TOO spicy. Other random diners liked it too, even with its hotness.
Team Air
Duck breast with citrus salad and pomegranate prosecco apéritif.
Nikki blah blah blahs about how their dish is a “quality product”. Why is that so unusual? Shouldn’t the dishes ALWAYS be made with quality ingredients? She loved it all, except for the apéritif….Shows what she knows.
Gail didn’t like that they didn’t render the fat on the duck breast. Ming couldn’t believe that they didn’t score the breast. Tom (he gets grumpier with every show) “is not a big fan” of little drinks that accompany dishes. Ming likes them. I was sure I was going to find a little drink of some kind on Ming’s restaurant’s menu, but I didn’t.
Team Earth
Beef carpaccio with mushroom salad and sunchoke aioli
Antonia says, slightly hesitatingly, that she liked the dish…okay. The judges did not agree. They didn’t like the rosemary. Ming said “just throw some salt on that meat, guys” and Tom: “Absolutely bland.” The diners also hated the dish.
They judges wrap it up. They LOVED the shrimp dish. Ming said the scales ruined the salmon. Tom didn’t get the duck dish. The salad and mushrooms bothered Tom the most, because it had no seasoning at all, which he said was cooking 101.
NOW Lisa is really happy about their dish. She certainly didn’t act that way while she was moaning the entire time they were cooking.
Richard is happy with his concept, not the execution. He’s trying to decide what he will say to defend himself.
Fire team gets called in. Winners!!! Who can call it?!! (Obviously, not I.) But I did say I loved Dale…even if I basically got the rest of it a little wrong…ok, entirely wrong.
But WAIT, this is rich! LISA, the difficult, pain to be around chef is named the winner AND she wins a trip for 2 to Italy, because Ming particularly liked her miso bacon preparation.
Ok, this explains why focused on her so much this episode. Now we know that when one person is shown over and over again, that person is going to be the winner. (UNLESS, he or she is the loser.)
Dale looks appalled. “She made BACON?!! And she wins a trip to Italy?!! Are you kidding me?” I’m with you Dale and you should be bitter.
Earth and Water go in. The first question was who cooked the salmon. Richard answers a little too confidently that he thought it was cooked well. I’m waiting for Tom to say, “YEAH, if you didn’t care about the flavor, texture or scales.”
Gail asked “Were you the one that CLEANED the fish?” And Richard said, “In what regard?” IN WHAT REGARD???! What do you think that means, Dick (as in Richard)?
OMG, he is the perfect embodiment of not taking responsibility for a dish that misfired. He said he may have missed a FEW scales. Tom said there weren’t a FEW, there were A LOT!!! Tom didn’t like the parsnip in the dish, either. Mark doesn't defend it very well.
Over to the Earth team, Antonia said she thought the dish was great. Tom said it wasn’t seasoned at all. “The entire dish was bland.” Ming: “Every element needed seasoning.”
The judges chat amongst themselves. They have a hard time forgiving a dish that’s covered in scales, but the underseasoned bad effort from Team Earth is even worse. Tom wants to get rid of Zoi AND Spike. I think it’ll be Zoi…maybe…
Earth team is deemed the worst and Zoi is OUT.
The other strong-minded gals are appalled and unhappy. Jen is particularly unhappy. (Is she Mrs. Zoi? I think so.)
Spike yells at Antonia NOW. It’s a bit late. He blames her for Zoi losing. Stand behind your dish, A yells back. They all start screaming.
Dale yells at Lisa, saying Zoi isn’t the one who should have gone home and that all Lisa does is to complain and whine. Ooh, this is good. No one likes anyone. In next week’s episode, they will probably all stab each other in the back…literally this time. Dale is losing it. He’s right though, because Lisa is a jerk.
Next week: Dale tells Lisa that her constant negativity is wearing everyone down. This post is wearing ME down. I need some air, some water…but I could do without the earth part and the folks on that team.
Top Chef - The Elements Of Style
Push ups and knife sharpening are going on. Zoi is mad that she got "jacked” in the last challenge. Ryan notes that 2 guys and 2 girls have gone home.
Quick fire challenge with Ming Tsai as guest judge. He’s testing their sense of taste. He says a chef’s palate is a powerful weapon in his/her arsenal. The chefs get pairs of items to taste - one is high end, one is not. 20 seconds to tell.
Ryan first - Maple syrup that’s easy. He gets it right. Bacon correct
Stephanie - Crab wrong.
Dale - Chocolate correct
Stephanie - aged cheese correct.
Dale - Asian ingredients right…caviar wrong.
Richard - correct.
Spike - wrong.
Kinda confusing the way they did it.
The loser is Stephanie. She only got 6 out of 15.
Tying for runner-up are Ryan and Jen with 11 correct out of 15.
Top place goes to Antonia with 12 out of 15.
The Elimination Challenge is cooking for a Meals on Wheels celebrity ball. They have to create, in teams, a first course for 80 people. Ming says to keep it simple and execute it perfectly.
Each team represents one element - Earth, Water and Air.
They draw knives to determine teams and have 15 minutes to plan their menus.
Team Water - Richard, Mark, Andrew
Richard says 15 minutes is not enough time and he seems to be taking control, which may not be such a bad idea.
Team Air – Jen, Ryan, Nikki
Jen says air is birds. That’s just dumb. It has to say AIR, people!
Plus, Top Chef folks, PLEASE give us the names of the chefs everytime they appear. I don’t who they are. They all look alike. Why can’t they have their names tattooed on their foreheads?
Team Earth – Antonia, Spike, Zoi
Antonia is completely against Spike’s and Zoi’s idea of squash soup. She says it has to be higher end. Spike and Zoi go along somewhat reluctantly. They finally decide that carpaccio is much more elegant.
Why couldn’t they do little pots of a really great soup, with some amazing garniture, that would add the elegant element they are looking for? And as long as they put white chocolate somewhere, they would be fine.
Team Fire – Dale, Lisa, and no clue what her name is
Dale’s my boy! He likes the idea of a seared beef tartare (Is it beef TARTARE then, if it’s seared?) He’s working with 2 gals…One is Lisa, the other? NAMES, Please! Lisa puts the kibosh on tartare.
Dale wants to wrap the beef around tuna or maybe an egg. He doesn’t want to take the fire element so literally. Oh I get it. Fire=Devil=Devilled eggs.
Nah, Dale, don’t do it. What if the judges don’t think it was technically challenging enough? But the other nameless gal/chef likes the idea. Dale is getting fed up with Lisa, because she’s too negative.
Lisa says the egg idea is weak and she doesn’t think it’s enough as a first course. Obviously, this episode has been edited with this exchange getting a lot of time.
What could it mean? Dale and Lisa will have a humongous fight? Dale and Lisa will make passionate love on the kitchen floor in front of Padma, Tom and Ming. (Oh wait, is Lisa part of the gay couple?) Or maybe Lisa and Padma will…or Dale and Ming…I just don’t know.
No, what will happen is that either Dale will be the hero, because of his genius idea or he’ll be the goat, because the judges will agree with every word Lisa says.
Care to place a wager? I say……I don’t know!!!! To be honest, I think they’ll hate it, but Dale won’t go home. Maybe the third one will, whose name they refuse to show, because she just went along with everything OR Lisa will go home, because her opinion didn’t prevail. Okay that’s what I think. I’m taking a stand. They’ll hate the dish and Lisa will go home.
On to the supermarket (Whole Foods), they go. Richard likes his idea of fish cooked in water. He’s directing the whole thing. Richard tells us he’s going to poach it in a controlled water bath. What makes it controlled, I wonder? If he adds a hydrocolloid, I’ll have to smack him.
Team Air – Ryan says to go with duck: Air…Seared…Cold….Huh? I don’t think their theme is going to go very far.
Dale is proud of his concept and thinks the judges will like that it’s been thought out so carefully. Lisa obviously hasn’t signed on, because she says to the camera that it’s really stressful to go shopping without a clear idea of what they’re doing. Oy!
Dale wants to get a beef tenderloin and rub it with “crazy hot spices”. Lisa likes the idea, but thinks they should implement it differently, which basically means she DOESN’T like the idea. She thinks they should go strictly Asian. Asian Dale, says he doesn’t want to go Asian. Lisa thinks it would be a good idea for guest chef Ming Tsai. Stephanie is their teammate, by the way. They finally identified her.
Spike is worried that carpaccio and salad isn’t enough. NO, says Antonia, we’re going KU-AHL-IH-TEE. Huh? Oh, quality, she’s trying to say. For a minute I thought she was saying Koala. Spike says he’s not enjoying this. He’s suspicious because Antonia has immunity and it doesn’t matter to her what they cook….Dumdum dumdum. He could be right…
Okay let’s move this along…Spike is getting annoyed. Zoi can’t make a decision. She likes BOTH carpacchio and butternut squash soup. Spike wonders if they go together. Ok, Spike, that’s an easy one…NO!
They’re at the fish counter getting fish for carpacchio and Dale’s team sees they’re doing the same thing. His team walks away and Lisa says she’s just not comfortable with their idea. Uh-oh. You gotta go with something and then stick with it! Suddenly Stephanie wants to do spicy grilled shrimp. They stop and talk about the dish and, yay, finally they’re all on board.
Meanwhile, there are actually some other teams in the challenge this week too. People are grabbing their last ingredients. Richard’s team likes their fish in water concept. Of course, he will execute it beautifully, I’m sure, but it doesn’t really grab me.
They’re cooking in the old Marshall Fields kitchen, it’s huge. They have 2 ½ hours.
Team Earth gets to work, so does Team Water. OH, I see where Richard is going now. He’s cooking his fish sous vide. Of course he is…(But I sure hope no one is poisoned. Read this.)
Mark is doing a parsnip vanilla purée. (Of course, all my dedicated readers remember the potato purée that H had in Paris last year. It had vanilla and was served with scallops.)
Richard says his role is basically executive chef as he cuts the fish into portions and carries on with his sous-viding. He is a little pompous, but he is definitely leading this group.
Team Fire’s Stephanie dealing with the shrimp. Dale is putting together a really gorgeous chili salad and Lisa is taking entirely too long to explain how she’s cooking her bacon with the fat all facing the same way and she’s going to put something sticky on it. That was the gist of it… yada, yada, yada…
The Air folks (WHY didn’t they air pop popcorn….I just thought of that!) have a harder time. I haven’t heard anything that indicates that their dish has any air elements in it. Isn’t there something you can do with duck breasts and a hair dryer? Or is that just a kinky scene I remember from a Saturday night of my youth?
Dale explains how negative Lisa always is. She keeps ranting at people. Ooh, girl, you gotta stay cool…Lisa is unhappy with her bacon. It’s too thick. Maybe if she had talked about it a little less and done more, she wouldn’t have had a problem.
Nikki comments on Ryan being frazzled. He uses all the pomegranate juice for one thing and doesn’t save any for the Pomerini. THAT could be problem…sort of like a Bellini without the champagne. They decide to juice something…I can’t tell what, but it’s all under control.
Tom strolls into the kitchen. His visits serve absolutely no purpose other than to disturb the chefs. At least when Tim interrupts the contestants, he has something to contribute. Tom just wants to see how much they’re messing up.
There is something really sexy, though, about Tom’s confidence. Has he ever been unsure about ANYTHING? (You know what they say about bald men? It’s the same thing they say about men with big feet…as in, what does it mean if a man has big feet…it means ahem, ahem that he has really big…
shoes.)
Tom asks Spike how he likes working with Antonia and Zoi. He says, very smartly, it’s been a pleasure. I want him to ask Dale and Stephanie about that witch Lisa. Richard is kind of a blowhard with Tom, making him guess what they’re doing to the fish.
Tom, talking to the camera, says the Air Team doesn’t seem to have an idea of where they’re going with the dish. YES, Tom, right! Have I said lately, how smart I think Tom is and how I think his kitchen walk-throughs always add something valuable to the competition. (I’m more of a suck up than Richard.) Tom is worried that Dale’s team dish will be too spicy.
As for Richard…TC's not impressed by his cockiness and he says THAT’S when mistakes happen. Hmmm. Another clue to the future, perhaps?
The Ball starts. The teams have to plate 80 servings quickly. Team Water finds scales in its fish. That can't be good.
The servers come into the kitchen looking like undertakers ready to roll the casket out.
Here are the dishes and comments:
Team Water
Poached Salmon (Remember sous vide!) with faux caviar, parsnip purée and watercress salad.
The judges like the fake caviar, noting that that had been done before. Andrew was worried about the scales left on the fish. He should have been…
As far as the forward thinking sous vide technique, Tom said “some things aren’t good sous vide and salmon’s one of them”. That’s bad, really bad.
Team Fire
Grilled Shrimp with pickled chili salad, deviled aioli and miso smoked bacon
Padma: “The shrimp is amazing”. Ming agrees.
GO Dale’s team! Can I pick them or not?!! Oh, wait, I said the judges would hate this dish...Never mind.
In my defense, though, how could I know that the dish would come together so well? And that the flawless Richard would stumble so badly? Tom did note that the dish was spicy, but the others said not TOO spicy. Other random diners liked it too, even with its hotness.
Team Air
Duck breast with citrus salad and pomegranate prosecco apéritif.
Nikki blah blah blahs about how their dish is a “quality product”. Why is that so unusual? Shouldn’t the dishes ALWAYS be made with quality ingredients? She loved it all, except for the apéritif….Shows what she knows.
Gail didn’t like that they didn’t render the fat on the duck breast. Ming couldn’t believe that they didn’t score the breast. Tom (he gets grumpier with every show) “is not a big fan” of little drinks that accompany dishes. Ming likes them. I was sure I was going to find a little drink of some kind on Ming’s restaurant’s menu, but I didn’t.
Team Earth
Beef carpaccio with mushroom salad and sunchoke aioli
Antonia says, slightly hesitatingly, that she liked the dish…okay. The judges did not agree. They didn’t like the rosemary. Ming said “just throw some salt on that meat, guys” and Tom: “Absolutely bland.” The diners also hated the dish.
They judges wrap it up. They LOVED the shrimp dish. Ming said the scales ruined the salmon. Tom didn’t get the duck dish. The salad and mushrooms bothered Tom the most, because it had no seasoning at all, which he said was cooking 101.
NOW Lisa is really happy about their dish. She certainly didn’t act that way while she was moaning the entire time they were cooking.
Richard is happy with his concept, not the execution. He’s trying to decide what he will say to defend himself.
Fire team gets called in. Winners!!! Who can call it?!! (Obviously, not I.) But I did say I loved Dale…even if I basically got the rest of it a little wrong…ok, entirely wrong.
But WAIT, this is rich! LISA, the difficult, pain to be around chef is named the winner AND she wins a trip for 2 to Italy, because Ming particularly liked her miso bacon preparation.
Ok, this explains why focused on her so much this episode. Now we know that when one person is shown over and over again, that person is going to be the winner. (UNLESS, he or she is the loser.)
Dale looks appalled. “She made BACON?!! And she wins a trip to Italy?!! Are you kidding me?” I’m with you Dale and you should be bitter.
Earth and Water go in. The first question was who cooked the salmon. Richard answers a little too confidently that he thought it was cooked well. I’m waiting for Tom to say, “YEAH, if you didn’t care about the flavor, texture or scales.”
Gail asked “Were you the one that CLEANED the fish?” And Richard said, “In what regard?” IN WHAT REGARD???! What do you think that means, Dick (as in Richard)?
OMG, he is the perfect embodiment of not taking responsibility for a dish that misfired. He said he may have missed a FEW scales. Tom said there weren’t a FEW, there were A LOT!!! Tom didn’t like the parsnip in the dish, either. Mark doesn't defend it very well.
Over to the Earth team, Antonia said she thought the dish was great. Tom said it wasn’t seasoned at all. “The entire dish was bland.” Ming: “Every element needed seasoning.”
The judges chat amongst themselves. They have a hard time forgiving a dish that’s covered in scales, but the underseasoned bad effort from Team Earth is even worse. Tom wants to get rid of Zoi AND Spike. I think it’ll be Zoi…maybe…
Earth team is deemed the worst and Zoi is OUT.
The other strong-minded gals are appalled and unhappy. Jen is particularly unhappy. (Is she Mrs. Zoi? I think so.)
Spike yells at Antonia NOW. It’s a bit late. He blames her for Zoi losing. Stand behind your dish, A yells back. They all start screaming.
Dale yells at Lisa, saying Zoi isn’t the one who should have gone home and that all Lisa does is to complain and whine. Ooh, this is good. No one likes anyone. In next week’s episode, they will probably all stab each other in the back…literally this time. Dale is losing it. He’s right though, because Lisa is a jerk.
Next week: Dale tells Lisa that her constant negativity is wearing everyone down. This post is wearing ME down. I need some air, some water…but I could do without the earth part and the folks on that team.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Sunny, one so true...
There's that song again...
WOW, I HAVE ARRIVED!!!I just got my very first comment from an actual real live Food Network host, responding to my comments about her show!!!
Needless to say, I think Sunny is awesome and she has awfully good taste in the blogs she chooses to read.
Will her nice comment affect what I write about her show? Darn right it will...It will make me even more careful to write what I really think, which is that Sunny had a good start and I think she could end up with something great, IF the FN gives her the time and resources she needs. Oh, and as long as she doesn't even think about using Cool Whip in her recipes...
WOW, I HAVE ARRIVED!!!I just got my very first comment from an actual real live Food Network host, responding to my comments about her show!!!
Needless to say, I think Sunny is awesome and she has awfully good taste in the blogs she chooses to read.
Will her nice comment affect what I write about her show? Darn right it will...It will make me even more careful to write what I really think, which is that Sunny had a good start and I think she could end up with something great, IF the FN gives her the time and resources she needs. Oh, and as long as she doesn't even think about using Cool Whip in her recipes...
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Sunny - Yesterday My Life Was Filled With Rain
Sunny - You Smiled At Me And Really Eased The Pain
Cooking for Real with Sunny Anderson
Noshin N' Awlins
French Toast with Caramelized Pecans, Strawberries and Cream
Shrimp Pot Pie
Sunny's Sazerac
I just can’t get this song out of my head. Find it here and play it while you read this.
I didn’t like the way Sunny Anderson's Cooking For Real started. It was on for a full minute, before the host was actually identified. Her name should be on the screen at the same time as the rather generic Cooking For Real title.
Sunny has an interesting background, which I’m not sure is fully reflected in this show…so far. Her journey to the present certainly didn’t occur in a straight line.
I sussed out from this interview that Sunny is a former Air Force Senior Airperson, SrA, (I think they say AirMAN) and was involved in military newspapers and broadcasting during her service. Afterwards, she went into radio and then started cooking and catering.
As she began the show, she gave a much too long rundown of the recipes she was going to be making. She didn’t need to go into all of that in the introduction. Just say these are recipes from New Orleans that you really like and want to share.
Sunny starts with a Shrimp Pot Pie from New Orleans. She tells us that she moved to New Orleans after she had her first meal there. She mentions the military thing briefly.
You gave to me your all and all. Lalalala.
She takes out puff pastry and uses an egg wash with a bit of water for her puff pastry shells. She gets points for that. I can’t stand it when people apply an unadulterated egg to pastry. It’s too gloppy. She says to use a tablespoon of water beaten into an egg. (Julia says 1 TEASPOON.)
Sunny presses out thawed frozen puff pastry and pricks it all over with a fork. She cuts out a 4 inch circle with a cutter, reminding us not to turn the ring as you press, because that will compress the layers. Now, that’s a fairly sophisticated tip and I’m impressed that she included it.
She places the circles on a cookie sheet. She brushes an entire new sheet of puff pastry with the egg wash and places a new sheet over. She brushes that and tops it with one more sheet. She cuts out 4 inch rings, then a 3 inch ring inside to make a doughnut shape. She brushes the circle bases with egg wash and puts the ring shaped sides on top.
That is a very interesting method she’s used for forming her puff pastry shells. I have never seen vol au vents shells made this way. Everyone from Julia to the Joy of Cooking, as well as the Cordon Bleu and I’m sure the CIA, teaches you to cut out the bases, then cut out the rings for the sides separately and place them on top of the base. Sunny builds the 3 layers of the sides together. Interesting.
I think you would get a better rise from cutting the sides out separately, but this is certainly an easier way to get a straight sided shell and avoid a wonky one. The only downside is that you can’t reroll all the scraps because they have egg all over them, but this is definitely food for thought.
For the filling, Sunny heats olive oil and butter in a sauté pan. She adds shrimp, A LOT of cayenne and a little salt. As we go to the break, she’s moving the shrimp around a bit too much. Leave them alone to pick up some color from the pan.
Okay, this commercial is a bit disheartening. The slightly homely woman (she’s not really, but they’ve made her up to be) in the Disney commercial, sitting at the computer, is wearing my exact same Old Navy sweater. That’s not good. Why can’t GIADA be wearing my sweater, albeit with a few more buttons undone? (BTW, her cleavage this weekend was particularly monumental and I sure hope she wasn’t pregnant, because she was guzzling cocktails. Hopefully, more about that later in the week.)
Sunny starts her French toast recipe. Again, she TALKS about the recipe too much. Just do it. She slices strawberries for a topping. We do not need to see her slice every single one. She stirs in sugar and puts it aside to make its own syrup. I do think she should offer an proviso that they shouldn’t be left too long or they’ll get mushy.
Sunny adds a bit of heavy cream to the food processor with sugar and 8 oz. of cream cheese. That gets mixed together for another topping for the French toast. I don’t love that as a topping. I thought she was going to make a pocket in the bread and use it as a filling.
She beats 4 eggs in a square glass dish. (I saw her pick out some shell, which bothers me…not at all. I wish you could see what I pick out of my food…when I bother to, that is.) She beats in sugar and cinnamon.
She goes to her oven to take out the puff pastry shells. Her oven looks like a front loading washer or dryer. That’s freaky.
We seem to lose the picture for a bit. When we come back, she’s adding white wine to her sauté pan with the vegetables. Did we ever see her add the vegetables? I guess I was rambling on…Oh, yeah, she removed the shrimp and added began to sauté a bunch of vegetables.
For the French toast, Sunny slices thick slices of brioche and soaks them in the egg mixture. She turns them and takes them out really quickly and puts them on an attractive platter. She didn’t leave them in very long, I thought. (The recipe says to soak them well.) And why did she dirty an extra plate? Just put them right on the griddle. Oh well. They go on the hot griddle now.
She throws some cream into the pan with the pot pie filling and cooks that for a bit.
Next. she moves to the sticky pecans, also for topping the French toast. She talks about puh-cahns versus pee-cans. You know where I stand on the subject. (I like the pronunciation reminiscent of Grandma’s chamber pot). Pecans, butter and brown sugar go into the pan. She tells us to store our pecans in the freezer. That’s wise and something I always do.
Sunny (you smiled at me and…I really can’t stop singing that song) turns the French toast, way too early if you ask me.
You know, it’s interesting that the more established FN stars are obviously given more time to shoot each episode. They are allowed to do each recipe as a separate segment. The newer less-established folks are forced to cook in a more economical fashion. The Neelys always have several things going at once. Sunny is obviously in that situation. There’s nothing wrong with this, except when making totally unrelated dishes. You don’t normally cook shrimp right next to French toast. It IS a bit off-putting.
Sunny adds white pepper to her sauce to finish it off.
Supposedly as an aside, Sunny makes a Sazerac with whiskey, ouzo, bitters, simple syrup and lemon twist. Oh baby! She sips it with no ill-effects.
She puts a puff pastry shell on a plate and holding in the air, she spoons the filling in. I’d be careful doing that after a few of those cocktails. Sunny tastes it and likes it. Then she moves straightaway to the French toast. She plates one piece and adds the pecans and strawberries over the top. She puts a dollop of the cream cheese mixture on top. Looks good, but I would have preferred whipped cream.
Cooking for Real is fine. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, and it may grow into something really good. Have you seen Giada’s early completely un-smiling shows?
But I do wish Sunny exploited her interesting past a little more. She was a DJ, she could have had a few tunes playing. She was in the military. She could have given us some basic training in certain techniques or even a little salute here or there.
I guess for now we’ll have to settle for, “Sunny, thank you for the facts from A to Z,” or at least from French toast to sazeracs.
Cooking for Real with Sunny Anderson
Noshin N' Awlins
French Toast with Caramelized Pecans, Strawberries and Cream
Shrimp Pot Pie
Sunny's Sazerac
I just can’t get this song out of my head. Find it here and play it while you read this.
I didn’t like the way Sunny Anderson's Cooking For Real started. It was on for a full minute, before the host was actually identified. Her name should be on the screen at the same time as the rather generic Cooking For Real title.
Sunny has an interesting background, which I’m not sure is fully reflected in this show…so far. Her journey to the present certainly didn’t occur in a straight line.
I sussed out from this interview that Sunny is a former Air Force Senior Airperson, SrA, (I think they say AirMAN) and was involved in military newspapers and broadcasting during her service. Afterwards, she went into radio and then started cooking and catering.
As she began the show, she gave a much too long rundown of the recipes she was going to be making. She didn’t need to go into all of that in the introduction. Just say these are recipes from New Orleans that you really like and want to share.
Sunny starts with a Shrimp Pot Pie from New Orleans. She tells us that she moved to New Orleans after she had her first meal there. She mentions the military thing briefly.
You gave to me your all and all. Lalalala.
She takes out puff pastry and uses an egg wash with a bit of water for her puff pastry shells. She gets points for that. I can’t stand it when people apply an unadulterated egg to pastry. It’s too gloppy. She says to use a tablespoon of water beaten into an egg. (Julia says 1 TEASPOON.)
Sunny presses out thawed frozen puff pastry and pricks it all over with a fork. She cuts out a 4 inch circle with a cutter, reminding us not to turn the ring as you press, because that will compress the layers. Now, that’s a fairly sophisticated tip and I’m impressed that she included it.
She places the circles on a cookie sheet. She brushes an entire new sheet of puff pastry with the egg wash and places a new sheet over. She brushes that and tops it with one more sheet. She cuts out 4 inch rings, then a 3 inch ring inside to make a doughnut shape. She brushes the circle bases with egg wash and puts the ring shaped sides on top.
That is a very interesting method she’s used for forming her puff pastry shells. I have never seen vol au vents shells made this way. Everyone from Julia to the Joy of Cooking, as well as the Cordon Bleu and I’m sure the CIA, teaches you to cut out the bases, then cut out the rings for the sides separately and place them on top of the base. Sunny builds the 3 layers of the sides together. Interesting.
I think you would get a better rise from cutting the sides out separately, but this is certainly an easier way to get a straight sided shell and avoid a wonky one. The only downside is that you can’t reroll all the scraps because they have egg all over them, but this is definitely food for thought.
For the filling, Sunny heats olive oil and butter in a sauté pan. She adds shrimp, A LOT of cayenne and a little salt. As we go to the break, she’s moving the shrimp around a bit too much. Leave them alone to pick up some color from the pan.
Okay, this commercial is a bit disheartening. The slightly homely woman (she’s not really, but they’ve made her up to be) in the Disney commercial, sitting at the computer, is wearing my exact same Old Navy sweater. That’s not good. Why can’t GIADA be wearing my sweater, albeit with a few more buttons undone? (BTW, her cleavage this weekend was particularly monumental and I sure hope she wasn’t pregnant, because she was guzzling cocktails. Hopefully, more about that later in the week.)
Sunny starts her French toast recipe. Again, she TALKS about the recipe too much. Just do it. She slices strawberries for a topping. We do not need to see her slice every single one. She stirs in sugar and puts it aside to make its own syrup. I do think she should offer an proviso that they shouldn’t be left too long or they’ll get mushy.
Sunny adds a bit of heavy cream to the food processor with sugar and 8 oz. of cream cheese. That gets mixed together for another topping for the French toast. I don’t love that as a topping. I thought she was going to make a pocket in the bread and use it as a filling.
She beats 4 eggs in a square glass dish. (I saw her pick out some shell, which bothers me…not at all. I wish you could see what I pick out of my food…when I bother to, that is.) She beats in sugar and cinnamon.
She goes to her oven to take out the puff pastry shells. Her oven looks like a front loading washer or dryer. That’s freaky.
We seem to lose the picture for a bit. When we come back, she’s adding white wine to her sauté pan with the vegetables. Did we ever see her add the vegetables? I guess I was rambling on…Oh, yeah, she removed the shrimp and added began to sauté a bunch of vegetables.
For the French toast, Sunny slices thick slices of brioche and soaks them in the egg mixture. She turns them and takes them out really quickly and puts them on an attractive platter. She didn’t leave them in very long, I thought. (The recipe says to soak them well.) And why did she dirty an extra plate? Just put them right on the griddle. Oh well. They go on the hot griddle now.
She throws some cream into the pan with the pot pie filling and cooks that for a bit.
Next. she moves to the sticky pecans, also for topping the French toast. She talks about puh-cahns versus pee-cans. You know where I stand on the subject. (I like the pronunciation reminiscent of Grandma’s chamber pot). Pecans, butter and brown sugar go into the pan. She tells us to store our pecans in the freezer. That’s wise and something I always do.
Sunny (you smiled at me and…I really can’t stop singing that song) turns the French toast, way too early if you ask me.
You know, it’s interesting that the more established FN stars are obviously given more time to shoot each episode. They are allowed to do each recipe as a separate segment. The newer less-established folks are forced to cook in a more economical fashion. The Neelys always have several things going at once. Sunny is obviously in that situation. There’s nothing wrong with this, except when making totally unrelated dishes. You don’t normally cook shrimp right next to French toast. It IS a bit off-putting.
Sunny adds white pepper to her sauce to finish it off.
Supposedly as an aside, Sunny makes a Sazerac with whiskey, ouzo, bitters, simple syrup and lemon twist. Oh baby! She sips it with no ill-effects.
She puts a puff pastry shell on a plate and holding in the air, she spoons the filling in. I’d be careful doing that after a few of those cocktails. Sunny tastes it and likes it. Then she moves straightaway to the French toast. She plates one piece and adds the pecans and strawberries over the top. She puts a dollop of the cream cheese mixture on top. Looks good, but I would have preferred whipped cream.
Cooking for Real is fine. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, and it may grow into something really good. Have you seen Giada’s early completely un-smiling shows?
But I do wish Sunny exploited her interesting past a little more. She was a DJ, she could have had a few tunes playing. She was in the military. She could have given us some basic training in certain techniques or even a little salute here or there.
I guess for now we’ll have to settle for, “Sunny, thank you for the facts from A to Z,” or at least from French toast to sazeracs.
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