Good luck?

Well, the time has come. I gathered some food from the commons, and I plan to try and cook something with it with some help from the ingredients in the kitchen. I'm not altogether sure what it is I'm going to be making, but I do know what I'm doing to the apples. I'm chopping and sauteeing them with butter, vanilla, sugar, and cinnammon. Other than that, I have no idea, it's gonna be spur of the moment. 

Wish me luck! I'll blog about what I made later!

Beachboy's favorite

I had the best veggie burger this weekend. Whole wheat bun, that lettuce that really isn't lettuce at all (just pulverized, shreds that are so delicious), veggie burger, Swiss cheese, slice of pineapple, and mayonnaise. Oh I am already craving another. All of these flavors and textures synergized so well! The softness of the bun, the crunchiness of the "lettuce", the cheese melted into the veggie burger, the sweet, tangy pineapple, and the rich mayonnaise.

I know I probably prefer whole grains for partially psychological reasons but I can live with that - I have grown to love their heavier texture and taste. I also like how they fill me up in a nice way - I feel like I can just taste the processing in white breads and it's not very satisfying. And once again, pineapple makes the day. I am going to have to try this at home. It's also inspired me to make my own veggie burgers - the frozen ones just don't compare anymore.

Jicama

They now have jicama in the salad bar! This is a beloved food from my childhood - my mom always used to make us jicama sticks with peanut butter. I never really knew what it was until just recently - "a large, edible, tuberous root of a tropical American plant."

I always liked it for the unique flavor - kind of sweet, somewhat nutty, milky but not too chalky. I like its crisp crunchiness and how pearly the inside flesh is. It's kind of like a water chesnut that way - another food I love. An added bonus - like pineapple, I think it can compliment a lot of different dishes - sweet or savory.

This looks good: http://photos.igougo.com/images/p130187-San_Jose-Jicama_salad.jpg

Adventures of a Cake Walk

On Sunday, my mother came up and we met my grandparents at a church festival for lunch. Along with lunch, I participated in a very "American" activity: a cake walk. This is where you stand around a three sided square with various numbers sectioned off, and you place a ticket on a number, and a wheel is spun and if your number is selected, you win the cake for that round. There's a variety of different ways a cake walk is done, but that's the way it was done yesterday. Now these tickets for the cake walk do cost money and you get to chose which cake you want to play for, but when you have tickets to get rid of and there's cake on the line, you tend to lose all self control. Now only in America will people throw down cash and gamble for cake. With a country full of compulsive gamblers and even more compulsive eaters, a cake walk is genius, because people are blinded by cake and just give up their wallets. This combination of gambling and cake is quite a dangerous one, especially when you just can't get enough. This simple cake walk to help out the church ended up being a highly competitive sport highlighted with yelling, pushing, and sprinkles. It was ridiculous. I want to say I stood there and observed on how funny this was to watch people lose their christianity at the cake walk, but I had to play along. What started out as an amusing way to pass time turned out to be a mild obsession. I played for about an hour and didn't win a single cake, therefore with growing frustration and hunger after watching german chocolate and red velvet slip out from underneath me, I had to win a cake. So I continued to burn a hole in my wallet just for cake...pathetic I know. After analyzing how the game is played, I came to the conclusion that numbers 35, 19, and 21 were often chosen, so I decided to place copious amounts of tickets on those numbers. Result: success! After 3 hours at the cake walk and I'm sure about 30$ spent on tickets, I left that evil cake walk with nine cakes. Nine! Part of me is proud of my nine cakes, the other part is ashamed of how I let my self go all because of cake gambling. I was sucked into this sly way of church volunteers to take my money. Although this cake walk is a great example of how far we will go for food, what we will sacrifice, and how silly we will act, at least I got cake!  

timeless debate

Buckwheat banana blueberry flax waffles slathered with butter, agave nectar, and blackberry jelly. That is a smell I will gladly wake up to.

(I like the first meal of the day because I'm always truly hungry. Food tastes so much better and feels so much more satisfying that way. Other times I feel I eat more out of habit - because I feel I should, or because it's just that time of day. Additionally, I can't stand it when you are surrounded with delicious looking/tasting food and you're sincerely not hungry. But you end up eating anyway. And no matter how tasty it is it still makes you feel sick to your stomach in the end. I guess that's where self-discipline comes in. Anyways.)

Pancakes vs. waffles
Personally, I love both and they each have their time and place. However, if I'm cooking, waffles win hands down. Making waffles is just easier. Yes, easier does not always equal better, but pancakes can be an arduous task for early mornings when you're very hungry. As the pancake chef, you either have to wait until you have cooked all the pancakes to finally eat, or you have to sneak in quick bites while you flip and pour. For the most part, I personally like to eat sitting down, with the leisure of focusing on my food and my company. Running back and forth to the smell of burning pancakes is not quite as idyllic. So that's why I lean more towards waffles - they might not have the deliciously dense, cakey texture and flavor that I love so much about pancakes, but I can forgive them for that. There is something nice about the more uniform, gridded shapes and how the syrup can collect in all the little pockets - evenly distributing the flavors. Waffle irons also take the guesswork out of cooking times, which can be very nice when you want breakfast without too many surprises. All in all, I'm just glad that both mediums do very well with lots of miscellaneous fruit and tidbits thrown in.

Missing Home Grilling

Last Saturday I made sloppy joe's for myself and a few other members of our hallway. As I was cooking them, the smell of browning meat brought back a flood of memories of home. Every Sunday night my mom and step dad would grill chicken and occasionally steaks or tenderloins. This ritual, I've found out, is one I truly miss. I was raised on grilled meat, steaks, lamb, chicken and shrimp. The cafeteria, try as it might, just can't substitute the smell of a great steak or the taste of a grill blackened chicken breast.

"grenade with patterned surface"

I love pineapple. I think it's one of those foods that is amazingly tasty in just about anything with just about everything. Pizza especially. Conan's deep dish veggie pizza especially . It mixes things up nicely - a counterbalancing sweet taste to all of the savory ones. Pineapple fried rice is also a culinary experience to be had. It a very complimentary flavor - not overpowering in the least. I also find Pineapples very enjoyable to cut - they are such a bizarre and unique fruit. Once again, I am enamored with tropical fruits and their bold, funky flavors.

I also hear that dunking pineapple in soda is an interesting - somewhat explosive - experiment due to its acidity. I'm intrigued.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nANfw5WFzc

Chocolate Pie

So this weekend Eric J. made a chocolate pie. Actually, it was his second attempt at a chocolate pie, as he had trouble with the first one.  I think his experience with the two pies is reminiscent of what Laura Shapiro was talking about when she said that cooking takes alot of patience and that it does not always turn out perfectly every time.  Even though the cook may do everything right, the end result may not always turn out as hoped for.  Here was Eric's problem.  Neither one of his pies really classified as pie, they were both more like a sort of pudding. I have to say that I thought the first one was tastier, but that the second set up better.  Perhaps if he had left the first pie to sit longer, it would have had a better chance to set up, but as it was, it was a quite delicious, chocolate-mush.  The second pie, to me, was more of a gelatin-y sort of thing.  I ate it the night it was made and it was like eating taffy, it stuck together.  I think he was trying to compensate for the runniness of the last pie. By morning, it had set up into a very hard though gooey chocolate substance.  

I don't mean to be overly critical of Eric's pies.  I enjoyed eating both of them.  I just see his experience as a great chance to learn and improve.  Now that he knows more about making chocolate pie, I'm sure his future attempts will be more and more successful.  With practice, he could become a chocolate pie master. 

Hot Chocolate

Well, first off, I have to pay homage to Zoe for being so amazingly dedicated and blogging every day just about. I feel quite insignificant next to this, but I'm going to do my best.

I just recently tried the hot chocolate in the commons, and was really shocked at how good it was. I've been missing out! It's almost perfect; creamy and thick, flavorful but not too sweet, with that perfect chocolateness to it. I love good hot chocolate, I don't know what can really top it on a crisp or cold day. You take a sip, and suddenly your life feels better.

I have realized several things about my eating habits in the past few days. First off, when I'm upset I do one of two things. I either eat a lot more, or completely lose my appetite. Second, there are specific foods that are comfort foods to me.

Cheese and sweets. My comfort foods. Odd, I know, but it's true. I had a meal almost completely of cheese the other night and didn't even realize it until I sat down to eat. It's amazing how you feel emotionally can effect the way you eat.

I think I have discovered my favorite salad.

Sonora salad from Hyde Park Bar & Grill - crisp romaine hearts with roasted corn, black bean pico de gallo, Monterey jack cheese, hearts of palm, baby tomatoes, tortilla strips, cilantro lime vinaigrette, with a hunk of blackened tuna on top. Now that is a meal. I never really understood how people could only eat a salad for dinner but I think I could get used to this. While all of the different ingredients eventually mixed together to create a rather unappetizing looking concoction - it was oh so delicious. There were so many different tastes but they all complimented each other so well! That's what I find so interesting about mingling foods - how you can experiment and try to create new flavors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04CDjYUZuBU

Breakfast

I've always heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  Apparently scientific studies have proved it (though I've never read them).  Usually, I am enjoying my sleep way too much for breakfast to ever be a possibility, however that all changed last Wednesday when I set my clock an hour ahead accidentally.  I ended up waking up at eight-thirty thinking that I was thirty minutes late for my nine o'clock class.  What a great morning.  Once I checked my phone I decided to head to breakfast to see what it was like.  I have to say that there was an excellent selection in the cafeteria.  I selected a bagel with cream cheese and two sausages and some hot chocolate to take to class with me.  My other problem, aside from sleeping, is that I am never hungry when I wake up.  I don't know why that is.  I also am not fond of breakfast foods. I am good with hash browns, I love sausages, and bagels are okay.  I hate eggs.  Pancakes don't excite me.  So I ate half of my bagel and both of my sausages and I couldn't stand any more.  I'm wondering if breakfast is really that important after all. In my personal experience, I usually do better without it. 

"I'm one tough Gazookus"

Spinach -while it's not a new flavor for me I have newly discovered how awkward it is for me to eat. I think I like eating foods that are somewhat neat - as in not having stems randomly stick out of your mouth at unsightly angles. While not all forms of spinach are quite so tricky for me, spinach salads are the worst. I love the way fresh spinach tastes but the forecast of embarrassment detracts from its more favorable characteristics. But maybe I'm just too self-conscious when it comes to eating. (Or maybe I'm just a clumsy eater. Will look into this.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UjM9UI40jk - 1st Popeye episode!

A Sweet Sensation

I've been experimenting with desserts in the cafeteria since I got here. I'm sure these aren't 100% original, but I like to think that I did come up with them myself:

Ice cream sandwich: I took two cookies and glued them together with soft-serve. I enjoyed it so much, I eat them often after dinner.

Cookies and Milk: I got tired of dipping, so I just crammed all the cookies into a glass of chocolate milk. After drinking the milk, I ate the mush out of the bottom with a spoon. It turns out that milk saturated cookies taste pretty darn good. Serves 1.

Banana Split: I decided to try my hand at one of these last night. It was easy; all the ingredients are in the cafeteria. The hardest part for me was splitting the banana neatly. I'm not too handy with a knife. The only key ingredient missing from our servery was the whipped cream.

Hope these ideas spark some creativity in you guys.

Love,

Adrian

Tuesday & Wednesday

(Oops, I accidently saved Tuesday's post instead of "publishing" it yesterday. So here we go.)

Tuesday's: Ice cream in a cone. This is not a new flavor for me but it is a newly revisited eating experience. There's something very simple about it but I think ice cream tastes better this way. No utensil between you and the dessert. The interactivity - swirling the cream into the cone, perhaps decorating it with a creative sprinkle of cinnamon. A nice refreshing, cooling end to a meal. (My apologies to everyone I have already gushed about this to.)

Today's: Honey, bananas, and peanut butter sandwiches. The bread lightly toasted and crunchy (this was before the toaster became so lovingly decorated with melted cheese) - its heat slightly melting the filling and fusing the flavors together. ("F" for the win!) What makes some flavors compliment each other so well? A mix of taste-buds, memory, and texture? (I'm sure there's some factual science behind why we all like the way certain things taste but I like to think it transcends that in some way, sometimes.)

Overall, this sandwich has a very homey flavor and feeling for me. It's comfort food that truly comforts - instead of making one regret it afterwards and make silly comments about thighs. However, if you're going to eat something, you shouldn't have to repent it later. Even if it's not "healthy" for you - enjoy it. Relish it. Indulge and accept it. If not, why eat it in the first place?

Sweet potatos part deux

Well it's still Monday somewhere.

They had sweet potato fries in the commons today! I was very excited and pleased. They had a very nice texture and taste - not too soggy or oily but "crunchily" tender and bright orange. (I have to admit I have a great fondness for this tuber.) So the sweet potatoes were a delight all by themselves but all of a sudden, I was somehow reminded by a combination I'd always heard about but never tried. Ice cream and fries. I guess it's not that surprising - sweet & salty is a somewhat common duo. But just because you can combine things doesn't always mean you should, right? (For example: Ketchup & mac&cheese. Ranch dressing & pizza.) But I decided to forget all of that, sit down, and give fries and ice cream a try.

Verdict: Not half bad. It had a very summer-food feel to it - 4th of July even. Very "American" - and hopefully that doesn't come off in a terribly snobbish way.

(However, this does not mean I will be trying fried ice cream anytime soon. Oho.)

Pancaked

I realized today that it has been a whole week since I last posted so I will try to make up for that with a post-a-day *this* week!

New flavor of the day: Mango buttermilk pancakes. Magnolia Café is where it's at. (I'll admit that Kerbey Lane makes a fine gingerbread pancake but Magnolia's will always hold a special place in my heart.)

After today, I am once again amazed by the versatility of certain foods. For example, I like how you can add such a wide variety of things to pancakes and they still, in some miraculous way, turn out tasting really good. Perhaps I'm not picky enough or too easily impressed, or maybe some foods are just really special that way. (Oatmeal is another close relative to the pancake in this respect.)

Overall, the mango turned the typical pancake eating experience into a very exotic and enjoyable one. I like tropical foods - the bright colors, the rich and vibrant flavors. It made breakfast a little more exciting. Especially with a little cactus nectar drizzled on top.

Cookie Dough

Today I wish to talk about not a new food I've tried, but an old favorite. I, of course, am talking about cookie dough. That's right, cookie dough. Not the baked good, the raw stuff that you can eat with a spoon. Which I do, when I can.

At this very moment, there is a 5 pound tub of chocolate chip cookie dough in my little mini fridge. It's taking up most of the space with its sweet calorie filled goodness. As much as I love cookies, and anyone who knows me can tell you I really love cookies, there is something really wonderful about cookie dough. There's almost a little kid feeling to cookie dough.

For as long as I can remember, my father has been making me chocolate chip cookies. It was almost a ritual to it. He would mix everything together, use the electric mixer, and then when he was done he would give the beaters to my sister and I to consume with much finger licking and joy. There's an art to cleaning off a mixer to it's best potential. You have to twist your tongue in unexpected ways, use your pinkies to get out that last little bite of dough, until you return the beater to the sink, its metal surface already sparklingly clean.

I don't really know what's so comforting about cookie dough. It's sweet, of course, which is always a plus. There's that really wonderful almost crumbly texture to it, the mealy feeling of the sugar that's still in a solid form mixed into flour that is no longer powdery and dry. I try not to think about the raw eggs and the diseases I'm probably flirting with in my obsession. Usually it's not really that hard.

How do you really describe the taste of a chocolate chip cookie? It's like trying to describe what blue is. It simply IS. If you've never had a chocolate chip cookie, how can you understand that warm, sweet mixture of cookie and chocolate? How can you really get that undercurrent of rich warmth, not really sweet but on the edge? How can you truly appreciate the delicious scent that rises out of the oven in response to the small chunks of flour, sugar, eggs, chocolate, milk, and more that sit, smugly baking into something magical?

People say we're American as Apple Pie. I disagree. I think we're American as Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Mixin it up

About a week ago we discussed how Americans can only eat their meals if they are separated into little compartments.. well just as i imagined, this statement it completely true

For the past week i have been putting everything that i eat on one plate, for breakfast it was usually eggs and bacon for lunch stir fry salad beans and tortillas and for dinner it could be anything from spaghetti, burgers, pizza, stir fry, or a sandwich with my salad and possibly beans

either way what i found was the everyone who sat around me thought it was disgusting.. i mean i didn't think it looked that bad ( and i actually thought it tasted amazing), but pretty much every meal that i mixed i found that people couldn't watch me eat because they thought it was weird to mix my tofu with my salad, beans, salad dressing, rice, and onions. 

although something interesting that i found out is that if i mixed up all my food and put it in a tortilla that some how it was then not a big deal to have it all mixed up which brings me to my next idea... it appears that if foods are mixed up, but put on or inside another food (ie. burgers, pizza, tacos...etc) then its not gross.. i mean who would really eat ham with pineapple mixed together unless it was on a pizza? or who would think that cheese bacon mayo and tomatoes were good unless they were on a burger?

I can only wonder why these foods make it appropriate to mix, while mixing in the open is unacceptable 

You think I'm exaggerating when i say unacceptable, but the majority of people felt just that way..they felt that by mixing my food i was being childish

Why are children allowed to mix their food but I am not? i don't think its very fair because mixing food is sooo much fun (OK.... so i was a little childish with it, but still i still want to know why i cant)

i think my next step is to mix my food outside the country and see how that turns out

until then i guess ill keep mixing 

and people will keep getting grossed out

Oh well....

McSlime

Last Saturday I had the misfortune to eat at the McDonald's outside of Hillsbourough. I ordered a #12 with a coke which was a chicken nugget combo with fries. The nuggets, for I lacked to discen any chicken in them, had the consistence of a wet sponge coated in grease. Needless to say they were gross. The fries however left me wanting more. Whether it was the transfats, the high sodium content or the lack of flavor from the nuggets but those fries were amazing. I had found myself in the middle of the American cliche, on my phone, in my car and eating a fast food lunch. And I realized that I didn't really care.

Fudruckers

It has been many years since I have eaten at the burger sensation known as Fudruckers, and I have really been missing out.

First, the atmosphere is a real experience. I watched the life of the Beatles from the booth that I sat in. Various other rock legends such as the Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley made their debut inside more circular booths. There really was the full experience of 50s rock, along with all the times I used to go there, way back when. It's amazing what a few years will do in respects to appreciating one's surroundings.

In respects to the food, I don't think I've had a better tasting corn-burger in years. First, the bun was slightly toasted, but not too much. There was a fair amount of butter, and just enough crunch to the bread. The meat, cooked well done, did not resemble any form of industrial processing. Granted, I am not so naive, but I can't argue with good flavor.

Tortillas

Now that I am shoved forcibly into a literary mood by mere company of another, more scholarly party I find myself willing to discourse on the gratuitous amount of food available to us. In order to settle all stomachs the cafeteria presents us with a less than bewildering array of foodstuffs, and we navigate it blindly at first, but then with a learned eye - knowing by mere look the singularly bland tastes the non-vegeterian entree will offer us. The mouth feel of pseudo-crisp sandwiches, and the ever present taste of sardines in the Caesar dressing. However the one unblemished and undoubtedly most flavorful thing the whole cafeteria has to offer is the Tortillas.

I don't work behind the scenes so I don't know what goes into the food as a whole. I can't say for sure what the flour tortillas are made of, but I can state that it is a unanimous agreement amongst BC1, that the Tortillas are excellent. Made fresh from the tortilla press, they have the most care put into them, and taste excellent. None of you are stranger to the fact I hail from easterly regions, however you may be stranger to the complete lack of good mexican food on the east coast. There are a few token chains which attempt a facsimile but very few can actually achieve the proper flavor. The salsas are never spicy enough, the chips never quite crisp enough, and above all the complete lack of competent breadstuffs. The basis for most cuisines, beyond the spices, is the breadstuff. Bread, or its analogue, composes the greater half of a cuisine and most of the dishes contained within it follow suit in order to be utilized or accompany this breadstuff. We see french bread, porous and crusty - and multifarious, while it's eastern analogue, rice, is incorporated as a critical part of all foods - it is to be added, and enhanced by any meal. One of the best examples is Injera, the ethiopian unleavened bread which forms the very plate upon which food is served. The Tortilla as presented here is excellent. It contains the right amount of chewy fatty goodness. It has fulfills it's purpose as the base to an excellent taco. Alone it is a fine snack, or even accompaniment to soup. They achieve and airy thickness and a satisfying texture that is not mealy. They are not too thin, and have a proper taste, I would attribute it to lard, and the fact that they are not factory produced.