Category Archives: food

There were also some delicious french fries, and salt water taffy.

August 11, 2008

What do you do when your husband goes off to hang out with his college buddies in California and you’re left all alone?

You go to the state fair to eat a bunch of fried crap, of course!

My friend Mooks and I battled through surprisingly bad traffic and a few wrong turns and finally arrived in West Alles, Wisconsin, home of the state fair grounds, and center of all things fried.

Not sure what, precisely, is French about cheese curds, but its all fried, so I wont argue.

Not sure what, precisely, is "French" about cheese curds, but I won't argue.

We wandered through the livestock tents:

Nonplussed

Nonplussed

We looked at prizewinning homemade foodstuffs:

SO MANY CATEGORIES of jam and pickles. Was stunned.

SO MANY CATEGORIES of jam and pickles. Truly, this is less than a 1/3 of them. Was stunned.

And saw winners in categories I never imagined existed:

Let’s look a little more closely at that tag:

There is a Cheese Party Tray category! I would EXCEL at this category. Its a shame I dont live in Wisconsin, so I am ineligible.

There is a Cheese Party Tray category! I would EXCEL at this category. It's a shame I don't live in Wisconsin, so I am ineligible.

But the real draw of the Wisconsin state fair is the world-famous cream puffs.  Truth be told, my memories of these cream puffs are not fond.  Whenever we went to the fair when I was a kid, I just remember waiting for what seemed like forever for a messy, not-that-delicious wad of cream.  Of course, when I was a kid, I didn’t like fresh whipped cream, preferring instead the chemical, stable-textured Cool Whip.  I have since come to my senses, and decided it was time to give cream puffs another shot.

Shirts were not for sale. Yes, I asked.

Shirts were not for sale. Yes, I asked.

They sell something like one bajillion cream puffs during the fair, and it’s quite a high efficiency operation.  First, slice open puff:

I totally didn’t notice this at the time, but the glove/knife arrangement in the lower right corner there is a little creepy, isn’t it?  It’s like someone left it that way on purpose to freak people out- “oh, that’s just the ghost employee- he’s really fast, and doesn’t take up hardly any space!”

Then, you fill the cream puffs:

They go through an INSANE amount of cream.

They go through an INSANE amount of cream.

And then, finally, most importantly, you EAT the cream puff:

Public service announcement: if you are eating a cream puff, and you get powdered sugar from the top all over your shirt (this will happen,) please look at your hands BEFORE you absently try to dust off your shirt, as your hands are likely to be even more coated with powdered sugar, and you will only make the problem worse.

On the whole, it was a tremendously successful afternoon.  I think, in fact, that I probably had a better time than John had with his 5 best friends, camping in Sonoma and then going wine tasting.  Oh, wait, that’s false.  Why does everyone, including my husband, insist on taunting me with their vacations?

Posted in food, nostalgia | 7 Comments

In which I discover I have a stomach of steel

June 10, 2008

Some things that I read in magazines inexplicably stick with me forever.  I once read that morning breakfast cereal shouldn’t have more than 7 grams of sugar per serving.  “That seems doable,” I remember thinking at the time.  “What a reasonable approach- not a crazy diet, just a general guideline.  I’ll do it!”

Have you ever looked at the nutrition facts in the cereal aisle?  This is harder than you might think.  Seemingly innocent cereals (bran chex, you taunt me so!) actually exceed this 7 grams guideline.  So since I decided to adhere to this random guideline from Shape magazine, I’ve eaten pretty much the same thing for breakfast every morning:  bowl of shredded wheat (no sugar!) drizzled with a tiny bit of honey (less than 7 grams sugar!) and milk.

Two days ago, I busted out a small jar of honey that I purchased in Hawaii a while back.  I drizzled some over my shredded wheat and took a bite.  “Ugh,” thought I.  “This honey is strangely bitter and smoky tasting.”  But I got used to it, finished the bowl, went about my day.

Yesterday, same thing:  strangely bitter and smoky tasting, but I can survive.  I brought this honey all the way home from Hawaii, dammit.  I’m going to eat it, and I’m going to like it.

This morning, I went back to regular old grocery store honey, hoping that would solve the problem.  Worse than ever:  bitter, smoky tasting, and just unpleasant.  “Man,” I think to myself.  “Is there something different about this brand of shredded wheat that I just don’t like?”

I looked contemplatively at the bowl.

“That’s odd,” I said.  “Why does it look all curdled in there?  Can honey cause milk to curdle?”

No, honey does not cause milk to curdle.  Keeping milk 4 days past its expiration date causes milk to curdle.  Which means that for the past THREE DAYS I have consumed a bowl of cereal bathed in CURDLED MILK.  As in, gone off.  Funny-smelling.  Spoiled.  I was apparently just too unawake to notice.

So for anyone who was wondering: if your cereal suddenly tastes like campfire, you should probably open a new carton of milk.  You can thank me later.

Posted in food, miscellany | 7 Comments

You should totally check out Violet Hour, and I apologize in advance if there's a line.

May 27, 2008

All weekends need to be three days long, because when weekends are three days long you are able to have houseguests AND go out of town for a wedding in the same weekend and still feel okay and almost well rested when you go back to work on Monday. Almost.

One of John’s best friends was in town with some other folks for the weekend. (Brief detour in this story: um, hi guys! if you’re reading this! Because you referred to me as “pseudo” all weekend, which makes me think that you might be reading, in which case the next time I make a typo or do something else embarrassing and you’re tempted to laugh, remember who it was who gave you beer and homemade turkey burgers and ice cream and very explicit directions on how to get back to your hotel on the el so you didn’t get lost.)

I love having people in town. Chicago is, I think, a totally underappreciated city, especially among people who live on the West coast. Our California friends come in town and are so surprised that there are, like, tall buildings and paved roads and stuff here, because isn’t the midwest just the region you fly over on your way to New York?

But because I love this town so much I feel all this PRESSURE to show people the BEST TIME IN CHICAGO EVER. When I have picked all the restaurants and bars and attractions that we go to, I feel completely responsible for whether my friends like the food, or are enjoying the activity. I find myself apologizing for things that are just a part of life- surly waiter, long wait for an el train, mysterious inability to hail a cab in an area that is normally cab central. I worry any little hiccup will sour their experience with my city, and they will go home to San Francisco and tell all their friends in their designer jeans and thrift store t-shirts that they were right all along, Chicago is just some hick backwater.

Which is, of course, ridiculous. After all, Chicago has its own entire neighborhoods populated by hipsters in designer jeans and thrift store t-shirts. Plus (yesterday at least) we have weather that breaks 75 degrees.* Take that, San Francisco.

* (I woke up this morning and it was 45 degrees. We’re not talking about it.)

Posted in Chicago, food, friendship, Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Deep fried and coated in cinnamon

May 20, 2008

I have eaten at least one donut every day for the past 4 days.  This is not normal.  The first day of Donut Extravaganza 2008 started with the Daily Dozen at Pike’s Place market in Seattle, which are pretty much the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten, followed by Day 2’s fresh raspberry glazed perfection at Top Pot, also in Seattle, and it’s been dramatically downhill from there.  Today’s three stale donut holes from the box of Munchkins from yesterday’s meeting- not delicious.  Note to self: donuts are only really worth it when they are still warm. (Also: why is spell check so opposed to doughnuts?  Why is donut considered the one true spelling?)

Other scenes from a lovely Seattle weekend:

-Sunburn on my neck from spending the afternoon at a cheese festival in 85 degree weather.  (Dear Chicago: it’s even 85 degrees and sunny in freaking SEATTLE.  Get with the program.  Enough with the 50 degree rain.  Sincerely, me.)
- Drinking four (four!) kinds of homemade beer made by Bird’s friend who I’ll call Hoppy.
- A delightful dinner at an organic restaurant in an old converted house, which was homey and comforting and largely delicious, except for the salad, which was so salty it tasted like it had been brined.
- Wandering around the farmers market, admiring the lettuces and rhubarb and pencil-thin asparagus and wondering if the TSA would stop me from bringing porcini mushrooms home on the plane.
- Driving down the highway to the airport, watching a Winnebago lose the cap to its sewer tank and spew what had to be at least a week’s worth of sludge behind it on the highway for miles and miles.  (Smelly and not awesome.  But kind of hilarious.  When we drove by, the driver had this look of panic on his face, and Bird said: “he’s imagining how he’s going to get that cap back on.”  Can you IMAGINE trying to shove a cap back onto an actively-leaking waste pipe?  It is too gross to contemplate.)

And now I’m back in Chicago, spending the week in a high school, watching it rain outside for what seems like the millionth time this week, eating stale donuts.  I want the weekend back.

Posted in food | 8 Comments

I also made garlic sorbet once, but that was on purpose.

April 2, 2008

Today is the last day in the office for a girl I work with, and because (1) I like her very much and wish her well and (2) I like baking, I decided to bake her cupcakes for her last day.

I whipped up a batch of my favorite cake batter (Cooks Illustrated fluffy yellow cake), baked the cupcakes, and set about to make my most favoritest caramel frosting to put on top. (Okay, fine, there was probably also a reason (3) for this baking expedition, and that reason was probably hormonal. Sometimes, only a caramel-frosted yellow cupcake will do.)

I finished putting together the frosting and swiped my finger along the side of the bowl to taste the insane deliciousness and got….

Onions. The frosting tasted like onions. Just a hint, really, and the flavor was of caramelized onions, which are pretty good, but still. ONIONS.

Some investigatory sniffing of various pots, pans, and utensils revealed the culprit: the wooden spoon I’d used to stir the caramel was used a few days ago to make a tomato sauce and appears, (despite thorough washing) to have stubbornly held on to eau des oignions, transferring the flavor to the finished frosting.

In short, I had to start over. Not ideal. But at least I figured it out before I frosted the cupcakes. End of story, right?

Except, um, the onion frosting was sort of good, though, in its own onion-y way, and I am sort of embarrassed to admit this, but it is still sitting in my fridge because I couldn’t bear to throw it away. (I have to throw it away, right? There is no use for vaguely onion-scented frosting? None at all? Anyone?)

Posted in cooking, food | 9 Comments