Eat BBC's 50 Things To Eat

Ah, pasta, my quickie friend! Of course you must be eaten. You’re the one I think of whenever I hear a co-worker claim they don’t “have time” to cook, or some such nonsense. After all, you can be a fully prepared meal in, what 10 minutes?

And I’m not talking a shabby meal either – you’ll come out of the water piping hot and actually COOK a sauce for me. I just have to toss you with a little oil, some garlic, spinach, tomatoes and like magic, you’re DONE! I can add some cheese and pepper flakes for pizazz and seem downright gourmet.

You take charge no matter what you’re paired with – vegetable, meat, cheese, butter…even plain, you’re the bee’s knees! You even come in a variety of shapes and sizes to keep me entertained. Is there nothing you can’t do to make me happy, pasta?

And then there’s that entire industry that serves simply to serve YOU, dear pasta. Shelf after shelf after shelf of goodie just to serve you and your fine goodness at the grocery store. Would Texas Toast exist if it were not to serve pasta? What of the entire isle of pasta sauces? Canned tomatoes, tomato sauces, tomato purees, crushed tomoatoes and whole tomatoes? How about the industry that is Parmesan Cheese – whether we buy a chunk, pre-shredded or the cheese mixes containing Parmesan – it’s there for the choosing. And the gadgets – the pasta magic cooker, the pasta pans, the colanders, the pasta forks, the pasta scoops, the pasta makers – it’s like we’re pasta crazy!

Oh, pasta – you’re the best! Thanks for being that quickie meal that includes fresh vegetables after a long day at the office!

To quote Jack Johnson…

“Banana Pancakes”

Cant you see that its just raining
Aint no need to go outside…
But Baby, You hardly even notice
When I try to show you this
Song is meant to keep ya
From doing what your supposed to
Like waking up too early
Maybe we can sleep in
Ill make you banana pancakes
Pretend like its the weekend now

I love pancakes – they are the ultimate weekend food. And soooo easy. As are banana pancakes. My favorite thing to get when I go to First Watch. :)

I mentioned this in passing in another post – I’m a member of the Kansas City Barbecue Society as a Certified Barbecue Judge. So, do I like Barbecue? Uh, Duh!

Now, did I ever judge Barbecue? Nah. I went for the course and you end up traveling a lot on your own dime and I didn’t really want to spend all my weekends doing that kind of thing. What I did get was an awesome name badge, a certificate and a shirt! Woo!

Oh, and a whole lotta speak on talking about differences in Barbecue and what matters, etc. I’ll skip the ribs for now, since the BBC has that as a separate thing to eat.

Barbecue should always be about the meat. Period. Anytime someone starts telling you about how great some barbecue is and immediately launches into the sauce – RUN. Far, far away. It’s not that I’m sauce-adverse, it’s just that if the barbecue depends on the sauce, you’ve got issues. Think about it – how many times have any of us cooked something and had it go a bit over done, off-seasoned, not quite right and just covered it in a sauce?

That’s right – you can fix a lot that is wrong with a sauce. In the world of competitive barbecue, it’s about the the three Ts:

- Texture
- Tenderness
- Taste

I’m not saying you can’t cook with marinades, rubs and sauces, it just shouldn’t be a conversation that stars out with, “you have to try this barbecue, they have 17 kinds of sauces you can mix and match and I put the horseradish and cheddar together!” The conversation really should be, “the meat was so great, it was tender and juicy, the taste…” at that point, their eyes should be rolling back in their heads and drool should be coming out of the corner of their mouth…

I do like Steven Raichlen and his shows. He’s not flashy, but if you want to learn solid technique, he’s definitely a good place to start.

How many kinds of clam chowder are there anyway?

Most people think of New England and Manhattan here in the states – there’s also a “Rhode Island” version that I know of and then a bunch of versions in between.

Basically
New England = Cream Based
Manhattan = Tomato Based
Rhode Island = Fish Stock

Everything else = frills

For the record, I’m New England – the others are good in their own right, but New England is what I think of when one says “chowder” – the others are a different kind of soup no matter what anyone else says to me.

Any soup done well is a wonderful thing. Most soups today are done so they’re palatable. Just look behind the counter of a Panera any day of the week and you’ll see why – you’ll spy the large industrial-strength plastic pouches that contain the homogenized never-seperating insta-heat soups. These soups will look good and have a decent texture, but they’ll never be all that fantastic.

This is what most clam chowder is – an overly creamy gloop of a soup that is never going to separate and is nearly devoid of any clam flavor, but will hold oyster crackers like no ones business.

It’s becoming more and more difficult to find someone who makes really good soups anymore. The ingredients for a clam chowder aren’t all that cheap – not expensive, but not cheap either. When you’re looking at dicing bacon, onions and garlic for flavoring and then adding clams, clam juice, cream, and potatoes – well, you’ve got a bit wrapped up in some soup. And it won’t be as perfectly smooth as a canned soup – because that takes time and effort. Sometimes, things refuse to come together and your soup isn’t so great…at that point, premade soup doesn’t seem so bad, does it?

But that’s just it – not so bad is not the same as really great soup. I don’t know how many folks watch Top Chef, but on the Chicago season, I have to admit that when the boys did their squash soup by hand, they had a thing of poetry going. I’m getting a bit off track here, but in this episode, the guys found out that they had none of their high-tech toys for cooking at the last second. That meant no industrial-strength blender for the even puree of a soup and that perfect creaminess you seem to only be able to get in a restaurant. So what are Top Chefs to do? Everything by hand – as they put it, people had been making soup for hundreds of years. If you got nothing else from that episode, you should have learned to demand more from a restaurant when it came to soup.

Which brings me back to clam chowder. It’s on practically every single menu in a sit-down restaurant that serves general cuisine. Mostly because everyone seems to love clam chowder. At the same time, most of these people seem more than happy to serve you a clam chowder you won’t be happy with.

But every once in a while, you’ll find a place that serves you one that you are happy with. Nine times out of ten, this place also serves hot bread with the soup – a nice crusty loaf that you can dip into your soup which isn’t too creamy and every once in a while comes up with a chunk of bacon. If you’re really lucky, it’s obvious that the clams were, in fact, fresh. If you’re very lucky, you’ll get to the bottom of your bowl before you know it because it was that good…

If you ask me off the top of my head the diference between shrimp and prawns, I’ll generally go, “dunno, I think prawns are bigger and may be sweeter…or something.” Okay, so there’s some scientific stuff that says prawns are closer to lobster than shrimp and others that argue…and the list doesn’t have shrimp on it, so the disambiguation continues.

Which is why I shall talk of a dinner I had many years ago in Las Vegas at Circo’s where I watched the fountain at the Bellagio dance and had one of the most amazing meals of my life. Not number one, but definitely top five. It was a tasting menu and my husband and I had gone to Las Vegas with a friend. Being the only girl, I had demanded dress up night and one nice dinner out. I was making the most of this evening and we went for the tasting menu.

Tasting menus start with small courses, and had you looked at the boy’s faces when the first course came out, you would have thought they were going to cry. They were convinced they were going to starve because the portion looked painfully small. But as the courses progressed, they learned that this would be a fantastic night of food and wine.

So third course comes and it’s a Prawn Timbale. These beautifully cooked prawn are resting on top of this wonderful mold of capers, tomatoes, shallots, and cucumbers in a light cream sauce. It’s beautifully chilled and you just wanted these three generous prawns to last forever. To this day (and this was probably a good six or seven years ago), I can remember the chill of the prawns and capers recreating the sweet sea water that you shouldn’t taste in the Nevada desert.

In the end, isn’t this the allure of seafood? That no matter where we are, a few bites of it will transport us to a beach, lake, river or boat as soon as it hits the tongue?

Well, no matter your stance on prawn v. shrimp, here’s to hoping you find your sea water in the middle of the desert with one bite.

Wow…another one of those where to begin foods. Curries can be just about anything – wet, dry, spicy, sweet, vegetarian, meaty and everything in between. I even enjoy making curries.

I will say one of the easiest curries I’ve ever made is a super-mash up of half of the curries on the planet. Of all people, it comes from Rocco DiSpirito (I know, that guy!). But I swear it’s great.

Puffy Duck

The video is there, but this is some fantastic stuff and you get to go to your Asian grocer for the goodies. That’s right, I’m not going Indian-Curry, it’s Asian-Curry, but it’s really good stuff.

But when it comes right down to it, I do keep a batch of curry salt on hand. Curry salt is simple – curry powder and kosher salt pulverized in spice grinder. Great on steamed veggies or potatoes for a little bit of extra zing.

Oh – and before everyone starts complaining, curries aren’t all super spicy. Some are incredibly mild and just plain flavorful. Don’t let the fear of heat keep you away from flavor!

mmmm…seafood

Okay, I know I had this whole thing about how lobster was something I was afraid to eat in public. Not so much with crab. Crab is the joe-six pack of the crustacean world. He doesn’t put on airs and you can go to restaurants where they cover the tables in newspaper and hand you wooden mallets for massive crushings. It’s a good time. Crab also doesn’t taste like lobster – it’s hard to explain, but the texture is different and it tastes saltier to me when it’s plain. I also don’t need to have a ton of butter. Crab and I have fun when we’re together and he’s whole.

Then again, there’s nothing like a great crab cake to make me happy. And by great crab cake, I mean not overly done and processed. The best crab cakes have just enough mayonnaise, seasonings and bindings just to hold the crab together. There are a million variations, but when lightly done, you get this fantastic taste of saltwater, seasoning and a hint of sugar (that’s what I get, anyway).

Oh, and it’s always a good excuse for a remoulade. Anything that carries a remoulade is a good thing.

Okay, I’ve been behind on this!

Pizza, pizza, pizza…

How would I have gotten along without you in college? My dorm used to be about 100 yards away from a Domino’s. I can’t eat that pizza to this day because we had these $5.99/large coupons – we’d literally call the guy from our dorm room and race the delivery guy to the door of the dorm. Yeah, we were that entertaining.

Of course, when we had a little money, there was a place called Adriadico’s. A thick crust pizza infused with garlic with fantastic toppings and pepperoni about 3 inches across. Nowadays, our pizza-joint of choice is Enrico’s. Enrico’s does this crazy thing that I’ve only seen since moving to Ohio – they cut up the thin-crust pizza into a series of squares. It’s odd, but you get used to it and you can always find small pieces (they’re all small!). Enrico’s tops it with homemade sausage.

This year, I’ve been trying to make my own pizza dough. So far, it’s merely fair. I think I need to develop more patience for the whole rising part and get better about kneading and whatnot.

Either way, pizza can be anything to anyone. Vegetarian, Meatatarian, Simple or Gourmet. You can make any meal out of it (yes, there’s a breakfast version!), and dessert pizzas are nothing new (I’m all about the apple and cheddar personally). Best of all, it’s portable, best served with friends and always great for leftovers.

Again, so many brands, so many flavors, so much to try and to attempt to narrow it down…

All I can really do is write a love letter I should have written years ago.

My Deaest Ben & Jerry -

I know there are those that will talk to me about how you’re bad for me, how you’re too rich and yet costly and how you can trick me so easily into devouring more than I need. You’ve had me talk about your calcium-rich goodness while being asked questions I’d rather not ponder, but this is simply because I love everything that should be so wrong about you.

True, we don’t spend every night or even every week together, but when we do spend time together, it is quality time. You’ve shown me the joys of semi-frozen marshmallow fluff, you’ve made me laugh with delight upon the discovery of dark-chocolate cow morsels and you’ve even reminded me of the simple joys of vanilla.

I’ve visited your home-state and there I discovered a host of treats not sold in my home-state. I’ve promised myself that I would visit your place one day to tell you how I really feel, and I should.

As always, I <3 you!

Another one of those entries where you can’t possibly nail down any one thing…

Well, maybe I can.

You know what the best of the best is? Dumplings!

The thing I love-love-love about the Asian Grocer is that they constantly have a sale on frozen dumplings. Sometimes I steam them, sometimes I pan fry them, and once in a blue moon I have been known to go to the deep fry (but not that often).

Basically, any food that is in it’s own container is fantastic. As is any food that loves a dipping sauce is also fantastic. Really, there’s nothing about a dumpling that isn’t good.

At some point, I need to learn to make these myself – I understand that they’re actually really easy to do once you get started.