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Archive for the ‘food’ Category

Double D(ip)

This really fascinates me. A restaurant in London is serving breast milk ice cream. For about $22 you can have a frozen serving of momma’s milk, which is pasteurized (let’s hope!) and then churned with vanilla and lemon zest. It’s hilariously called Baby Gaga.

Other favors that will soon be available include Neopolitit and Strawbooby. Kidding.

What I don’t get is that it’s all from the same woman. Maybe a lot of people aren’t ordering it?

Honestly, I think it sounds kind of good, but I’m probably deprived since I wasn’t breastfed (see how you turn out?!)

(story courtesy of crazydaysandnights)

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As part of my “going out despite the weather this winter” project, I attended the first First Thursday artwalk of the year. Since none of the friends who had promised last month to come with me are adhering to the same “going out” project, they all bailed.

All I cared about was dinner. One of the women I was supposed to meet recommended Built Burger, which everyone is always talking about, but there’s no way I could have eaten what I was sure would be a half pound of beef with all the trimmings.

I walked around for what seemed like hours and eventually came upon a cheery, well-decorated place called Cafe Paloma. It was Mediterranean-ish and I was starving, so I took a seat near the picture window. There was lots of red and a tuba hanging from the ceiling. The crowd seemed to be drawn from the art walk–lots of black clothing and nice eyeglass frames.

I ordered “whatever is closest to chardonnay” off the wine list and the waitress told me they actually do have chardonnay as their house wine. Note: For the sake of my pride I should mention that if they had amazing Turkish wines, I would have blindly ordered one as I subscribe to the When in Rome doctrine. But they didn’t.

I chose the mucver (zucchini pancakes) after much deliberation and was eventually informed that the chef said they weren’t available. Also, my chardonnay hadn’t been chilled so I needed to select something else and would pinot grigio be okay? It would. I ordered a cup of the spinach and chicken soup.

I cast a glance at the couple next to me. The tables are really close there.
“If you could just not freak out, then everything would be okay,” an attractive young brunette woman was saying to an attractive young brunette man.
“The important thing in a relationship is just not to freak out.” He literally did not say a word. Not while she paid her share of the check, not while she excused herself to the ladies room. I soon figured out the likely reason he was speechless: he was in rapture from the flavor of the food.

My wine came and it was fine. My soup came with warm grilled pita and it was some of the best soup I’ve ever had in my life.

The art in the 619 building was standard. I tried on earrings I didn’t buy. I had chips and smokehouse almonds and mango salsa that I did buy for $1. I took the bus home and my seatmate felt that the movie he was watching on his phone was more important than me having a place to put my arm.

That soup, though. That spinach and chicken soup.

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I swam to my friend Joe’s 29th birthday party on Saturday night during a record rainfall and it was worth it.

He and his wife have this Central District house circa the 1920s and it’s both cute and huge. It took me awhile to get there due to the rain and as I approached there was a cop flashing blue and red parked right outside. I was thinking ‘please don’t let the party be over already,’ but luckily it was just some s.o.l. sap getting pulled over and no relation to my evening. Bad luck for him with his knit cap and circumstantial contrition, because he wouldn’t be sampling any of my fabulous hors d’oeuvre.

I brought caramelized onion dip, which is becoming sort of my go-to thing to bring. I make it from whichever recipe comes up first when I Google, and that day it was Food Network’s Caramelized Onion Dip. Next time I make it I would probably double the amount of onions and cut the pepper to maybe half. It was still really delicious and very popular, as were the Ruffles potato chips, which I was embarrassed to bring, but apparently people love them.

I met some cool aspiring authors, one of whom told me that a woman he knows just got $500,000 for her debut novel. By that time I had had a delish homebrew that Joe had crafted and some chardonnay, but I’m pretty sure this now-rich author’s from Seattle and that her book is about either angles or devils. I will report back on this.

I also caught up with my friend Chris Burlingame who left his gig at Three Imaginary Girls and then met with spectacular success with his own Another Rainy Saturday, which after only six months has already been acknowledged by the Village Voice and the BBC.

I adore my writer friends old and new. Thrilling!

After all that I came home in soaked pants to a small lake in my living room. Isn’t that always the way.

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I was all set to be offended by this cook book/concept/”chef” after a negative exchange I read about.

Spencer Walker has built a franchise based on “recipes to get you laid.” I mostly braced myself for the terrible punctuation I was about to encounter. Much to my horror, the Cook to Bang Web site is hilarious and well-written.

How can you go wrong with serving Me-Nude-Oh! Shrimp or Smack My Bisque Up?

I totally can’t wait to check out some of these dishes; Artichoke Heartbreakers sound fantastic despite this intro:

One particularly devastated, but delicious female fan got an extra dose of comforting by the chef. Soon her sorrow over her team’s seasonal demise was overshadowed by the fact I didn’t call her again.

He promises they’re nutritious low-cal finger food, you guys.

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I’m not gonna lie to you, I bought Everyday Italian by Giada De Laurentiis to round out an Amazon order so I could get free shipping. I don’t watch the Food Network and I don’t eat fattening food and I’m not a guy who fantasizes about a gorgeous woman who can bring home the spaghetti carbonara and fry it up in a pan. So, yeah, I basically have no use for Giada.

Italian is very useful for dinner parties, though, so I invited some people over for Giada’s Classic Italian Lasagna. It called for a lot of cheese and cream. The company was scintillating–one guy moved 15 times as a kid, another woman is a storyteller for The Moth–but the dish was bland, I am sorry to report.

The next morning everyone from my dinner party except for me headed off for a long weekend in the San Juan Islands. I stayed at home and wrote.

That’s the story of this summer, sadly. It seems like this is just my time to work on my craft. No vacations, no sailing. I haven’t even been to a beach or a barbeque yet.

I am spicing things up today, though. I am building on Giada’s recipe and making it my own. Not all that cream. Not four hours of prep. Spicier, leaner, I’m layering myself into this puppy and it’s going to be delicious.

Happy August.

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These cupcakes in no way exemplify my current life.

The other day I realized that I’ve been doing what I think is good for me to the exclusion of anything even remotely enjoyable.

Food, books, writing, my love life. I’m grinding my teeth so hard while I sleep, there’s ivory powder in the morning.

First, there’s my diet. I haven’t had butter or mayonnaise or a cupcake in as long as I can remember.

That’s a lie. I had an extremely memorable red velvet cupcake at a place called Molly’s in Chicago last month. They’ve won awards for that little cake.

My adorable niece and nephew and I sat on swings(!) at the counter and shared baked goods of the gods–not too sweet but supremely satisfying, only a dollar or two each. That was vacation, though, and not my real life.

My real life lately consists of eating meals between 250-300 calories each. I’ve given up on cooking at night and switched to swallowing the somewhat dreadful Eating Right meals they sell at Safeway.

The scale cheers me up. I’ve lost four pounds in a week and am aiming for 20 more, don’t laugh.

There are other problems, though…

Part 2 coming up.

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