Unputdownable.

A few months ago, H. and I grabbed lunch at Tommy's in Cleveland. In case you were wondering, I do remember exactly what we got. H had a burger and I had a baba ganoush/falafel pita. FOOD BLOG! But that's not the point...the point is, Tommy's is attached to a little book store, where I found this book:

I picked it up because of the cover, then found out it was a children's book, then convinced H to buy it for me anyway. I just read it this week and I can't recommend it highly enough! It is meant for kids, so if you have a problem with that...then I don't know, you shouldn't be reading this blog. It was completely engaging from beginning to end, and I can't remember the last time I've been so involved in a book. It's surprisingly dark and even a little scary (but I'm very easily frightened). I'm reading the second one now!

Ice Cream Update: Jeni's

You can stop worrying now; I made it back to Jeni's! I know you were like, "Is she ever going to try that Salted Caramel??" This time we went to the Dublin branch (I know I could say "location," but "branch" makes it sound like I was there on official business. Which I was. Official Ice Cream Business.) and it was just as charming, possibly more so, than the location of our previous visit. Downtown Dublin will make you overdose on "quaint." Seriously, it was so cute it was almost too much. This time I got a half scoop of Salted Caramel and a half scoop of Bourbon Butter Pecan. The Salted Caramel had a really wonderful, almost burnt taste. I loved it so much. And the Bourbon Butter Pecan actually tasted like alcohol! Also I'm pretty sure our ice cream scooper was this guy:

Pretty sure.
Perhaps most importantly, this happened:

If I had better/any Photoshop skillz, I would make sure La-duh-loo was sitting right where my purse is. You'll be glad to see that H. is still wearing that hat! He's worn it everywhere for the past two weeks. I'm really not kidding; he's actually worn it every single place we've gone.

Pizza Galore

I made a lot of food for H. this weekend because, clearly, I am the best girlfriend ever.
Saturday night I made a pizza. This was my first attempt at pizza dough and I was pretty nervous, probably more nervous than I should have been, seeing as pizza-dough-making is a relatively small stakes game. But I'm almost as afraid of yeast as I am of drifters, and I spend a LOT of time thinking about drifters. I've never been able to make yeast "work," no matter how many "no-fail" recipes I've tried. I ended up using the recipe from How to Cook Everything, also known as one of my favorite cookbooks ever. It turned out pretty well! This was the pizza before it went in the oven.

H's half is covered in pepperoni, olives, and a cheese substitute called Veggie Shreds, which is made mostly of soy and lots of other things. I was a good sport and ate this on my pizza about a week ago, but in general I don't like to eat anything that isn't made of real ingredients. So, basically anything that's called a "food product" instead of, y'know, food. I can definitely see the benefit of this for people like my boyfriend, though! My half is green peppers, olives, and sliced mozzarella. When I pulled this puppy out of the oven, H said, "It looks like a real pizza!" I'm not sure what he thought I'd been working on; fake pizza? I went ahead and took it as the compliment it might've been intended as. We both really enjoyed this, especially the crust! Mark Bittman was right. He always is.
This morning, I got up early to put together breakfast. You should probably just hire me to come to your house and make breakfast while you sleep, because I am an early riser; I usually wake up a good two hours before H. Today I made pancakes that were unintentionally vegan; I mean, neither of us are vegans, but H doesn't stock dairy products and he didn't have any eggs since he's trying to clear out his fridge before his move. I used this recipe for vegan oatmeal pancakes, and honestly, I didn't expect them to be very good. But, surprise, they basically tasted like regular pancakes! To go along with them, I made some "homefries" that weren't actually fried. I used the "crispy potato" technique discussed in one of my favorite podcasts, Spilled Milk. Basically, you boil the potato chunks awhile, rough 'em up a bit, then put them in the oven with lots of oil (or goose/duck fat, if you happen to have any of that lying around, but H doesn't seem to stock that, either).
Ta-da, breakfast!


I also sautéed some kale to go with mine, but H didn't have any. That boy doesn't eat greens with breakfast. Get outta town.

Ice Cream Obsession: Jeni's

This weekend I "helped" H look for apartments. Mostly this involved me complaining about how ritzy everything was. I just don't like things that look too new, shiny, or uniform. I like character, age, a slight shabbiness, perhaps outdated wood paneling...oh, is that last one just my apartment? Well, the point is I'm not a very useful apartment hunter. But that's okay, because the high point of the day was stopping for food in a cute neighborhood.
I'd wanted to try Jeni's Ice Cream forever. I read about it in magazines, gazed longingly at it in the Dean and Deluca catalog my bosses get in the mail, and pressed my hand forlornly against the freezer case at Whole Foods. Somehow driving, like, 50 miles to get some was out of the question? No longer! I finally had Jeni's ice cream and it was delicious.

Jeni's is famous for flavors like Salted Caramel and Bourbon Butter Pecan, but when it's hot, I need fruit. I wanted to get a scoop of something a little strange and a scoop of something normal that I thought H might try. He refuses to tolerate lactose, but I thought a nice Lemon Blueberry might tempt him. For the wildcard, I chose Wildberry Lavender. The description promised a "complex" flavor. I don't know what that means! It was good, though.

I ate it all. H wouldn't even try it.

I've begun a series of photos of H saying no to dairy. Like this one:

I would highly recommend Jeni's. It's on the pricey side, sure (four dollars for two pretty large half scoops), but they have unusual flavors you can't get anywhere else--Sweet Corn & Black Raspberry, Cayenne Pepper, Pistachio and Honey--and, remember, this is a treat! You don't have ice cream everyday, so when you do you might as well go all out. Don't be like the bitchy lady who exited the store with her four year old and sniped, "Nevermind. We're not getting ice cream. They don't have vanilla. What kind of ice cream shop doesn't have vanilla?" Um, the kind that sells specialty flavors? Also, there was a Coldstone down the street, and I know you can get the Papa Winfrey Special there (vanilla with chocolate chips). I can't wait to go back and get something weirder!

I Like Food, Food Tastes Good

If you ever met my friend Dan, you would love him. If you're reading this, you probably have met him, so you know what I'm talking about. It's very clichéd to say this, but you know how some people just "light up a room," as the saying goes? Dan's that type of person, the type of person everyone likes. I can think of exactly one girl that didn't like him, but she was a crazy bitch who more than likely stole Dan's Talking Heads album (never proven, but Dan remains convinced). Over the years, Dan's become a part of my family in the way that close friends often do, and I think that my mom actually likes him more than she likes me. We first met at Kenyon college, where we were attending a two-week writing workshop for pretentious 17-year-old writers. Then, in what was either fate, divine intervention, or just an extremely likely coincidence since we had similar majors, Dan showed up in my very first class at Miami University. We walked from that class to Miami's Shriver Center to buy notebooks or something, and the rest is a purple haze of Prince-filled history.
One of Dan's favorite foods (and mine, too, I'll admit) was mini corndogs, referred as Mini Corn D's and served ONLY with honey mustard, which he would mix himself if necessary. I don't eat Mini Corn D's anymore, and I have a feeling Dan doesn't either, since he's become quite the chef as of late. While in college, neither of us were the gourmands we are today (ha), but Dan once bought me a wonderful cookbook that I still use.

This is one of the most fun cookbooks I own. It's all recipes from indie bands! Some of them are like, "Here's a sandwich I eat a lot," and then some of them are pretty complex. So far I've made two: Sweet Potato Biscuits by a band called Roots of Orchis and Rock 'n' Roll Rangoon (Crab Rangoon, der) by Headlights. Even though the latter is supposed to be eaten as an "appetizer," I am guilty of making a lot and eating them all for dinner on Friday. Major yums to both recipes! And the Sweet Potato Biscuits snuck some veggies into Chase and Dad's diets. Chase unwittingly ate, like, a fourth of a sweet potato.

From My Head Down to My Legs

Do you remember that old advertising campaign for eggs? You know, the one that said, "I love eggs/From my head down to my legs"...? No? Well, I certainly do, and I have to say that I echo the sentiment. I really do love eggs. Most days, my dinner looks a little something like this.

Not very exciting, maybe, but a scrambled or fried egg is the perfect convenient meal for a Lady Dining Alone. I can't ever remember a point in my life that I didn't love eggs. When I was little, naturally, it was only scrambled, but as I grew older and came to realize the glory of a runny yolk, I started to daydream about fried. One of the best things about eggs, in my opinion, is just how easy it is to make them; Papa Winfrey, who would himself admit that he's no great cook, has been known to whip up quite a few scrambled egg sandwiches. He was also the culprit behind the most infamous egg dish I've ever tried to choke down: The Peanut Butter and Jelly Omelet. It was dinner, Mama Winfrey wasn't around, and the man had to improvise! It was really terrible and, in a rare moment of strictness, he told me I had to eat it. There's also an Old Winfrey Legend that Mom once made him a baloney omelet with similar results. Perhaps eggs are not as forgiving a mistress as I thought.
Those eggs I used to down when I was little had one thing in common: they were white and from a grocery store. And that's how I happily lived my egg life up until a few months ago, when I had an Egg Revelation followed by an Egg Conversion which is now being followed by Egg Proselytizing. My epiphany looked like this.

Farm fresh eggs, one of the biggest joys a lady can find in this life. Completely superficially, the beautiful color is what got to me. Who wants plain ol' white eggs when these lovely brown and baby blue suckers are around? The yolks from truly free-range chickens are oranger, which my grandma attributed to them eating bugs. Who can say? The point is these babies are beautiful.
Most importantly, there's the satisfaction I get in knowing where my food comes from. Our local organic market sells these, but they actually come from a farm owned by my best friend's mom. These chickens work, play, and sometimes run across the road to meet an untimely death just a mile or two from my parents' house. I've seen what they look like, where they live, and how, if you drop one of their eggs on the ground, they will all peck it open and then eat it. I'm not saying chickens are smart animals (they are so dumb), but it is important that they are healthy and, as much as chickens can be, happy. I don't want to get all Food, Inc. on you, but I want my eggs to come from chickens that look like chickens, not chickens with no beaks that can't even stand because their breasts are so heavy.
Eggs from free-range chickens are by no means necessary to enjoy the wonders of a runny yolk smeared over toast. They are noticably different, though, or else I wouldn't be spending my morning waxing poetic about them. But now, what you came here for: egg porn.

Bundt Time

My favorite type of cake to make for special occasions is the Bundt. There's just something homey and welcoming about it. When you make a Bundt cake for someone, in essence you're saying, "You're special enough for a cake!" while also saying, "Oh, this old thing? I just threw this together." The Bundt cake has a kind of casual elegance that transcends its dumpy name; Bundt just sounds way too much like "butt" for my liking, and who wants to bake a Butt Cake? I guess some people do.
This is another recipe from Joy the Baker. I really do make things that aren't from her website, but I have to admit that I made three of her recipes in the past two weeks. She's reliable, like the Barefoot Contessa of baking blogs. Like the Orange Cream Pie, I made this Poppyseed Cake with Blueberry Glaze for Easter.

I ate this after dinner and for breakfast and lunch the next day. That means it's versatile! Or it means that I have no self-control when it comes to baked goods.
Enjoy this money shot.

Orange and Cream Pie

One of the desserts I made for Winfrey Family Easter (okay, actually it wasn't the Winfrey side of the family, but I'm still going to call it that) was Joy the Baker's Orange and Cream Pie. I'd made it once before and it turned out reasonably well, and citrus seemed appropriately springlike. But mostly I just love making pudding like it's nobody's business. There are few things as satisfying in this world as making a pudding pie. First, there's the matter of the graham cracker crust. Graham cracker crusts are easy to assemble but still leave me feeling as if I've accomplished something. Melt butter, add crumbs, press into pan---really, this is a very salt-of-the-earth pie crust we're talking about. Then there's the actual pudding, the making of which seems nothing less than magical every time. Logically, I understand that adding cornstarch to a liquid will cause it to thicken. I mean, scientifically, I get it. But there's still a part of me that always thinks "Maybe this time it won't happen!" And when it does, I feel like an alchemist. Well, an alchemist that deals in pudding, not gold.

There were too many desserts so Chase was the only one that tried this. He gave it a thumbs up, though, so my mission was a success.

Yes, I AM posting a picture of what I ate for breakfast.

My breakfast this morning, eaten while the rice for the Barefoot Contessa's Orange Pecan Wild Rice was cooking.

Steel cut oats, whole wheat toast with Mama Winfrey's homemade strawberry jam, and coffee ground from whole beans we bought at the farmer's market. The beautiful bowl was a gift from Heather.

Reading Some Books, Eating Some Food

Because I am a narcissist, I have this compulsion to write (in a public forum) about the books I'm reading and the food I'm eating. Of course, this is not exactly revolutionary, and I highly doubt anyone will read this, but at least it will provide me some sort of record, if nothing else.
Alex and I already have a blog, but this is the stuff that I think would bore him. Far better to put my long-winded ramblings in a blog-ghetto. Prepare yourself (who am I talking to?) not for insightful commentary on fiction or for sumptuous snapshots of cakes, but instead for uncomfortable personal stories that barely relate to something I'm reading and blurry, poorly-lit photographs of what I had for lunch.
I'll try to update soon with more details, but for now: I'm currently reading Snow Angels by Stewart O'Nan. Today I made an orange cream pie and at the moment I'm waiting for a poppyseed Bundt cake to cool.