Potlikkery

kingdom for a brownie

Even though I don't love chocolate, I made brownies Sunday morning. Each month I look forward to "The Last Touch," the final column in Gourmet.  This month (June) it featured four brownie recipes. Actually, the first, Coconut Blondies, is perfectly my speed, my taste. And someday I'll make that recipe for certain, but it's not what tugged at my apron strings Saturday afternoon as I browsed magazines on my back porch and ate strawberries straight out of the pint container.

Peanut Brittle Brownies. Yeah. It's deceptively simple. You make your brownie batter, pour it into your pan, and bake for 25 minutes. Pop open oven door, pull out rack, and sprinkle peanut brittle crumbles on top. Shove rack back in, close door, and bake another 5 minutes. Viola! You have yummy brownies.

By the time Ian arrived home Sunday morning, they had cooled enough to cut. Ian suggested that I cut and keep aside all the corner pieces for him. We are so compatible when it comes to baked goods. He likes the corner pieces, while I prefer the inside pieces that have absolutely no hard crusty edges.
Sigh, isn't it great when relationships work out like that? The only thing we usually fight over are black olives when we get that large shared salad at Olive Garden. Have to equally distribute the olives between us.

The brownie was yummy. I used 4 ounces of  Ghirardelli chocolate morsels I bought ages ago with Laura at Sam's. First time I opened its bag, actually, and was glad to have it. No doubt the Ghirardelli quality infused those brownies with an undeniably rich chocolate flavor.

I packaged up most of the brownies and as we made our Sunday rounds, I dropped off a half a dozen or so at my mom's house and and Ian's parent's house. It's best to share brownies, any sweets, really, so that those who are tempted and cannot control themselves do not have so much a temptation to overcome.

how do i love brie?

brie with date & melba toast on a sunny day

How do I love brie? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the edge and center and rind

My tongue can reach, when feeling out of mind

For the ends of Aroma and ideal Taste.

Inspired by Elizabeth Barret Browning's Sonnet XLIII "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..."

just the facts, ma'am

portobella sammich from Alta Cucina, yummm

Since Nikki tagged me, I'll play along.  The rules as Nikki explained them:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself.
3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names, linking to them.
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

Five food related facts about me:

1. I eat arborrio rice mixed with butter and sugar almost every night for dinner. It's an addiction. I love my rice cooker. I love the simplicity. And sometimes, I love the redundancy.

2. Should you invite me for breakfast, or a special occasion, I like my eggs over easy, or deviled, or not at all (though that cauliflower & feta omelet in the latest issue of Gourmet tempts me).

3. Cherry-flavored drinks are my downfall: Diet Cheerwine, Diet Cherry Coke, and Jones Black Cherry Soda (it's sugar free!), yet I mostly loathe cherry flavoring, especially in cough syrup.

4.We bought a tub of Nestle cookie dough last week. I dipped my spoon in and ate a bunch of it despite having no sense of taste at all with my sinus issues of late. I threw it out before it was finished because it was too much of a temptation for Ian and I found it yucky tasting when my sense of taste returned. The best cookie dough is homemade, but if I have to rely on the manufactured kind, I prefer Pillsbury in the big sausage-link-like packaging. There's something so satisfying about squeezing out a blob of cookie dough from a that tubed-like container that represents the eating-of-cookie-dough experience.

5. My favorite meal, of late, besides the pseudo-rice pudding supper, is cheese and fruit. The cheese in question is brie. Brie, I hardly knew ye! I regret the years that I didn't appreciate brie. And surely, brie deserves a blog post all its own, in due time.

I'm tagging these folks: Bad Fortune Cookie, Dawn Houser, Gotta Knit, Golden Loving Knitter, and Write Kudzu, but I'm breaking rule number 4 and not letting them know it, just cause I think they've all been tagged before and may not want to play. Will rely on serendipity to so move those tagged.

you are what you grow

Scary. I'm reading an article called "You Are What You Grow" in the NYTimes about why it's cheaper to eat a Twinkie than a carrot, and cheaper to wash that down with a high-fructose corn syrup-laden soda as opposed to a good-for-you glass of orange juice.

Here's why:

A result of these policy choices is on stark display in your supermarket, where the real price of fruits and vegetables between 1985 and 2000 increased by nearly 40 percent while the real price of soft drinks (a k a liquid corn) declined by 23 percent. The reason the least healthful calories in the supermarket are the cheapest is that those are the ones the farm bill encourages farmers to grow.

finding foody balance

Ina Garten is one of my favorite celebrity chefs. Every recipe I've tried from her books comes out marvelously.

In a NYT article that questions her nonchalance about expanding her ventures in the same manner as her friend and mentor, Martha, she says:

“There is a balance between having a life and having a business,” she said during a recent day spent at her home and in her offices.

So the interesting thing I learned is that there may be hope for me yet. Garten is one of the slew of food personalities who has accomplished a great deal of success without having run a kitchen or been a chef.

She got her start selling comfort food, and suggests that you stick to those dishes when having the boss over for dinner.  The success of her first cookbook was largely in part to it's "lush photography."

Really fascinating article. It goes on to describe her three-book deal and how the industry norm these days is for a celebrity chef to crank out a cookbook per year. Seems like lots of hard work thinking up new recipes and testing them.

And, Garten has plans for a new set, built inside a barn on south of her property  in the Hamptons.  And you wondered what this had to do with anything southern. There is is; had to wait for it.

do's and don'ts

Great post over at delicious days about foodblogging. Lots of suggestions for improving your content, design, etc.

tending an East Tennessee truffle orchard

Image from http://www.holidaybank.co.uk/images/

Should I begin each post with "It's not everyday that East Tennessee..." Seems that way. There is always something unusual happening in my backyard. But really, how often does something about food in East Tennessee appear in the New York Times, The Newspaper of Record? Maybe once a year, at that.

So here's the scoop. The delightful, yet blogless, Amy sent me a link to this story about Chukey, Tennessee and an amazing crop of truffles in a most unexpected place.

A quote to whet your whistle:

Chuckey is not the sort of place one expects to find the holy grail of the food loving world. But on the edge of town, perched on a south-facing slope overlooking the birthplace of Davy Crockett, an orchard of 350 hazelnut trees has begun to sprout Périgord truffles, the fragrant black fungi that can send epicures, as well as routing pigs and dogs, into fits of frenzied greed.

There you have it. Truffles in East Tennessee. I may have to visit that orchard. It's owner, Tom Michaels, is also a Scrabble tournament competitor. And most people who know me in real life understand that Scrabble is a serious passion of mine, though I cannot convince anyone to play me. Sore losers.

assault by catfish

Largest catfish ever caught in Mekong River, Thailand

Wouldn't you know that the one night I watch the eleven o'clock news (WCYB), there's an "Only in East Tennessee" story involving catfish.

Tina Henry is a waitress at The Diner, Hawkins County, Tennessee. A few days ago The Diner had a catfish special. I assume it was a buffet situation, but the reporter didn't go into great detail.

Ms. Henry noticed a woman stuff a catfish in her purse. She approached the woman and told her she would have to pay for the fish in her purse. The lady argued with her. Then Ms. Henry turned her back. The unidentified couple fled and the alleged fish-thief  threw the catfish and hit Ms. Henry in the back.

Once the woman/couple is apprehended, there will be two charges. One for theft and one for assault.

Gotta love it.

y'all come

Y'all should check out Leah's post, including photos and narrative, but not recipe, for Cheerwine Cake. Sure would make nice cupcakes.

cupcake uproar

The irony is great. For someone who doesn't absolutely Love cupcakes--me--having a cupcake category seems strange, no? The icing hit the fan in Alexandria after a principal banned cupcakes. That's right. Parents were no longer allowed to tote in Tupperware filled to the brim with cupcakes for all the deserving kidlets.

So it's a hip food, something trendy and chic and upscale. Note: My own area boasts zero cupcakes shops, though some chain stores try real hard but fail miserably in their offerings of cupcakes.

The article about the furor goes into the history of the cupcake, essentially a mistake that made good, and it's iconic status as an American food reminiscent of happy childhoods along with hot dogs and apple pie.

But wait, that's not all:  It's happening in Philadelphia, too. More irony: Banning cupcakes for children when adults so easily satisfy their jones. Have cupcakes gone the way of alcohol and cigarettes?