I was on Hulu trying to catch up on some of my other favorite shows, and I happened to notice Jamie Oliver’s new show being promoted. I’ve always been something of a fan of his, and the idea of a food revolution has always been great to me, so I watched the first episode.
While some of the show is a bit dragged out, it’s not quite as edited as something like Kitchen Nightmares (which I still love anyway). I have to say I’m not really too surprised yet by anything that has happened in the show, nor am I all that shocked or appalled at how people behave. As I was telling a good friend who also saw the episode – we live in San Francisco – the idea of healthy eating has been around much longer thanks to all the hippies/hipsters/foodies that are around. It’s the most pretentious food city in the country (maybe a second to NY, though I think SF folks are way more uppity about it) and I’m surprised ANY fast food places manage to survive in the city of SF. However, around the country it’s not nearly the same. Processed foods are an everyday reality, whether it be convenience, budget, or just plain taste that keep people coming back. It’s not that people are necessarily lazy or stupid, but rather that they may not even realize that healthy eating is within their reach. It doesn’t have to be expensive or require eating boring salads every day; just being aware of what you’re eating can make a huge difference already.
Of course, Oliver is met with a lot of resistance, mainly because the town didn’t want themselves to be portrayed as stupid. But there’s a huge difference between stupidity and ignorance; stupid is the inability to learn while ignorance is just not knowing yet. In the second episode of the show, Jamie goes to a first grade class and they cannot identify any of the vegetables. While it was sort of appalling, where do you pin the blame? Is it up to the school to teach these things? Identifying fresh food products should probably happen at home, but if parents are too busy or don’t have the money to be buying “exotic” items such as artichokes, eggplant, or leeks… how will the kids know? It turns out that the kids were smart – once taught, they could identify all of the vegetables. So it’s not stupidity at work here… just ignorance.
Maybe Jamie’s influence really will help – a seed of change could do wonders for this country. Even if it’s just spreading some knowledge – hopefully people will want to listen, for their own health and the health of their children.
Destructoid celebrated their 4th birthday on Tuesday, and given that they live nearby and have been sort of absorbed into my San Francisco family, I decided that I should bake them a cake to celebrate!
The cake itself is just regular storebought yellow cake – I started this fairly late at night so I didn’t want to spend time fussing over cake recipes. The frosting was a typical buttercream frosting – powdered sugar, butter and a little milk. At first I tried to get the green color by using liquid food coloring but it just wasn’t getting dark enough. Thankfully I had purchased some other food coloring from Sur La Table – this was more gel-like and definitely alot darker. I was able to get the right shade of green after some experimentation. The grey was a mixture of store-bought black icing, white buttercream, and just a smidge of yellow to help balance it out (since apparently black + white will actually turn purple rather than grey), and we used red gel and cinnamon sprinkles to get the eyes. After actually frosting the whole cake, the decoration part only took about 20 minutes – not too shabby, I’d say. I did start frosting with the green a little before the cake had fully cooled, so it melted off onto the paper plate and created a bit of a mess. Given a bit more time I would’ve done a cleaner job… next time I’ll give myself that time. 
Here are pictures… enjoy!
No recent posts, I know, but I keep forgetting to take pictures of things. So instead, I’ll summarize my past few weeks…
Out the Door:
Salt and Pepper fried chicken with hot chiles and jalapenos, Beef Noodle Soup with Rice Noodles
Notes: The chicken needed some more salt AND pepper, and the beef noodle soup, while good, I’m pretty sure was served with wheat noodles. Overall pretty tasty but may not be worth the money I spent…
What’s Up Dog:
Southern Dog – topped with chili and cole slaw, garlic fries
Notes: Messy, but delicious. Chili and cole slaw go very well together. Fries were very crispy and not overpoweringly garlicky.
And… recent family dinners (since the last one I posted):
01/17/2010: Tuna Casserole and first run of Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup
01/24/2010: Beef Noodle Soup (perfected)
01/31/2010: Comfort Food night – Meatloaf, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Shepherd’s Pie and Mac & Cheese
Next week is the Superbowl… hopefully I will remember to take some pictures again. I have two racks of ribs to cook, plus I have some plans to make fondue…
Date: 01/14/2010
Location: Macy’s Union Square, San Francisco, CA
Entree: Rossini Burger with Skinny Fries
The Rossini Burger
Description: Kobe Beef, Seared Foie Gras, Shaved Black Truffles and a Madeira Truffle sauce on an Onion Bun – $60
Notes: Absolutely delicious – was very rich, though a little difficult to eat; the hamburger was very tall. The foie gras went well with the burger, though I think I could actually do without the truffles the next time – their addition was very subtley delicious but often was masked by the taste of the beef or the foie. The fries were great, especially when dipped in the madeira sauce, though actually nothing extraordinary. I had my burger cooked medium rare so that I could enjoy the richness of the kobe. I think next time I go I will build my own burger to suit my personal tastes some more.
A new year, and a new start to the family dinners that I’ve been making for my friends. I started off the day by slicing some daikon and salting them to prep them for pickling. I need to still get some carrots to add into the mix, but I’ve got the first step down now.
Making Daikon Pickles
Since I had to feed a lot of people and didn’t want to spend too much, I decided on making a ham – cheap, easy and it’s rare to finish one. Plus I can always use the leftover shank bone for other stuff. I used this recipe for a Tangy Honey Glazed Ham which was a really good balance of sweet and tangy.
Tangy Honey Glazed Ham
As you can see in the background, I also had some peas – nothing goes together like peas and ham! To add a starch, I decided on scalloped potatoes. I had thought about rice but it just didn’t seem to fit, despite how much I love rice. The potatoes were pretty simple – used my mandolin to slice them very thin, and then I layered them overlapping each other and poured a little heavy cream over them and seasoned with salt and pepper. I repeated this a bunch of times until I got to the desired thickness and then baked at 375F until the top was golden, brown and delicious.
Scalloped Potatoes
Both the ham and potatoes came out great – my “family” devoured most of the ham and two full trays of potatoes. For dessert, one of the guests had brought this delicious chocolate tart – it was full of pecans and drizzled with caramel and chocolate – very rich, but quite tasty. Along with that we had some Neopolitan ice cream – I’ve never really liked the stuff, but I dug out a small scoop of chocolate for myself to enjoy with the tart.
Another successful family dinner… Now I just need ideas for the next one…
Iron Chef did a battle at the White House, and of course being the curious person I am, I made sure to watch. I really loved the secret “ingredient” – fresh local fare from the area. Now obviously not everything that they used was local, but at least the message was coming across emphasizing local food. I don’t think they talked enough about WHY people should eat local, but at least an effort was made. Considering how much advertising there was for the episode, I’m hoping a lot of people actually watched it and took some of it to heart.
There was a lot of fennel and radishes used – definitely got me in the mood for those. Also sweet potato was a popular ingredient – Chef Batali made a Raviolo stuffed with fresh sweet potato and goat cheese/ricotta. I really can’t wait to get a pasta attachment for my KitchenAid stand mixer so I can do some similar stuff.
Date: 01/02/2010
Location: Framingham, MA
Appetizers: Seafood Platter, Chicken Quesadilla
Entree: Grilled Seafood Salad with a side of Fried Plantains
Notes: The calamari in the salad was a little overcooked, but the scallops were beautifully done. A generally nice light dish. The plantains were good but nothing special. Great atmosphere, I would definitely go back again.
Went to Dynamo today to pick up some donuts for our staff meeting at work – I had always skipped over this place because the lines were so long, but thanks to a Yelp newsletter I decided to finally take the time and wait. Totally worth it… I sampled most of the stuff they had. The Maple Bacon Apple donut was definitely the best, though the others were pretty good as well. The Chocolate Spiced could have been a bit spicier though.
I didn’t get a chance to take a picture before it was devoured, but here is an internet picture of the Maple Bacon Apple:
Maple Bacon Apple Donut
Last weekend while walking around San Francisco, my roommate and I saw crawfish on sale for just $3.99/lb. Having come back from New Orleans not too long ago, he was hoping that we could recreate some of that cajun flavor that he had experienced. So we purchased some crawfish along with some crawfish boil…
I roasted some potatoes and sauteed zucchini and tomatoes as a side dish. The potatoes turned out great – they were just plain fingerlings, but I boiled them ahead of time to cook them through. Afterwards, I put them into a hot pan already lined with oil, and let them roast in the oven at 500 degrees. They developed this great crispy skin, and after I took them out I sprinkled them with a bit of salt and pepper.
The crawfish also turned out pretty good, though it could’ve been a bit spicier. Leaving them in the boil water for a bit longer would’ve probably yielded better results, but for a first try it turned out quite well. Hopefully our local seafood store will have some more of the little critters again.
On another note, I also bought a dragonfruit that weekend – I hadn’t had one since I visited Taiwan back in the year 2000, so while it was incredibly expensive ($3.50 each!) I splurged and got two for old times’ sake. While I’m pretty sure they aren’t grown here, the dragonfruit were still delicious – just as I remembered. I personally like the mild taste of the fruit, it’s quite refreshing and I feel like I can eat a lot of it.
If only it weren’t so expensive. 
First post in a new food blog – still not sure what direction I’d like to take this in but for now I’ll just be posting pictures of stuff that I make.
I had been soaking some kidney beans for a day or so, and a good friend suggested making chili with them, so I did. This is the recipe I based my dish off of: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/My-Chili/Detail.aspx
A slight difference is that I used the rehydrated beans instead of canned ones, so I actually put them in right along with everything else to simmer so that they would cook in time. It turned out pretty good, though I think I could’ve added some more heat to the dish as a whole.
Here’s the chili simmering – it thickened up quite a bit after it cooled down:
And here it is after I’ve given it a quick stir:
Lots of yummy goodness there. Since I had so much I ended up eating chili for breakfast a couple days this week… nothing wrong with that, right? >__>
