A FOFL Exclusive! - The Making of Chicken McNecklace

It's been said that I spend an inordinate amount of time focused on food. I read about it. I write about it. Yes, I often dream about it. And then there's all that good time spent eating it. Food and I have a pretty strong, faithful relationship. But this past Saturday, that relationship got a little weird. I found myself sitting in my toaster oven of a car, Otis, doing this -



Yes, that's right. I was stringing those little critters they call Chicken McNuggets into a necklace. And it made me feel a little funny. My fingers got greasy. I smelled like fried oil and processed chicken.

Not too long after, I took it even further, and found myself doing this -



Yup, now stringing together mini pigs-in-a-blanket (in honor of my father, they were Hebrew National) to create this -

No, I'm not starting a mail-order edible jewelry shop (although maybe I should - given how greasy both of these products are, they could also serve a third function as a kind of oil rich moisturizer.)

All of this hard work was actually in service of Daniel's latest video (which I helped write and in which I make a cameo)

Daniel - A Korean Delicacy

So in the last couple of weeks, it has become clear that I am living with a superstar. Okay, he's a superstar in Korea, but an overnight sensation nonetheless. For those who haven't been following Daniel's meteoric rise to South Korean fame, it started when he made a video about the Olympic gold medal figure skater Kim Yuna. He went on to be interviewed by Korean radio, have his first video appear on Korean television, and to receive a few marriage proposals via YouTube comment. He's taken, people.

I wasn't going to post the videos here because they don't have much to do with food, but since many of his fans have commented on his eating of pizza in the first video and his gobbling of a hamburger in the follow up, I figured why not? So without further ado, I give you Butterpolice, as he is known on YouTube, the Korean sensation.

Part One - Kim Yu-na Fan Watches Gold Medal Performance




Part Two - Kim Yu-na Fan Trains To Be Like Kim Yu-na

He is the eggman

Satiety thy name is tasting menu

Yes, it's been too long since I last posted. There has been many a delicious meal. There has been baking (pumpkin cake, cranberry nut bread, even macarons.) There has been the incorporation of a candy thermometer into the rotation of kitchen tools. This is serious business. But if I think of any of that for too long at this moment I may explode. Literally, my stomach may erupt.

I am writing in this moment merely to document a feeling that I am usually too exhausted or tipsy or just plain satiated to note when it happens, but which is a really remarkable feeling - that time after eating an astonishingly large meal, where your belly is expanded with a post-term food baby, your intestines throb, and your mind whirls with dizzying thoughts of the food ingested. It's a rare feeling and one that while it should be kept at a minimum is one to be savored. Being full is a privilege and not to be taken for granted. And while I am in no way wealthy, as I enter into this new year, I realize how lucky I am, and my full belly reminds me of it.

So, although it seems unfathomable now, I know that tomorrow I will be hungry again - and probably more than usual since my stomach is now so stretched. And I hope that as I go back and remember the eight plus courses (oh that risotto with pork and braised red cabbage, oh that oxtail consomme, oh my goodness that absurdly rich creamy cheese from Burgundy whose name I can't remember, oh Lord that foie gras), I hope that I will also remember this feeling of fullness, that slight whiff of guilt, and that ultimate feeling of absolute luckiness that I got to enjoy such a decadent meal.

What you need the next time you're making sushi for Rainbow Brite

It's been far too long since I've done regular posts. I've got an iPhone full of pictures that I'm dying to blog about, but by the end of the days recently, I've been a bit too pooped to post. Which is why I'm only now getting up this recap of the New York Mutual Trading Company Japanese Food and Restaurant Show that I attended a couple of weeks ago.

The show was fun; full of lots of restaurateurs checking out high tech rice cookers and plastic sushi trays and hundred dollar wasabi graters made of shark skin. I especially loved learning about all of the different kinds of knives - for fish, for sashimi, for veggies, etc. What I loved even more, however, was the food booths. A mix of the sublime (the richest, most umami miso ever) to the silly (you'll have to wait for the end of the post for the aforementioned Rainbow Brite sushi accessory.) Here were some of my favorite things:

Every kind of Tsukemono (Japanese pickle) you can imagine

A vegan sushi made of tofu, sesame, and loads of mayo (there was also a wasabi version which I liked better)

This was the miso stand. I've been all about fermentation recently, and miso goes through one of the most fascinating fermentation processes in the world. Soybeans ferment in enormous wooden casks topped with piles of stones for up to 30 months.

These mochi were so rich and delicious that the man handing them out had to cut them in quarters lest eager samplers devour all of his wares. I especially loved the mango.

This sucker was just for show, and I arrived too late to this booth to sample his buddies.

Joseph and his roe of many colors.

Shrimp ironed into sheets, used to wrap sushi. Twas not my thing.

Shrooms

Fake sample shrooms

And finally, day-glo nori for the Rainbow Brite roll. The orange kind looks like American cheese.

Lucky Duck

Turkey bacon is a lovely idea, but we all know it's a sorry substitute.

Here's what Daniel has waiting for him when he comes to visit next week...

Courtesy of Chelsea Market.

Headache and the city

One of the difficult elements of life as an itinerant or frankly of life as a city girl in general is that sometimes when you're out for the day, you're out for the day. It's just too much of a pain to get home. Even if you are paralyzed by a throbbing headache while on a fruitless trip around the city to search for a replacement for a coffee pot that you broke while benefiting from the generosity of a lovely brother and his lovely partner.

In such an instance it is too difficult to imagine getting back all the way across the Bridge, so you use a little ingenuity to fight the pain between your temples. What do you need in such a situation? Caffeine. Perhaps a little nosh. And some drugs.

Here's my little relief picnic, enjoyed on the platform of the 2/3 while heading down to J&R to try to find this coffee pot.


The bad news? J&R didn't have it and the one I bought instead didn't work.

The good news? Cheddar flavored popchips, iced coffee, and two Tylenol do wonders for an aching head.

If you are what you eat, this could be Daniel three months from now...

While I am very, very excited to be in back in my old NYC stomping grounds for the next three months, learning the tricks of the trade of food writing and working on a couple of other projects, I am feeling incredibly sad at being apart from my dear Daniel. We love the idea of being bicoastal, but in the future, hopefully, this dream bicostality will involve periods of unicostality, that is two people on one coast, not one on either.

Anyway, as he drove me to the airport this morning, we discussed his food options in my absence, since I am the primary font of the food we eat, in restaurant choices and in grocery lists and in actual preparation. When I asked about how he might feed himself, he gave me a list of possible options.

Here are some ideas he had that I agreed were acceptable:

Quorn, our longest-lasting friend from our stint in Ireland, a fungus- based meat substitute, Naturally, Daniel likes them dipped in ketchup.

Five, five, five dollar foot long. "Turkey, toasted, with avocado, please," says Daniel.



This is the staple of our diet even when I am around. Without me, Daniel's new nickname may very well be Chickpea, or perhaps if we're feeling adventurous - Garbanzo!

When combined with a variety of fruits and vegetables, some lean (non-chickpea derived) protein, some good calcium, and a nice, healthy breakfast, these choices are just fine. But I'd feel a lot better if I were with him, heating up said quorn nuggets, whipping up a little spicy ketchup to accompany them, and throwing in some baby carrots and celery just for good measure.

Oh what a tangled web we weave...

I've got a new website with some clips and stuff.

Yeah, yeah. Check it out.

www.katiesallierobbins.com

It's Friday in New York...

Which means I have this to look forward to...


Hummus from Damascus Bakery on Atlantic Avenue, which makes the creamiest, most flavorful, most perfect hummus that I've ever had.

AND

A beautiful Zomicks challah, which I will pick up later today from Garden of Eden. This is the challah that I have devoted myself to recreating. It is sweet and eggy and a little heavy. And dipped in that hummus. Oooh boy. Just a few more hours. I can't wait.

Check out my new gig - San Francisco Ethnic Food Examiner

So, I have a new gig, writing a little column about San Francisco ethnic restaurants.

I'm the San Francisco Ethnic Restaurants Examiner.

Check it out. Book mark it.

At first some of the content will probably overlap with this blog, but check it out anyway. You know you want to.

Dining Six Feet Under (in the figurative sense)

A couple of weeks ago, Daniel and I finally partook of one of San Francisco's semi-underground dinners. It wasn't deep, deep underground in the core or even the mantle, but still, it was below the surface, perhaps in the earth's crust - or more precisely in the Outer Mission at a million fishes, an arts collective. It was a vegetarian dinner, featuring local produce, prepared by Leif Hedendal (who has cooked in Barcelona and at Greens in SF). The event served as a fundraiser for a documentary In Search of Good Food, a look at the history of local/organic food in the Bay Area.

We arrived to the BYOB event bottle in hand and were greeted by the welcoming sounds of Klezmer and a tray of hors d'oeuvres.

The first was housemade purple potato crisps with celeriac-horseradish-brown butter puree.


These were absolutely delicious. The potato crisps perfectly crispy and salty and the celeriac-horseradish combo a fantastic textural complement to the crunch of the crisp. I wouldn't have minded a bit more bite to the horseradish, but I am also the girl who likes a ratio of 3 to 1 in favor of horseradish in my Hillel sandwich, so I may not be the best judge of such things.

The other little bite being passed around was a Chiogga beet crostini with Andante chevre, Bolinas stinging nettle, walnut. While I was thrilled by the incorporation of the non-stinging stinging nettle, this one didn't leave much of an impression, and so while others at our communal table used their whily ways to snag an ilicit second helping of this, I reserved my underhanded efforts to secure a second (and third) potato crisp. (I mean really, who can eat just one crisp?)

When we were all seated, it came time for the real eating to begin, and our first course was a Borlotti bean soup with farm greens, served with a big chunk of hearty bread for dipping purposes. In my humble opinion, you can't go wrong with bean soup, and the bread had a delightfully crunchy crust and a perfectly chewey center.

Next up - golden nugget pumpkin with roasted shallots, tahini cauliflower, baby golden turnips. This was really the star of the evening. It's only flaw was that I wanted more of it. The pumkin itself was moist and well-seasoned, with just the perfect balance of stringiness that you want when you spoon into a punpkin. The tahini cauliflower was to die for. I'm not usually a huge tahini fan, but it was in no way overpowering and it was almost caramelized atop the just browned cauliflower. Heavenly. The turnips? Also quite nice, although quite difficult to eat because the hosts, perhaps not trusting the rowdy crowd, hadn't given us knives for the meal...

Salad course - Star route baby lettuces, chicories, cresses, cara cara and blood orange, olio nuovo. As Daniel noted, this was like a salad that I would make at home, what with the combination of slightly bitter greens and sweet blood oranges. I like it at home, I liked it there. I like salad everywhere.

Finally, for dessert - an olive oil marmalade cake with an orange glaze. When this was served, we overheard the server mentioning to a friend at our table that the ingredients for this cake had been foraged. Based on the description of the cake itself, I had trouble guessing what elements exactly had been foraged. The olive oil? The marmalade? Maybe the oranges had been stolen renegade style from someone's citrus farm? We may never know, but it sure tasted nice in that hearty Italian olive oil dessert style, where you think, mmm, this is good, and wouldn't it taste better with some nice butter thrown in? Just kidding. I really liked it and gobbled the whole thing down cold.

All in all, a really lovely evening out. Or should I say evening underground...

In honor of Willie Randolph

Okay, it's not about food, but at least there's a hot dog in the picture...

Woke up this morning to the news that the Mets had classlessly fired Willie Randolph on the road, late at night. This picture is from the first game I saw at Shea with Willie at the helm. We sat in the bleachers, we ate hot dogs, the Mets won. It was a happier time.

Willie, you deserved better.