Rastafoodian

Burly Gold Medal Squeezer!

In my “Beach Foods!” entry I talked a bit about the beach food experience… well now let me share a bit of kitchen tool love too.

I was pleasantly surprised to see one of these burly lemon squeezers (which technically was a lime squeezer for us… Margaritas!) at the house in Nags Head I mentioned in the “Beach Foods!” entry. They spoiled me in just one weekend with a constant flow of wine, margaritas, and great company.

Besides the nearly effortless to use Gold Medal Heavy Duty Lemon Squeezer, what other commercial kitchen items would I like to see in my own kitchen in the near future? Knowing I can’t pick the top of the line of everything I want (because there’s no room in my kitchen drawers for the really big stuff), here’s an early Christmas/Birthday list for me…

The Alegacy 9″ Stainless Steel Food Mill – I have an old food mill, but I’d like a better one! If you’ve never made mashed potatoes in a food mill, YOU MUST TRY IT. It’s like fluffy delicious potato velvet!

Waring (WSB40) – 10” Quik Stik Plus Immersion Blender – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used my traditional blender thinking “oh man, I would love to have an immersion mixer so I don’t have to take this out of the pot!”. The first thing I’ll use it for is to make my Mom’s famous carrot soup… It’s stellar!

John Boos (RAFR2418) – 2-1/4″ Thick Reversible Maple Cutting Board – It seems that us self proclaimed foodies and Iron Chefs are always looking for a better cutting board… it is time, I’ll take this one please. Love the handles!

And on that note…

Be sure to check out KELLY’S FAVORITE THINGS CONTEST! Actually it’s a great contest, c’mon chefs, “Would you like to play a game?”.  It really doesn’t get much more simple, boiling water is more difficult. Pick a favorite item on FoodServiceWarehouse.com and post it on the FaceBook Wall, yes, that’s it! So tell your chef friends, tell your restaurant owner friends, tell your foodie friends, tell your culinary student friends!!! There are 4 killer prizes up for grabs!

Long story short… It’s Cookie Friday again! Actually I started making cookies on Fridays about 15 years ago. The main goal was and is to get feedback so I can refine my cookie recipes. Plus who’s going to complain about free cookies showing up at the office at the end of the week, right?!

I tend to tweak the recipes I learn or just plain make up, I tweak them to be a little bit healthy. Not so healthy that I defeat the purpose of making a cookie, but healthy enough so that they’re not designed to slowly kill the eaters.

Dairy Free Gluten Free Almond Cookie

There are definitely some favorite cookies (chosen by the tasters through out the years) that have been identified along my enormous cookie journey. I actually try to make a different cookie every single Friday, but every once in a while I try something I’ve never done before. Like a couple weeks ago when I got a request (yes, I encourage requests, flavors, ingredients, types of cookie…) for a dairy-free gluten-free cookie, which was something I’ve never even tried. That one came out pretty darn good if I do say so myself… chewy and crispy around the edge, lots of almond slivers. I made almond flour for the first time ever to make those, I just love cookie experiments!

Old Cookie Bar Recipe, No Shortening!

This week I used an old cookie bar recipe I picked up when I was going through my Mom’s old baking supplies and came across stacks of old recipes, some hand written by my grandma. Who knows, the recipe could honestly be from the 1920′s. So this recipe for the cookie bars called for a bunch of shortening, not that I actually hate shortening, but it is in fact designed to kill me. So instead of shortening I figured out a way to use grape seed oil! I ended up making Cookie bars with white chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and a few chocolate chips… and a whole lot of almond slivers (yup, I love almonds!). They are my first ever cookie bars, and I’m pretty happy with the results.

Best thing about “Cookie Fridays” is that people occasionally join in and bring some of THEIR cookies. It’s not competition, it’s fun! Ok, sometimes it IS a competition, but that’s fun too. Today Kelly brought in what are literally the best Thumb-Print cookies I’ve ever had. I tried the PB&J flavor and I don’t think any PB&J sandwich could ever live up to that experience!

So I had mentioned in my previous post, “When we were very young…” that I had discovered some liquor, some very old liquor, in a cabinet at my Mama’s house. Well here are the 3 bottles I am most curious about…

3 mystery liquors...

“LA GRIGLIATA – Liquor of D’AGRUMI Della Casa”, likely from when my family lived in Italy. I can’t find ANYTHING about this liquor or brand. It’s pobably about 35 years old. If you know or discover anything, please let me know!

“Dewar’s – Blended Scotch Whiskey, White Label”, I have no idea how old it is, but it’s likely that it’s decades! Anyone have relative who works at the historical department at Dewar’s? Can someone tell me how old this bottle is?

“Z.O. GENEVER – BOLS, Product of Holland”, this is probably from when my family lived in Sweden and it’s probably approaching 40 years old! It’s in a cool rock/ceramic bottle that’s incredibly heavy. Any of you experts know something about it? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

I also have an extremely high-resolution version of the above photo, in case one of you liquor detectives would like to see it I’d be happy to send it to you. What do you get if you can tell me something about these? I’ll buy you a drink! Or two.

We don’t spend a whole lot of time out here in 100% land-locked Colorado, well, at least not on beaches that have waves, or sandy shores, or seagulls, or jelly fishes…. anyway… I just got back from a weekend with my son and my Dad (and more friends and family) in Nags Head, NC at the Outer Banks (OBX). Although I spent most of my teenage years at the beaches in Southern California (which was, umm, more than just a few years ago) I have mostly forgotten about the very different experience of having just about any food at the beach, or right on the beach.

The Yuengling Pups

First of all, I think I miss the beach again. Second of all, drinking a beer, having some ice cream, or just eating a meal with sand still on your feet is just a completely different experience. It actually did something to remind me how much the environment changes things. Ever have a fantastic meal in a restaurant with a somewhat disagreeable environment? Or maybe a just ok meal in a restaurant with a great environment? Or how about a meal at a relative’s house surrounded by friends and loved ones? Somehow, it simply changes the flavors. I dare you to disagree with me.

Some highlights… Night time Ice cream at Fatboyz. Discovering how tasty a can of Yuengling beer is on the beach (anyone remember Obama’s Yuengling bet?). Crab cakes for breakfast. Brisket (cooking all day) after a full day on the sand and in the water. Drinking a Fat Tire Ale on the shore in almost total darkness, in a comfy chair, staring at the Milky Way.

It was a short trip, but it was solid! My son gets to stay one whole more week, lucky boy…. summer vacation’s almost over!

Crispy Beef at Pearl East

When I was at my mom’s house in Connecticut I realized that there were particular foods that I just could not skip out on while I was visiting. I had a little mini epiphany about this too… I realized that I wasn’t necessarily craving foods I grew up with or dishes that the Southern Connecticut region is really known for. It was food that I myself associate with that area. Maybe it’s the neighborhood, or the sights and the familiar smells, but as soon as I arrived I wanted to eat things that don’t really even occur to me living here in Denver, even though I can still get those items out here in Colorado.

New York Bagel with lox and creamcheese at Mama's house

The moment the plane landed and I was off to go see Mama in Connecticut I knew that I wanted Chinese food from my favorite Chinese restaurant in Stamford, Pearl East, and pizza from the Colony Grill. I also knew that I wanted a bagel with cream cheese and lox for breakfast (ok, the New York tri-state area is known for that one).

Here in the Denver are there are some obvious foods associated with Denver. There’s the infamous Rocky Mountain Oysters, the delicious Denver Omelet, and unfortunately Casa Bonita (great place to take the kids thanks to the indoor cliff divers, yeah you heard me correctly! But the food is a bit ummm, microwave-ish. IMHO and many others).

But when I think of Denver foods the first thing that comes to mind is “microbrew capital of the world!!!“, the next might be the enormous and satisfying Chicken Fried Steak at the Rocky Mountain Diner. Which happens to be one of the only fried things I’ll happily eat.

It just got me thinking… what do YOU think your town is known for when it comes to foodie stuff? The stuff that you and other locals think of, not the tourists.

So I just got back from Connecticut and to make a long story short, I was on a mission. Nope, not on a bicycle wearing a crisp white shirt and backpack. My mission was to help my mom prepare to move after living in the same place for many years. There were plenty of great moments and LOTS of great food (more on that later).

One of the great moments was finding the rolling pin I learned to bake with. I haven’t seen this in over 30 years, I’d say my Mama gave this to me sometime in 1976. I was cleaning out a large cabinet of baking supplies and found some other amazing stuff too.  Well amazing to me anyway.

I had no choice but to pack up a couple of boxes of some of these gems and send them home to Colorado, some to make use of now and some for my son to find one day when I’m old and decrepit and he’s helping me move to assisted living, where I will continue to cook and bake. Even if I’m limited to soup and soft bananas.

Besides coming back with literally hundreds of recipes from my mom, my grandma, great aunts, etc… I also came home with many photos, very old liquor from the old liquor cabinet (more on that later too), and a half dozen New York bagels in my suitcase. MMMmmmm, garlic & onion bagel’ly smelling suitcase.

Microwaving EVERYTHING Was Supposed to be the Future!

I grew up watching my mom use this pasta machine

Didn't even know we had this, been in a cabinet for almost 40 years!

I was surprised to see that it's never even been used!

Yup, it's the real deal, an original ring Jello mold with serving platter.

If my mom were to serve Jello...

When I was very young my grandma Esther told me a lot of things that I still remember and live by to this day (fortunately so did my other grandparents and my parents). Even today, in her 90′s, she still reminds me of some of those lessons when I speak with her. Well recently, that’s reminded me that “thinking green” is not at all a new concept.

Some people, like my grandma, have always been aware of a shared planet. When I forgot to turn out the lights in a room she would say “do you want there to be electricity left for when you grow up?” When I took more than I could eat and didn’t think twice about wasting some food she would say “you know there’s starving children somewhere who would never let that go to waste?”. It’s not quite as sophisticated as the way we would describe some of our wasteful ways, but she was 100% correct.

Now the entire world is realizing (still too slowly) that it’s highly likely that there will continue to be electricity for all of us, but we need to change the way we make it. Food sources are also changing as we become more aware of our situation. We are deliberately changing to more replenish-able foods and ingredients as it is now clear that humans have simply broken many of our food chains. If we wish to continue enjoying great diversity in our foods than we need to put some of our own links back into those broken chains. Links in the form of farming and being more responsible with wild food resources are a couple of obvious examples.

I could go on and on about all the things my parents and grandparents tried to teach me, but now that I’m older the math is simple. These issues we should be paying attention to are sometimes created by millions (even billions) of people and now it is so obvious to me how that all adds up. Some will continue to say “I really don’t have an effect on the big things” and I believe that’s simply not true. “It’s just a drop in the bucket” they say… well, really it’s just not THAT MANY drops to fill a bucket!

At the risk of sounding like my grandma, here are a couple of really simple things we can do to reduce our damaging contributions to “the little things”.

Try not to spill too many drops of gas when you fill up your car because every day millions of cars get filled up, and that’s millions and millions of drops of gasoline in our environment (which adds up to many millions of buckets!). More good gas filling tips here!

Trash (one of my peeves)… I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a gum wrapper or cigarette butt fly out a car window or watched someone drop a small wrapper (like from a toothpick) on the ground, seriously, do I even need to explain this one?! If only I could give out tickets for littering! Besides the environmental problems and even can endanger animals great and small, in total littering costs the United States billions of dollars a year!

Make more informed food choices, simple right?! Fortunately there are a ton of resources as well as companies who are deciding to be more responsible on our behalf. What do you or your kids like to eat? Go learn more about some of those foods, maybe you will learn more than you expected, and be able to teach more people about it than you expected. Making smarter food choices doesn’t mean that you need to increase your food budget either! I LOVE fish, seafoods of ALL types, so I decided to learn even more about sustainable seafood choices I’m making.

If you run a business you can change some small things to truly be more green. Since I work here at FSW I hear a lot about the restaurant and foodservice industry, and it’s a fact that many businesses (especially these days) are not in a position to spend thousands of dollars on new equipment and changes to their buildings and property. But the good news… small things matter.  There are solutions out there for everyone, everyone can participate, and should. So if you can’t buy all new appliances, maybe just switch to biodegradable products, you can do something!

So please, choose even just one thing in your life and decide to make better choices about it, then share it with a friend and your children…because like grandma Esther told me, it really is the small things that matter.

For different people ‘happiness’ can certainly mean extremely different things. For some, happiness is a simple concept, for others it’s more complicated. I am glad, and thankful, for my many simple moments of happiness. If it involves food or drink, well that’s happiness to the power of two (happiness with my son… happiness cubed!).

We’re doing things a bit differently here at FSW, taking today off (Friday) instead of Monday, like the rest of the planet (doh! did I just say that out loud?), for this 4th of July weekend. But I have decided that Friday is actually the correct way to do it, I like it, I like it a lot. The neighborhood is quiet and it’s a perfect morning. Although I just missed the sunrise, Doh! again. But it’s been such a sweet morning I don’t feel like I’ve missed a thing.

Happiness is… Waking up early on a day off without an alarm clock. Deciding to let my son sleep in, getting some coffee going and then crafting the perfect bowl of oatmeal.

Sometimes the happiness is effected by location. Backyard coffee with birds chirping and a perfect 68º, not only more happiness, but better tasting coffee! Go to turn on the news and instead it becomes coffee with Ninja Warrior thanks to my son leaving the tube on G4tv last night. Turns out coffee with Ninja Warrior, tasty and fun! And then sometimes things get a little complicated for me too… Coffee AND Oatmeal in the perfect backyard morning, this is almost too much happiness to deal with.

Then my son reminds me…

Happiness is… a gigantic box of Lucky Charms!

Thank you son.

So I blogged about Lychees, and then promptly ate my whole bag of them. So had to go Saturday to pick up a fresh bag of them, and then promptly ate all of those too!

Couldn’t resist the .99 cent bag of Lychee fruit gels. Put them in the fridge for a couple of hours and they’re almost as addictive as the real thing, low sugar too! Little Lychee gel shots with chopped up bits of Lychee. Once the bag got opened it took about 5 minutes to eat the whole thing.

Note to self: Research growing Lychee Nut trees in my backyard…

How To Eat Lychee Nuts: 1.Grab Handful  2.Peel  3.Eat, eat, eat  4.Buy more!

During the summer here in the Denver area, if you know where to look, Lychee Nuts are in season (sometimes called Lichi). This isn’t what most think of, a crunchy salted nut, rather this is the fruit surrounding the nut. Some of you may have had peeled & pitted Lychee nuts served to you as desert in a Chinese restaurant, almost always from a can. But a fresh Lychee is a totally different experience, a truly special summer treat. Here in the Denver area you can find them in some of the Asian markets, I like H-Mart the most (H-Mart could easily consume a few blog entries for me, love that place!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Litchi_chinensis_fruits.JPG

A fresh Lychee is a special thing, a unique explosion of flavor and texture… eats like a small melon, tastes like a combination of grape, kiwi, and lavender. Yeah, you heard me, lavender! But soooo good, so juicy, so addictive and healthy too (a big handful gets you your daily vitamin C)! You would probably get a different take on the flavors and scent from everyone who eats them. People seem to love them or hate them, and that’s ok. Even peeling them is fun, yes I’ve been accused of being a freak for saying that.

Sitting outside with a bowl of Lychees on one of our many 95 degree summer days is like eating tiny cool refreshing drinks, honest. They are about the size of a brussels sprout but each one is as satisfying as sticking your face into a half a watermelon and taking a huge bite, yeah, about like that.

Although they’re still delicious out of a can, they MUST be tried fresh if you can get them! By the way, I can down a whole large can of them in a minute or two, it’s one of my super powers.

One thing that I’ve never done though… make a recipe using Lychees. This site has a boat-load of them. Might be time for me to invent a Lychee cookie! I’d love to hear from any of you about your Lychee Nut experiences, or better yet, a Lychee recipe you’ve tried!