June, 2009 - - Page 5

by BS

Last Supper: ES Staff Picks

We asked what you’d pick as your last meal on earth, so we figure fair is fair, we might as well share our own. Think you can do better? Send your funniest/best/most salivating last supper menu to contests@endlesssimmer.com, and you’ll be in the running for the biggest Top Chef prize pack ever.

80 proof: Start the meal off with a nice plate of twelve mozzarella sticks. Then move on to a large pepperoni pizza, a 2-liter regular coke, and a side order of Bojangles chicken supreme combo (chicken strips, fries, tea).

BS: A buttered filet mignon, an entire box of wheat thins, and vanilla ice cream with perfectly juicy strawberries. Bacon is used as a palate cleanser in between every course.

Liza: Chicken fried steak with cream gravy, macaroni and cheese, fried okra, mashed potatoes with cream gravy, and chocolate ice cream. And a delicious Pilsner! And for an appetizer (as if I didn’t put enough food down), my mom’s grilled cheese and tomato soup 🙂

TVFF: I’d have to go Italian. A nice cold spread with great cheese, olives and vegetables. Main course would be authentic spaghetti carbonara made with guanciale and a side of sauteed broccoli rabe with plenty of garlic and red pepper. For desert, a Philly-style cherry water ice.

I Want to Be a Caterer When I Grow Up

It’s that time again.

I’ve recently persuaded DAD GANSIE that it will be perfectly possible for the family to prepare all the food for my sister’s college graduation party. For my brother’s party a few years back we ordered a large deli platter (cold cuts, hoagie rolls, potato salad…) and I made a few appetizers, including this gem that I really need to start producing again. But that was when my food obsession was still young. I hadn’t landed any catering gigs at that point.

So now that we’re ditching the processed meat, I need to figure out what to feed our friends and family.

Initial thoughts:

Chicken/veggie fajitas (I love the idea of do-it-yourself)
Baked pasta dish (family style also works well in this situation)
Kebabs (everything’s better on a stick)

Of course I’d also be making dips and other hors d’oeuvres. And I think DAD GANSIE will be on desserts (combo of buying/baking himself). Also, we’d like to be able to make as much in advance as possible.

This is just the beginning, folks. I’m not wed to any of these and I’m looking for something fun, easy, and that suburban New Jerseyans (no, I will not link the word to that horrid show that I refuse to watch) would enjoy. We’re thinking 50 people, which does not include the drunks that require a second meal close to midnight.

Let the games begin.

photo credit

in Personal 13 comments

by BS

Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

– Maids seconded Brit and Deej’s thoughts on LA restaurant Bazaar:

As a rule modern cooks should refrain from creating membrane pockets. Membranes are usually unpleasant textures when we are confronted by them in the natural world and even more so when they are man-made vehicles for familiar tastes. Those olive juice membrane pockets sound disgusting, and I love olives.

But JoeHoya defends the ‘branes:

I’m a big fan of the olive oil spheres – I don’t remember the membrane being especially noticeable once it bursts, and the texture wasn’t as offputting as Maids assumes it might be at first.

– Summer is not feeling the new Padma Lakshmi:

After watching Top Chef Masters last night, I’m of the opinion that Kelly Choi is an inoffensive substitute for Padma… except she is too damn skinny. They’re both models, and Padma is slender, but Kelly is so thin I have trouble believing that she is even capable of eating. Just where in that torso is there room for a large intestine?

– Finally, reaching back to Bliz’ pork porn, We Are Never Full shares a sentiment Spike and Andrew would be proud of:

is it wrong to say that i have a boner? is it even more wrong to say that i’m a girl? kidding… kidding. but this is almost gross enough to turn a hard-core pig-eater into a vegan. i said ALMOST gross enough. what a post.

Thanks for playing, kids – see ya next week!

in Pig / TV 0 comments

by tvff

Lunch in Translation: I Just Called to Shill for Coffee

This one is tough for me. Making fun of Stevie Wonder gives me no pleasure. He’s a certifiable genius and was the most vital and important factor in music during the first half of the 1970s. Talking Book and Innervisions represent the fifth greatest back-to-back album combination of the rock & roll era. But I must do what I must do.

Here’s the man who wrote “Superstition” and “Living for the City”… in a terrible Japanese commercial for coffee. Excuse me while I pound my head against the wall.

Full critique, and the final verdict on how big a sell-out this ad is…after the jump.

Friday Fuck Ups: How Not to Fillet a Fish

I’m not really sure why I prefer to cut my own fillets. Gutting and cutting up a fish is messy, smelly and if continually done wrong too many times, can take away from the final dish. But then again… it’s a chance to play with knives and gross out my friends.

To me, the positives outweigh the negatives. Money is also a factor, but then again, you pay less for a whole fish then you would buying pre-cut fillets at Whole Foods.

If you’ve ever watched a Julia Child show or bothered to look up the process on filleting a whole round fish on YouTube, it looks incredibly easy. It can be, though, if you can push past any queasiness of the fish looking up at you while you grotesquely hack up several whole fish figuring out the process.

And even after you think you’ve figured it out, there are days like last Friday where you have basically forgotten how to ride the bike and swerve uncontrollably into a trash can.

So what say you ESers? Am I just wasting my time and perfectly good fish by messing around with my own fillets? Should I leave it to the fish mongers? Produce another Friday Fuck Up? Keep trying it myself?

A decent salvage after the jump.

Artsy Photo of the Day

It’s alive! The basil doth groweth. This picture is from about 3 weeks ago, I will keep the ES clickership posted on how our homegrown basil takes to DC summers.

in Photos 6 comments

by ML

Feeding the Monsters: Kids’ Restaurant Week

Lets be honest, I really don’t keep up with the daily events on Sesame Street. Thanks to gansie for alerting me to this particularly interesting event happening across the country.

As you may know, it drives me (and many other people) insane when restaurants/parents/idiots assume kids only eat shit. Thankfully, for one week, parents and patrons alike will be saved from this mayhem.

Mimicking Restaurant Week, where high-end restaurants offer a multi-course prix-fixe menu, Cookie and Gourmet’s Kids’ Restaurant Week 2009 is set to take place June 13-21 in Washginton, DC and June 20-28 in New York In Chicago. Adults pay $29, while kids 11 and under pay their age. Dinner seatings are early (from 5pm-7pm).

The main event, obviously, is the food. Restaurants participating claim to offer “kid-friendly” (what the hell does that even mean) versions of their menu offerings. Seems good for parents, good for kids. One big happy family, right?

Although many news sources have marketed Kids’ Restaurant Week with the “tired of giving your kids chicken fingers?” routine, some restaurants are still sadly serving chicken fingers, french fries, and the ever popular macaroni and cheese (fail) during Kids’ Restaurant Week. However, others are serving up kid accessible versions of their delicious adult counterparts, such as duck tacos and tandoori chicken skewers. Perhaps at least some people are finally starting to get it.

Bottom line: if you’re interested in taking your children out to eat in Washington, DC, I’d first check out some of the menu offerings here to avoid another chicken fingers meal. If you’re in the windy city, check out this writeup of the Chicago events, where Kids’ Restaurant Week originated in 2008. If you’re in another city, or just want to see who is in on the hoopla, a list of participating restaurants for all cities can be found at the official Kids’ Restaurant Week site.

As always, if you do take your little ones to this (or have before), let us know!

in Uncategorized 2 comments

June 2009