Burns My Bacon -

by ML

Burns My Bacon: Encouraging Cheating

Judging from my friends’ and family’s pantries, I know packaged foods are really all the rage. I know “semi-homemade” solutions are even more popular. I’m only knocking these products a little bit, because you know, if a pre-made sauce gets you to actually cook a meal instead of ordering take-out, so be it. But you know what I don’t like? I don’t like the commercials for these products shitting all over the idea of cooking.

I was laying in bed last night watching re-runs of Friends when I saw a commercial for Progresso’s new product, Recipe Starters. Except in the commercial, some woman is trying to fire-roast her own tomatoes (with a blow torch, but whatever), and some chef-like character comes along and LAUGHS AT HER FOR DOING SO, asking sarcastically “Do you churn your own butter?” and hands her a can of fire-roasted tomato sauce. You know what, bitch? I make my own mayo. Leave the poor girl alone! She’s alone, single, and if she wants to fire-roast her own tomatoes with a blow torch, LET HER!! She has the time, so get the fuck out of her (my) kitchen. Don’t make fun of her (me) just because she’s doing something she doesn’t have to do. She wants to make her own damn sauce from scratch; yes its difficult, yes its time consuming, but how does this affect you? That’s right, it doesn’t. LET HER DO WHAT SHE WANTS.

I know not everyone wants to cook, but for fuck’s sake, don’t shit on those of us who do, or those of us who are trying. Don’t discourage them. I miss the days when boxed dinners were marketed as alternatives to fast-food and take-out, not alternatives to from-scratch cooking.

by Katt Kasper

Burns My Bacon: Burning My Bacon!

Los Angeles is a lonely, desolate place to live if you’re looking for great service and properly prepared food at a restaurant. Especially if you’re spending less than a hundred bucks a plate. Oh, it happens now and then. But it’s really become a sort of Culinary Lottery to actually get just what it was you ordered. The kitchen always looks busy, and the wait staff is usually friendly and attentive, but something happens once you answer their meal inquiries. I see them write it down, or repeat it back to me and nod reassuringly. But then they walk away and sometime later food is delivered by new strangers that then ask me what it was I ordered. “The over-cooked rib eye with the steamed, reheated limp green beans?” Oh gosh, that would be me. I’ve been sucking on the ice cubes of my empty drink for so long I almost forgot what I ordered myself. Could I get another drink, please? “I’ll get your waiter.” Yes, please do. I don’t know why I was thinking that you could get it considering that you didn’t know I ordered the steak even though I’m the only one sitting at this table.

And when my waiter finally does return, I know that they will stare down at my untouched plate, look at me, smile and say, “So how is everything? Cooked the way you like?” Why yes, my heat sensitive x-ray vision tells me that the center of both my entrée and side dish are at the optimum temperature. May I ask you to lean closer so that I might bitch slap you into oblivion?

What the F is happening? I used to enjoy going out to eat but now it’s become like starring in my own version of the Matrix. Do ANY of these out-of-work actors really want to be waiters? Here’s a little test that I did at the last 10 places that I’ve eaten: at the end of my meal I always order a cup of coffee and each time without fail, this has been the response; “Do you take cream and sugar?” To which I always answer (very firmly and with conviction), “No, just black please!” And out of the last ten times that this scenario has taken place, only ONE TIME have I received a cup of coffee without an accompanying creamer and assortment of sugars, sweeteners and pink bags of crystal chemicals. If you’re going to bring me these sidecars anyway, why are you asking me how I drink my coffee? And what other information haven’t you processed? My severe peanut allergy? My request to substitute the potato with more vegetables? Asking me if I’d like bread, and then bringing me a basket of it after I replied “no” doesn’t instill much confidence from my end.

And…what’s up with the bacon?

Burns My Bacon: Sous Vide

We’ve talked sous vide many times here on Endless Simmer. Now that the trend has died down a bit, KK asks, is it even worth it?

Sous vide. It’s a French term meaning, “I’ve got way too much time on my hands and I don’t own a microwave.” This is a cooking process in which you put food into a plastic bag, remove as much air as you can, and then sloooooow cook it in a water bath at around 55 degrees for 72 hours. That’s more than a couple of days. Why would you do this? If you were on your meds you wouldn’t. Can you imagine everything being cooked this way? You could get your dry cleaning back in less time. I mean, I could order food from New York and have it FedEx’d to me before my sous vide steak is half done.

When I was growing up, I thought that my mother invented fast food. The slowest thing that she cooked in our house was a TV dinner. That took 20 minutes. I was a teenager before I realized that the center of your Salisbury steak wasn’t supposed to be frozen. 72 hours to properly bathe my entrée? I’ve had goldfish that didn’t last that long in water. “Boil in the bag? Oh no, no, no. What’s the rush? Why don’t you sit back and relax while I sous vide us some pasta. Case of wine while we wait?”

The great Julia Child would have a hard time selling THIS French cooking method to American housewives. And really, as a restaurateur, how do you make any money at this? You certainly couldn’t advertise how fresh your food is. Even Michael Phelps wouldn’t last 72 hours in the water. Why would I want my food to? What’s the point? Flavor? After waiting 72 hours for a meal I would eat my shoes.

And in terms of technique, who couldn’t learn to master this? “Gee, I just couldn’t get the hang of sealing the bag. I don’t know how Keller does it!” Just imagine how long it would take to tape ‘Iron Chef Sous Vide.’ You could become a doctor in less time.

I absolutely love many classic French cooking techniques, and I’ll admit, I’m intimidated by some. Sous vide doesn’t make either list. I’m in no hurry to cook slower. And on the opposite end of the spectrum, I won’t be dragging home any canisters of liquid nitrogen either. If I want the word ‘extreme’ used to describe anything about my meal it had better be the flavor and not the cooking method.

Extremely flavorful? Qui. Extremely slow? Absolument pas!

in Rants & Raves / Trends 4 comments

by snebbu

Burns my Bacon: Pita vs. Pocket Thin

I’m the last person to get upset over something small and menial. No, really… So when I saw someone at work with a bag of pitas that said “flatbread pocket thins” on it, of course I started an argument: “You know those are just pitas, right?” Discussion ensued yesterday for about 5 minutes or so about the difference between a pita and pocket bread. Then today, of course, it was brought up again and further, louder, arguments occured.

Why does this burn my bacon? Because some quacks in a marketing department decided to call PITAS flatbread so that people will believe there is a difference. What is a pita? Simple. Bread with a pocket in it. At least I thought it was. Until our friends at Arnold’s decided that they couldn’t trademark the word Pita and instead called a PITA an f’ing flatbread that happens to have a pocket in it. Oh wait—it is pita-“style” bread. Which makes it…? A DAMN pita!

Yes, yelling did occur during this second discussion. About a pita. Unfortunately, some are misled by the spin doctors at Arnold’s painting pitas as “artisan pocket breads.” Some sad consumers believe they are getting something that is not a pita because it tastes better. Maybe it does taste better—but maybe that’s because it’s just a better pita! Don’t let the man pick your bread. Do you. YOLO.

Now…what do you think? I was promised responses from the office. Don’t disappoint.

in Rants & Raves 11 comments

by snebbu

Burns My Bacon: Endless Food Plans

Turns out that some of my friends and I have committed ourselves to a 12K Beer Run at the end of October (right, ML?) The end of the race includes a free micro-brewed beer. So consider myself motivated for the next month or so. I’m committed to the cause and it wouldn’t hurt to loose the poundage. Running’s part of the recipe—the other part: diet.

So I’ve hit the web looking for “running diets,” “low fat diets,” “running meal plans,” etc… From there, I’d take the most common things in each “plan” or create a plan that I can follow that is healthy for me. Piece of cake. Of course there are some common themes, but I was looking for more specifics. Turns out that’s not the case.

Some plans say “eat more, weigh less,” others for running purposes say to load up on carbs, while others are just pretty damn ridiculous. Is it really that complicated? I feel like I could publish my own diet by making something crazy up and saying “eat the right fats and carbs and eat plenty of fruits and veggies.” Eat 20 small meals per day (or maybe it was six?) Maybe running after drinking tons of beer is the key? Thanks for all of the help.

in Personal 4 comments

by Miss K

Burns My Bacon: Waste-of-Space Recipes

Maybe I’m just grumpy these days, but I seem to find annoying food-related practices everywhere I look. Today I bring you: ridiculously inappropriate label recipes.

When it comes to cooking, I’ll take my ideas wherever I can find them: cookbooks (I own many too many), blogs, allrecipes.com, and on and on. And sometimes, on the food packaging itself. This seems highly logical at times. For example, if I have a bag of cornmeal and I want to make polenta, the first place I look is on the side of the bag. And–aha!–there it is. I’ll try it, and if it works, great, and if not, my next stop will probably be The Joy of Cooking, followed by the vast plain of the Internet. Sometimes, a recipe can be useful even if it does not directly utilize the enclosed ingredient, like a good dip recipe on the back of a bag of chips.

Let me tell you what has never happened to me, though. I have a can of olives in the pantry. I am trying to decide what to make for dinner. I pick up the olive can and notice, “Hey, look, a recipe for island chicken and rice! And all I need is…every ingredient on the list.” Because olives aren’t even included until the very last line, as a garnish. Seriously, I understand that you, label designer, had some space to fill, but really, that’s the best you could do? I think that an olive-themed word puzzle, a la the cereal box, would have been preferable to this lameness. But maybe it’s just me.

in Rants & Raves 1 comments

by unsightly

Burns My Bacon: Swooning

Am I the only one sick of seeing the word ‘swoon’ every time a blogger or blog commenter sees anything they would consider shoving in their pie hole? Wait, wait. Let’s back up and start with the definition of swoon.

swoon (verb): FAINT, DROOP, FADE

swoon (noun): a partial or total loss of consciousness; a state of bewilderment or ecstasy

Okay, so maybe the sight of something so delicious has caused them to become bewildered. Or brought on a state of ecstasy. But I doubt it. And really, using the word ‘swoon’ brings to mind the image of an 18th-century noblewoman passing out at the mention of undergarments in public. Do you really need smelling salts to revive you after you looked at that fucking cupcake? No. You don’t. Or maybe you have vertigo. Hell, why don’t you head over to WebMD and check out the medical conditions that may be causing you to swoon. I’m pretty sure ‘looking at food’ isn’t listed.

It seems that these overused words cycle and run their course in the blogging world. It wasn’t too long ago that the ‘word’ ahem ‘delish’ was used in every other sentence. Thankfully, it seems to be fading. I can only hope ‘swoon’ runs its course and disappears sooner rather than later.

in Rants & Raves 5 comments