Personal


 by

Top 10 Food Tattoos

I need another tattoo like I need a hole in the head. However, I have been racking my brain and searching for a kick-ass food tattoo. I have thought about a play on the phrase “in the weeds”; it is still evolving. I like peanut butter and jelly, but do I really want a permanent sandwich on my back side? I could probably cover both of my arms and legs with every food that I enjoy, but I’m not sure I want to be completely covered in ink. This is difficult. So  I’ve compiled a top 10 list from the flickr group Food Tattoos. Enjoy. Maybe you’ll get some ideas for your next tat. If you have any ideas to share or already have a USDA seal on your butt, please tell us about it, dear inked-ESer.

(Photo: Pophangover)

in Featured / Fowl / Lists / Personal / Pig 5 comments
 by

Fart Without Fear

We don’t hype a lot of cookbooks here at ES because, well, they’re all so boring. In fact, if I get one more press release along the lines of Learn to Cook Family Favorite in 20 Minutes or Less! I’m going to barf all over my laptop. But once in a blue moon we get one that actually sounds like our style. Clearly, Fart Without Fear falls into that category.

Now this is not your run of the mill anti-farting cookbook. FWF is not here to tell you to forgo the black bean nachos or the macaroni and cheese pizza. Come on, we wouldn’t do that to you. Nor do they share instructions on how to make these fatty foods flatulent-free. We all know that’s not possible. No, this is much more complex that that. Instead, Fart Without Fear promises a more attainable goal — 70 comfort food recipes that the book’s authors swear result only in the less offensive kind of farting, i.e. weeding out the ingredients that result in “bad flatulence (a. k .a. smelly farts, silent but deadlies, air biscuits, backdoor trumpets, poots, etc.)” They promise their recipes will show readers how to:

Reduce the pungent, eye-tearing, sulfur-laden farts from recipes for breakfarts, loaded lunches, oop soups, sneaky snacks, appetooters, side splitters, dangerous dinners, and deadly desserts…Decide which ones to prepare using the authors’ very own scientifically based and politically incorrect rating system, the Original Boston Baked Bean Odor Index.

Finally, a cookbook that actually wants to help.

in Personal / Rants & Raves 1 comments
 by

Labels are for Soup Cans

It is a question I’ve had to answer again and again.  If it doesn’t come up the first time meeting me (what tipped you off — the obviously thrift store jeans or the decrepit Earth shoes?) I know it still dwells in my new friend’s/coworker’s/grocery store checker’s mind. Maybe they open my fridge for another beer and encounter a meat drawer full of cheese. Perhaps they suspiciously eye my container of leftover tofu pad Thai.  Whatever sparks it, I always know it’s lurking below the surface like Jaws, if Jaws ate black beans instead of people.  “Are you a vegetarian?”

The answer, strictly speaking, is no. The answer, compared to most Americans, is basically, yes. I first heard the term flexitarian a few years back, and I actually suppressed a gag reflex.  Sorry ES, I know they once received a nomination for eater of the year, but I am not ready to unite my eating habits with the soy hemp pomegranate latte crowd. At a recent foodie gala thing, I overheard someone say, “I don’t know what I’m going to eat when I go home because this is my first Thanksgiving as a pescatarian.”  Cue aforementioned gag reflex, and accompanying eye roll.  I mean, come on, you could practically cut the sanctimony with a fillet knife.  Blech.

So, my answer, like most real ones, is, it’s complicated.  I like happy meat from happy cows and you likely won’t find any animal parts in my fridge unless my husband has a hankering for sausage on his homemade deep dish pizza.  One coworker dubbed all of my leftovers “nut-berry casserole.” But…I believe in hospitality, both giving and receiving, so I will eat (and enjoy) any lovingly prepared food, animal or otherwise.  Don’t knock the West Virginia pickled hot dog ‘til you’ve tried it.  And if the only place to watch the Illini game is Buffalo Wild Wings, bring on the hot and spicy wing platter.

I don’t think telling you how great vegetarianism is will convert you any more than telling you how often I go to church is going to make you a Christian.  But St. Camillus does have a fabulous 10:30 mass if you ever care to join me, and if you come for lunch afterward, I dare you to leave any nut-berry casserole, I mean Gado Gado, on your plate.

Gado Gado (A dish so nice they named it twice)

Read More›
in Eggs / Personal / Recipe / Veggie 3 comments
 by

The Unfortunate Fungus Incident

IMGP5067

One of my favorite foodie books (an ever-growing category if ever there was) is Hungry Monkey: A Food-loving Father’s Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater by Matthew Amster-Burton.  My own 4-month-old monkey is still happily gorging himself day and multiple times each night on breast milk, and is growing steadily rounder as a result.  However, as a godmother to two just-turned-four-year-olds, I found myself nodding along with many of the book’s tales.

One moment that remains caught between the teeth of my memory is when the author describes how he spent hours lovingly seasoning and reducing a pot of split-peas and ham in order to disguise some leftovers  for yet another post-holiday meal.  After he finally perfects the rich green broth, he confidently places it on the table for his family’s presumed enjoyment.  His daughter inspects the bowl, smiles sweetly, and says something like, “But daddy, you know that I don’t like soup.”  That’s right.  Not peas, not ham, not green food.  No, she has determined that she cannot stomach an entire category of cuisine, an entire course.  Let me just say — I feel you, man.

Read More›
in Cheese / Personal / Recipe / Veggie 1 comments
 by

When Even Mac and Cheese Won’t Do the Trick

mac and cheese

There was no amount of delicious mac and cheese that could comfort me.

Like everyone else, I can’t stop watching and reading the news coverage of the shooting in Tuscon.

At quarter to seven last night, my boyfriend and I decided we didn’t have time to head to the grocery store before the 8pm memorial/rally. Eager to hear Obama, we eyed our emptying shelves. We saw a box of Easy Mac. But I refused. Next door to the fake-cheese, however, led us to inspiration: a box of rigatoni.

And at that moment, I didn’t care that we spent 10 dollars for a slight wedge of brie-like goat cheese at the farmers’ market, we were using it, goddamnit, to make our own mac and cheese.

In a mad dash, 80P grabbed the grater, I found shallots and garlic and we started prepping. The mac and cheese finished moments before Arizona State opened its stage.

While I may have found it difficult to eat while crying over Christina-Taylor Green, I noticed that my creamy pasta was delicious.

Read More›
in Cheese / Personal / Recipe 2 comments
 by

Building a Better Eater

4588766931_7e714e099c

As you may know, we recently had a new addition to the TVFF household. She’s a bundle of joy and all that good stuff, but I have to admit that I haven’t been too impressed with her one-ingredient diet. It’s not quite the wide-ranging palate that I had hoped for from my offspring.

OK…I understand that we’re doing the best thing possible for her health by feeding her exclusively breast milk. To tide myself over, I’m already dreaming up combinations of pureed goodies that I’ll be making in lieu of buying those jars of baby food. But isn’t there anything that I can be doing now to turn my kid into a gourmand?

Apparently, according to What to Expect the First Year, there just may be…

Because what you eat affects the taste and smell of your breast milk, your breastfed baby is exposed to different flavors well before he or she is ready to sit down at the dinner table, which may help shape future eating habits.

It goes on to theorize that spicy foods like salsas and curries eaten by the mother may help young children be better able to handle those sorts of bold flavors once it’s time for him or her to move on to solid foods. Needless to say, that meant that the nightly dinner menu has been significantly revamped to include a wide variety of Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Thai, Indian, Malaysian and Polish items.

How effective will this be? Who knows. But I’d be interested if anyone out there has seen any kind of evidence — anecdotal or scientific — that supports the fact that I can be doing something now that will result in not having to find “chicken nuggets” on the menu every time I take my kid out with us for dinner.

More On Kids’ Eating:
 Feeding Monsters
Why America Eats Shit
Kids Are People Too

(Photo: The Adventures of Kristin & Adam)

in Personal 9 comments
 by

Foodie’s First Beer

homebrewing

As far as cooking resolutions go, I think “try something new” is one every ES-er can agree to commit to. In my case I’m resolved to finally use the Smithwick’s home brewing kit that’s been sitting in my dining room for a few weeks now. (Aside: you can win one of these bad boys yourself by linking to Smithwick’s contest page on facebook.)

I’ve never brewed beer at home before, but I’m eager to try. Here’s the problem: showing restraint will never, ever be my New Year’s resolution, in the kitchen or anywhere else. Cooking for me is all about experimentation, and if I’m going to cross over and put in the many hours of wort chilling and yeast fermenting that it takes to brew beer at home, I want it to be significantly different from the sixer I can easily pick up at the corner bodega, right?

As usual, the veggie gf disagrees and has urged me to make my first homebrew a simple one, ensuring that I can make something that tastes good before I go for something that blows minds. She wants me to resist the temptation to brew up a pine nut and avocado lager or a cream cheese and bacon stout.

Fine, I get that. But I don’t want to make something that tastes like C-grade Miller Lite either. So what’s a crossover foodie to do? I know there are a lot of homebrewing enthusiasts out there, so feed a brother back:

1) What’s the craziest beer you’ve ever brewed / heard of someone home brewing?

2) What’s a good entry-level recipe for a home brewer who has absolutely no idea what he is doing but wants to make something unique?

(Photo: ilovebutter)

in Drinks / Personal 2 comments
« Previous
Next »