Williams Sonoma -

by gansie

Friday Fuck Up: How Not to Squeeze a Fried Egg into a Panini Press

“Can you find a use for this?” Nick, more told me than asked me, as he ditched two leftover baguettes at me and market manager, Rebbie, as the Mount Pleasant Farmers Market was closing up.

I slathered goat cheese on the baguette when I got home, topping it with a tomato, for an easy after-market lunch before a good deal of napping took place. The next day I had plenty of baguette left. It hardened by then.

How could I use it: croutons, french toast, bread crumbs… Nothing excited me. I then remembered the panini press that’s been sitting in my apartment unused for about, well, since I moved into my apartment 4 years ago.

I wanted to squeeze a fried egg into this breakfast panini. Because really, how could I eat a sandwich before noon without an egg? The sandwich turned into an elaborate kitchen mess: sauteing garlic scapes with spinach, browning sun gold tomatoes, tearing basil, shredding smoked cheddar and baking bacon.

The problem I realized is the width of the baguette. There was no fucking way all of this would fit.

The Line Between Simple and Stupid…

…is crossed when you spend money on this product.

I found the item above on the clearance table at the Williams-Sonoma store in Princeton, New Jersey. That, boys and girls, is a bottle of simple syrup that you can purchase for the low, low price of $3.99 — a deal, mind you, because it’s marked down from $6.99. Sure, Williams-Sonoma is fun for some window shopping and general inspiration whenever you don’t feel foodie enough. It’s always a blast to poke around the gadgets, drool over the Le Creuset that you can’t afford and marvel over the fact that someone is actually willing to drop fifty bucks on a popsicle machine. (Isn’t that what your freezer is for?) But this is going too far.

In these tough economic times, let me save you some of your hard-earned money:

One part table sugar. One part water. Boil until dissolved. Cool. Use. That’ll be seven dollars.

in Drinks 5 comments

by BS

Will It Waffle?

Despite being total Williams Sonoma geeks, most of us ESers tend to live in tiny city apartments, which means we shy away from buying unitaskers. But that doesn’t mean you have to cook every meal in the same cast iron pan, because with a little creativity you can turn that unitastker into a multitasker.

Which brings us to our favorite new food blog, Waffleizer, in which blogger Dan and some friends answer the eternal question, Will It Waffle? That is, can foods traditionally cooked on the stove or oven be made in a waffle iron? And might that in fact make them better?

As you can probably guess, from hamburgers to hash browns to s’mores, the answer is always yes.

in Rants & Raves 2 comments