Food Blog

Some good food shots over at Strobist’s latest assignment/contest.

[Read more →]

Apple apple pie

The link to creative food manipulation the other day included a few of these, but here’s a big gallery of ‘Foodscapes’ by Carl Warner. Landscapes such as “parmesan cliffs with sweet potato boulders and cress and savoy cabbage foliage under a red cabbage sky”

Food Network launches mobile app for easy access to recipes

[Read more →]

Funnel Cake at the Custer Street Fair, Evanston

[Read more →]

Last year there were two trillion stalks of corn in Iowa, and a lot of it went to corn syrup Short article on King Corn, a movie about corn. There’s a dormant blog about the movie tour.

“If you were to pluck one of your hairs and analyze the origins of its carbon, most of it came from corn. That’s right — you’re mostly corn! That’s because all the chicken and beef you’ve ever eaten (or almost all of it) was corn-fed. And those snacks and sodas? All corn syrup. Even the fries we eat are up to 50% corn by caloric content if they are fried in corn oil.”

My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)
An opinion article in the NYT by a farmer.

“…my efforts to expand production to meet regional demand have been severely hampered by the Agriculture Department’s commodity farm program. As I’ve looked into the politics behind those restrictions, I’ve come to understand that this is precisely the outcome that the program’s backers in California and Florida have in mind: they want to snuff out the local competition before it even gets started.”

Learn about sourdough from FoodWishes in the multi-day series that starts at Follow the Sourdough – Day 1: Can you say Lactobacillus Sanfranciscensis?

[Read more →]

As I greeted my cousin at his house for Thanksgiving, he handed me a beer and led me to one of those contraptions that cause fear in the hearts of otherwise courageous cooks – a propane tank and a pot full of 6 gallons of oil.

Apparently in accepting the beer, I was accepting the position of cooking the turkey which meant responsibility for the turkey, the garden surrounding his pool, and depending on the amount of heat tolerance the nearby propane tank was rated at – his house and immediate backyard, a forest, and maybe the nearby government military arsenal. It was obvious this was going to take extreme care. And another beer.

There was another good-looking (regularly roasted) turkey already done, and enough other food to feed a fire department and the army, which was good, in the event we had to invite either of them, so I wasn’t too worried about messing up the turkey. But the only instructions were stamped on the lid of the pot – 325F, for 3 and a half minutes per lb. After figuring out the turkey dunker, we got him set up and he got a seasoning of salt, pepper and paprika.

My cousin assured me he had done displacement tests, since we’ve all seen the spectacular spill-over fire videos. I donned one of those Okra brand lobster mitts, worried that I’d have a pink claw melded onto my hand should something happen, but there wasn’t any asbestos around. My cousin improvised a spatter shield. I slowly dipped the turkey into the oil, and a little did spatter over, but harmlessly.

So 52 minutes later, I pulled it out the same way, and he looked great.

It turns out that frying is a great way to cook a turkey – it’s fast, it stays moist, you get a crispy skin, and it has that intoxicating KFC smell. And if you’re adventurous, you’ve got 6 gallons of boiling oil if you want to fry anything else – like twinkies, Mars bars etc.

Seriously, you might want to read some directions other than mine if you’re trying your own turkey. And watch the videos linked above. Besides, we had professional help on speed dial – my another cousin who’s a fireman in Florida, whose advice in case of accident was ‘distance’.

[Read more →]

Another in the theme of ‘how do people eat these things?” I got a coffee and a Cinnabon in O’Hare. Believe it or not, this was my first one. I couldn’t get through half of it. I think I figured out the recipe: Take 30 cinnamon scented car fresheners, boil them into a paste, add all of the strongest sweetners known to man, form into a spiral, and cover with weapons grade high fructose corn syrup icing.

[Read more →]

Now this is where I want to see my tax money go. Revolution with a foamy head Logan Square brewery to use half million in TIF

[Read more →]

Seems like a lot of burgers, but I am catching up on several months of food.Culver’s Butter Burger. Somewhere in WIThe Paramount Burger, with ‘optional, complimentary’ bourbon-cured Foie Gras. On Milwaukee, Chicago, IL.Cheddar Burger at Poochie’s, on Dempster in Skokie IL.

[Read more →]

Coke Blak goes dark ‘ “It is not for everyone,” Coke marketing executive Katie Bayne told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution when the drink launched in April 2006. “It is an adult Cola taste.” ‘ I had one of these once. The keyword here is ‘once’. If I want cold coffee in my Coke, I’ll put it in myself. This might have been alright, if they weren’t so heavy-handed with it.

[Read more →]

Here’s what I’ve been eating.

A dippin’ dog, at Wiener and Still Champion.

A hot dog at Fast Track.

Wild Boar Burger at Hop Haus

[Read more →]