Build-Your-Own

When it comes to eating food with utensils, I believe there's a natural progression of preferred utensil usage:

• Plastic Utensils - These things are evil. Not only are the cheap ones manufactured in a way that actually can cut your mouth, but they can ruin a dining experience. It's well worth the effort to take a dirty fork from the dishwasher and wash it by hand.
• Fork and Knife - There are many fine meals that require a fork and knife, but I like to be able to just dig in. I can't be bothered... all the effort detracts from the stuffing of the pie hole.
• Fork - Now, we're getting somewhere. Lots of foods can be eaten with just a fork, think Indian Food (already in bite-sized pieces), Jambalaya, Paella, etc...
• Spoon - Somehow the experience of eating with a spoon is preferable to a fork -- soups, chili, yum!
• Hands - I'm embarrassed to say that I love eating with my hands. Somehow the food actually tastes better when you're going directly from hand to mouth. In the comforts of home, there are many foods (some that you would not expect) that can be enjoyed with your hands.
• Build Your Own - Then there's the concept of the build-your-own foods. These are food that you put together (usually with your hands) at the table just before eating them. Somehow putting the ingredients together and stuffing your face makes the eating experience more rewarding.

Maybe my favorite of the build-your-own dishes is Bahn Hoi. If you've ever eaten at a Vietnamese restaurant, you've probably tried those fantastic rice paper roll appetizers (not fried). Often you can order a dish, sometimes called Bahn Hoi, which requires the building of your own rolls. Usually the dish comes with: rice papers, vermicelli noodles, nuac chom sauce, fresh Thai basil, cucumbers, lettuce, pickled cabbage and carrots, and meat (I like lemongrass beef).





Building the rolls themselves can be a bit of a pain, but is quite rewarding. First, you will need a bowl with warm water to be used to soften the rice papers. Dip the rice paper in the warm water, covering it completely. Let the paper sit on your plate as it softens. Then add the rest of the ingredients, pour on some nuac chom and enjoy -- eating with your hands, of course.



Here are some other yummy build-your-own foods:

Bahn Hio and Pho - Vietnamese
Moo Shu/Shi and Peking Duck - Chinese
Korean BarBQ - Korean
Shabu Shabu - Japanese
Fajitas - Mexican.... errr not really Mexican
Fondue - Swiss (see Dawn's earlier posting)

Thanksgiving Traditions

Sure, everyone has Turkey for Thanksgiving. And gravy and stuffing. But every family does it a little different. Everyone has their own unique twists on the Thanksgiving meal. What are yours?

Turkey Sandwich on Wonder Bread
Most people wait until Friday for their turkey sandwiches. In our family we have 'em that night. The more synthetic the bread, the better. Covered in gravy.

This is a photo of an open-faced turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce and gravy.




Sweet Potatoes with Toasted Marshmallows
Maybe this isn't so unique, but I'm always amazed at the sheer sweetness of this dish. Boil up some sweet potatoes, add tons of butter and brown sugar, top with marshmallows and bake.

This is one insanely sweet dish.

Mmmm, Minty Seasonal Miniatures

Chocolate Mint is probably my favorite flavor in pretty much anything, except the short-lived chocolate mint Bubblicious (see the TV commercial link for a Cookie Crisp cross-promo, and what they're wearing - I looked like that too). Back in the day when I chewed a piece of the chocolate mint gum, as soon as I stopped thinking about it I tried to swallow it. Every time. I tossed the pack after 3 pieces, figuring it's better to just divide church and state and keep gum and chocolate mint apart for good before I died trying. I guess they did, too.

Here are a few new-ish chocolate mint candies – I sampled these in the miniature size bars. Andes Peppermint Crunch (photo - top)
Andes brings back memories of trying not to eat a whole row of them when my mother had company over at Christmas. If you close your eyes, you feel the consistency of the regular andes mint in this new vessel of white chocolate and nice crunchy bits. I find this candy my favorite of those pictured, as it's refreshing without feeling "chocolatey", like when you eat a lemon square instead of a brownie and somehow you think it's healthier or better for you - more refreshing.
Hershey's Mint Milk Chocolate (photo - bottom left)
Bravo! This tastes like a york peppermint patty, but with the 'chocolate only' consistency. I am not a big fan of milk chocolate, but this is an impressively good milk chocolate mint.
3 Musketeers Mint with Dark Chocolate (photo - bottom right)
I had the highest hopes for this one when I bit into it the first time. However, my reaction was not unlike the scene in Big when Tom Hanks eats caviar for the first time. I love mint, I love dark chocolate, but man... I never imagined that the consistency of the mint "filling" would play such a huge role. As we know, 3 Musketeers is this fluffy nougat type deal, and usually it's tolerable to good (unless stale, then very bad). For some strange reason the white nougat filling in this is SO distracting to me, the initial horror and surprise is unexplainable - you expect substance from a mint interior (like a peppermint patty or a truffle-weight filling), not this faux mint whip. It felt like someone dipped a piece of Wonder Bread into Godiva Chocolate. To it's credit, dark chocolate is actually quite good which allowed me to eat it - grimacing all along in a state of taste confusion.

In summary, I think that the true 'bar' of chocolate mint to aspire to is still the York Peppermint Patty. Personally, I prefer the snack sized ones (in the bulk bags) as I feel the ratio of chocolate to peppermint is far better than the large one they sell individually. The commercials from the old days were right on, "When I bite into a york peppermint patty, I feel the sensation of...". It's visceral, has a good bite, and a good dark chocolate wavy coat.

Honk if you like mint chocolate!

Buffalo Chips

I'm always up for trying something new. While trolling for impulse buys in the super market, I recently discovered not just one, but two versions of Buffalo Wing and Blue Cheese chips: Doritos and Kettle Chips.

Doritos Collisions - Hot Wings / Blue Cheese
I really enjoyed these chips. The Doritos philosophy has always been about extreme flavor. They appeal to people who enjoy chips with as much flavor as possible. There are a couple different ways that foods can provide optimal enjoyment:

• There's the delicately balanced foods that are not too sweet , not too sour, not too spicy, etc... Examples include foods like mac n' cheese, sushi and french fries. These are foods that provide a balanced set of qualities.
• Then there's the extreme flavors that give you as much as you can handle. This could be spicy foods like lamb vindaloo, or sweet foods like rock candy. The philosophy here is that if people like a little, they'll love a lot. Doritos definitely fall into this category.
  

These particular Doritos took an interesting approach to the two flavors of Hot Wings and Blue Cheese. The bag was made up of 1/2 Hot Wings flavored chips and 1/2 Blue Cheese flavored chips. I found both flavors to be fairly accurate. While they definitely had the high-sodium punch of a Dorito, you could definitely taste the intended flavors in the chips. As a result, I polished a large bag off almost single-handedly in one day.

One more note about eating Doritos. While eating them one chip at a time will definitely provide you with plenty of flavor, there's a way to squeeze out a little extra. What I like to do is to take a new bag of Doritos and literally crush it into teeny pieces. You then 'drink' it from the bag, rather than eating it one chip at a time. Due to the amount of surface area of the crushed chips, you'll no doubt get an extra jolt of Dorito flavoring. In the case of the Hot Wing / Blue Cheese chips, this has the added advantage of mixing the two flavors together.

Kettle Chips - Buffalo Blue
I should start by saying that Kettle Chips make arguable the best pure potato chip around. Additionally, my favorite chip flavor of all time, Spicy Thai, is produced by Kettle. That being said, these chips don't stack up to the Doritos. It's definitely a good, potato chip, but if you're going to get Kettle brand, you should get the Spicy Thai or Salt and Vinegar.

It should be stated, while both of these chips make a good snack, they're definitely no substitute for real buffalo wings.


-He Said

Sweet 'n Starchy

It's 1998. My wife and I are hiking in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. I grab a handful from my trail mix. Along with the nuts, raisins, and occasional dried pineapple (yum) there's something else in there... what is it? It's slightly chewy, sweet, and starchy. After a quick review of the ingredients, this yummy thing turns out to be a date.

While the flavor of the date is great, it's the texture that makes it special. The starchy texture spreads out and sticks to your tongue as you enjoy the flavor of date's flesh. After a bit of exploration, I found a few other foods that were also sweet 'n starchy -- and similarly delicious.

Examples include:

• red bean paste - commonly used in Asian desserts and the sesame seed ball (below) you get at dim sum
• sticky rice with mango - a dessert you can get at Thai restaurants which includes sticky rice, coconut milk and mangoes
• this yummy green thing (below) I picked up from a Vietnamese sandwich shop in Boston

Greetings from the Bahamas!

Bahamas - full of turquoise water and all kinds of great fish for the eatin! As my husband and I have been in Little Exuma with friends for the past 6 days, we've eaten Mahi-Mahi, Red Snapper, and Fried Conch (twice). We spent some time in the boat "conching" (snorkeling for them - didn't find any to eat, just horse conch that is used for bait), here's a photo of a conch shell in case you can't place what one looks like. This one measures about 8" top to bottom.

While speeding along on the left hand side of the road passing through Georgetown, we stopped at the SPLASH bar at the Palm Bay Resort in order to partake of their Conch Burgers. The conch in the burger was lightly fried, has the consistency of calamari, with excellent flavor. Topped with tartar sauce, tomato and lettuce on a sesame seed bun, the sandwich was definitely worth the trip.

We also had stopped by Santana's, a roadside cafe along the water for a platter of fried conch, fresh beets, coleslaw and rice! You could either have the conch straight, or with the onion sauce on it. I tried some of each, and both were flavorful with their merits. The Bahamians are great and friendly people who know how to cook.

I spent my birthday here (Sunday 9/16) with some dear friends and amazing carrot cake baked by neighbor Trena, calming beaches, hot sun, rainbows, great food, and amazing thunderstorms. What more can a girl ask for? Off to enjoy the last 2 days... see you back in the states!

The Juice Standard

This is a short posting, mainly because of the audacity of a restaurant to serve this swill and charge real money for it. I ordered pineapple juice, and my husband got the grapefruit. When the drinks came, I was completely confused. Where's my pineapple juice? I grabbed the milky one, and it turned out to be grapefruit (which makes you do a spit-take when you expect pineapple). I sipped the cloudy apple juice colored one and low and behold, it was pineapple scented. It was as if someone had taken the juice out of the bottom of the old Dole can, filtered any bits out, and added 2/3rds water. So if you're ever in Littleton MA, don't order the pineapple juice at Ken's American Cafe.