The Food N00bs

Shake and Bake

A while back, Littlest got a yen to make a cake. He looked up a recipe online and made a pretty damn good cake from scratch, all by himself.

Today, I came home from work to find he'd made cinnamon cupcakes, also from scratch, with lemon frosting. (Not scratch.) They're goooood.

I may have a future pastry chef here.

(And the "shake" part in the title of this post? He took some of that leftover unflavored gelatin and made Knox Blocks with some pomegranate juice we had in the fridge. Yummmm.)

It's The Marshmallowest Time of the Year

by Sorcha

Recently in a chat, I was wishing for peppermint marshmallows to put into my hot cocoa. A friend found this recipe, and Littlest (only in the sense that he's the youngest, these days, because he's nearly as tall as I am) and I amassed our ingredients and set to work.

Well, more like I hit the grocery store on the way home from work one day and amassed the ingredients, including way more unflavored gelatin than I will ever use in my entire lifetime. I needed three packets, and the only box they had held 32. Apparently, they're expecting the Jellocalypse at Fred Meyer. Had I known that I needed a minyan to use all the gelatin I'd be forced to buy, I'd have gotten my posse together for Jello wrestling. Seriously, up until this point in my life (and I'm staring forty in the face), I have never once made anything with unflavored gelatin. That would be why I'm a food n00b, not a food hax0r. You knew what this was coming in, don't get all snotty now.

Anyway, I digress. Who knows, maybe having all that powdered animal protein taking up space in my cupboard will inspire me to get creative.

I hauled all the ingredients home and we set to work. Well, we started to set to work, until I realized that I would need a candy thermometer, which I did not have. I had a meat thermometer, an ear thermometer, and the old-fashioned under-the-tongue (till Mom leaves the room and you heat it on the lightbulb to convince her you need to stay home from school) kind. None of these go up to 240 degrees, of course, and it's not the sort of thing you can just guess at. Candy and baking, as far as I'm concerned, are two pursuits that require a certain amount of precision. (Along with tattoos, but that's for another time.)

So, without a candy thermometer, all we could do was stare sadly at the sugar and corn syrup as they taunted us from the counter, safe in the knowledge that they would not be cooked that night. The next day, I had to pick up my car from the body shop downtown, thanks to my job's overcrowded parking lot and the creative parking choices of those using it. Mister dropped me off and, as it was a couple of hours till the car would be ready, I hit Sur La Table for the thermometer. (Along with a free mini-latte, from someone demonstrating one of those fancy machines that are basically Cool Ways To Make Instant Coffee That Doesn't Suck.) Thermometer in hand, I trooped up Burnside and, after a brief internal debate over hitting either the Dollar Tree or Spartacus (link not safe for work, kids, or certain religious sects), was joyfully reunited with Peabody (my green Cube, first new car I've ever had and am paying for all by myself almost like a real damn grownup.)

Blah blah blah, this has nothing to do with making marshmallows, I know. So what all this means is that last night, Littlest and I were finally able to make our marshmallows. There was a brief moment of "not again" when I realized I had to sift powdered sugar and we do not own a sifter (n00b, remember), but a mesh teaball came to the rescue and worked just fine. This was without a doubt the messiest, stickiest, goopiest thing I've ever made, and it was a hell of a lot of fun. (It would probably have been less messy and more fun if I had an actual stand mixer instead of a little hand-held - 15 minutes of mixing gets boring, yo.) My kitchen looked like the set of a low-budget bukkake film (if you don't know what that is, look it up - on second thought, you probably don't wanna know), but the marshmallow goop seemed to be about the consistency it should be. Instead of just red food coloring folded in, we used red and blue both, because we're like that, and I added about a half tablespoon of vanilla extract in addition to the peppermint the recipe called for.

We dutifully let the marshmallow goo sit overnight - what we could get out of the bowl and off the spoon, anyway. Today, I had to hunt down the bag of powdered sugar, which Mister, the compulsive tidier, had put away. I attempted to follow the instructions for removal from the pan (slide a knife around the sides, tip over) but the marshmallow (at this point, it was still just the one big one) was having none of that. I ended up having to wrestle it out of the pan, which left me with a lump of marshmallow dough the side of a baby's head. Nothing to do but grab my knife and dive in.

The resulting marshmallows, far from being tidy little squares, looked like refugees from the Island of Misfit Candy. They were stickier and denser than I'd expected, though whether I screwed something up along the way or my expectations were off and the marshmallows were fine, I have no idea. The peppermint taste, which had been overly strong in the fluffy goo stage, had eased up somewhat. Still a big strong, but perfect for their intended use - making the Sorcha-family's hot chocolate minty fresh. I made me a cup and ohhhh, yeah, that shit was decadent. It actually left Littlest speechless, which, since he's my kid, doesn't happen very often. (That's a ferret on the side of the cup, by the way. I like ferrets.)

So, the result was pretty satisfactory. I'd suggest that if you're going to be eating these straight up, rather than putting them in something, you might want to cut the peppermint extract to 3/4 tbs or so, but they're perfect for hot beverages. I really want to do this again, with other flavors - but not until I get me a Kitchenaid stand mixer. Not only would it be easier, but I'm pretty sure that the hand mixer was traumatized beyond rescue by the thick marshmallow goo. RIP, little Betty.

Tis The Season

by Sorcha

One year, long before I'd begun my love affair with food (well, really, it's less like a love affair and more like one of those slightly sordid relationships where you get together sometimes to have really hot sex, and the rest of the time you act like there's nothing special going on), I tried to make eggnog from scratch. It came out tasting pretty good, but not quite as thick as I'd wanted. Mr. Sorcha, bless his heart, said, "Put it in the microwave, that'll thicken it!"

No. No, heart of my heart and light of my eyes, it won't.

Well, I suppose it might have, but as the result reeked of and tasted like rum-soaked scrambled eggs, I couldn't really drink enough of it to figure out if it was the desired thickness. He insisted it tasted fine to him, but we both knew better.

Oh, yes. We knew. And the angels wept.

Best. Day. Ever.

To celebrate our joint birthday - Kal's on November 9th, Sorcha's on November 20th - we decided to treat ourselves to something really nice. We hit Sel Gris for their late-night menu, as we'd heard really good things about the restaurant in general and its late-night menu in particular.

Oh. My. God.

The English language, while extremely capable of conveying what a wonderful experience we had, is not in any way able, in its coherent form, to explain the state of comatose foodjoy we entered into after our meal. Thus, while Kal, the smart one, will write about our meal, Sorcha, the evil one, will interpret it in  more apropos LOLcat speech.

The jewel of Sel Gris' late-night menu is the "Farm" burger: "Ground lamb, beef, foie gras, on house made brioche bun, with blue cheese, melted onions and duck fat fries."

DIS R FANCEE CHEEZBURGER. IT R NOT BURGER KING.

Although the N00bs usually take care to order two different dishes in order to sample as much as possible, we both opted for this dish.  We had a feeling it would be too good to share, and we were right.

DIS BURGER MINE NAO, U GO AWAY.

When our burgers arrived, my mind could not comprehend what it was I was looking at.  For a while, I thought I was looking at a double cheeseburger -- a patty of lamb and a patty of beef.  Further inspection proved, however, that there was but one patty (a combination of beef and lamb), and the other "patty" was in fact the largest unadulterated slab of foie gras I have seen in my entire life.

DIS BURGER HAF A FWAH. IT A BIG FWAH. DIS RESSERAWNT GENRUS WIF DEY FWAH.

Before I got my first bite in, Chef Mondok came to our end of the bar and asked, "How are those burgers?"  Sorcha replied promptly, "This burger is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

DIS BURGER GIFT FRUM BIG KITTEH IN SKY. BIG KITTEH MAKED IT AND SAW DAT IT WUZ GUD.

I was grateful to her for putting words to such an experience, because once I'd had a bite I was pretty much rendered speechless.  The thick-cut duck fat fries were a perfect accompaniment -- they weren't heavily seasoned, thus providing a nice counterpoint to the massive flavor of the burger.

DIS BURGER SO GUD U KITTENS WILL HEAR OF IT LEJEND. U EAT DIS BURGER. IF U NOT LIVE HEAR, U COMES AND EATS. N00BZ WILL EVEN GIVE U RIED FROM AYR PORT. THX TO DUK AND LAM AND KAO WHO DYE SO WE CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER.

Really, "transcendent" sums up the whole Sel Gris experience.  We were warmly greeted by the host, who immediately put us at ease with casual banter; we'd arrived about ten minutes too early for the late-night menu, so he checked to make sure it would be all right with the kitchen if we waited, then sat down to chat with us for a few minutes, curious to see how we'd heard about the late-night service.

WE CAN HAZ WAIT FOR FWAH BURGER, Y/N? Y! WE CAN HAZ FRENLEE SURVUSS AND CHAT WIF HOST ABAOT FUD BLOGGIN, Y/N? Y! DEY IZ NICE PEEPUL AT SELL GREE!

When our menus arrived, we mentioned that we'd likely be getting the burgers; when our server (not the same person) arrived just a couple of minutes later, he asked if we were going with the burgers. Communication between the staff was clearly as efficient and elegant as the motion of the servers gliding around the cramped dining area as if they had all the space in the world.

DIS PEEPUL IS SNEAKEE! DEY NO WHUT WE WANTS WIFOUT ASK! IS LIEK DEY REEDZ OUR MINDZ!

I've heard a little griping on the internet about the decor, and I can't for the life of me figure out what that's about.  The warm, casual/elegant atmosphere is strongly supported by the clever and unusual decor.  It may not be as "Portland" as other places, but it's self-assured and internally consistent, and it means more to me that a chef and his design team have clearly thought these things out than whether they have chosen to go with the regional norm.

WHY PEEPUL SAY IT NOT PRIDDY? IS PRIDDY! IS COMFY! WE CAN HAZ VIEW UV SHEFFS AT WURK! DIS MAEK US HAPPY!

Back to the food: for dessert, we shared a chocolate mousse with an orange sauce.  First, splitting the dessert was a good idea -- they are generous in their dessert portions.  Second, this dessert was absolutely sublime.  The balance of chocolate and orange was spot-on. I found myself closing my eyes every time I took a bite, just to savor it a little bit more.

OMG DIS DIZURT LIEK SEX ON PLATE ONLY WIFOUT AWKWURD SILENSE AFTERWURD AND IMPTEE PROMISSUS TO CALL U FOR NOTHER DATE.

As readers of this blog will know, the N00bs are pretty picky about their coffee.  Sel Gris serves a type we'd never heard of before (Courier Coffee), and it blew us away -- so much so that it was a pleasure to polish off a large French press pot at a very late hour that may bode poorly for our sleeping habits.  As with everything else, the coffee service was also rather transcendent: the cream and sugar was presented attractively, and the host even stopped by to pour Sorcha's second cup from the press for her.

CAWFEE R NUM. CREEM PICHUR LUK LIEK BIRD. IZ NOT BIRD - DO NOT EAT! IS STILL PRIDDY THO. PEEPUL CAYTER TO LAZYNESS OF GESTS.

Finally, we were presented with two delicate truffles topped with sel gris.  We'd never had salted chocolate before, and oh, my word.  I understand what the big deal is all about now.  The salt enhances the flavor of the chocolate -- much as we N00bs noticed years ago when eating potato chips with our M&Ms.  Absolutely brilliant.

WTF? WHY DERE SAWT ON DAT CHOKLIT? DUDE, WAIT...WHAT? IS GUD! NOM NOM NOM

All in all, this beautiful experience took just under an hour from walking in to walking out.  Service was astonishingly attentive and friendly, never crossing the line into hovering or precious.  We felt quite special -- as I'm sure every other diner did.  This is definitely a top-notch restaurant.  And I can now say I've had a $16 burger that was well worth it.

DIS A MONEY WELL SPENDED. WE GOES HEAR AGIN. U GOES HEAR TO. SRSLY, WE WILL PICKS U UP AT AYR PORT. JUS LET US NO.

Sel Gris
(503) 517-7770
1852 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland. OR 97214
Late-night menu 10:00pm - Close
Visit the Sel Gris website (although there's nothing much there at the moment).

We are stardust, we are golden...

Today the N00bs went to the Wordstock festival. As well as having lots of writer-geek fun and scoring both free and cheap books (three Palahniuk novels for a buck fifty each, and it benefited the Portland library!), we attended the "Art of Food Writing" panel, which featured Nicole Mones, Kathleen Flinn, and best of all, Michael Ruhlman. The panel was fun and informative, and afterward, we were fortunate enough to get books signed by Michael (Elements of Cooking in Kal's case, Reach of a Chef in Sorcha's) and have a moment to chat. Despite dealing with a brutal travel schedule, Michael was just as friendly and personable as his writing makes him seem, and his passion for his subject is just as infectious on a stage as it is on the page.  Food chat and cheap books -- it's been a good day for the N00bs.
 

In Which Sorcha Has a New Food Experience

So last Friday was free food day in the staff caf at the Big Blue Box*. The free food in question was Swedish-ish, of course, and as I was only working four hours and thus had but fifteen minutes for a break, I passed on most of it.

Except the caviar, which I pounced on like a pouncy thing because I'd never had it before.

Yes, I know. "What, you've never had caviar? Philistine." Shut up. "N00b" isn't just a funny name, you know. I suppose that, in the interests of full disclosure, I should admit that Littlest has had it already, sort of. His favorite sushi is the California rolls with orange roe on.

Anyway. I'm under no delusions that what they were giving us for free was the good stuff or anything. But still, I rather liked it. Salty and fishy. I didn't care for the stuff they had for us to put it on though. Some kind of really hard, thick cracker thing that I'm sure they sell a ton of in the Marketplace, but meh. It was like eating sheetrock.

But the caviar, that was pretty fine. I think I'll buy a jar of the good stuff - well, the medium-good stuff, as I am not a wealthy person - and fix it up proper.

*"Big Blue Box" moniker courtesy of the fabulous Mary Sue.

In Swedish, they call it "mus."

by Sorcha

Here's a hypothetical situation for you: you're sitting in one of your favorite restaurants, which is admittedly somewhat rundown. Something catches your eye, and you glance down to see a mouse run out from under the booth across the aisle, into the next booth. This happens a couple of times during dinner. What do you do?

If you're me, you squeak in delight, say, "Hello, little friend! Run! Run for freedom!" and say it's a shame that it didn't come out while you were actually eating. So you could, you know, share.

*headdesk* Yeah. I know. But it was a mouse, for heaven's sake, and it's not like it ran right out of my food. It was cute and I like rodents. If I'd been dining someplace ritzy, or it had been a cockroach, that would've been different.

He made one more appearance as the waitress was bringing our bill. I can only guess that this was some kind of mouse gang initiation and he was brave enough to make the cut.

And no, I'm not going to say which restaurant it was.

A Quick Link About Portland

Courtesy of the New York Times.

I'm half-proud and half-annoyed - stop telling people, yo! Real estate prices are high enough already. (Yeah, yeah, I know. "Insert X town here has much higher real estate prices, stop whining." But fuck that noise. I'll grumble about the real estate prices if I want. When we first moved here, I was stunned by how high prices were. The house we live in now would have cost half as much in my hometown. Granted, I wouldn't move back to my hometown if you paid me, but that's not the point.)

I'm thrilled that Carafe got a mention, though. I love that place.

Sorcha

The Other Side of the Coin

by Sorcha

(Note: Part of this post is gleaned from comments I made in August on Michael Ruhlman's blog. I'm into recycling, okay?)

A while back, I wrote up a rant about snobbery in the food enthusiast community. A few months down the road, I now find myself being annoyed by the exact opposite - people who screech "elitist" at anyone who thinks there's more to eating than just shutting your stomach up.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still just as anti-snob as the next n00b. But reverse snobbery isn't any better. It's just as smug and condescending, with an added tinge of self-righteousness implying that you, sir, are putting on airs and graces, and just who the fuck do you think you are, anyway?

It's really kind of a common theme in our culture, and not just in food. We just can't wait to take the piss out of the well-educated, the knowledgable, the good-looking, the well-dressed. Sometimes people deserve it, sure. You come swanning around me, thinking you're a better person than the rest of us for any reason that doesn't involve something like donating a kidney to a dying orphan? I'm probably going to smack you upside the head, at least in a verbal sense.

But sometimes, it's our own insecurities coming into play. Just because someone has five PhDs doesn't mean they're better than you, but it also doesn't automatically mean they're a stuck-up asshole who's secretly pondering the merits of sterilizing all people with an IQ of less than 180 so only the smart can breed. Yet all too often that's the kind of assumption we make, maybe without even realizing it. When we let those kinds of insecurities control us, I think, is when we get into that "who do you think you are?" mindset. We strike back at those we perceive as belittling our lives and our choices, whether they've actually done so or not. We become the very snob we're so angry about, or at least the equally-annoying opposite thereof.

In the time I've been hanging around over on Ruhlman's blog, being the jerkoff in the back of the room with nothing valuable to contribute but plenty to say anyway, I've become a lot more aware of this phenomenon. I think maybe that has to do with food itself. How we cook and eat is a huge part of who we are, and if people feel like that's being attacked, they get their backs up pretty fast.

Still, I don't understand how some people can think that if you like good food and you care about where it comes from and how it's made, it makes you some kind of ivory-tower prick. I mean, fuck, I'm a middle-class mom of hillbilly descent, sans college degree and currently unemployed. The paint on my teeny old house is peeling (Mr. Sorcha is painting it one wall at a time, but he's got, you know, a full-time job as well, so it's slow going.) My car is almost twenty years old, I like Family Guy and crappy action movies and yeah, my family eats at fast food joints and chain restaurants sometimes. But here's the thing. You don't have to be rich or even identify as a foodie to recognize poorly-created food - the best restaurant in my neighborhood, at least in my opinion, is a soul food joint up the street in a building that used to be a titty bar, and I'm pretty sure it'll never turn up in Gourmet magazine.

I still don't think it's elitist to look for quality in what you eat. Food isn't just fuel - it's family, it's laughter, it's nostalgia and comfort and love. It's important, dammit. It's the mac and cheese in the blue box that makes you happy when you've had a shitty day because it reminds you of childhood, and it's the moulard duck breast that makes you want to cry the first time you taste it because it's just that fucking good. Food nourishes not just your body, but your mind and your soul. It should matter. It does matter.

A Short Walk On a Long Beach

by Sorcha

This week, the Sorcha family has been relaxing on the Long Beach peninsula in Washington. Mr. Sorcha's folks live here and there were relatives visiting from Planet Kiwi, so we came up to join in the festivities. In between playing tag with the sea, having a staring contest with the bald eagle that hangs out on the beach near the house, and polishing off Chuck Palahniuk's new novel, I got the idea to post just a snippet about a couple of places here worth checking out if you're ever around.

Heading into Long Beach, there's Surfer Sands Sandwich Shoppe, on your left just before you enter the main drag. (It being a peninsula, you'd probably be coming from the south, unless you like, sailed across the bay from the mainland.) The sandwiches here are huge, fresh and tasty. My favorite is the Philly, though I get them to make it with provolone instead of American cheese. Not authentic, I know, but I'm picky.

Long Beach Coffee Roasters is a little way north of the Surfer Sands, in a little strip mall that also boasts a tattoo shop and a psychic. The coffee here is excellent and they do their roasting on the premises. At the end of the month, they clean out the roasting equipment, and the resulting hodgepodge of coffee beans cannot be sold. It will, however, occasionally be given to their regulars. My father-in-law, being one of those regulars, got me a bag of it. He calls it the Shivering Denizen blend, and it's actually, well, pretty good. Very, very strong, but good.

We never leave Long Beach without hitting the Cottage Bakery at least once. The pastries are enormous and delicious. My favorite is the devil dog. They also have deli sandwiches, which I haven't tried yet. The coffee's only middling, though - better to get your coffee at the Roasters first, then hit the bakery for your pastries.

The Castaway Seafood Grille has decent burgers, good clam chowder (according to Littlest) and phenomenal fries.

South of Long Beach, in Ilwaco on the waterfront, there's The Imperial Schooner. Teeny place, great food, and you can see some of my in-laws' paintings on the walls.

Not really food-related, but no visit to the Long Beach peninsula is complete without visits to Marsh's Free Museum (home of Jake the Alligator Man) and Jack's Country Store. (Their motto is, "Contrary to popular opinion, we do not carry everything." This is not entirely true, my friends - I'm pretty sure they actually do. Once, I needed an ethernet cable to hook into my in-laws' internet router. I asked one of the store employees if they carried them, and even as she was replying, "No, I think you'll have to go over to Fred Meyer's in Astoria," I spotted a single lonely, lovely blue cable in a bin behind her.) There's even a goat dairy where you can taste artisanal cheese - I haven't been yet, but it's next on my list.

The weather is cool here even in August, I've eaten well, and the ocean and I were glad to see each other again. It's been a lovely week.