muy bueno burger

The kids always make fun of me that I think that I'm on the Food network and that I'm always plating my food for a show. Well, I don't know about that, but I do know that I like good food and I can't help but consider visual presentation. Here is my answer to a fabulous burger (the fast buster..eerrr or breaker). The patty has a inner layer of creamcheese mixed with sharp cheddar, topped with with sexy swiss cheese, a roasted yellow bell pepper, lettuce, cilantro and a homemade sundried tomato & basil remoulade.
it is, indeed, a muy bueno burger!

a crappy new idea for a restaurant

Toilet themed restaurants are not something new in Taiwan (I know you won't believe me); it has been around since 2004 with people dining in a toilet like environment (yes, it is unbelievable) and eating from a mini toilet bowl (ditto).

One would think, especially one with good taste, that this business idea won’t last long. But both you and I would be dead wrong. With the recent exposure by foreign press and bloggers, it seems that these eateries are becoming a bizarre-food icon from Taiwan… something like eating fugu in Japan and live octopus in Korea or spam with your eggs in Hawaii.

Just in case you didn't believe me, here some pictures from Modern Toilet, a food chain (yes a chain) that operates 12 toilet themed restaurants in Taiwan. Happy eating and....well you can guess what comes next.

Clark’s Christmas Noggin' Nog

This is a delicious Schaffer family Holiday tradition! You may want to double the recipe- this stuff goes fast! (Try using this eggnog to make wonderful French toast or add a dribble to your hot cocoa)
Ingredients:
(Almost) 1 Cup Agave (or 2 Cups sugar)
8 eggs
_ Tablespoon cinnamon
_ Tablespoon nutmeg
_ teaspoon ground cloves
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp rum extract
2 Cups whipping cream, whipped
3 cups milk
Whip sugar, eggs, and milk together on high for 15 minutes. Heat to 140 degrees on the stove. Cool and add spices, extracts and whipped cream. Beat until well blended and foamy. Serve immediately. (Can be enjoyed chilled or heated.)
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Eggnog literally means eggs inside a small cup. It is used as a toast to ones health. Nog is an old English dialect word (from East Anglia) of obscure origins that was used to describe a kind of strong beer (hence noggin). It is first recorded in the seventeenth century. Eggnog, however, is first mentioned in the early nineteenth century but seems to have been popular on both sides of the Atlantic at that time. An alternative British name was egg flip.
It all began in England, where eggnog was the trademark drink of the upper class. "You have to remember, the average Londoner rarely saw a glass of milk," says author/historian James Humes (July 1997, "To Humes It May Concern"), former speech writer and adviser to four presidents. "There was no refrigeration, and the farms belonged to the big estates. Those who could get milk and eggs to make eggnog mixed it with brandy or Madeira or even sherry." But it became most popular in America, where farms and dairy products were plentiful, as was rum. Rum came to these shores via the Triangular Trade from the Caribbean; thus it was far more affordable than the heavily taxed brandy or other European spirits that it replaced at our forefather's holiday revels."
An English creation, it descended from a hot British drink called posset, which consists of eggs, milk, and ale or wine. The recipe for eggnog (eggs beaten with sugar, milk or cream, and some kind of spirit) has traveled well, adapting to local tastes wherever it has landed. In the American South, bourbon replaced ale (though nog, the British slang for strong ale, stuck). Rich, strong eggnog — the richer and stronger, the better — is no stranger to holiday celebrations in New Orleans, and at this time of year the drink takes its place alongside syllabubs on the traditional southern table. (Syllabub is a less potent mixture than eggnog but just as rich. Made with milk, sugar and wine, it straddles the line between drink and liquid dessert.)
Eggnog goes by the name coquito in Puerto Rico, where, not surprisingly, rum is the liquor of choice (as it is these days for many eggnog lovers in the U.S.). There the drink has the added appeal of being made with fresh coconut juice or coconut milk. Mexican eggnog, known as rompope, was created in the convent of Santa Clara in the state of Puebla. The basic recipe is augmented with a heavy dose of Mexican cinnamon and rum or grain alcohol, and the resulting drink is sipped as a liqueur. In Peru, holidays are celebrated with a biblia con pisco, an eggnog made with the Peruvian pomace brandy called pisco.
The Germans make a eggnog or rather egg soup with beer (Biersuppe). Here in Iceland, we do have a soup here that resembles eggnog somewhat but there´s no alcohol in it. It is served hot as a dessert. Other than that, we have nothing that resembles eggnog and no eggnog traditions.

Yuca do it!

Yu can do it! (get it?...oh well) Venezuelan food is one way to celebrate "la Navidad". Pan de jamon, yuca (yucan do it....) and sancocho. The only thing missing here is the classic christmas dish, Llacas ....(because they're so time consuming to make!).

Tapa the mornin' to ya...a bday event!

I don't know what to say. We have such great friends and they all came together to celebrate jamie's 44th birthday this last friday night. Everyone was so kind in giving of their time in the preparation of these delicious tapas for the event. They also went around the table in the 'sable tradition' where we went around the table and everyone shared something nice about jamie. Jamie was really touched, even though he has a hard time accepting compliments...at least without defusing them with humor.

Endulge me for a moment. There's a lot of quirky history about the origin how tapas small plates came into being. Let me regale you with a few interesting tidbits about the evolution of its tradition...

First, how do you pronounce Tapas? When pronounced correctly, it sounds like [TAH-pahs]. If pronounced like a typical United States-er, like me, it might be heard as sounding like TAP-uhs... It's your choice!

Second, what is the definition of Tapas? Well, I browsed, and peeked and looked everywhere. This is the best tapas definition I could find.

Popular throughout Spain in bars and restaurants, tapas are appetizers that usually accompany SHERRY or other APÉRITIFS or COCKTAILS. They can also form an entire meal and can range from simple items such as olives or cubes of ham and cheese to more elaborate preparations like cold omelets, snails in a spicy sauce, stuffed peppers and miniature sandwiches.

Sounds absolutely like my kind of meal! I love anything "miniature". Including my food!

greg's kitchen-a review

Let me first begin by saying that Greg's Kitchen is certainly a worthy endeavor. This is the restaurant for young chefs in training and this place provides them with a venue to gain practical experience, usually to the enjoyment of those who come to eat. they are located at the McKay Events Center where the Culinary Arts students are hard at work all week to prepare meals for their customers on Friday nights. Make sure to reserve a table and come early.

Okay, on with the review. The first appetizer was a triangular dish with a lovely sauce, really quite a perfect balance between presentation and flavor. The appetizers included, Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce
(very good), Lettuce Wraps with Spicy Chicken Salad (okay, not so flavorful) and a Fried Spring Rolls with Sweet Chile Dipping Sauce (good). The Salad and soups came next. The Green Papaya Salad with Chopped Peanuts missed the mark with a lack of clarity in taste and consistency in the cuts made for a weak dish. The soups, Chicken and Coconut Milk Soup and Shrimp Soup with Lemon Grass were very good and perhaps by the book, but the intense flavors I generally associate with the coconut milk soup was lacking. The Thai Cucumber Salad was overtly sweet. For the entrees, the Green Curry Chicken with Thai Eggplant was good but the eggplant was incongruent and a 'bit weird'. The Pad Thai Rice Noodles with Shrimp and Chicken was good but not outstanding and the 'Pla Duk Tod Krob Phat' Fried Catfish in Garlic Sauce was quite nice, albeit a tad overcooked. But again, the sauces started out with a good base but then lacked follow through of flavor to give it some depth and the intensity usually experienced in Thai cooking. I this, most likely, can be chalked up to young culinary students following the recipes but lacking the integral understanding and importance of the underlying culinary statement behind each dish that craves to exert itself through the richness of exotic ingredients. I hope that these young cooks begin to understand that cooking is an art and requires them to constantly taste their food and trust their intuitive sense of taste. I got the feeling that they were 'flying blind' and didn't taste the food while they were preparing it. Often robotic impulses can overshadow appropriate culinary creativity within the bounds of a set recipe.

In fact these young culinary would be chefs, were more caught up in the presentation than the taste. This was especially true with the Mango and rice dessert. It was overcooked, starchy and the mangos were green (not sweet) and tasteless. The other desserts were much better. The problem was generally too much form and too little attention the the function; rich flavorful taste! I give the experience three out of five chopsticks.