October

Best Dishes or Meals of the month so far:

Bechamel - topped lasagna (my own kitchen)
Duck - the London Grill
Seafood Dinner - Taste of Jakarta (my first Indonesian food!!!)
Cabbage Chicken Salad - Bambuza
Bun Bo Hue - Chino Saigon


Best Birthday Gift:

iPhone - my favorite app is Kindle for iPhone. I've already read 3 books on my phone and am halfway through the 4th.


What should I post about next? I may need to bake something...

What to do

We are jaunting off to the White River Amphitheater to see Radiohead on Wednesday and then camping on the Puget Sound. Like many others this time of year, I am contemplating camping meals. I have a flat-iron steak in my freezer. Will we eat that? Or should I stick to hamburgers, sausages and BBQ chicken?

Confidential to Uncle Brian

Through a little Googling, I found this interesting tidbit:

From Freaky Trigger, a UK blog:

"Sweetbreads: culinary term for the pancreas or thymus. However a lot of people (myself included) still think sweetbreads are testicles...But the culinary term for testicles is sometime sweetmeats.

Wikibooks has the best definition I have ever seen: Sweetmeat is the culinary name for testicles. Despite the name, sweetmeat is not sweet and is usually not considered to be meat."

The moral of the story is sweetbreads = glands &
sweetmeats = testicles.

Country Cat Revisited

Bf had a burger-and-fries craving. I did some research on PortlandFood.org's Best Burgers Thread and found a couple mentions of the Country Cat's burger being a favorite, with a special note mentioning the exceptional fries. Another popular one was Pause, but we tried Pause once and really didn't like it and weren't quite ready to give it another shot.Country Cat was packed; we only saw one empty table and five empty seats at the counter overlooking the cooking line. I asked to sit at the counter. We always like to watch the cooks bust it out. Perusing the menu, bf latched onto the fried chicken option, tempted in no small way by the view we had of the two cast-iron skillets full of juicy boneless chicken bubbling away on the back burners. What happened to burgers-and-fries, you ask? He's easily swayed. He had passed the craving on to me, however, so we decided to get one order of the chicken and one burger and share. Looking at the menu again, guess what I saw? No fries! The burger came with onion rings. Oh well. I tried the rings last year and remembered loving them.

It was fun watching them put everything together. Bf noted “No salamander” so to melt the cheese for the burgers, they used a skillet. The cheese got all hot and melty and gloopy. Perfect. A small ciabatta (?) bun held the medium-rare burger, along with a smear of garlic mayonnaise and some kind of smoky red sauce and a little lettuce and red onion for crunch.

Yum, look at that. I wish I could eat it again now. The fried chicken was very yummy, too. I have publicly voiced my doubts about boneless fried chicken, but I was very, very wrong. The pieces are juicy and the absence of bone isn’t missed. Whatever coating they use is brilliantly crispy and flavorful. I noted that they twice-fried the chicken – maybe that’s what the secret is. I’ll have to try that at home someday. The chicken plate came with collards and a cream biscuit perched up on top. The usual drizzle of honey came on the side as requested. (It’s good we were sitting at the counter as the menu had no mention of honey. I would have freaked to get chicken with honey on top. Blechh, yucky.)

Quiche It Up!

My first "Mom" recipe I ever tried my hand at was her Italian Zucchini Quiche. It was for a high school French club gathering, and man, they ate it up. I have since figured out that quiche is simply an egg-and-cheese pie, and you can throw whatevah you have on hand in that bad boy. Last week, it was bacon and shallots - little twist on the traditional "Quiche Lorraine" but I used cheddar instead of swiss. I'm calling it Bacon-Shallot Quiche. Quite original, aren't I? Oh yeah, and I used store-bought pie crusts because....that's what I had in the freezer. I don't want to hear any lip because we all know I can bust out the Pâte Brisée with the best of 'em! My secret ingredient to any quiche is Dijon mustard spread onto the pre-baked crust. It really adds great flavor.

Bacon-Shallot Quiche

One pie crust at room temperature
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1/2 pound bacon, cut into 1 inch chunks
1 large shallot, diced
6 eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place pie crust into pie pan, pressing firmly on the bottom and sides. Form the edges into a raised crust - flute if you'd like. Place a square of parchment or waxed paper over the pie crust and fill with dried beans, rice or pie weights if you have them. Cover the edge with a pie ring or foil. (Also, DON'T use foil to line the pie crust with its weights. It tends to stick.) Slide the pie crust into the oven on the middle-lower rack and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Leave the oven at 425 degrees and set the pie crust somewhere so it can cool a bit. When it's cool, remove the parchement and weights. Spread Dijon over the cooled crust.

In a heavy-bottomed skillet, brown the bacon over medium heat until crispy. Drain fat off as needed. I find it gets crispier if you take out some of the extra fat. Scoop out bacon bits onto a paper towel on a plate.

Turn the heat down a tad. Add shallots to the pan with the bacon fat, stirring often to prevent burning. Cook for 5 minutes or so. Remove from pan into a bowl or plate (they can share with the bacon, if you want) so they cool off some.



In a medium mixing bowl, beat the eggs until thoroughly mixed, then add milk and whisk until combined. Add the cheese, bacon and shallots to egg mixture. Carefully pour egg mixture into prepared pie crust.


(The crust here is a little darker than I wanted because I *forgot* to cover the edge in the first baking. Do as I say, not as I do.)



Cover the edge with the pie ring or foil. Place in the 425 degree oven and bake for 20 minutes. Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick into the center. I usually have to bake it another 5 minutes or so, but ovens vary.

**Edit: My mom helpfully pointed out that I didn't include any seasonings. Well, duh, I did add a teaspoon of salt and a generous amount of pepper. I neglected to include that, so, sorry. ADD SALT AND PEPPER.

Heirloom Tomato and Bread Salad

I really was inspired by Molly at Orangette on this one. She mentioned, in passing, in one of her old, old posts (I'm going through the archives) from 2005, about a great summer pastime, eating tomato and bread salad. I have heard of such a thing, but never thought much about it. Shame, shame on me. It's so easy and delicious. Just do this:

cube some good bread (can be day-old or not)
toss bread in a bowl with olive oil and some halved garlic cloves
toast in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes on a sheet pan
dice heirloom tomatoes in large chunks and drizzle with olive oil and balsamic
mix croutons with tomatoes and season with salt & pepper
add some cheese (fresh mozz, shaved parm, whatever) and basil
*edited to add: let sit for 5 minutes
eat (Orangette says to eat aggressively)

If I knew how to get my pictures from my camera onto my computer, I would add a picture here.

Beer Potato Chips

They do have a hint of beer flavor, but basically it's kettle chips with a malty, sour aftertaste. Bf pointed out, "They probably taste more like beer if you're not drinking beer at the same time." Brilliant.

Beer Chips website

No Food, Bad Food, Food Porn

No new places to report on from the last week, although I'm heading to Tabla tonight. Every time I go (with the exception of the last time) I sing the praises of this simple Mediterranean bistro.

I did eat at Russell Street BBQ recently, though, but it wasn't that good. I'm not interested enough to post about it. Maybe later when I'm really bored.

Food porn. Photo courtesy of Alinea restaurant in Chicago, where I would really like to eat someday. This item is entitled "apple". The menu states it is served with horseradish and celery.

Strawberries and Star Wars

I'm late, I know. Everyone's been bragging about all the Oregon strawberries they've been scooping up from the markets. Well, today, friends, I got my hands on my share. A nice lady who lives in the Meriwether was going up to the Marquam Hill farmer's market (Tuesdays 3-7) and brought me back a basket! They are dark red, sweet and sun-warmed. Seascapes, they're called. Thank you, nice lady!

Listen up, hoteliers! Getting rid of concierge service at your properties is a bad, bad idea. The front desk, bellman and valets cannot provide the level of service concierge do. Neither can a virtual concierge website. A full-time concierge is necessary and valuable. The largest convention hotel in the state is discontinuing their concierge service after the current concierge retires at the end of the month. Good luck, hotel-that-shall-not-be-named.

Funniest thing I've seen today is Robot Chicken Star Wars. Thanks, G.C.! Second funniest is this guy in my building who walks his cat on a leash. But only when it's nice out.

Pok Pok Wins Restaurant of the Year

So...Pok Pok won the Restaurant of the Year for the Oregonian. Great. I'm very selfishly pissed because the damn waits were already too long! I know I'm not alone in thinking that if the masses hadn't already experienced Andy Ricker's genius, they didn't deserve to. I really wish it had gone to 23Hoyt as some foodies speculated. That would've been a very natural choice for the O: Bruce Carey, NW Portland, a phoenix-like rise from the ashes of Balvo... Pok Pok is Eastside, barely any reservations, no pad thai. Screw the pad thai, there's Hoi Thawt! It's complex but it works: mussels, scrambled eggs (kinda), broken crepe and bean sprouts with a side of Sriracha. I crave it only second to pho. Alas, I will have to start hittin' it right at 5:00 or get together a group of 5 or more and make a reservation in the new upstairs dining room.

Over at Portland Food, there's a great little thread about the Top 5 things one's eaten in a restaurant this year. Here's mine:

Pho Tai Chin - Pho Oregon
Duck Pate - Ten 01
Ramen with egg - Biwa
Hoi Thawt - Pok Pok
Brisket & Greens - Podnah's

Honorable Mentions:
Pork Belly Skewers - Biwa
Truffle Fries - Ten 01
Shrimp Po' Boy - Lagniappe