Nuggets of Wisdom

Chicken nuggets fly the coop in Banksy's 2008 installation The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill (via garidavies.me.uk)

I did a bad, bad thing tonight.

After work, I planned on making some deliciously healthy Barley Stew with Leeks, Mushrooms and Greens, and was feeling good about a week’s worth of fairly good-for-you eating. It all came crashing down, though, when I picked up Dr. J from his office. Having had a super long day after pulling an all-nighter for work, he requested that we go to McDonald’s for dinner.

I hesitated for a split second, then our car started barreling toward the Golden Arches.

Hell yeah! We hadn’t gotten fast food since our honeymoon in Montreal over the summer. (Long story short, we got dolled up to have a fancy, expensive dinner, but the restaurant closed due to a city-wide blackout and the only place open was “McDo,” as it’s known in French.)

Fifteen minutes later, we brought home our fast-food booty:a Big Mac meal for him, and a 10-piece McNugget meal for me.

I see that arched eyebrow and the judge-y look. Yes, I have seen “Supersize Me,” and I know some people believe Chicken McNuggets  are made of unidentifiable pink, chicken-y crap. But then again, there are some people also believe that wearing Forever Lazys in public is acceptable.

Nope, that's not strawberry soft-serve ice cream, friend. (via Gizmodo.com)

Supposedly, mechanically separated chicken is made from eyeballs, guts and other nasty bits soaked in ammonia, reflavored and dyed with artificial colors. (Not entirely true, by the way, according to Snopes.com, and anyway, I have it on good authority that McNuggets are made of chicken breast meat, not that pink crap, so that didn’t bother me in the least.)

But I ate my McNuggets with gusto anyway and was feeling pretty good–until I flipped the box over to check out the nutrition facts (BAD idea) and realized that I’d just consumed 29 grams of fat (44 percent of the recommended daily value)  and 1000 mg of sodium (42 percent of DV). Ouch.

I looked to blog therapy to relieve my McGuilt Trip, but as I scoured the web for the perfect photo with which to open this post, I came across a story that came out today about a UK teen who has eaten nothing but Chicken McNuggets for 15 (!!) years and passed out while working. She was rushed to the hospital because she had trouble breathing and was found to be critically vitamin deficient and anemic. And she also had inflamed veins in her tongue. Gross. And the sad part is, it really shows how sickly she  is. Imagine how much prettier she’d be if she’d eat a damn salad every now and then:

Put the nugget down and step away from the box, young lady! (via DailyMail.co.uk)

After reading her story, I didn’t feel quite as bad about 10 measly little nugs. Still. I think I’ll work out over the weekend anyway and make that barley soup to cleanse out the ol’ colon. Gotta atone for my sins somehow, I suppose.

Happy weekend to all, and to all a good night.

Mushroom Watch 2012: ‘Shroom to Grow

My beloved mushrooms meet their fate.

It seems like only yesterday that my shiitakes were but wee spores. I tended to them every day, carefully misting them three times a day and following every instruction in the handbook–even going so far as e-mailing the mushroom patch company to ask someone questions about the welfare of my little ones.

Then they started growing like gangbusters in girth and height virtually by the hour, reaching 1 inch in diameter, then 2, then 3. After they stayed at nearly 5 inches in diameter for a couple of days, though, I knew they were good and ready to be harvested.

I feel sort of silly even typing this, but I actually felt the slightest tinge of sadness when I cut the stems and chopped them up. I’d invested quite a bit of time and effort in my patch, and even though I only got two mushrooms out of it, they were the very first fungi I’d ever grown, on purpose anyway. A girl never forgets her first shrooms.

At first, I thought about just sauteeing them with a little butter and salt, but then I found this drool-worthy Epicurious recipe for Wild Mushroom Risotto.  Dee-licious.

So what now?  It looks like my patch is dormant at the moment, so no more updates for a while. Hopefully, the next time I get a flush of mushrooms, they’ll grow bigger and badder than the first ones.

Maybe I should get some advice from Ian Neale, a Welsh farmer whose vegetable-growing prowess caught the attention  of a certain hip hop star who also happens to be a fellow gardening enthusiast.

“Let’s smoke some swede, fo’ shizzle.”

In the News: Diabetes, Shmiabetes!

Paula Deen's sticky situation (via DiabetesMine.com)

Paula Deen. Love her or hate her, she seems to be on every food lover’s mind at the moment, thanks to her ill-advised decision to admit she’s had Type II diabetes for three years and that she’s now a spokesperson for controversial diabetes meds from Novo Nordisk. And days before her birthday, no less!

I’m really not a Deen fan at all–anyone who’s created a beef burger topped with bacon and a fried egg sandwiched between two doughnuts has got to be batshit crazy. But I thought of her diabetes debacle as I piled four huge Cadbury Dairy Milk bars into my shopping cart at the grocery store, with the intention of using them in yet another baking experiment, and wondered whether I was slowly killing myself and the people around me with my cooking and baking as well.

Type II diabetes runs in my family: my mom, grandma, uncle and aunt all have/had it, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up getting it, too. Sure, I try to sub out stevia for sugar in my coffee and I work out occasionally, but damn, I love me my sweets. In fact, I just annihilated four Dare Raspberry Whippets (the Canadian version of Mallomars, but with a raspberry jam center) while writing this post, and I don’t care who knows it!

I get that diabetes is a hard pill to swallow if you love to eat and prepare food as much as someone like Deen does. What I don’t get is her apparent lack of self-awareness. I wonder whether she thought twice before dumping a box of butter into a pie on her show,  or whether she even blinked while serving up her chocolate cheese fudge–complete with two sticks of butter and a half-pound of Velveeta cheese ::gag::

It would seem that as a celebrity figure that people look to for culinary guidance, Deen could have used her diagnosis more thoughtfully and promoted healthier eating without hawking a questionable medication. At first glance, it looks like she’s doing just that–her website now features a microsite with healthier versions of some of her recipes, although I think there’s just no saving the donut burger–but the microsite is brought to you by Novo Nordisk. For shame.

As home cooks, though, do we have the same responsibility to give our loved ones healthy food? Of course, to some degree, yes. But, as with most things in life, moderation is key–and exercise is a must. After all, the French eat croissants all the freaking time–so much so that a recent French “fat tax” got everyone’s culottes in a bunch when they thought the tax would jack up croissant prices–but they walk and bike everywhere, so there you go.

All right, I’m rambling now. I actually didn’t intend to write a full post tonight, actually, but, hey, y’all get a freebie tonight. What I really wanted to do was post a few of my favorite Deen memes. (More awesomeness here.) Good night, and good luck.

The Yecch Files (via Gothamist.com)

The Lady's rebuttal to everyone's bitching over diabetes (via MemeBase.com)

You otter know better, Paula. (via WarmingGlow.uproxx.com)

Letting it all hang out. (via ohinternet.com)

And, for good measure, the OG of diabetes himself, Wilford Brimley.

Hip hop and he don't stop (via HolyTaco.com)

In the News: Jay-Z’s Blueprint for Disaster?

Jay-Z's restaurant/club relaunch got everyone's attention--but not in a good way

It’s been a big year for Jay-Z so far, what with the much-publicized birth of his baby with Beyonce, a Billboard Chart hit, and the grand re-opening of his recently renovated 40/40 Club. Incidentally, the reopening of 40/40 also takes the cake for the biggest celebrity gross-out in the past couple of weeks, since the New York Department of Health shut it down just one day after the rapper held a star-studded, A-list relaunch party last week, with the likes of Russell Simmons, Spike Lee and (random!) Warren Buffett.

Jay-Z and Warren B. had to regulate. (via MadameNoire.com)

Apparently, Jay-Z had 69 problems, but irony ain’t one. After he lavished $10 million on a floor-to-ceiling renovation of his fancy lounge/eatery (loungery?), it appears there wasn’t enough in the budget to upgrade the kitchen’s walk-in fridge or train the staff on basic food safety, which resulted in 69 health code violations. Sixty-nine!! That’s probably the only context in which that number lacks any appeal whatsoever.

According to the New York Post, the violations included the following (hold your gag reflex until the end, please):

1) A worker was seen mixing salsa with bare hands.

2) There were five pounds of cooked mashed potatoes left out at 89 degrees Fahrenheit; while 10 pounds of cooked rice and 50 cooked turkey burgers were kept at 67 degrees. All hot foods must be stored at a minimum of 140 degrees.

3) Fifty pounds of raw chicken wings, 5 pounds of raw shrimp, and 100 raw turkey burgers were kept in a fridge at a lukewarm 60 degrees instead of 41 degrees. Would you like a side order of e. coli with that?

Jay-Z’s reps were quick to clean up the mess and pin blame on a malfunctioning refrigerator that just happened to go on the fritz when the health safety inspector dropped by for his spot check. The club reopened shortly after.

But even a blitz kitchen scrub-down wasn’t enough to make the club’s current “C” grade disappear immediately. The grade will be reconsidered at a city hearing next month.

That’s all well and good, but doesn’t change the fact that before the club closed for renovations last year, it had racked up 39 health code violations, including unsanitary conditions and improper food handling. A restaurant would need to “score” 28 points or more to qualify for the “C” grade, which is the lowest a restaurant can get before being declared a biohazard area. (Just kidding. Sort of.)

Salmonella rave party. You don't want an invitation, trust me.

The whole 40/40 story got me thinking back to a New York Times story I read last year about whether the average home cook’s kitchen would pass a health inspection.

I remember it freaked me out a bit, because there were a few things going on in my kitchen that would definitely raise red flags with a health inspector, like a cracked cutting board (I’ve since thrown it out), washing my hands in the kitchen sink (honestly, who has the time to run up to the bathroom several times after handling certain foods while cooking?) and having a damp kitchen towel hanging on my oven door handle.

The last thing any home cook wants is to sicken his or her dinner guests, and the possibility of unwittingly serving up a dish a la Typhoid Mary  is a constant fear. (That, and having one of my many long, black hairs fall into a lasagna or a cake, even though I always tie my hair up. ::shudder::)

Typhoid Mary had a little lamb...and accidentally killed a bunch of people after serving it. Sad face. (via WNYCRadiolab.tumblr.com)

I guess people will probably forget about the 40/40 snafu and Jay-Z will continue to make bank off it. But would you dare eat at a restaurant that has had such a bad health-inspection track record? Hindsight may be 20/20 for the HOVA and his kitchen crew,  but until the club consistently cleans up its act, I’m thinking the answer, for now, would be:

Gong Xi Fa Cai! Let’s Eat!

Let the festivities begin! (via SmashingTube.com)

There are lots of things to love about Chinese New Year, no matter what your cultural heritage is–firecrackers, dragon and lion dances, lively drums, gorgeous red paper lanterns lighting the night sky…and the FOOD. Oh, the food. It’s amazing that there aren’t more obese Asian people, given the way we gorge ourselves on special occasions and our zest for food in general.

Basically, Chinese New Year lasts 15 days, and kicks off with a New Year’s Eve reunion dinner (or, more precisely, feast), featuring some key foods, each of which have a symbolic significance. The feast usually includes whole fish, perhaps a steamed red snapper or rock fish with a soy, cilantro, ginger, sesame oil and green onion sauce, to signify prosperity and abundance; jiaozi dumplings filled with pork and green onions or leeks, which stand for wealth; spring rolls, which resemble gold bars and signify good fortune; oranges and/or tangerines to bring luck; nian gao, or Chinese New Year cake, made with sweetened glutinous rice; and some kind of noodle dish, which signifies longevity.

Trying to eat egg drop soup is SO much harder while wearing a fancy empress hat.

Since I’m only a half Chinese (and not a very good one at that), I didn’t really go all out and make a big meal over the weekend. Growing up, my family never really got into the full swing of things during CNY. Sure, we did the whole red packet exchange thing (we kids really enjoyed that), and there was the occasional ten-course dinner at a Chinese restaurant, but it was nothing big.

That didn’t stop me from cooking up Cantonese seafood chow mein, which happens to be one of my favorite Asian dishes of all time. Featuring a colorful mix of veggies and seafood in a brown gravy, all sitting atop a pile of crispy, golden pan-fried noodles, Cantonese seafood chow mein is, in my humble opinion, the perfect balance of textures and flavors. It’s also kind o f hard to find, especially among Americanized Chinese restaurants. Usually whenever I order it, it turns out to be a mess of greasy, thick noodles in a gross, flavorless sauce, topped with mystery meats and limp veggies.

My humble seafood chow mein

Usually, I’m a slave to cookbooks and recipes–I’m trying to remedy this in 2012–but when it comes to Asian foods, I take a more intuitive approach. Sure, I still use recipes as guidance from time to time, but usually I’m flying by the seat of my pants, paying little to no attention to measurements.

Still, for the purposes of this blog, I tried writing things down in a recipe of my own, so here goes. All of these ingredients can be found at any well-stocked Asian grocery:

Flaming Dragon Cantonese Seafood Chow Mein
serves 4

1/4 lb. medium fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/4 lb. medium fresh scallops
1/4 lb. frozen squid, defrosted, cleaned and cut into 2-inch pieces (you can find packages in the Asian frozen fish section that have already been cut and cleaned)
2 tbsp. plus one tsp. corn starch
1 tsp. fresh ginger, peeled and minced
2 tsp. fresh garlic, peeled and minced
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. white pepper
5 tbsp. canola oil
3 tbsp. oyster sauce
2 tbsp. cold water
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. sesame oil
One 16 oz. package of precooked Hong Kong-style pan-fried noodles (I like Twin Marquis brand, do NOT use that LaChoy crispy noodle crap)
1 medium carrot, peeled and sliced thinly and diagonally
4 oz. canned sliced water chestnuts
4 oz. canned sliced bamboo shoots
8 oz. canned baby corn
4 oz. canned peeled straw mushrooms
2 tbsp. dry white wine
1 c. low-sodium chicken broth
4 oz. fresh snow peas, strings removed
12 baby bok choy or 6 large bok choy, with bottoms trimmed and individual stalks separated

Directions:

1) Pat shrimp, scallop and squid dry with a paper towel, and toss with 1 tsp. cornstarch, 1/2 teaspoon salt, white pepper and minced ginger and garlic in medium bowl. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

2) Mix oyster sauce, 2 tbsp. cornstarch, water, sugar and sesame oil.

3) Preheat oven for 10 minutes at 300° F.

4) While oven is preheating, heat 2 tbsp. oil in a wok on high until hot. Reduce heat to medium. Gently lower noodles into the wok to avoid splashing hot oil and  cook until golden, using chopsticks or a fork to separate and flip noodles as they cook. If noodles are not browning and look a little dry, then  add 1 tbsp. vegetable oil. Remove noodles from heat and place in a heatproof platter, and keep warm in the oven.

5) While noodles are warming, heat 2 tbsp. oil in wok again on high until hot, then turn down to medium-high heat. Pour in scallops and shrimp and stir until halfway cooked, then stir in squid. Cook until shrimp are pink, scallops are firm and opaque, and squid are opaque and slightly curled, about 5-7 minutes. Remove wok from heat and pour seafood mixture in a medium heatproof bowl. Set aside.

6) Return wok to stove and heat up remaining 1 tbsp. oil on high heat until hot. Turn down heat to medium, then pour in carrot, water chestnuts, bamboo, baby corn, mushrooms, wine and remaining 1/2 tsp. kosher salt. Stir fry for 2 minutes.

7) Stir in chicken broth, and bring mixture to a boil.

8) Cook uncovered for 1 minute, then stir in snow peas and bok choy with the oyster sauce/cornstarch mix. Stir until thickened, then return shrimp, scallops and squid to the vegetable mixture. Season to taste with additional kosher salt and white pepper as needed.

9) Take out the noodles from the oven, then pour contents of entire wok over the noodles. Serve immediately.

This is my first attempt at an actual recipe of my own (thanks to Kate Leahy over at Modern Meal Maker for guidelines on how to write a recipe), so hopefully this works for you.

In the meantime, may you all live long and prosper in the year of the dragon, and that these noodles will give you a long and happy life.

Via Dailynews.co.uk

Let’s Go Shopping: Dressed to Press

After a long day at work, I went to blow off some steam at Sur la Table and indulge in a mini-shopping spree, courtesy of Dr. J, who gave me a store gift certificate for Christmas. I’m not a huge fan of shopping in the plaza where Sur la Table is located, only because the parking situation is pretty awful. In fact, my shopping trip got off to a potentially bad start, as some bat-out-of-hell crazy bitch brazenly stole a parking spot from me (even though I CLEARLY had my blinker on to indicate my intention to park there).

I found another spot after circling a few times, and was still pretty pissed about the whole encounter as I walked toward my shopping destination. Once I stepped through the double-doors, though, my agony quickly turned into ecstacy. I mean, how could you stay in a bad mood while entering a kitchen paradise like this?

Heaven isn't too far away...(Via NY.Racked.com)

I tried to contain my kid-in-a-candy-store excitement by casually wandering over to the pastry section, pretending to focus on a few things at a time even though my brain and eyes were darting all around, trying to process all the stuff that packed the store shelves. The store was my oyster, and I had a generous gift card with which to shuck it. What to buy, what to buy??

Soon, I was filling up my wire basket with a variety of items for consideration, being careful not to pick up kitchen tools that sound really cool but in reality would probably gather dust in my drawers, such as ravioli presses, cherry pitters, oyster knives and doughnut pans. Seriously, there seems to be a tool for everything.

As I narrowed down my selections–a French rolling pin, stainless steel pastry dough scraper, a double pastry cutter and some prep bowls–I noticed something interesting sitting nonchalantly on the floor:

An impressive duck press. The webbed feet are a nice, if not morbid, touch.

I  only recently learned about the duck press during a recent random conversation with my colleague Stu, so I instantly recognized it as something you don’t find every day in your average retail store. But then again, Sur la Table isn’t just any retail store, I suppose.

This odd-looking, medieval torture device-like tool is used to make, well, pressed duck, otherwise known as canard à la presse for all you people who speak Paris talk. Pressed duck is a classic French dish that was created in the 19th century by the famous Tour d’Argent, whose façade inspired  that of Gusteau’s, the fictional restaurant in the movie Ratatouille.

So how does it work? The short explanation is this: You strangle a duck to preserve its blood, roast it, cut up the choice parts, like the breast and the legs, then crush the rest of the carcass, bones and all, in the press to extract all the marrow and bloody juices to make the special sauce, usually made with port, Madeira or, for a gruesomely delicious twist, foie gras. Then you serve the duck with the sauce, which by all accounts is amazing.

The entire process is done tableside at first-rate restaurants to entertain dinner guests. Here’s a prime example of pressed duck service at Next Restaurant in Chicago:

Not that you’d be able to actually see all this anymore–the restaurant’s menu changes four times a year, usually inspired by a concept, such as “Paris 1906.” In fact, you’d be hard pressed (har har) to find one of these things at your average dining establishment.

Which is probably why Sur la Table can sell a duck press to you for the low, low price of $1,995. Believe it or not, that’s a pretty good price, considering the fact that an Ercuis duck press will cost you $14,335, while a Christofle one will run you $85,221. Yet more reasons why rich people are not like us.

I doubt I’ll ever get to taste pressed duck anytime soon, unless I get into the business of selling duck presses myself. I think the Swedish Chef’s version of “preeessed dook” is more my speed and budget.

Bork, bork, bork, everyone! (Translation: Have a great weekend!)

What’s the Deal with: Food Allergies?

It’s peanut butter cookie time!

My colleagues and I have a fun little arrangement: Whenever I get the urge to bake up a storm and test out new recipes, I  bring my creations to the office for a taste test–no matter how they turn out. It seems to work out pretty well. I get to indulge my passion for baking without ending up morbidly obese, while my co-workers get something sweet to eat. Everybody wins!

Except, of course, people who have food allergies. Luckily, no one I work with closely has any such allergies, but I’ve heard that some people who work in other parts of the office are sensitive to gluten, wheat and the like.

Which is why I hesitated when I decided to bake up a batch of peanut butter cookies, also from the Flour cookbook. You just never know. One minute you’re serving up delicious pastries, the next minute someone’s getting stabbed in the thigh with an EpiPen.

Mr. Peanut's gonna gitchoo. Via Good.is

Is it just me or does it seem like food allergies are worse now than ever? When I was a kid, I don’t remember not being able to bring peanut butter sandwiches to school, nor did I see any food labels that say “this product has been made in a facility that processes peanuts.”

According to the FDA, two percent of adults and five percent of children and infants have food allergies, and every year,  about 30,000 people go to the emergency room because of those allergies. About 150 actually die. Seems like a small number, but significant nontheless.

And a Mount Sinai School of Medicine study released in 2010 found that the number of children with peanut allergies have tripled since 1997 to 2008. No one seems to have a definitive answer as to why these allergies are on the rise, although one theory is that our germaphobic way of life has sissified our immune systems, making them super sensitive to otherwise harmless proteins floating around in our food and environment.

Another theory blames genetically modified foods as the root cause of food allergies (it’s from an organic consumer organization, so take it with a big grain of  salt), while another points to misdiagnosis as the main reason for the statistical jump.

The most recent study I found says that highly educated people are more likely to have children with peanut allergies, since, you know, we bookish, nerdy types are supposedly addicted to Purell and Wet Ones. (Not true, by the way. I think germs are a good thing and rarely use antibacterial anything unless I’m taking Megabus and can’t wash my hands with water and soap.)

The food allergy thing is getting so out of hand that it became fodder for my new favorite show, Portlandia:

Whatever the reason, our culture is being hyper-vigilant about allergies, which I suppose is a good thing if people can die because they smell peanuts or accidentally eat wheat. Could you imagine biting the dust because of a teeny shrimp? I feel bad for people who can’t eat certain things, especially for people who love food as much as I do.

I don’t know what I’d do if I could eat eat a lobster roll, an omelet, or a nice hunk of Époisses cheese. But until the day comes when a medical professional tells me I can’t eat peanut butter cookies, I’ll keep reaching for more. And even then there’s no guarantee I’ll listen to doctor’s orders.

Mad Jonesing: Bolivian Salteñas

¡Viva el salteñas de Bolivia

Moving to a new town doesn’t come without its initial annoyances, like finding a reputable dentist, a fabulous hair salon or a reliable auto shop that won’t rip you off on oil changes just because you have an extra X chromosome.

Today, I went in search of a good dry cleaner around my neighborhood, and found one that just happened to be two doors down from the Pan-American Bakery, an awesome little cafe that sells Bolivian salteñas, which are football-shaped empanada-style savory pastries. I had tried this place when Dr. J and I first moved into our house, which is just blocks away from Columbia Pike in Arlington.

For those who aren’t familiar with the area, Columbia Pike is also known as Arlington’s International Main Street because of its insanely diverse variety of grocery stores, restaurants and hole-in-the-wall joints.

When I say “insanely diverse,” I mean you’ll find restaurants and grocery stores spanning all ethnicities, including, but not limited to, the following: Thai, Japanese, Ethiopian, Bolivian, Mexican, Chinese, Turkish, Indian, Filipino. And, let’s face it, I also mean that the Pike (which Dr. J. and I have lovingly nicknamed “the Clizzle Pizzle”) may as well have its own entry on Stuff White People Like.

But I digress. Back to the humble salteña. After dropping off my dry cleaning, I practically skipped over to the Pan-American bakery and picked up three beef salteñas for dinner. I was amazed that there were any left, as these puppies tend to sell out fast. Not surprising.

Yum and a half. Via DCFoodies.com

The crusty, egg-washed pocket is slightly sweet, which contrasts nicely with the savory filling. The filling usually contains a slice of hardboiled egg, chunks of tender meat and potatoes, green peas, raisins and olives, all swimming in a delectable broth spiced with cayenne, cumin and black pepper, and, before you take a bite, you dip it in some hot green chile dipping sauce.

You’d think that the salteña was so named because it’s a salty pastry, but according to my research (as in, a quick Wikipedia search) it was named after its creator, a 19th-century woman named Juana Manuela Gorriti, who hailed from Salta in Argentina but was exiled to Bolivia for political reasons. She and her family came up with the recipe as a way to make money and survive. Interesting that some of the best kinds of foods–such as Chicago-style hot dogs, kebabs and barbecue–were created during hard times by people with scarce resources, but that’s fodder for a future blog post.

Mmmm. Just writing about it is making my mouth water, but dammit, we ate all the salteñas. Oh well. I’ll just grab some more when I pick up the dry cleaning tomorrow.

I freakin’ love my new dry cleaner already.

Bottoms Up: My Cup of Tea

The red tea with the funny name. Via RooibosHealthBenefits.com

You know what’s the best part about shopping at a discount retailer like TJ Maxx or Marshall’s? Browsing the food section. I swear it’s like perusing a food bank in New York City’s Upper East Side–you’ll usually find a random assortment of fancy condiments, spices, teas and other artisanal (read: expensive) goodies. Take, for example, my latest trip to Marshall’s near the Pentagon City Mall in Arlington. The food section was looking a little picked over, but I still managed to find:

1) Himalayan pink sea salt
2) agave nectar
3) pomegranate white balsamic vinegar
4) pimentón, or Spanish paprika
5) sweet potato butter
6) gianduia chocolate spread
7) and Spanish extra-virgin olive oil derived from “century-old olive trees.”

And the best part is, even the most cheap frugal shopper can take any of these splurge-worthy items home without feeling guilty about it.

Example: an $8 box of rooibos vanilla tea for about $4. I mentioned rooibos way back when I was recovering from my macaron-making mania, and it’s worth mentioning again because, well, it’s awesome.

Rooibos bushes. Gorgeous, ain't it? Via Dachateas.wordpress.com

Rooibos (pronounced roy-bus) is a tea derived from a red bush that’s native to South Africa, and I first heard about it a few years ago when my best friend, Annabelle, fell in love with it while visiting South Africa on business. She raved about it when she got home, but I never really got into it until I came up with the rooibos-white chocolate macaron this past Christmas.

By all accounts, it’s the perfect tea, with all the antioxidants and other health benefits of green tea, but without the caffeine or teeth-staining tannins. Plus, it tastes a lot like a creamy, vanilla-y black tea, so it’s perfect with a little milk and sugar after dinner, and it won’t keep you up at night if you’re as sensitive to caffeine after 5pm as I am.

I started out with Celestial Seasonings’ Madagascar Vanilla African Rooibos, but after that ran out, this  cute box of Kromland Farm tea caught my eye at Marshall’s. It’s actually from South Africa, so you know it’s good. And yes, it’s in fact pretty damned delicious.

Kromland Farms rooibos tea, via Popsop.com

So delicious, in fact, that rooibos just might be the next big yuppie food trend. A dubious title, to be sure, but hey, trendy or not, I can see myself keeping a stash of this stuff in my cupboard for years to come.

Have you tried rooibos tea? What did you think of it?

Kitchen Adventures: Give Pies a Chance

Two-Apple Pie

This morning, I was thinking about food–as usual–and a question came to mind: What was Martin Luther King Jr.’s favorite dish? Apparently, it was pecan pie. Oddly, I’d never thought to ask the question in years past, but other bloggers have, and paid tribute accordingly.

But no one has taken King’s appreciation for the pastry as far as Peace Through Pie, a Texas-based movement that wants to start a pie-sharing tradition on MLK Day to promote, well, peace and understanding. Now that’s a cause I can get behind.

I admit that I didn’t know that Martin Luther King Jr., pie and peace were somehow all connected when I decided to try baking a pie this weekend. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of pie-making, only because whenever I make a crust, it never turns out right–it’s usually mushy, and/or too dense. Whoever came up with the phrase “easy as pie” either lied or didn’t know how to make a proper pie.

Over the holidays, I picked up a copy of Flour: Spectacular Recipes From  Boston’s Flour Bakery + Cafe by acclaimed pastry chef Joanne Chang, whose bakery has reached legendary status among Bostonians. (Her sticky buns were catapulted into the national spotlight on Throwdown with Bobby Flay. Flay ultimately said that Flour’s sticky buns were the best thing he ever ate.)

While flipping through the pages before bed–yes, I read cookbooks in bed before I turn out the light–I saw a recipe for a Two-Apple Pie, and an accompanying photo of a delectable latticed pie, packed to the brim with apple slices. It was irresistible, and it had to be mine.

The recipe called for Granny Smith and Rome apples, thinly sliced and macerated in sugar, flour and cinnamon, as well as a  batch of pâte brisée. I soon discovered that the one thing I’ve been doing wrong in all my years of baking was not making this stuff before. What makes pâte brisée special is the French fraisage technique, which creates layers of flaky, buttery goodness within the dough. To achieve pie crust nirvana,  you have to smear the butter into the dough, like so:

Anyway, I won’t go into great detail about the recipe, as there were many steps involved. The whole process became a whole-day affair, because it required making and refrigerating the pâte brisée,  chilling and blind-baking the crust, macerating the apples, making the lattice, then cooking and cooling the whole pie.

Stick a fork in it--it's done.

But I’m happy to report that Chang didn’t let me down–her Two-Apple Pie recipe was a winner. One bite, and I knew: This was a pie I’m going to share with people for probably the rest of my life. Hands down, the best pie I’ve ever made! (Although, not the prettiest, I must say. Please forgive the slightly toasty crust and apples.)

So there you have it. My inadvertent contribution to the Peace Through Pies movement. Thanks to Martin Luther King Jr. for leading the fight for civil rights–and for inspiring more people to eat and share more pie.