Food Bloggers Come To Chicago

Katie and I had the great pleasure of meeting nearly 30 food bloggers from around the country on Friday.  They were in town for the BlogHer conference taking place at Navy Pier, and were nice enough to invite us to join them for dinner at Lao Sze Chuan in Chinatown.

At first, Katie was going to go solo, but I was able to get off work early and join her.  We were on schedule until traffic kept Katie from catching her train.  I jumped on the expressway and drove to the burbs to pick her up, and we quickly headed back up to the city.  Unfortunately we got there 45 minutes after everyone else, so we had to grab our own table and quickly order some food.  Several women were nice enough to come chat with us while we ate, including Alanna Kellogg, Claire Blaustein, Anne-Marie Nichols, and Katie Khoury.

I also got to meet a couple of other Chicago bloggers, Gemma Petrie who writes one of my favorite blogs, Pro Bono Baker, as well as Terry Boyd of Blue Kitchen.  They’ve mentioned getting other Chicago food bloggers together for another dinner, which would be pretty damn fun.

Hopefully, the food will be a little less spicy next time.  Katie’s Ma Po Tofu was so hot that it nearly brought her to tears.  I of course took this as a challenge, but even I had to admit that it was almost too spicy to enjoy.  I ordered, on a whim, the bok choy with black mushrooms.  Mine was much more edible, but I was full of bok choy in no time.  Eating some of the deep fried bread with cream sauce probably didn’t help matters.

What I found most interesting was the cross section of people that food blogging brings to the table.  These are people who not only love food, but have experienced so much that at times, we felt out of our element.  Here we were two kids from flat-lands Illinois, a modicum of life experience, talking to people who have seen the world, grown their own vegetables, even packed their own meats.  But, ultimately none of that mattered as we were welcomed in with open arms.

I want to thank Alanna for inviting us.  While we didn’t get a chance to talk one on one with everybody, it was still a great treat to be introduced to such interesting people.  I can’t wait to get some time (curse you work…and Harry Potter) to check out all their blogs.  And I hope you do the same.  I’ve included a list of everyone who came out Friday night.

You can check out photos of the evening, taken by the daughter of Susan Voisin, over at her Flickr page.

Lisa Anali
http://www.analisfirstamendment.blogspot.com/

Tanya Taylor
http://www.iateapie.net/

Joanna Miller
http://myvegetableblog.wordpress.com/

Katie Khoury
http://littlespatula.blogspot.com/

Gemma Petrie
http://www.probonobaker.com

Terry Boyd
http://bluekitchen.wordpress.com/

Jane Goldman
http://www.chow.com/

Elise Bauer
http://www.elise.com/recipes/

Nicole Hamaker
http://pinchmysalt.com/

Genie Gratto
http://inadvertentgardener.wordpress.com/

Kat Markert
http://kungfoodie.com/

Shuna Fish Lydon
http://eggbeater.typepad.com/

Claire Blaustein
http://cookthink.com/blog/

Lauren Perdue
http://austinist.com/

Tery Spataro and Aliza Sherman
http://dailyeats.com/

Janice McDermott
http://inquisitivepalate.com/

Susan Voisin
http://www.fatfreevegan.com/

Nupur Kittur
http://www.onehotstove.blogspot.com/

Anne-Marie Nichols
http://mamarant.blogs.com/mamacooks/

Kalyn Denny
http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/

Jasmine
http://cardamomaddict.blogspot.com/

Ruth Daniels
http://onceuponafeast.blogspot.com/

Alanna Kellogg
http://kitchen-parade.blogspot.com/

Béatrice Peltre
http://www.latartinegourmande.com

RA Sushi Bar Restaurant – Lombard, IL

We’re pretty understanding when it comes to visiting a new restaurant in their opening weeks. Kinks need to be worked out. Dishes need to be finalized. We get that. But this past weekend, we had what is now officially the winner of “Worst Dining Experience Ever.” I cannot, CANNOT, emphasize this enough.

Please, for the love of all that you hold dear, do NOT go to the Lombard, Illinois location of RA Sushi Bar And if you DO go, and your server’s name is AJ, just get up and leave. We’re saving you a headache that it’s not worth having.

Craving sushi for several days, we decided Sunday would be the perfect chance to give this new restaurant a try. We were on the road driving home from Rosemont after a weekend spent at the Flashback Weekend Horror Convention, when the hunger hit. The area surrounding Yorktown Mall is being remodeled with a “Streets of Yorkville” featuring a plethora of restaurants, which gives us plenty of new restaurants to try. We were excited. We were giddy. We were apparently delusional from hunger.

First walking into the restaurant, we were asked if we had a reservation. When we told her no, the hostess looked around as if wondering where she would be able to fit us in. The funny thing was, the restaurant was empty. Finally asking if we’d mind sitting at the sushi bar, we quickly agreed and took our seats.

A quick aside, I may be a vegetarian, but I love watching sushi chefs do their thing. A good sushi chef is like watching an artist with a brush.

We glanced through the menu briefly, oohing and aahing over the appetizer list, while I was disappointed in the poor vegetable maki selection. Three. There were only three. Cucumber, avocado, and vegetarian which was basically cucumber, avocado, asparagus and sprouts rolled into one.

Then the fun started. We were introduced to AJ.

A.J.: “Hi! I’m A.J. and I’ll be your server this evening.”

Us: “Hello”

A: “So, is this your first time eating sushi?”

U: “No, actually. We’re big fans.”

A: “Good, good. Well, since this is your first time eating sushi, I’m going to make sure it’s an enjoyable experience.”

Katie and I exchanged glances, wondering if she misheard us. So, after telling her we needed some time to look at the menu, she came back. We had already filled out the sushi menu, upon her return.

A: “Well, since this is your first time eating sushi, let me explain the seafood you see in front of you.”

Mike: “It’s not our first time eating sushi. And actually I’m a vegetarian, so I already know what I want.”

She turned to Katie at this point.

Katie: “I’m not sure if I’m in the mood for sushi.”

A: “What kind of fish is your favorite? I can point to some sushi that you would enjoy for your first experience.”

Now, we told her twice already that we weren’t new to the sushi experience. It was as if she was stuck on autopilot. She was waiting for a response to continue the next part of her script. And it became incredibly annoying.

K: “I’ve had sushi before, but I think I’m going for something else today.”

A: “Oh, okay. Well, I’ll be right back then.”

She comes back and looks over the sushi menu we’ve filled out. We make sure to point out the appetizers we’ve ordered (edamame and tofu dengaku), as well as Katie’s potsticker soup. She wandered off, but quickly came back out because she forgot what Katie ordered.

The meal was a nightmare. I received my entire order a good 10-15 minutes before Katie received her SOUP. And our appetizer didn’t show up until AFTER our main course. I wish I was kidding. I actually started laughing by this point, because I couldn’t believe all the problems we were having.

But, the even bigger question…how was the food? I’m glad the dengaku tofu came out last, because that was the only good part of our meal. Lightly fried in panko bread crumbs, and drizzled with a ginger sauce, it was the only flavorful part of the meal. The sushi seemed to be wrapped using regular grain white rice instead of sushi rice. My cucumber roll actually fell apart, the seaweed not properly wetted to keep it together. And the vegetarian roll, while pretty, was mostly tasteless.

Katie’s soup was even worse and has its own story. I had previous mentioned my vegetarianism to our server, yet she came out and asked if I’d like a bowl to share the CHICKEN and PORK soup. When the soup arrived in its bubbling cauldron, it looked like it could easily serve two people, until you counted what came with the pool of broth: 5 potstickers and 4 peapods, with a healthy dose of shredded carrot. Even worse, we had to perform kitchen 911 on it, as it apparently had no flavor. Mixing soy sauce, wasabi, and extra pickled ginger to make the soup edible, she was only able to eat the potstickers before throwing in the towel.

And her green tea? Cloudy and tasting like puffed wheat.

When we finally got the bill, after trying to guess where AJ disappeared to, I realized that only half our food was included on the bill. She had completely forgotten to include any of my sushi. I pointed this out to the sushi chef, and he laughed at it, calling over the other chefs to point at her mistake and join in the laughter.

I was set to leave a 20 dollar bill and walk out by this time. Katie calmed me down and we waited for AJ to return. Her response to the mistake: “I call that the AJ special! Only charging for half the food!”

We quickly, and quietly, paid our bill, vowing to tell every person we know about this atrocious experience. If it was just the food, I would have been willing to brush it all off as growing pains; but the fact our server obviously wasn’t actually listening to us, nor paying attention to her job, is what pissed me off.

And what makes me even sadder is that mallrats and middle America shoppers will probably think this is what sushi is supposed to taste like. Cream cheese is SUPPOSED to be in every other maki or sushi roll! Mango, too! Gah.

RA, you have taken the Oxford Street Café crown. Wear it in proudly.

She knows what sells

No one can say Giada doesn’t know what makes her so popular.  And Esquire is surely taking advantage.

Potato Bread, Day One

Unlike the pretzel bread, where I had a specific taste I was going for, the potato bread is more a mystery to me.  All I know is that I love using potato bread for sandwiches, and I can pretend it’s healthier than white bread.

But, the recipe I used today, while producing a decent tasting bread, just wasn’t what I was looking for.  The bread was so dense that it never actually rose.  Whether that’s from old yeast, or just not enough, I don’t know.  It could have been the 3/4 cup of butter.  It could have been the honey.  Whatever the case, I’m going to keep looking for a new recipe base to start out my second bread experiment.

On a side note, it’s a good looking, if only decent, loaf of bread.

Potato Bread

• 1 pkg active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 2 Tbsp Honey
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup warm milk or potato water
• 1 1/2 Tbsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup mashed potatoes
• 6+ cups bread flour.

Dissolve yeast and honey in the warm water.  Mix and let proof for 10 minutes.

Add the warm milk/potato water, butter, 1/2 cup sugar, salt and eggs to yeast mixture, stir to blend well.

Add mashed potatoes and stir well.

Add flour 1 cup at a time, stirring after each addition, to make a very stiff dough.

Turn onto floured board and knead 10-12 minutes, and shape into a ball.  Butter large mixing bowl and place dough in it, turning to coat sides with butter.  Cover and let rise  in warm place.

When doubled, turn out on floured board and punch down. Let rest 5 minutes, then knead for 4-5 minutes and let rest again.

Shape into two loaves and place in well-buttered bread pans.  Cover and let rise until double again.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and bake for 40-45 minutes.  Remove from pans and if tapping crust leaves a hollow sound, you’re done.  Return bread directly onto oven racks to brown the crust (feel free to use an egg wash).

Cool completely before slicing.

Thanks to Farm Fresh To You for providing the recipe this was adapted from.

Cheetos Crusted Potato Chips

This isn’t healthy. There’s no way around that fact. These are in fact the result of boredom gone untethered. This is what happens when a bored guy asks the question, “What would a potato chip covered in Cheetos taste like?”

The answer? Pretty tasty. I personally thought they could use a more pronounced Cheetos flavor.  Two of my old coworkers disagreed with me though.  They loved these so much that they kept all the chips that I delivered to the staff.

Cheetos Crusted Potato Chips 
2 medium baking potatos
1 9 ounce bag of Cheetos
Cooking spray

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees
2. Crush bag of Cheetos with rolling pin until you have as fine a dust as possible.  Place in a bowl.
3. Peel potato and slice medium thin (My mandolin has a one, two and three setting. Two worked best for me.)
4. Cover a cookie sheet or baking pan with foil and spray lightly with vegetable spray.
5. Lay potato chips on the foil.
6. Spray the tops with vegetable spray and dip into the Cheeto dust.  Make sure there’s enough spray on the chip to grab enough.
7.  Bake for 20 minutes.
8.  Take out of the oven, and flip over.  Spray the other side with vegetable spray and repeat the dipping process.
9. Bake for another 10 minutes.

If you want, you can also use olive or vegetable oil in place of the vegetable spray.  I just wanted something that wasn’t quite as fatty and greasy.  I figured eating potato chips COVERED IN CHEETOS was plenty fatty already.

You may have to keep watch on the chips as they bake.  Near the end, it’s easy for thin chips to become burnt, and let me tell you, burnt Cheetos do NOT taste good.  Trust me.  2 potatoes make a veritable ass load of chips, so make sure you have friends to share these with.  They only keep their crispiness for a day (2 if you’re lucky).

Pitchfork Music Festival in Food

I didn’t get a chance to take photos of all the food, but I did get the important stuff, namely a closeup of the ćevapčići.   What is ćevapčići?  According to Wikipedia…

Ćevapi or ćevapčići (diminutive) is a dish of grilled minced meat kebabs, found in the Balkans. They may be served on a plate or in a flatbread (lepinja or somun), often with chopped onions, sour cream, kajmak, cottage cheese, and so on.

On the grill, they looked like a sausage link sandwich.

They were one of the surprise (not really) hits of the festival, that also featured vegetarian curries, BBQ Tempeh wraps, and usual carnival fare like deep fried cheese curds, corn on the cob, and ribs.  Everyone had something.  Me?  I had my cheese fries with ketchup.

For a full account of my Saturday surrounded by music, food and hipsters, keep an eye out on my personal blog, where more photos will be uploaded to my other flickr account.

Signature Pretzel Bread

As promised, here is my recipe for the finished pretzel bread.  It’s seriously quite popular in my office, and that means I did something right.

Mike’s Signature Pretzel Bread - makes 2 small loaves

2 ¼ tsp yeast
1 cup water (110-120 degrees)
2 Tbsp room temperature milk
1 Tbsp dark brown sugar
3 Tbsp butter
1 tsp kosher salt
2 ½ – 3 cups bread flour

4 quarts water
½ cup baking soda

Kosher salt to taste
2 Tbsp melted butter

Add yeast, water, milk, brown sugar and butter into a large bowl, whisking until all ingredients are combined.  Let mixture rest for 10 minutes for yeast to activate.  Mix in kosher salt.  Start by adding two cups of the flour to the bowl, combining it with other ingredients.  Add more flour as it’s needed, reserving just a bit for coating the dough mat later.

The dough should form a slightly tacky, but firm ball.  Oil the bowl, place the dough ball in the bowl, and cover with a damp towel for 30 minutes.  After 30 minutes, knead the dough by hand or machine for at least 5-10 minutes until the dough is elastic and satiny.  Place dough back in the bowl and recover for 1 hour. 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and bring the 4 quarts of water to a boil.  When the water is boiling, slowly add the baking soda.

Remove the dough from the bowl and gently degas it.  Form two separate balls of dough, forming them into the shape you want.  Drop one of the smaller balls into the baking soda bath for no longer than 30 seconds, turning it once to guarantee both sides covered.  Drain the excess water from the dough and place it on an oiled baking sheet.  Repeat with second ball of dough.

Sprinkle the kosher salt over the bread to your specific tastes, and make sure to use a knife to cut a small incision on the top of the bread so the dough has somewhere to expand.

Cook the bread for 22 minutes, rotating the baking sheet once.

Once removed from the oven, immediately brush the melted butter over the loaves to guarantee a soft crust.

Pretzel Bread, Finally

After a week of recipe tinkering, and a grand total of 17 loaves of bread, I seem to have found the recipe that I was looking for when it comes to Pretzel Bread.  The secret?  Dark brown sugar and plenty of butter.  I’ve even gotten a couple orders from coworkers to make them some loaves.

There may be hope in my future as a baker yet.

Up next, potato bread.  I’m thinking maybe Potato Parmesan.

Photos and recipe will be up tomorrow.

Thank You, Come Again

In case some of you haven’t heard, there’s a small indie film coming out at the end of the month called The Simpsons Movie.  I don’t know if it has much of a fan base or not.  But, who’s to say what America will like.

I kid of course.  Everyone has to know that the movie based on America’s longest running prime-time cartoon is coming out in a mere few weeks.  And in conjunction with Fox, 7-11 is turning into the Kwik-E-Mart for the month of July.  You’ll be able to find Squishees, Buzz Cola, and all your other favorites in the aisles of your local 7-11.  12 stores are actually being redone completely to look like the cartoon landmark.

I hadn’t realized the transformation was already underway until I stopped in at MY local 7-11 this weekend.  Checking out the Slurpees as I’m wont to do, I discovered I was instead looking at a brand-spankin’ new Squishee machine.  Most of the flavors were the same, save for the Blue Woo-Hoo Vanilla, featuring everyone’s favorite Homer.  The taste wasn’t really my thing, as it was a little TOO heavy on the artificial vanilla flavor for me.

Also changed was the beverage machine, now a Buzz Cola machine.  I was disappointed, because Buzz Cola isn’t actually on tap, at least not at my store.  That seemed like a no brainer to me, but what do I know.  Upon a return visit I noticed they also changed the donut and hot dog signs.  The donut display had a warning to make sure you knew that a twizzler was NOT a sprinkle, along with several other friendly reminders.

My best find though was the box of Frosted KrustyOs and a six-pack of Buzz Cola.  I shouldn’t be shocked that they look just like their cartoon counterparts, but it’s still a little cool to see something I’ve seen on screen for nearly 2 decades sitting there on the shelf.  Needless to say I bought both of them.

I haven’t tried the cola yet, but I’m quite fond of the KrustyOs.  They’re exactly like Fruit Loops, except less sweet.  They’re a great snack.  I actually prefer them as a snack to a cereal, to be honest.

I’ll report back when I get to the cola, but I have to say, this has been some of my favorite marketing for a movie in a long, long time.

Working Towards A Dream – Part 1

I’m on vacation this week, which means I’m finally able to start working towards my goal of getting good enough at baking that I could one day make baking and pastry a viable career. I’m starting easy, or easier than others at least, in trying to make a good pretzel bread. Ever since eating those pretzel rolls (made by Labriola Baking Co) at Kuma’s Corner, I’ve been obsessed with trying to recreate that taste at my house. Pretzel bread has usurped potato bread as my current baked good.

My first few attempts were interesting to say the least. The first loaf tasted the most pretzel like (in my opinion), but I put on too heavy an egg glaze, and the crust ended up so hard that it was more like a regular loaf of bread than a Bavarian pretzel. It didn’t help that I didn’t put a glaze of butter on the final product either.

My second attempt was to make actual pretzels for a party. My goal was to make them whole wheat and vegan, since a good portion of the people at the party were vegan. The pretzels were a bit heavy, but decent. They weren’t what I was looking for.

So, I decided to do some research. I scoured the web for various pretzel bread and Bavarian pretzel recipes, hobbling together something that I thought I would like. I figured, each day I would try something a little different, because ultimately, experimentation is the best way to learn about cooking.

So, I started with the recipe offered over at the Fresh Loaf. He also covers the various ways that pretzels can be prepared. As he mentions, a true Bavarian pretzel is bathed in a lye solution before being baked. While that may be a traditional method, I don’t have access to lye, nor do I want to. I saw Fight Club. I know what would happen, especially with my penchant for accidentally spilling things. I decided to add some butter to my first batch, to see how the taste would differ.

Pretzel Bread (Adapted from The Fresh Loaf)

• 1 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1 cup warm milk (approximately 110 degrees)
• 1 tablespoon malt powder or brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 2-3 cups all-purpose unbleached or bread flour
• Pretzel or kosher salt

1. In a large bowl, mix the instant yeast with the warm milk.
2. Add all other ingredients, except the flour. Let rest for 10 minutes so the yeast can activate.
3. Add 2 cups of the flour and blend completely. Add the remaining cup of flower as needed until the dough is firm, and doesn’t stick to your hands.
4. Knead the dough for 2 minutes.
5. Cover the bowl with saran wrap, and let the dough rise for about an hour.
6. Preheat oven to 400.
7. Gently degas the dough.
   1. At this point, you can either form one giant loaf of bread, split it in half forming two smaller loaves.

At this point, the fun begins. I tried two different methods for the final preparation. One was simply brushing a beaten egg over the loaf, and the other was boiling it for 30 seconds in a baking soda solution.

Baking Soda Solution

• 2 quarts of water
• 1/2 cup baking soda

1. Bring water to a boil and add the baking soda.
2. Drop the loaf carefully into the water, letting it boil for no more than 30 seconds. Turn it once to make sure it’s completely submerged.
3. Using a slotted spoon or sieve drain the water off the dough and transfer it to a greased baking sheet.

Sprinkle the boiled, or egg brushed, bread with the salt and put into the oven. In my oven, the baking in either case took between 20 and 25 minutes. The longer the baking time, the darker the crust. Remove the bread from the oven, and move to a baking rack. Make sure to brush a coating of melted butter over the loaves to guarantee a soft crust. Otherwise, you’re going to get a very crusty bread.

Which bread tasted better? The egg crust was softer and more delicate, as was the bread itself, but I found myself preferring the boiled bread more. The crust was soft, but the bread was slightly chewier like a real pretzel.

Tomorrow, I plan on trying a different recipe, this time relying on a cup of water with 2 Tablespoons of milk added, as opposed to a cup of milk. I want to see what the main difference is. And hey, the more bread, the merrier.