Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Making You Drool

Since we haven't posted anything in a little while and I am no longer near enough to most of you to make you drool by personally preparing food for you, I thought I'd write a quick note about some things I've cooked recently.  I have had two very nice compliments from people in the know about food recently so that is the other impetus for this post (don't want to break my arm patting myself on the back so I figured I'd "big up m'self here).  One comment came from an editor at the SF Chron who is also a food reviewer and the other from a writer for our Food and Wine section.

Last week I made too much guacamole (like I do) for our neighbors when they came over for taco night.  I decided to bring the rest into the office so it wouldn't go bad.  The avocados here are amazing as you might expect.  I rarely get any unusable ones out of the 6-8 I buy at a time and they taste amazing.  Anyway, so I had the guac sitting out in the IT office when the food reviewer stopped by for assistance and jokingly said "my wait will cost you ONE CHIP!".  So he ate some guac and made a yummy noise and said "really nice flavor".  I was beaming.  I've gotten kudos before, but this was from a trained professional eater so it carried some weight with me.  I made sure he had all the guac he wanted while he waited.

We had other guests over for brunch this weekend and as I have been jonesing for some Eggs Benedict White Wolf, that is what I set out to make.  If you haven't had the pleasure and you're still in or near Orlando, FL, you should pay close attention.  This dish is similar to plain ol' Eggs Benedict in that it has poached eggs and hollandaise sauce on top of English muffins, but instead of plain ol' Canadian bacon (AKA "ham" if you live in Canada), it is made with filet Mignon.  It just occurred to me while typing this just how many words are capitalized when writing about food.  Maybe I'm wrong about all this capitalization.  Hmm... if only there were a champion for English who might be able to help me out!  That'll never happen, and I've digressed enough. Moving on. [Traci Edit - the "mignon" in filet mignon is not initial capped as mignon isn't a proper noun; it means "small".]

So I recreated the White Wolf Benedict recipe at home.  I made hollandaise sauce from scratch, broiled the petite filets (kinda missing my grill lately) to perfect medium-rare temperature, toasted some sour dough (natch) English muffins, and poached some eggs.  Our guests also brought some uncured pepper bacon to go along with the rest of the heart attack inducing ingredients, part of which I chopped up and sprinkled on top of the Benedict for flavor and effect (the effect was that it was .25% more delicious if you can imagine).  I also finally bought a food-specific thermos with a wide mouth for the occasion so I was able to store the sauce while I finished the rest (with ample assistance from Traci and our guests, thank you very much).  We also had mimosas which I feel no brunch is complete without.  The end result was a truly delicious brunch from which no one went home hungry (despite me forgetting to cook the hashbrowns - which is apparently not a real word)!

Yesterday, I was working on a user's computer in our Food and Wine group and there was a book on her desk about sauces which I asked about.  She hadn't read it yet and I told her I mentioned it because I'd just made hollandaise to which she replied "that's a hard sauce to make.  How did it turn out?".  I told her it was great and she reiterated how hard it is.  I told her I made it because we had guests for brunch and shared the menu with her to which she replied "that's a lot of brunch".  Heh heh.  Indeed.  I had taken a picture of the meal (like I do) and it was on my phone so I showed it to her:

"Perfectly Poached Egg"
Her immediate comment was "wow, that is a perfectly poached egg", and she writes about food for a living!  I was obviously overjoyed at these wonderful comments and thanked her.


Other food experiences lately have included some excellent Indian/Pakistani food from a place called Pakwan, a deconstructed BELT (bacon, egg, lettuce, and tomato) which was deconstructed by me at Traci's suggestion because the bread had become moldy, and "Cambodian" food.  I can't remember if I mentioned that last in a previous post, but it's kinda like Thai food and the word Cambodian was in quotes on the menu.  Also, they sold Gelato which was delicious.

I'll try to make you all drool again soon with more food porn stories and pics!

P.S. Traci and I visited a local restaurant for her birthday which had some really excellent food, but I'm going to let her tell you all about it in her next blog post.

6 comments:

  1. smell-a-vision,and taste-a-vision would be a nice touch to the blog.

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  2. I'll see what I can do about that. Great suggestions! :)

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  3. Awww, glad you are tooting your own horn-you deserve it. I miss your cooking! yum!

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  4. How can I type in some Homer slavering noises...? : ) Sounds like you're up to your old tricks homey, YUM! ...and how did the Cambodian gelato taste? ; )

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  5. The "Cambodian" gelato was delicious!

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