Thirsty? How about juice? Or some Gatorade? Water? No thanks, don't be silly, only Vitamin Water for me. Or wait! I know what I'm craving! Mmm, how about some Age Defying Skin Balance Water? That's right, Borba!
According to the website:
"BORBA Age Defying Skin Balance Water contains a revolutionary cultivated bio-vitamin complex...
It may be obvious to my regular readers (my mom, my girlfriend) that I’m a bit of a salad guy. I love salad. And one of my favorite ways to start my day is with a breakfast salad. Here’s how it goes:
· Wash a few handfuls of fresh mixed greens. I like having some bitter greens in there, such as radicchio or frisee.
· Make a sharp, acidic vinaigrette: Mix two parts olive oil to one part vinegar. Equal parts of champagne and red wine vinegar add pleasant aromatics to the vinegar component of the dressing. Drop in a few dashes of Old Bay or Tabasco if you like – not too much, just enough to taste the spice. Whisk or shake...
My wife was craving some KFC the other day (it's not Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore) and I didn't feel like cooking... well that, I was exhausted from work and I could walk there too were all factors that helped her cause. We got some combos with the requisite Mashed Potatoes 'N Gravy (which I call wallpaper paste), Cole Slaw (which I shamefully enjoy), and their biscuits (which have gone dreadfully downhill since my youth.)
What caught my eye was the packet titled "Colonel's Buttery Spread" which beyond its title bore only the following two tidbits of information: "Keep Refrigerated" and "Artificially Flavored." What is this magical spread? Was it outsourced to the Keebler Elves and made churning Yeti milk with a unicorn's horn?
I went online to take a peek at the KFC Nutrition Guide...
photo by Loren Tama
I’ve eaten Cobb salads for dinner, breakfast, and lunch, sometimes successively and usually in that order. I love the crunch, the tanginess, and the complements achieved by the right balance of acidic tomatoes, sweet and smoky bacon, and fragrant blue cheese. A properly-seasoned chicken breast can make the difference between a lame Cobb and a gourmet delight.
I’ve been known to praise restaurants that use a traditional Cobb dressing, complete with blue cheese, garlic, Worcestershire, and vinegar. At the same time, I’ve often lambasted a Cobb served with something as pedestrian as thousand island dressing: pounding my fist on the table, I lecture my fellow diners, reciting my familiar phrase “it’s not a Cobb without Cobb dressing!” As much as I’d like to say that the dressing makes the Cobb, however, the reality is that...
Two months ago, my girlfriend and I moved across an ocean. Our first big purchase, before the boxes of clothing and kitchen supplies even arrived at our new abode, was a Big Green Egg. The Egg has been faithful ever since*.
For those not familiar with the Big Green Egg (“BGE”), it is a barbecue and smoker with...
Although the end result will make you look like a culinary rockstar, this Fig and Gorgonzola Flatbread recipe is [albeit time consuming] relatively easy. The caramelize onions and the fresh figs add a sweet counterpoint to the funkiness of the Gorgonzola cheese. The colors are amazing too, violet, emerald, sky blue, all atop the toasted background of flatbread.
Give yourself two hours...
Ah, the Loco Moco. Take white rice, plop a fried hamburger patty on top (usually well-done), pour brown gravy over everything, and then top it all with a fried egg. What hungry beast designed this dish?
According to the Wiki, "James Kelly, a University of Hawaii-Hilo professor writes that the loco moco dish was created in 1949 by the Inouye family, who owned the Lincoln Grill in Hilo, Hawaii in 1949. A group of boys from the Lincoln Wreckers...
Caffeine has become so commonplace in our society that I'm starting to think it has become unavoidable. I'm a big-time coffee aficionado (RYO Coffee, Latte Art, (STARBUCKS)RED Whole Bean Coffee) but methinks sometimes marketing "gurus" take it a little too far.
Recently, I counted 14 different flavors of Monster Energy Drink at a Fry's electronic store in a cooler by the registers. Do any of them taste good? Unlikely. Maybe that's why they have to keep cranking out new ones, to keep the public guessing.
Here are some of the latest snacks that have been, shall I say tainted with caffeine:
Butterfinger Buzz...
... I've been away on business and haven't had any time to write.
This is a take on a traditional Caprese salad but with 4 different types of tomatoes and the addition of Lemon Cucumbers. Everything was given to us from our friend's garden (thank you Heather and Steve!), except the Mozzarella, thus the name Summer Garden Salad. If Lemon Cucumbers are not available...
OK OK, so Top Chef Masters ended last night and there's a lot of talk about "what should have" and "what could have." The finale was exciting and more importantly, it was mouth-watering. Hubert Keller and his Michelin star were delightful, Michael Chiarello and his panache were amazing - but personally, I think Rick Bayless was the most deserving, and will appreciate his title of Top Chef Master the most.
Rick was the most humble contestant, and I think he elevated the Mexican cuisine to a level that it isn't well known for, haute. If I were to go without Mexican food for too long, I may have to draw and quarter myself. Most recently...
This luscious martini was a spur of the moment inspiration donned at the farmers market. My friend Heather immediately thought of martinis after tasting samples of the Spicy Heirloom Tomato Juice from The Happy Girl Kitchen Co.
Unlike a Bloody Mary which is made from a puree, this is made from the juice of heirloom...
Roast Your Own! I've been reading much of the database of coffee knowledge accumulated at Sweet Maria's Roasting Supplies and came to the conclusion, "I can do that!" Sometimes these are famous last words, sometimes these are life-changing epiphanies. I hope that in this case they are the latter.
I picked up two pounds of "green" (unroasted) beans; one pound of the Guatemala Finca La Bella JBM (Jamaican Blue Mountain) Cultivar, and one pound of the India Robusta Jeelan Estate Nirali.
The first type was upon their recommendation for a novice roaster, the second...
What are these little green sprigs? Sea Beans? A Sea Bean is the salty, succulent plant called Salicornia that is also sometimes called glasswort, pickleweed, and marsh samphire (I grew up calling Carpobrotus edulis "Ice Plant" pickleweed, but then again, my parents are no Botanists.) True Sea Beans appear during the summer at farmer's markets and specialty food shops for a few weeks and they only last a few days once picked, so eat them as soon as you buy them.
Sea beans have great crunch that bursts a blast of brine when chewed. They taste just like a day at the beach - really, their resemblance to the sea is uncanny. Because they are so salty,
photo by Amy Koch
I was at a friend's house for dinner and we were planning to make some stuffed figs as an appetizer... but upon returning from the store we realized we had forgot to buy the figs. We looked around the kitchen to see what else we could use. There were some perfectly ripe peaches in my friend's fruit bowl which I thought would compliment the saltiness of the prosciutto perfectly...
