Happy Moanday: Out and About

Phew! I am tiiired (again!). I had a busy busy weekend, which seems likely to be followed by a busy busy week. Dave and I went to my parents' house this weekend (Dave surprised me by coming a day early!), where we sampled local Northern New Jersey fare (Frank's pizza) and enjoyed my mom's cooking (surf n turf Friday, lobster linguine Saturday). We had a very lovely time, and I even took Dave to shoot my old bow (I am an erstwhile archery champ), where he only broke one arrow. On Sunday, we headed back into the city for the AIDS walk, stopping about half a mile before the finish line because we were passing by Shake Shack and we were hungry. We finally made it home, only to completely collapse in a post- Shake Shack/6.2 mile walk/good weekend exhaustion.

As for posts comin' up, I am still working on a schedule that will have me posting regularly. Weekends, which I typically spend on a bus and Internet-less, can be hard, and I'm envisioning planning several days ahead... I am very, very late in posting Steve's wonderful account of homebrewing, partially because I plan to put it up on a Sunday, when it's hard for me to get Internet, and partially because I'm still working on a nice new graphic to go along with it. This Sunday, I promise, Steve!

This week in food my grocery list might be conveniently short, as I'm planning on getting goodbye dinners with friends. Evie is off to wherever good little law students head off to for the summer, while my two lovely roommates are moving out for good (I hope the new roommates like cupcakes!). I'm off to Boston for the long weekend, where Dave and I are planning to start the first leg of our "So Long, Boston" tour. On the books: a Saturday night Sox game (with Nate!), a visit to Kimball's Farm (with ice cream!), and a trip to the aquarium (with...fish?). I'm also going to finally whip up some cupcakes, which I plan to enter into The Cupcake Project/Scoopalicious's Annual Ice Cream Cupcake Contest. Last weekend, I tested one potential idea. It did not go great and Dave ate the mistakes. But! This is why you test these things, right? I am still tweaking recipes and mixes, but I'm hopeful that it will turn out all right and my new lovely camera will do wonders to showcase the results.

For eating!:
It is still freezing like no one's busnatch here, meaning I want something hot and delicious. Maybe some soup? Paired with a sandwich? And/or salad?
Or I might go big or go home, whip up some Toniatti sauce, and do a meatball sub or lasagna (still have lots of leftover won-ton wrappers from ravioli-making). Mmmm...Toniatti sauce... Read more!

A Brief History Of: Uh Oh Spaghetti Os!

It's always nice when the food you eat inspires poetry:
Oh, dear humble SpaghettiO,
Your round delight, the straight-line's foe,
Your sauce, your cheese, your hearty glow,
The truth--it's true!--I love you so.*

Yes, the SpaghettiO, because who said spaghetti had to come in a straight line? I am usually wary of food that comes in a can, but I happily make an exception for SpaghettiOs, which are the reason I learned how to use the electric can opener when still in the second grade. Little round circles of pasta (three sizes!), suspended in a cheesy tomato sauce, always emerged hot and delicious from the microwave. I probably loved SpaghettiOs a little too early for a little too long (I don't have any in my pantry right now, but that's because the grocery was only selling Spiderman-shaped SpaghettiOs...), but for good reason! They are simple, delicious, and--years of Franco-American brainwashing tells me--healthy!

No, but really, let's take a walk down memory lane.

SpaghettiOs' origins, like those of all Great American Heros, are shrouded in mystery. Were they the 1884 creation of an Italian-American family named Kirby (suspicious: Kirby does not sound Italian) or a product of the 1960s, when Franco-American decided to release the ringed pasta? I don't know, and Google is presenting differing histories... (what are they trying to cover up???)

Here's what we do know: SpaghettiOs were first made under the auspices of Franco-American, bought by Campbell's in 1915. The little Os are a mixture of different pastas, anelli, anellini, and occhi di pernice if you believe Wikipedia, or, according to the Franco-American Kidz Fun Facts website, ditali, ditalini, tubetti, and tubetini. SpaghettiOs come in 4 different varieties: plain, meatballs, franks, and extra calcium (whatever that means), although--Fun Fact!--the meatball version actually has no meat in it, as anyone who has ever eaten the meatball version could tell you.

When they were released in 1965, they were branded as the solution to the perenial problem of cheerful babies dumping bowls of spaghetti on their heads. Franco-American said the little Os were easier and less messy to eat, and sold their point by advertising on napkins. But they really shot to popularity when teed idol Jimmie Rodgers (not this Jimmy Rodgers) recorded the now-famous "Uh Oh SpaghettiOs!" song. Dear reader, the lyrics:
The neat round spaghetti you eat with a spoon,
Uh Oh, spaghetti os.

Starting in 1980, SpaghettiOs teamed up with animation studios to feature cartoon-shaped pasta, including Garfield (who probably would have preferred being turned into lasagna), Gargoyles (who remembers them?), and Waldo (rebranded as WaldO, natch). Since then, I've seen just about every kiddie cartoon get the SpaghettiO treatment, something I'm not too happy about. Not only is it distressingly hard to discern the difference between Dora the Explorer and Ren & Stimpy SpaghettiOs, but there was always something off about the cross-hatched taste of those weird little shapes.

This is the part of the post where I usually write about a personal recipe I use incorporating the briefly-historicized food, but the only recipe I generally follow when making SpaghettiOs is open can, dump into bowl, add heat, enjoy. Luckily, thanks to the magic of the Internets, I discovered an article by Trent Sandusky called "X-TREME Spaghetti-Os: Enhance Your Canned Pasta (and Your Life!)". Trent, who writes "I started out small: green peppers, diced onions, chocolate chips. The chocolate chips were a bad idea, but progress never comes without a price," seems to be a chef/blogger after my own heart. Branding himself an Expert-O!, he presents 5 SpaghettiO-centered recipes with the kind of cheerful abandon for clashing tastes and affronted sensibilities that I strive for in my own recipes. I like the SpaghettiO pizza (although Trent appears to like it too much) and adapted the recipe for actual human consumption.

SPAGHETTIO PIZZA
INGREDIENTS
1 pizza crust, either fresh or frozen (be sure to defrost)
1 can plain or meatball SpaghettiOs
1 1/2 cup shredded mozzerella

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Spread unheated SpaghettiOs onto pizza crust
Sprinkle evenly with mozzerella
Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until mozzerella is completely melted

*Shocking that I don't get paid to write this blog, eh?
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Four Months and One Day!

I don't know how I missed this, but happy four months! Yes, I will almost need two hands to talk about how long I have been idling posting my thoughts about steak, cupcakes, and pasta (and not a single salad in the whole blog! Amazing!).

Let's recap:
This month was big for me, having finally worked out (some) of the many bugs that routinely plague the blog and posted the new layout. Luckily, Blogger hasn't yet quite exploded with the various little tweaks and features I've changed to the standard Blogger templates, but I guess the year is still young? Still working on a few things, and no doubt I will soon want to give the look another overhaul, but for now I am happily tossing away my CSS books.

The blog is getting onto a lovely little schedule now, and I've been dutifully planning out my week of posts. Some are limited by time/money/expense/people, but with some forethought, I should be able to show off some new fancy features. The plan is a new post every day, which may be somewhat difficult (I do have an actual paying job, people), but what's life without challenges?

I also finally got myself a new camera (yet to make its fancy-feature debut) and have a guest blogger lined up for the weekend! (PS If you're interested in taking a guest-blogging spin and/or writing a/some features, let me know! It has to be about food. Mostly.)

As for the months ahead:
Look for more updates on features!
I will be constructing a mini photo studio for prettier pictures!
More foodie cartoons!
Plus! a T-Shirt giveaway is in the works!

Here's hoping the next four months will have twice as many posts with half the bugs, and the cupcakes will outweigh the salads by 10 to one! Read more!

Sweet Potato Sweet Ravioli

I'm not sure where my love affair with sweet potatoes started. I like to think it was Thanksgiving last year, when my mom served us light, pulpy, syrupy potatoes, drenched in butter. Or maybe the first time I tried sweet potato fries and was blown away by how smooth and delicious they were. Or maybe even the time(s) I tried to make my own sweet potato fries and was shot down, which only added to the mystique of the humble yam.

In any case, I love a good sweet potato, whether fried, stewed, mashed, or eaten raw (ok, not raw. Even I have limits). So I was delighted when, months ago, I discovered a recipe (from Cooking Light) that combined my deep passion for pasta with my blossoming affinity for sweet potatoes. Like most recipes, it resided in the limbo of my Gmail account for a few solid weeks until, last night, I gave it a try. Hello, loveliness.


First, a word about homemade ravioli: it is so, so good and so, so easy. My mom somewhere found a recipe for homemade ravioli and made the mistake of making it for me one night. I was hooked. In a bad way. For at least two solid years whenever my mom asked me what I wanted to eat the answer was, again and again, "Homemade ravioli." And while it is very easy to make, it's not exactly conducive to family dinners, since you can really only make 3-4 raviolis at a time. My mom made them for me on special occassions, or when my dad and brother were out and she could sit me at the little island in our kitchen, dropping fresh ravioli straight from the pot onto my plate. I loved it.

The recipe, as I said, is simple: take wonton wrappers (found, usually, in the produce section of a grocery store); drop a mixture of egg, ricotta, Parmesan, basil, and oregano; brush edges with egg white; fold; cook in boiling water for two minutes. And that's it! There is a little bit of a learning curve--you should double up the wrappers the first few times, as it takes some practice to pull the raviolis out without breaking them--but mostly they are quick and easy, taking all of 10 minutes to make and 10 seconds to eat.

If you want something a bit more substantive, complex, and awe-inspiring, making your own pasta dough adds a lovely flavor. These can be tricky, as you have to be careful to evenly distribute the dough around the filling so that it's neither stretched too thin over the filling nor bunched too thick around the edges, but the pasta itself is just so delicious--fresh and filling. The wonton wrappers work great, too, and add a uniformity that's difficult to replicate if you don't make pasta dough often, but I always recommend trying it at least once.

The sweet potato raviolis were essentially the same as my mom's homemade versions, with some mashed potatoes and spices replacing the ricotta mix. The recipe also came with instructions for a lemon-sage-butter sauce, which was delicious if a little thin (I think I would try reducing it a little more, or maybe adding some olive oil for stability). All in all, though, it was a crowd-pleaser (1 is a crowd, right?) and a fine addition to my sweet potato/pasta repertoire.

The recipe calls for baking the potatoes for 40-50 minutes, something I would maybe have the time or patience for during the weekend, but not so much on a weeknight when I started cooking dinner less than half an hour before my regular bedtime. To bypass this, I microwaved the potatoes, wrapped in plastic, for 6 minutes, one at a time (to do multiple potatoes, microwave for 5 minutes per potato). Maybe not the best method if you were making something with a persnicketty recipe, but worked perfectly fine for me.

SWEET POTATO RAVIOLI
INGREDIENTS
2 sweet potatoes
2 tablespoons fresh grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
24 wonton wrappers
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS
Wash and thoroughly dry potatoes.
Wrap in plastic and microwave, one at a time, for about 6 minutes.
Let cool, then peel potatoes and mash.
Mix together mashed potatoes, cheese, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
Working with a couple wrappers at a time, scoop about 1 tablespoon potato mixture into center of each.
Lightly brush edges of dough with egg white - bring 2 opposite corners to center.
Press edges together to seal, forming a triangle.
Repeat procedure with remaining wonton wrappers, potato filling and egg white.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil - add a third of the ravioli and cook until done, about 2 minutes.
Carefully remove ravioli and keep warm - repeat procedure with remaining ravioli.
In a small skillet, add butter and melt over medium-high.
Add chopped sage to pan - cook until butter is lightly browned, about 1 to 3 minutes.
Stir in juice, salt and pepper.
Drizzle butter mixture over ravioli.
Garnish with sage sprigs, if desired.

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Happy Moanday: Chilly and Sleepy

Oh Monday. Oh Moanday. Today was one of those days where I woke up already tired and cold and hungry and wishing it were the afternoon or weekend. Part of that is because Mondays are always a little tough (my whole team at work gets progressively more cheerful as the week goes on, meaning although by Friday we are cracking jokes and sharing brownies, on Monday we are like individual little thunder clouds), and part of that is because I rolled into my apartment late last night after a 6-hour bus ride. It was too late and I was too tired to make any dinner (I ended up eating a two-inch block of cheddar cheese. I know...).

Other than that, though--things are great! I spent the weekend in Boston, eating too much and lazing around with Dave, which was nice. As usual, come Saturday night, when we'd planned on making cupcakes (by "we" I mean "me"), we were full and exhausted and decided to call it a night (I wanted to wake up early and make them Sunday, but Dave, my taste-tester, vetoed). Speaking of cupcakes, though, I did manage to visit the new cupcake shop in Harvard Square, which is exactly where a cupcake shop needs to be (overstressed students in need of a sugar binge? Please. People were freebasing frosting in there). Although I didn't get one, I was impressed with the sweet little dollops of frosting, the cheerful and minimalistic decor, and the vibrant reds of their red velvet cupcakes (Dave had to drag me out).

I also finally, finally! got myself a new camera, a purchase at least a year in the making. It is a terrific little Canon point-and-shoot and takes beeeautiful photos of food (I tested it out at the Indian place where we had lunch and was oohing and aahing over the bright, pure colors and perfect little details). I am hoping, finally, to be able to take pictures of my dinner where the meats don't look tired and sad. Oh dreams.

As for this week: it is figid and unpleasant in New York, where hot and humid rainy weather has been traded for clear and cold. I am shivering and wishing for something warm and lovely, which is making me think sweet potatoes. Although they are more appropros for fall, they are warm and comforting and I've been craving them for a week. I have an idea for a goat-cheese topped sweet potato fritter and also have a months-old recipe I've been wanting to try for homemade sweet potato ravioli (I may mix it up with some regular ravioli as well).

Plans are to head home to New Jersey this weekend, meaning I'll just need one more meal. I may unfreeze the tomato soup in my freezer, paired with my famous grilled cheese, or get something simple like panko-fried chicken or lime shrimp. We shall see...

Image of Sleepy Chilly Ice Bat, which I never heard of before until I Google Image searched "sleepy chilly"

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The Restaurantour: The Daily Catch

In Boston, there is a great, lovely aquarium right on the harbor. Inside, there is a penguin exhibit and a giant cylindrical tank where sharks and rays glide around and tiny little seahorses bob. There is almost always a line to get in, but even if you can't make it inside you can always walk by their outdoor exhibit of harbor seals, where you can watch them swim back and forth and learn all their names (I am particularly fond of Smoke). I don't go as often as I like, it being expensive and usually crowded on weekends, but a few years ago Dave, his sister, and I made the trip. We watched the penguins' feeding time and the shark's feeding time, learned about local shoreline birds, and held starfish in the touch tank. When we finally left and decided to get some dinner, we all sort of thought for a second where we should go before Dave said, "You know? I kind of have a craving for fish."

And as soon as he said it, we had to agree. Despite the bad lesson that we left with (fish are food, not friends?), I'm grateful for that excursion for introducing me to the best fish restaurant in the world--the absolutely incomparable Daily Catch.

I wish I could say I discovered the Daily Catch, but with many of my favorite Boston restaurants (oh how I still dream of Marche, Kebab n Kurry, and so many others...), I was tipped off by my brother, a Bostonian 7 years and running. I called and asked him for a good fish restaurant near the aquarium and he immediately had the answer. Just a few short blocks away, in Boston's famed North End, we found the tiny little restaurant, huddled between Italian sports bars and across the street from Mike's Pastries, one of the favorite places to pick up overpriced gelato and cannolis.

From outside, it doesn't look like much. Most of the tiny restaurant (I'd estimate it's maybe 15'-20' wide) is taken up by the stove, grill, and chef's area, giving you the feeling that you're sitting inside someone's kitchen. The fact that the restaurant is family run as well, with nieces and siblings stopping by to wait tables or just chat, only emphasizes this, as does the extremely limited seating (no reservations, and if you're seated at the window, you're likely to feel the hungry eyes of waiting diners on the sidewalk outside). The food, fish and seafood so fresh it was swimming in the harbor that morning, is absolutely fantastic. From your seat, you can watch the chef prepare your food and see the flames shoot up as it hits the grill.

No menus in this Sicilian restaurant. Instead, you order off a nearby chalkboard--not a problem as the place is so small it's always easy to read (also easy to read: the many, many reminders that the place only takes cash, no credit card. A nearby Bank of America ATM probably has a lot to thank them for). Most of the food is pan-fried or broiled and served directly in the pans in which they were cooked, meaning you don't lose a single bite of flavor or texture. My favorite is the pan-fried salmon, usually a special and not on the main menu, which comes drenched in butter and breadcrumbs. The best thing on the menu, however, and a unique dish to the restaurant, is their black pasta. Spaghetti pasta made with tinta de calamari comes out, yes, black. Although unusual-looking, it is perhaps the best pasta ever--high praise from a pastaphile like myself. The long, round, fat strands are silky and thick--you can literally taste the fresh flour and eggs and the homemade effort.

Although the Daily Catch is pricey (Appetizers: $3-$10 per person, Entres: $18-$23, with the show-stopping Lobster Fra Diavolo at $69 for two), it's worth every penny and could easily be worth more. If you want more of the standard amenities for your buck, the little North End eatery has a more upscale cousin on Boston's Harborwalk, where an expanded menu and wine list, as well as a larger setting (it also takes reservations) make a dressier setting.
Still, I am partial to the cramped and cozy space in the North End, where you can watch ancient Italian men debate the latest soccer match and chat with your chef about the best kinds of fish. Of course, if you really wanted to learn more about your dinner, the aquarium is still just minutes away.
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Counter Intelligence: Tea for Two

One of the things that makes me most feel like a grown up is my deep affinity for a nice cup of tea.

It started in college, when I would routinely work in my dorm's dining hall late at night. The very lovely Cabot Dining Hall staff members (who truly deserve a post all in their own), usually left out cookies, cakes, bagels, and toast for hungry students to munch on through the night (Brain Break! so good). Along with that, they'd usually keep the soda running and, if you had been around long enough, you knew how easy it was to turn on the hot coccoa machine and the juice fountain. They also, though, left out dozens of mugs and kept the coffee and hot water dispensers turned on.

I think I probably started drinking tea mostly because the water was very, very hot, and I was very, very cold, and when you're working your way through 300 pages of reading a night, sometimes you just need something to do, even if it's just routinely making undrunk cups of tea. But! Eventually I did start drinking them, and stumbled upon how truly lovely it is to sit with a cup of tea on a rainy day.

My various favorite blends and flavors have changed throughout the years. Like so many people, I was for a time lured by the rich, fragrant sweetness of chai tea (the very first time I ever had it was 2001, when my brother and I did our Christmas shopping at Borders. The sweet smell of chai tea wafted throughout the whole building, until finally we walked up the cafe area and said "We want two cups of whatever is making this place smell so amazing." Immediately sold.).

I do still hold a special fondness for chai--a box of the stuff is sitting in my cabinet now--but since then I've pared down my tastes. My favorite right now is basic black tea (generally Bigelow's English Teatime) with a tablespoon of honey and a splash of skim milk. I leave the tea bag in the cup to steep, so that it gets stronger and stronger. Even if I forget to drink all of it before it stays hot, the cold tea is strong and flavorful, crisp and refreshing.

While I drink tea every single morning (I am not a "coffee" person, but I do have a pretentious NPR-style disdain for coffee drinkers), I actually don't own anything to make tea for myself (aside from a big pot, but where's the charm in that?). No kettles, teapots, or strainers, and even the mugs at home are loners from my roommates. Not for lack of desire though, I love teapots (check out my little URL icon)--the cheerful colors, the bright little whistle, the endearing song (you know the one!). My dearth of mugs, though, just seems to indicate that I haven't had too many life experiences (it seems like they all come with mugs. Witness my parents' collection of more than 2 dozen of mugs from countless grateful students and corporate events).

Yes, I love tea and teapots and mugs and I would happily build my own lovely collection, but I am picky and discerning in my choices. For mugs, they have to be large, plain, not too heavy, and not have a cover. Ceramic, not plastic, and hopefully matching (I get that I'm crossing the line from cute to neurotic. I guess we all have our pitfalls?). I like teapots in either bright bold colors with a classic Mrs. Potts shape (did you ever wonder where Mr. Potts was and whether all the teacups were her kids or just Chip?) or the vintage wide-bottomed and flat copper kettles. Oh, or! The teapot in the background of the Flight of the Conchords openning montage (watch it here! Then watch "Carol Brown" and also, if you have time, the original live version of "The Humans are Dead." Ok. Back to teapots). It is an adorable squat little thing in a sunny yellow and if I stumbled upon it in a hipsterish street fair in Brooklyn I would love it with all my tea-filled heart.

But, since I'm still waiting for that special teapot to sweep me off my feet (I am leaning towards this one, but I don't know, something just doesn't seem right), here are some of the more beautiful tea-related things I've discovered. I fear that soon enough my online tea shopping will turn to musings on grills and ice cream makers, while I curse my apartment for its lack of air conditioning, but while New York stays dreary, rainy, and cold, I'll keep dreaming of tea time.

These are flowering tea blossoms, and they are impossibly lovely
Hand-sewn tea leaves expand and bloom when dropped into hot water
You can watch a beautiful, mesmerizing video of them here


The nice thing about the blooming tea blossoms is they're served in clear teapots
I would worry that these glass pots would get too hot, but they do look very pretty

Why yes, that is a teapot in the shape of a giant lime robot.
Notice the bolt of electricity which forms the handle?
Want.

Unsurprisingly, given my last post on crockery, Urban Outfitters has some sweet, simple mugs
These are technically capuccino mugs, but they are so bright, bold, and cheerful

A kama sutra teapot.
Works out kinda amazingly well, given the Twister-limbs

This is Crispus Attucks' teapot.
I saw it in real life a few years ago when I took a class on New England artifacts
My professor, who discovered the teapot and put it on the cover of her book, was like
"We just thought it looked cute, and then we actually realized what it was."
It is cute, and tiny.

It's a Wallace teapot! And he's holding a cuppa tea!
*Head splode with happiness*

More Urban mugs. They didn't have K. They never have K...

I'll leave you with a video of one of the best tea songs out there, sung by, natch, Julie Andrews.
When I was a little duckling dreaming of being Shirley Temple I used to tap dance to this (and sometimes still do!)

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