SnackHands

Carb-Loading for Marathon Watchers

2010-11-14T23:22:00.001-05:00

Nine times out of 10, when someone makes the crack, "Time to make the doughnuts," it gets a laugh. Okay, maybe a chuckle. At least a smirk. I'm not sure if that's because the mustachioed Dunkin' Donuts worker from the commercial was just that hilarious and beloved, or because the phrase is usually uttered when it's way too early to be doing whatever mundane task you're being forced to do. Last weekend, on the morning of the NYC marathon, I rolled out of bed at 7:30 a.m. and said "Time to make the doughnuts" out loud to no one in particular. I laughed a little bit, partly because of my nostalgia for a great mustache, and partly because I was 100 percent serious, which probably makes me a total dork. BUT, a dork who makes doughnuts is dork easily forgiven.

The NYC marathon is one of my favorite events of the year: The weather is usually the perfect fall mix of sunny yet crisp, the neighborhoods lining the marathon route are loaded with enthusiastic and creative fans, and the event gives me agreat excuse to invite friends to brunch!

Brunch usually starts out on the marathon sidelines with homemade scones (because cheerers need to carb-load too!). This year, it was bacon-maple scones that gave us the energy to cheer for roughly 90 minutes before we reached our mile 26 and had to walk to my place for mimosas and more brunch. Scrambled eggs are an easy post-marathon brunch food to whip up quickly, and they went well with the sausage inwine sauce recipe of my dad's. The highlight of the brunch, however, was the doughnuts. Homemade doughnuts! I made them!

This concept sort of blows my mind. Doughnuts are such a perfect food, it seems like they should always be created by someone else. Someone professional. Still, about 10 years back, I found this recipe for pumpkin doughnuts with powdered sugar glaze and spiced sugar doughnut holes, and it didn't seem all that complicated. And, frankly,it wasn't. I made the dough the night before the marathon and shaped them on the morning of. The only adjustment I made to the recipe was adding ginger and cinnamon to the powdered sugar glaze, and making my spiced sugar with cinnamon and ginger instead of cinnamon and nutmeg. I made sure to keep a close eye on the thermometer in the oil, too, as I was a bit paranoid about a hot oil mishap. But, overall, the recipe was a snap. A dangerous, dangerous snap. The finished doughnuts were delicious (and adorable). I suggest training like a marathon runner if you are going to have this recipe in your possession. (Training to be a marathon eater won't be a problem.)

Yes.Yes! YES!!!

2010-09-24T17:11:00.008-04:00

It's been a while, yes, and I will not do that thing your friends do where they tell you they've been sooooooo busy and that's why they haven't called/emailed/hung out, when all they've really been doing is upping their score on computer solitaire and watching bad TV while you've been working three jobs and putting yourself through grad school. I will, however, say hello (Hello!) and offer you a recipe that I think might be the greatest thing I've ever done. Notice I said the greatest thing I've ever done. Not baked, done. I'm serious; this probably trumps anything I've ever accomplished in school, at work, and in all those other places where one typically receives accolades. I give you...

Maple-Bacon Cupcakes with.... (wait for it)... Maple-Bourbon Frosting. Awwwwwww yeah.

I made these for a friend's going-away/birthday party last weekend, and, to give you an idea of the reception they got, please note that when I simply told the party what they were, a stranger hugged me. This cupcake has a perfect salty-sweet-alcohol balance, and is particularly interesting because you can taste the smokiness of the bacon throughout. Honestly, unless you add a hot tub and a pile of cash, I don't know how anything in life could be better than these.

Maple-Bacon Cupcakes with Maple-Bourbon Frosting

For the cupcakes:

1 pound bacon

2 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon sale

1 stick unsalted butter (minus about a half tablespoon), room temp.

1 tablespoon bacon grease (reserved from cooking bacon, cooled to harden)

1/2 cut light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/4 cup grade B maple syrup

1/2 cup buttermilk/sour milk (1/2 cup milk mixed with 1.5 tsp vinegar, let sit for 10 min)

2 teaspoons vanilla (honestly, I can't remember if I added this or not. Use your judgment.)

1. Cook the bacon. Save the drippings and allow them to cool in the fridge until they have a butter-like consistency. Mince cooled bacon to bacon-bit-size pieces. You should wind up with about a cup of chopped bacon.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

3. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. Set aside.

4. Beat the butter, bacon grease and sugar on medium speed in a large bowl until fluffy. Add eggs, syrup and (maybe?) vanilla.

5. Alternate mixing in the flour mixture with the buttermilk. Start with about a third of the flour, then a third of the buttermilk, etc.

6. Stir in about half of the bacon. (The other half will be sprinkled on top.)

7. Fill cupcake tins about 3/4 way full.

8. Cook for about 20 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Cool completely.

For the frosting:

1 stick butter (8 tablespoons, that is)

3 cups powdered sugar

about 1/2 cup grade b maple syrup

about 1/2 cup bourbon (I used Maker's Mark)

1. Beat butter in mixer fit with paddle attachment.

2. Add powdered sugar in a little at a time to incorporate. You may need to scrape the butter from the bowl every so often.

3. Add in 1/4 cup of maple syrup and 1/4 cup of bourbon (taste frequently to get the right balance of flavor -- you may choose to go more bourbon-heavy, or more syrup-heavy). Continue adding a combination of both until you reach desired consistency for spreading.

4. Frost cupcakes and sprinkle with remaining minced bacon.

Liquid Crack

2010-03-20T20:13:00.007-04:00

Dear, sweet, perfect dulce de leche, how I love you. You are silky and golden and simple and versatile and freaking delicious. I remember the night we met. I was being served dessert at an Argentinian restaurant in Soho, NYC, you were wrapped inside a crepe, waiting to ooze out and be devoured. And devoured you were. Decorum kept me from licking you off the plate right then and there, but I wanted to. Oh how I wanted to. I was in awe of you, dulce de leche. Lovedrunk. Smitten.

Since then, your name has shown up in many other desserts and in many recipes. Often times, the recipes call for "store bought" dulce de leche. But that seems so cheap and tawdry. You're better than that. You deserve to be cared for by me from beginning to end. And so, I scoured the internet for ways to bring you into my life once again. What I discovered was shocking. Who would have believed that such a beautiful and rich sweet young thing like yourself could be so easy??? Frankly, dulce de leche, I'm SHOCKED. But I still love you. And I always will. And once I give your recipe to the Internet, so will they.

And so, Internet, meet dulce de leche. Dulce de leche, meet Internet.

DULCE DE LECHE in your CROCKPOT- THE EASIEST AND MOST DELICIOUS RECIPE EVER:

Buy a can of sweetened condensed milk. (Stay away from Eagle, because I think that brand has a waxy inside of the can, which may melt.) Actually, buy TWO cans. Or three. Or twelve.
Take the label off the can(s).
Put a piece of tin foil on the bottom of your crock pot.
Put the can(s) on top of the tin foil.
Put enough water in the crock pot to cover the can(s) completely.
Turn your crock pot on low.
Leave it for 8 hours or so. (I accidentally let mine go for 11, and it was just fine!)
Turn crock pot off.
Leave the can(s) in the crock pot, with the water, for several more hours to cool.
Take can(s) out.
Open can.
Taste with spoon.
Try to not eat the whole thing in one sitting.

Dulce de leche can be used for tons of things. In addition to wrapping it up in a crepe, you could also drizzle it over ice cream, mix it into brownies, jazz up some frosting, or sandwich it between some alfajores (add some orange zest to the recipe, trust me), like these:

All I can say now is, you’re welcome. Or, I’m sorry.

Inner Soccer Mom

2010-02-15T17:03:00.004-05:00

Last week, NYC public schools had a snow day. Snackhands thought a great way to spend this unexpected free time would be to bake sugar cookies, an experiment I have put off for way too long. That's why it's nice to be a teacher -- you can bake ANYTHING, and you have willing taste-testers who will gush all over whatever you feed them. I love a good sugar cookie, but hadn't found the right time to test them out myself. The snow day was pretty close to Valentine's day, so voila! I used this recipe for the cookies (I did one and a half recipes and wound up with about a hundred cookies) and this one for the glaze. I decorated them with royal icing (recipe below). They turned out pretty awesome, and the girls were THRILLED.

Anyone who wants to hire me and my soccer mom abilities can email me at snackhands@nyc.rr.com. For an extra fee, you can tell the other soccer moms that, yes, you made and decorated the cookies yourself!

Royal Icing (great for decorating because it dries hard):

3 egg whites

1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

1 pound powdered sugar, sifted

Food coloring, optional

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until foamy. Gradually beat in sugar, then beat at high speed until very thick and glossy. (Beaters should leave sharpt, firm peaks.) Add food coloring to desired effect. Cover bowl with damp cloth to prevent "crusting."

*This recipe makes enough to decorate an 8, 9 or 10 inch cake. Or to decorate 100 cookies.

Mutiny in Heaven

2009-09-14T22:29:00.007-04:00

Right now, if I were to step out into the mean streets of NYC and be struck down by a wayward taxicab, I would die a happy woman. Because tonight, I met Nick Cave.

Without going into all the gushy background about how and why this is such a big deal, let me just say that Nick's music is gritty and scratchy and heavy and guttural and funny and picturesque and dark and and and. I heard it for the first time when I was 19, and while I don't think I quite got this at the time, it was like finding something I didn't know I was searching for. My friend M is the person responsible for playing it for me back then and, as a result, I credit him with 40-60 percent of my musical taste and development, and probably should thank him for a large majority of my personality and other sensibilities as well. Not to put too fine a point on it, but before I heard Nick Cave, I could have easily continued heading down a simple suburban road, happily tapping my foot to whatever Boyz to Men followups that came along. But after Nick Cave... there was a whole lot more to think about, look for and feel.

Enough gushing. Tonight, he was signing copies of his new novel. I was there. I stood in line. I stumbled over my semi-prepared "It's really incredible to meet you right now." He signed my book. He shook my hand twice. He was lovely.

This is my second in Nick Cave milestones within the last year. Some months ago, I also saw him in concert for the first time, and was giddy for weeks afterward. Around the same time, M and I (in another one of our Back-to-Nick obsessive phases) were having drinks in my kitchen. Whether it was a result of the music in the background or the alcohol in the foreground, we were struck with genius. Nick Cave drinks. Yes. Yes!

With the precision of junkyard chemists, we concocted the following drinks, and then, based on their flavor, color and general effect on our faculties, gave them names culled from favorite Nick Cave lyrics and song titles. Cheers.

The Fat Little Insect (a crowd favorite):

Pineapple juice

Apple juice

Gin

Crushed red pepper flakes

The Curse of Millhaven (sure, it's your basic Bloody Mary with a touch of Guinness, but our drink is way more fun to say):

Vodka

Hot Sauce

Tomato juice

Horseradish

Black pepper

Guinness

Pickle

The Mercy Seat:

Whiskey

Peach juice

The Stagger Lee:

Gin

Dry Vermouth

Olive juice

Black pepper

Hot sauce

Green olives

The Road of Hate (this one was created on a dare: "I dare you to make a drink using only items found on that countertop right now."):

Red wine

Whiskey

Pineapple juice

Crushed red pepper flakes

Someday, we will open a bar called The Well of Misery (another Nick song) and serve drinks with Nick-inspired names to the depraved and depressed. By day, it may turn into a slightly-more-cheerful bakery, because who could resist cracking a smirk for a Nick-song-inspired bachelor-party cake like this?

Interested investors can contact us here: snackhands@nyc.rr.com. To ensure that you're a serious supporter of our idea, and of Nick Cave, we will only accept offers from people who tell us how many U's are in the word "scum" when Nick sings it. That's right, we're talking to you, C.

**P.S. While these drinks don't have Nick Cave names, they were also created during our bartending experiment and are worth mentioning:

The Steadman:

Peach juice

Cranberry juice

Gin

The But He Loves Me:

Frozen Blackberries

Club soda

Whiskey

Splenda

(Blender)

The Gary Busey Mugshot:

Whiskey

Frozen mango

Disarono

Lime

Club soda

(Blender)

Review: "Reminds me of his acting career." --M.

The Foie Gras Wars: One Foie, One Against

2009-08-25T23:57:00.008-04:00

Snackhands recently turned the last page of this book. It was an intriguing nonfiction tale about how famed chef/restauranteur Charlie Trotter's decision to stop serving foie gras started a big hoo-ha in Chicago and other major food cities about the "to eat or not to eat" ethics surrounding this pricey delicacy. I have to admit I rolled my eyes when the author revealed himself as a vegetarian (writing a book about duck liver!), but he did manage to stay out of the fight himself and presented chefs, foie gras farms and animal-rights activists with equal time. Well, relatively equal; he actually seemed to spend more time with the pro-foie camp. And you can't blame him. Most of the crew crusading against foie gras came off like total nutjobs, and reading about them and their crazy exploits only made me want to eat foie gras even more. Along with duck breast atop creamy polenta. With a side of bacon. And a cheeseburger. And a steak.

You have to be a complete and total food nerd to read this book, and that I am. So much so that when I took quick trip to Chicago (during my Wisconsin stay) to see my good pal S (hereafter referred to as Chicago Meow on the Prowl, or CMoP), I was giddy to get the chance to visit lauded "encased meats emporium and sausage superstore" Hot Doug's, featured both in The Foie Gras Wars and on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations for the ridonkulous menu item: Foie Gras and Sauternes Duck Sausage with Truffle Aioli, Foie Gras Mousse and Sel Gris.

I drooled at the prospect. I double-checked the website for hours of operation and specials. I printed out maps. I timed my drive. I brought a book for my anticipated hour-long wait in line. And when I arrived at the corner of North California and Roscoe, I had butterflies in my stomach. I was pretty sure that not only was I about to fall in love with foie gras, but also with Hot Doug himself.

Alas, as in all good love stories, there came an evil twist in the plot:

(Gasp.) HEARTBREAK!

Sister Snackhands

2009-08-22T14:34:00.006-04:00

Date: Thursday, August 13th, 2009.

Event: Waterfest.

Main Attraction: Night Ranger.

(Also, bratwurst with ketchup.)

Review: Awesome. Bought the t-shirt.

One annual ritual during my summer travels to Wisconsin is attending at least one concert at Oshkosh's relatively new outdoor concert pavilion, built a few years ago to host concerts that became too much of an event to keep happening in the parking lot behind the library. In years past I've seen bands like The Tubes, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and... well, I can't remember who else. The bands, though the main attraction, are really not the point. The point is enjoying summertime in Wisconsin and getting my first brat of the season.

Mmmm, brats. (Rhymes with hot, not hat.) If you've never had one, well, I can't really help you. This delicious smokey sausage, best cooked in a pool of beer, outdoes any Italian sausage you could ever envision.

Now, Waterfest's brats are not the best on the planet. Or, probably, in the city of Oshkosh. Mostly, they've got minor brat flavor and a wimpy bun. You'd be much better off buying your brats from a troop of boy scouts selling them in any number of grocery store parking lots scattered across the state of Wisconsin. But when you are also getting a huge beer for six bucks and are surrounded by people who just don't care about what anyone thinks, truly relishing the music they loved in high school and that is still played on area radio stations, you'll take a sub-par brat and enjoy it like it is filet mignon stuffed with caviar. Especially when Night Ranger is playing "When You Close Your Eyes" and "Sister Christian." Go ahead, swallow that last bite of brat, take a swig of beer and sing along. Don't fight it.

Oh, Oshkosh. You hotbed of summertime entertainment. Of cheap beer and brats. Of steamy Thursday nights by the water. You perfect venue for bands whose prime was 20 years ago but who still rock out. You great collection of men in jean shorts and Harley-Davidson t-shirts. Of women with frosted lipstick and high alcohol tolerance. Snackhands loves you. See you next summer.

CakeHands

2009-08-07T23:33:00.009-04:00

This week, SnackHands and Mother of SnackHands have been experimenting with fondant. We made our own using marshmallows, water and powdered sugar, and have been pretty excited with our results. Our first attempt resulted in this cake, which served a dual purpose as our entry in the Threadcakes cake contest (see our full entry here) and as a dessert for a Shakespeare Murder Mystery party:

This cake was all it took for us to become completely obsessed with fondant. Luckily, we didn't have long to wait for our second cake-decorating opportunity to arise. Today was my niece's 11th birthday (Happy Birthday, E!!!). Having learned some things from our first round of working with fondant, this one was a little bit more fun/less stressful to assemble. Here's how it turned out:

I am having so much fun playing around with fondant that if my friends, coworkers, relatives and acquaintances aren't careful, every minor event is going to be an excuse for me to present them with a cake. Got your driver's license renewed? Congratulations! Have a cake. Had to pay $3.75 in library fines? Awww, sounds like you could use a cake. New shoes? Here's a cake to match! Tuesday? Cakeday! You get the general idea.

So. You. Be prepared to eat a lot of cake. (At least until my next culinary obsession takes over.)

BeerHands

2009-07-31T00:54:00.006-04:00

In a very fitting first-night-back in Wisconsin, I visited a bar/restaurant near my parents' house with my eldest brother, and we partook in a "tasting flight" of the house brews. Obviously, we had many thoughts and ideas about the flavors before us and, after much discussion, came up with a rough rating/review scale. Ten mini-beers later, here's what we had to say about the beer on tap at Stone Cellar Brewpub:

Adler Brau Ale:

SH: Daytime drinking OR when you're in it for the long haul.

D (my bro): Agree. Needed for hot summer.

Houdini Honey Wheat:

D: Better than I thought. Soft wheat.

SH: I didn't think I liked wheat beer... and I was right!

Marquette Pilsner:

SOLD OUT!

English Six Grain Ale:

D: Brats/Balanced. Weathers the storm.

SH: Started out smooth, then got bitter -- just like a bad marriage.

Pie Eyed India Pale Ale:

D: Fall, Football, Cigars

SH: Just plain bitter.

Tilted Kilt Scottish Ale:

D: Whistling Straits - Burger & Chips Bar.

SH: This one would be good for watching a band at the 400 Bar in Minneapolis. I can't explain why.

Stone Cellar Stout:

D: Solid Stout. Not a fave, but OK.

SH: Tastes exactly like the Vanishing Vanilla Stout, but without the vanilla scent.

Vanishing Vanilla Stout:

D: No sweets in beer!

SH: More vanilla! Make it count! Not as good (nearly) as Young's Double Chocolate Stout.

Brown Ale:

SH: Fall! Football! Go Pack!

D: Solid Brown Ale. Agree, Packers game.

Smoked Porter:

D: Badness.

SH: I would use this to clean fish, as an alternative to Nicotine gum if I was trying to quit smoking, or to get an enemy to leave my party.

Stone Cellar Root Beer:

SH: Delightful! I want to have kids over for Root Beer Floats! Yay summer!

D: Refreshing, light, sweet.

Finally, if we were having a party with only three taps, here are our choice beers:

D's Party gets:

1-Adler Brau Ale

2-English Six Grain Ale

3-Tilted Kilt Scottish Ale

SH's Party gets:

1-Brown Ale

2-Adler Brau Ale

3-Tilted Kilt Scottish Ale

We are considering offering our beer review services to other Wisconsin establishments. If interested, you can contact us right here at SnackHands World Headquarters by emailing snackhands@nyc.rr.com. Be sure to get in touch quickly -- before we become too busy and important.

Restaurant Week, Part 2 (Sort Of)

2009-07-27T23:53:00.007-04:00

I had high hopes for the second week of Restaurant... Week. (Officially, the "week" is actually two... in some cases, the special menus continue through the end of summer.) On my list were Morimoto (check!), Blue Smoke (schedule conflict) and Savore (too lazy and too full). What I did manage to do, fancy-new(to me)-restaurant-wise, was impressive, though not as extensive as I'd planned. Oh well, in this city, every week could really be restaurant week, so SnackHands will look forward to more good eating outside the confines of the short list.

ANYWAY,

Morimoto: My friend T and I went here for lunch on Tuesday. It appears that the place has a fixed-price menu all the time, so they weren't really doing anything super-exciting to whet our RW appetites. We went for the regular menu instead and both got the Kobe Beef Bento Box:

The Bento Box was only a couple bucks more than the restaurant week lunch price, and it was quite a bit of food. From the upper left corner going clockwise, we had: vegetable tempura, a few pieces of Kobe beef, miso soup, a mixed-green salad, a couple pieces of a spicy tuna roll and a few pieces of sushi. The sushi was so tender and delicious, and the beef was pretty awesome too. The salad and miso were also good. Two pieces of the veggie tempura were slightly problematic: there was a mushroom stem in there that was impossible to bite through, as well as a piece of asparagus that was stringy and slid out of the tempura batter when you tried to bite into it. As T said, "Iron Chef would totally lose points for this!" Overall, though, I was quite happy with everything - the service, the food (including what I saw on the tables around me) and the amazing... bathroom:

Yes, I'm a spaz and I took this photo of the wall behind the toilet in the bathroom stall. It was one of those things that you see and almost gasp about, but then you remember you're in a bathroom, so you play it cool. And then you shut the door and take a photo and post it on your blog. Don't say I never gave you anything.

Blue Smoke was next on the list and I had a willing eating companion with a weird work schedule. We didn't think we'd make it before closing time, so we opted for a non-RW alternative instead: Cafe Habana.

This is a tiny place in Soho that I actually visited years and years ago for, of all things, a burger. This time around, I went for the Cuban food it's known for. I started with their famous (for good reason) "Grilled Corn Mexican Style" and a margarita on the rocks. For my main course, I had their roast pork with black beans and yellow rice. My dinner-partner-in-crime had the same, and when the plates hit the table, they were a perfect mirror image of each other. If ever there was a time to be the dork who whips out her camera at the table, it was then. But since I already gave you a bathroom photo, you are going to have to use your imagination on this one. Think about a creamy-white oval plate loaded with shredded pork on your left, and yellow rice and black beans horizontally dividing the other half of the plate. This food was incredible. Typically, I skip the rice and beans because I find them to be "eh," but the mixture of these three perfect elements was food heaven. I would have licked my plate if there had been anything left on it to lick. Viva la Cafe Habana!

I will say, it's lucky for Cafe Habana that their food is so exceptional because the service was not. After sitting down, we waited so long for our waitress that my fellow foodie went up to the bar/counter to see about drinks. Seeing this, our server promised she'd be "right there" and, after another five or so minutes, she was. She took our order and disappeared. Our corn showed up first, our drinks showed up a bit later, and our food showed up pretty quickly after that. Despite the fact that there are about 15 tables in the whole place for 2 waitresses, she seemed ridiculously busy and/or preoccupied. And, frankly, I've never heard a person drop more plastic cups during a one-hour-period in my life! I hope it was just an off night for her because I'm dying to go back and have more pork. Maybe I will have to go there in the future only when I'm traveling with some sort of band, because those types seemed to be taken care of without any difficulty. Or maybe I'll just start carrying a trombone case around with me.

It was a blast to explore all these places, and NYC is loaded with approximately 9,082 more that I'm dying to try. How I do that without going broke and gaining a thousand pounds, I'm not sure. But where there's a SnackHands, there's a way.

After all this fancy Restaurant Week-ing, I'm off to Wisconsin. Be prepared for reports from the Heartland, sure to include extensive dissertations on cheese, bratwurst and beer.

Caramel-Coated SnackHands (Or, I Think I'm Gonna Barf!)

2009-07-21T10:13:00.008-04:00

I dare you to make a batch of caramel corn and not eat half of it while it's supposed to be cooling. I further dare you to not eat the rest for breakfast the next day. If you can do it, you are a far far stronger person than me.

Caramel corn was one of the things on my summertime cooking "to do" list, which also includes doughnuts and osso bucco with polenta. While searching online for the perfect caramel corn recipe, I got to thinking about all kinds of caramel products and decided I needed to test out wax-paper-wrapped homemade caramels as well. So Monday night commenced the Late (started at about 10 p.m.) Great Caramel Experiment.

For the caramel corn, I used this recipe from Simply Recipes. The recipe was easy to follow and the results (see photos below), completely, ridiculously, dangerously addictive. I have to say, I was most proud of the fact that my eyeballed popcorn measurement wound up filling my kettle exactly. Granted, it was way more popcorn than I needed, but it looked good.

The wax-paper-wrapped caramels were slightly (slightly!) less exciting. I was going for something not-too-chewy and not-too-light, kind of like the caramel you get inside chocolate in the mixed box. I dug around a bit and decided to go with this recipe for fluer de sel caramels from Gourmet magazine via Epicurious. I used regular table salt and added a tsp of vanilla. Compared to what I was after, the results were somewhat "eh." (Not drastic enough to keep me from eating them in rapid succession, however.) My main complaint was the fact that they turned out way too soft, until I put them in the fridge. The flavor was pretty good, but nothing shocking. It definitely improved when I dipped about half the batch in some melted milk/hazelnut chocolate. All in all, nowhere near a cooking failure, but I think I'll keep looking for the perfect caramel recipe.

NYC Restaurant Week, Part 1

2009-07-18T16:22:00.006-04:00

Restaurant Week is a new discovery for SnackHands. And SnackHands is very pleased. Firstly, I'm pleased with the concept (normally-too-pricey restaurants offer a three-course meal for teacher-friendly prices) and, secondly, I'm pleased with the fact that the "week" is actually half a month. My reviews thus far:

Lure: This downstairs place in Soho is one I've always wanted to try. From the outside, it has these cool round windows that allow you a tiny glance inside. The interior looks like the inside of a boat -- not like the Love Boat, but like a boat James Bond might spend some time playing cards on. I hit this spot for a Monday-night dinner with my Party Girl In Crime, K. Our server was super-nice, which made our experience a success right from the start. For an appetizer, I had the Tuna Nicoise Tartare. Awesome. I really am beginning to love tartares of all kinds. My main course was a steamed Branzino, a pretty mild fish I'd never heard of before. It was good, despite the fact that it was served with one side of skin still on. A little weird for anyone who's a bit squeamish about "fishy" fish. Dessert was a ultra-rich warm chocolate cake (think lava cake) with a side of caramel ice cream and the best part, popcorn brittle. It was kind of like having a crispy caramel corn in your ice cream. The chocolate cake was almost unnecessary. All in all, this was a great start to my restaurant week. I would definitely go back and pay full price for another night at Lure.

Aquavit: Two friends and I went to this Swedish dream come true for lunch on Friday. It was fabulous, incredible, perfect. The service was extremely attentive (one guy to pour water, one guy to offer you a choice of bread, one guy to fold your napkin and return it to the table if you get up to use the bathroom), and didn't make us feel weird about ordering from the Restaurant Week menu (which was printed right inside the regular lunch menu) or trying more than one kind of bread from the bread service. I had a mixed green salad, Swedish meatballs and a dessert called the Arctic Circle, which was one of the best things I've ever eaten. A billion stars for Aquavit!

Angelo and Maxie's: Boo. About a year ago, I had dinner at Angelo and Maxie's, a steakhouse near Union Square. I ordered a filet mignon, and it was pretty great. I've also had a steak at their more-casual bar next door, which was equally fine. So while I wouldn't list this place on the top of my list of must-go places (nor would I put it in the top 25), it was definitely a reliable option. However, my restaurant-week dinner at Angelo and Maxie's on Friday was probably my last visit. First of all, despite their enormous posted restaurant-week menu out front, they didn't actually bring us that menu. I had to ask for it. I ordered a house salad (okay), a filet mignon (pretty good) and the cheesecake (great). We also ordered a side of hashbrowns which came to the table completely charred and, if I was a server, embarrassing. I'm always afraid of sending food back to a kitchen, for fear of spit and other scary possibilities, but I did think some ketchup would have helped. However, our server didn't return to our table to check on us once. She came back to pour some more wine for us once or twice, but didn't stick around to ask questions like, "Do you need anything else?" I don't know if she felt it was beneath her to work extra-hard for the cheap seats or what, but the negligence completely put me off of a restaurant that I was on the fence about to begin with. Well, her and the burnt hash browns. Who serves burnt food??? I'll tell you who: a restaurant that has lost SnackHands as a customer forever. Farewell, Angelo and Maxie. And good riddance.

On deck for next week (should my bank account and waistband hold out, that is):

Morimoto

Blue Smoke

Savore

Stay tuned for Restaurant Week, Part 2!

SnackHands Eats L.A.

2009-07-07T01:07:00.024-04:00

I just returned from a week in L.A. where my dear friends (Shout out to my West Coast Posse! Whut up B, C1, C2 and MC!) showed me the greatest time of my life. I partied on a rooftop, discovered a new band, relaxed on the beach, watched JAWS on a backyard big screen, became addicted to Pinkberry... the list goes on. I am so lucky to have these longtime pals out there. They are awesome, and when my life becomes glamourous enough to go bi-coastal, I will be able to hang out with them more often!

As for the culinary highlights of my trip, here are the Top 5:

1. Best Drink EVER! Dirty martini on the rocks at The Penthouse, a fancy rooftop restaurant/bar atop The Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica. Views of the ocean on three sides. There are nine olives in that glass, people. Nine.

2. Um, cheeseburger ravioli? Are you kidding me??? My friend B made reservations for us at a place called Jiraffe in Santa Monica, where they have "Ravioli Wednesdays," which features a fixed-price three course meal, including wine, for 29 bucks! Typically I am not a huge fan of ravioli, but I have been wanting to revisit it as of late, and this was the perfect reintroduction. This dish was nothing short of genius. Instead of the Hamburger-Helper-esque concoction I was expecting, this really was a unique and delicious take on the cheeseburger. At the bottom of the plate was a thick caramelized onion sauce. It was topped by ground steak (and maybe cheese) filled homemade ravioli, tomatoes, croutons, tiny lettuce leaves and pickled cucumbers (which was a surprise, but also the most cheeseburger-y compliment to the rest of the ingredients). The whole shebang was topped with sesame seeds. I have not been able to stop talking about it, or thinking about it, since. This meal definitely goes in my top 5 of all time. (And don't even get me started on their strawberry cheesecake -- another thing I don't typically like -- which was delicious.)

3. Baked Salmon Roll at SushiDan. This was actually a misorder on my part. I meant to get the Baked Scallop Roll, but when the waiter showed up, I was too hungry to focus. This was basically a california roll topped with baked salmon and something called "Dynamite Sauce." My friend C2 and I shared this roll along with a Las Vegas Roll and a Crazy Danny Roll. Everything was incredible (!) and, quite frankly, I wanted to try two of everything on the menu. During the meal, C2 and I discussed what we would eat every day if money and health weren't an object. I said sushi and a box of Hostess Golden cupcakes for every meal. He said burritos. Later in the day, at another meal, we also agreed that dulce de leche cookies should maybe be added to the list. (See honorable mentions below.)

4. My friend MC lives by this Cuban bakery in Silver Lake (hipster L.A. nabe) called Cafe Tropical. When I visited him a few years back, he introduced me to this place and to their perfect coffee (espresso with milk, really) and enormous eclairs (one of which, combined with an afternoon of driving around, delivered the perfect sugar crash and left me powerless to avoid the couch for a nap). They are also known to have a great guava pie, which I tried this time around. Above, you see their Cuban sandwich. The Cubano, for those of us who want to be serious and legit about things. I took one of these to go and ate it at the baseball game we went to at Dodgers stadium just down the street from Cafe Tropical. I don't know if it was the fact that I was finally trying a sandwich I've wanted to try for a while, the sandwich itself, or the fact that I was eating it at a baseball game on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, but whatever it was, it was 100 percent gratifying. Oh, and the Dodgers won.

5. Have you ever walked into a place starving (and maybe drunk) and had someone hand you a piece of toast immediately? Let me tell you how great that is: it's pretty damn great. This particular toast was made from egg bread that was lovingly baked by B, my California hostess who was also responsible for delivering me to food experiences numbers 1 and 2 above, and for making crumb cake that was devoured within the first three days of my visit. This homemade egg bread was heavenly as bread (slightly crisp crust, moist center, and reminded me of bread made by my mom or grandma or somebody when I was a kid) and divine as toast. SnackHands worships toast.

Honorable Mentions:

Pork sandwich at 4th of July rooftop party, aforementioned dulce de leche cookies, Korean soup so hot you crack an egg into it and it cooks on the spot. And I don't know if the last two are fair, since they were made by me for the JAWS screening in MC's backyard, but I was extremely happy with how they turned out, so they had to be included: salad of proscuitto, praline peacans, blue cheese, raisins, greens and balsalmic vinaigrette, and "Shark Bite Cupcakes." In keeping with the JAWS theme, these were blood-red velvet cupcakes with a flesh-colored peanut butter frosting and white chocolate bone shards/shark teeth.

(And, not pictured: Ahi tuna burger from Malibu Seafood. Awesome fish enjoyed on picnic tables across the Pacific Coast Highway from the ocean.)

Best. Vacation. Ever. (Sorry, Prague!)

Let Them Eat Cake! (Or, My Work Neighbor is a Genius)

2009-05-29T19:24:00.014-04:00

Lately, I've been feeling like the Worst Teacher Ever. Partly because it's the end of the school year and I'm burned out. Partly because my desk is a mess. Partly because I only managed to accomplish a handful of the "brilliant" ideas I had for units and activities early in the year (because a girl has to sleep, even if it's only for three or four hours a night). And partly because of projects like this:

This is a Government Cake, the project of a 7th-grader whose Social Studies teacher's classroom is next door to mine. Every year, he assigns the students to bake a cake that represents the U.S. Government. He is a genius.

On two days in May, his students came into school with layer cakes designed to represent the three branches of the goverment. They decorated with M&Ms and Hershey's Kisses to stand for the Amendments to the Constitution. They blended chocolate and vanilla, and explained that this was to show Federalism (the division of power between the state and national governments, a fact I learned during one of the cake presentations).

All I can say is, if my 9th-grade Government teacher had assigned projects like this, rather than showing us taped episodes of Degrassi Junior High (which, to be fair, was one of my favorite memories of 9th-grade), I probably wouldn't be relying on a bunch of 7th-grade girls to explain checks and balances to me.

As I began to look around, I realized that all the teachers I work with are equally brilliant. The 6th-grade Drama teacher not only had her students perform scenes for a rotating audience, but also had them sit as a panel to "talk back" to the audience, who asked a series of unpredictable questions. The performers were eloquent and confident in their answers, a tribute to the preparation they received from their teacher. The Science teacher has them making and testing their own shampoo and body lotion as a science project. Rather than having them write a stiff and probably-plagiarized report about the countries of Europe, the 6th-grade Social Studies teacher had his students create children's books as a culmination to their research.

As a teacher, it's exciting to work with people whose ideas are as inspired and creative and well-prepared as these. But at the same time, it's a bit intimidating. They make me feel unorganized and ineffective, and leave me to wonder if I'm making as big an impact as I think they are. You enter the school year filled with plans for amazing projects and mind-blowing units, but then you get into the brass tacks of answering a thousand questions a day (from "What was our homework?' to "Who invented chocolate chip cookies?") and organizing paperwork, and keeping track of 80 different humans, and your brain is too shot to read a book on the subway ride home, let alone spend three hours in front of the computer writing out detailed lesson plans or scouring the Internet for poems containing symbolism that a 6th-grader can pick up on.

This is not to say I haven't done anything I'm proud of. This year I had students write business letters, most of which received responses. I staged a weekly Open Mic that was filled with their poems and dramatic readings. A lot of kids in my class discovered this year that yes, in fact, they do love to read. And I introduced my Advisory to Gooey Butter Cake, which is a life-changing dessert that they will obsess about for years to come.

Still, as the last day of school nears, I find it difficult not to look around and say, "NEXT year, I'm going to do things so much better." And with some things, I probably will. With others, I'll probably find myself thinking the same thing I am right now. The important thing, I think, is to keep looking for ways to improve. To not relax into "good enough." To take the things that worked and do them again. To take the things that were lame, and make them interesting. Maybe by the time I'm ready to retire, I'll have put all my ideas into action. I have roughly 30 years. That seems about right.

Bacon de Mayo

2009-05-10T12:27:00.007-04:00

Someday I will throw a party for which I am completely prepared days in advance. A party where I'm not up until 3 a.m. the night before, baking and frosting things. A party where I'm not playing beat the clock, desperately hoping nobody actually shows up on time and sees me covered in powdered sugar, simultaneously shredding cheese, ditching piles of clothes behind a couch and trying to make the cupcake display look pretty.

Alas, my Ocho de Mayo party on Friday was not such a party.

The First Annual Ocho de Mayo Celebration was an idea borne of some Thursday-night drinking. Out with friends M and R a month or so ago, I declared that it would soon be time for another party. I thought, Cinco de Mayo!, but upon consulting our cell phone calendars, we discovered that it was on a Tuesday. Uno de Mayo? No, R was out of town that weekend. Ocho de Mayo? Bingo.

We quickly agreed that Ocho de Mayo's main features would be bacon and a moustache competition. Don't ask me how or why. These things just fit.

I went to work on creating a buzz for the party, via email teasers to my friends. My goal was to create an annual event that would make Cinco de Mayo look like Arbor Day in terms of holiday status.

It worked.

Friday evening, my friends arrived just after my peanut-butter frosting disaster and my three (THREE!) trips to the store to pick up things I discovered I needed, but before I was in party clothes and before the dishes were done and the cheese was sliced. Fortunately, the early arrivals were happy to help, and they looked the other way when I shoved unwashed pans into the oven, to be dealt with later.

And then...

And then there were more friends, there was beer, there was music, there was loud laughing, there was a trip to the roof, and a trip down, and a trip back up, and a trip back down, there was a moral dilemma about "Do we open the really expensive whiskey that was brought in a box and left on the counter?" (answer: yes), there were shots of bacon vodka, there were Bloody Marys with garlic-jalepeno vodka, there was one contestant (and winner!) in the moustache competition, there were take-home containers, there was tequila, there was gooey butter cake, there were new sunglasses, there was a flag. That's right, an Ocho de Mayo flag. Admire its awesomeness:

One of the things I love/hate about planning a party is coming up with the menu. I love it because it gives me the chance to try things I've wanted to try, to share things I already love, and to plan out the perfect salty-sweet balance. I only hate it the night before and the day of the party, when I try to figure out how the HELL I'm going to get everything done. A few things I planned this time around didn't happen (like chipotle aoli) but what did happen worked out pretty well.

Ocho de Mayo Menu

*Seven-Layer Dip (1. refried beans, 2. guacamole, 3. sour cream mixed with taco seasoning, 4. shredded iceberg lettuce, 5. diced tomatoes, 6. shredded cheddar cheese, 7. sliced black olives) with chips

*Chipotle Meatballs

*Gooey Butter Cake with Strawberries (I add half a stick of butter to the "goo" part of this recipe)

*Cheese/Roast Beef/Proscuitto/Crackers/Bread

*Fat Elvis Cupcakes (banana cupcakes using this yellow cake recipe with added bananas mashed in the food processor, peanut butter frosting, caramelized bacon)

*Caramelized Bacon

If you have never had caramelized bacon (and this would not surprise me), be prepared for your life to change. It is weird and delicious, the perfect addition of sweetness to something that is already awesome. It's also pretty easy to make, and your friends will think you are a genius.

You need:

1 lb bacon

1 lb light brown sugar

a baking dish/pan (not a cookie sheet)

an oven heated to 350 degrees

Dump a bunch of the brown sugar into your pan, mush your bacon into it, coating the bacon thickly on both sides. Dump any remaining sugar on top, but save about a handful to toss on at the end for a final sugar coat. Put pan in the oven. Cook for about 8 minutes* on each side, then cool on a rack.

*Maybe a few minutes more, but watch the bacon very carefully. If you overcook it, it will be burned. If you undercook it, it will be chewy, rather than slightly crispy.

**When your pan is free of bacon, the melted sugar will harden quickly and you will think your pan is ruined. You might say something like, "Damnit, Snackhands! How could you let me do this to my favorite pan! Now I'm going to have to throw it out, jerk!" This is not true. Run superhot water over the pan for a while, and the sugar will melt off. Trust me.

If nothing else -- if my Ocho de Mayo party had been a tense and boring affair loaded with jerks, warm Corona, and only Hootie and the Blowfish and Limp Bizkit playing in the background -- I am confident that the caramelized bacon would have saved it. Fortunately, that worst-case scenario was not what happened, and the caramelized bacon was a small part of a great party. I think I have created a monster.

Viva la Ocho de Mayo! See you next year.

Does Food Taste Better on Awesome Plates? Probably.

2009-04-05T21:34:00.005-04:00

Check out these super-cute plates my mom just sent me:
I think they'll look really good under an enormous cupcake, but, for now, look how good they make carrots look. Mmm, carrots. Also, they may end up making me lose weight, because I've been reading/hearing a lot lately about how a smaller plate size can help you cut your calorie intake.
But I don't know about that; I think I could still fit about 6-7 cupcakes on there. We'll see.

SnackHands Bakes the First-Ever (maybe) Flourless Cinnamon Cake

2009-03-28T13:36:00.017-04:00

Have you ever noticed that the majority of flourless cake recipes are chocolate-flavored? This bugs me. It just seems unreasonable that one flavor should have such a coup on a dessert.

This week, I decided to experiment with it -- not because I'm anti-chocolate, or even that I'm all that excited about flourless cake, but because of a friend of mine who needs some better food options. M2 is the wife of one of my best friends on the planet. She suffers from a condition called Interstitial Cystitis (IC, for short). I don't claim any medical expertise on this, but it basically means she's uncomfortable and in pain a lot of the time. And there's not a hell of a lot she can do about it. And to top things off, many of foods that are flavorful (tomatoes, lemons, chocolate, etc.) trigger even more irritation. Recently, she's hit a bit of a rough patch, and she has decided to try out a gluten-free diet (in addition to the already-limiting IC diet) to see if it makes any difference in how she feels. Needless to say, this does not leave her with a ton of variety in the way of good food.

Enter Snackhands. Could I make a dessert that was IC-friendly, gluten-free, AND delicious?

Man, I love a cooking challenge! And I especially love a cooking challenge that allows me to pass the product onto someone who needs the calories more than me. If I cooked and ate every experimental recipe that has ever run through my head, I'd weigh a thousand pounds.

So. I did a little research on flourless cake. As I suspected, I mostly found chocolate recipes, with a few citrus-based. Strike. In addition to the chocolate and citrus limitation, I was also thwarted by the fact that many cakes included ground almonds, another no-no. I really wanted to try to create a cinnamon cake, but was a little concerned about what would give it its bulk, in the absence of things like ground almonds or cocoa powder or chocolate chips. What could I use as a sub? Cornmeal? (Or would that just turn into cinnamon-flavored cornbread?) Ground oatmeal? (Or would that end up to be too thick and heavy?) What to do?

And then -- Eureka! -- I discovered these:
Oh glorious cinnamon chips! Who knew you were even out there?! I was pretty thrilled to make this discovery, as I think it opens a whole other world of dessert options. They're slightly hard to come by, however. In NYC, I found them at the Hershey's store near Times Square. The next closest place I discovered that might have them was in New Jersey.

Anyway, on to the cake. I found a very-positively-reviewed recipe for Flourless Chocolate Cake with Toasted Hazelnuts and Brandied Cherries on Epicurious. I figured I could eliminate the hazelnuts and cherries and replace the chocolate with the cinnamon chips. This turned out to be true, for the most part, though the cinnamon chips seemed to have a different consistency when melted than chocolate might have.

Here's how I adapted the recipe:

Ingredients for the cake:
1 10-oz bag of Hershey's Cinnamon Chips
2 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter, diced
10 egg yolks
1/2 cup plus 6 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
9 egg whites

Ingredients for the ganache:
1 10-oz bag of Hershey's Cinnamon Chips (have another one on hand, just in case)
1 cup heavy cream
(It might also be a good idea to have some corn starch around)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. The original recipe calls for a buttered 10-inch springform pan with 2 3/4-inch sides. I didn't have that, so I used two 9-inch cake pans lined on the bottom and sides with parchment paper.

Put the cinnamon chips and butter in a small/medium metal bowl. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stir until mixture is melted and smooth. Remove bowl from over water; cool until lukewarm.
While that's cooling, use an electric mixer to beat egg yolks and 1/2 cup of sugar for about five minutes, at which time it should be thick and pale yellow. Beat in the vanilla and salt. Then gently fold in the cinnamon mixture. Using clean, dry beaters, beat the egg whites and remaining 6 tablespoons of sugar in another bowl until peaks form. Fold egg whites in three additions into cinnamon mixture. Pour batter into prepared pan(s).

You are supposed to bake this for about 45 minutes, until a tester inserted into the center comes out with moist crumbs. I had to play with this a lot. Because the cake is really moist to begin with, it was hard to tell when it was done. For one of my cakes (more batter), I probably baked it for an hour and a half. The other one only took about 45-50 minutes. Be prepared for it to get all puffy and souffle-like when it's in the oven, and for it to deflate when it comes out. Cool it in the pan for 15 minutes, then get it out of the pan and cool it completely.
The ganache proved to be tricky, which may be because the cinnamon chips melt to a thinner consistency than chocolate. Basically, you are supposed to mix the chips and the cream in a metal bowl and melt them over a saucepan of simmering water, much like you did for the cake. You are supposed to cool it for about 5 minutes, when it is still pourable. I cooled mine for about 15 and found it to still be really runny. I hadn't made ganache before, but I was suspicious that it wasn't going to set the wayit was supposed to. So I added some corn starch. Too much, as it turned out, and it tasted bitter. As a fix, I added another bag of melted chips, and that seemed to work. The final consistency, however was not ganache-y. It was more like caramel or peanut butter. Nonetheless, it tasted pretty damn good. If you want it to not be so thick, I suggest you try more chips, less cream.

The final cake product had a consistency similar to pumpkin pie, but less slimey. On one of the cakes, I sprinkled chopped chocolate chips on half a side, just in case M2 wanted to live on the edge. All in all, I'd have to say it pretty delicious, and it got thumbs up from both M2 and her hubby, which was the idea. Overall, I call this an IC-friendly, gluten-free dessert success. (Actually, I'd call it a dessert success, period.)

SnackHands loves Prague!

2009-03-23T19:24:00.010-04:00

Is it possible that our taste buds are genetically programmed?

When I was in grade school, my dad figured out for me that I am 12% Bohemian. What you might call Czech, these days. I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but I give it extra weight because Bohemia is also where my last name hails from. I didn't grow up eating Czech food, and it wasn't until I was in my late 20s that I visited my first Czech restaurant. I can't remember exactly what I ate, only that it was a mixture of meats and breading and cheese, and that it, somehow, tasted familiar.

In February, I went to Prague, Czech Republic, for a week. I tried to get there as slim as possible because I knew my diet throughout the week would consist largely of potatoes, pork, beer and cheese. Oh, and kielbasa with rye bread from a cart on the street. Does it get any better??? (Answer: No, it doesn't.)

My first meal was ham carved off a pig roasting on a spit in the middle of a little street festival we came across. My second, later that same evening, was potato pancakes with sausage and a side of bread dumplings. Later in the week I discovered honey cake, which was on the menu in pretty much every restaurant, thank god.
I also had an absinthe macchiato, which was fascinating and pretty. Everything I ate and drank made me love the city that much more. Not that Prague is not a hard place to love -- beautiful ornate buildings, winding cobblestone alleyways, and just the all-around cool experience of being in a totally different place, at a totally different pace, and fitting right into it. If you haven't been, go. Just go.

The greatest place we stumbled upon was this one: www.rest2000.cz/uciriny We got there at about 3 in the afternoon. The two ladies working were sweet and helpful, despite our slight language barrier. I ordered the "pancakes with ham foam." Don't ask me what "ham foam" is supposed to be. What I got was a piping hot casserole dish filled with delicious crepes loaded with creamy cheese and ham. For desert, THE GREATEST THING I'VE EVER EATEN. These apple fritters:
Basically, hot doughnuts rolled in sugar and cinnamon, baked around apples and drizzled with chocolate. Oh. My. God.

I've been back in NYC for about a month now. My stomach is homesick.

SnackHands is Born

2009-03-22T23:58:00.009-04:00

Some time ago, after helping a friend lug a bunch of heavy stuff around his apartment, I found myself ravenously digging through his kitchen cabinets. He had cereal, not much else. That was perfectly fine with me, and I shoved handful upon handful into my mouth. At one point, my friend looked over at me, elbow-deep in cereal, half the box gone already, and declared with a smirk, "Wow, you've got a real snack hand!" I laughed. And then I ate some more cereal, embracing my new nickname with open arms. Er, hands.

I admit it. I love food. Cooking it, baking it, eating it (who doesn't?), thinking about it, reading about it, talking about it, researching it, experimenting with it, and, now, writing about it. Bon appetit!