Obama goes dutch

With the economy the way it is and so many people taking pay cuts or just losing their jobs altogether, we are all looking for new ways to save some money. I can't say that any of you thought of charging guests for their meals. Thankfully the leader of our country is way ahead of you. President Obama invited the CEOs of Xerox, Coca-Cola, AT&T, and Honeywell to the White House for a meeting and a White House Staffer called each of the CEOs to find out their credit card information so they could all be charged for the cost of the food.

Last time I checked Obama wasn't from Pennsylvania, but the idea of each person paying from themselves in the PA part of the country is called "going dutch." I'm not sure how I feel about the president of the country I am a citizen of feeling that "going dutch" is not cheap and inhospitable(especially in your own house). Supposedly the reason behind this action was to avoid conflicting interests. I'm not so sure; maybe the White House needs a bailout plan and we just don't know about it.

My mom and I have been busy bees with all of the fruit that we have been acquiring lately. Our neighbor called and begged us to come and pick some of the peaches she had rotting on the tree. It was raining, but we decided that we didn't feel too wicked witch of the westy today and headed out. Once we got to our neighbor's house it was pouring. My mom and I starting grabbing the peaches like two 12 year olds stealing peaches. Every time I grabbed a peach the tree splashed me in the eye. We ended up with 2 bags of peaches, and went home to make a peach blueberry pie and blueberry muffins.

The blueberry tartlettes that I made in the picture might be a little difficult without the French tartlette pans my mom got me for my birthday last year, but you can make the same basic dessert minus the cute little crusts.

I used a coconut custard that is actually lactose free.

1 can of coconut milk
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of cornstarch

Pour all of the ingredients into a saucepan and cook over medium-high heat. Stir constantly, but remember cornstarch doesn't work until it boils so don't be afraid of a few lumps in the beginning. Let the mixture come to a full boil until the mixture is smooth and pure white. Pour the custard into a pie pan with a little bit of water in it. The water will keep the custard from sticking.

Once the custard is cool slide the custard out of the pan and cover the top with blueberries and mint leaves. It will be a beautiful refreshing way to spend a night with a friend. Just please don't charge your friend for the cost of the dessert. I promise it won't set you back too much.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Recipes please

Like I promised I am full of recipes today. If you left the zucchinis on the vine a little too long, or if you were fortunate enough to pick up a baseball sized zucchini it is time for some zucchini bread. As you know I am a complete chocolate addict, so I add chocolate chips. If you prefer to be healthier just add the nuts and lead a boring life. If you really do have an overabundance of zucchini grate it all up, throw it in ziploc bags, and freeze it. That way when your friend has a baby in January and you want to bring something over for her to enjoy all you have to do is whip out this recipe and your frozen zucchini and make some bread with a taste of summer.

This recipe makes 2 loaves of bread. I wish you could see the paper it is on, because it's in my mom's handwriting and has spots all over it; definitely a recipe we use often.

4 cups of shredded zucchini (if you have a food processor with a nice attachment to do this go for it, if not watch your knuckles and get out the grater)
3 cups of flour
2.5 cups of sugar
1.25 cups of vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1.5 teaspoons salt
1.5 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup of chopped nuts
1 cup of chocolate chips

Mix all of the ingredients. Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit until top is firm (if you don't have the knack for feeling your baked goods yet, puncture it with a toothpick).

After our blueberry picking extravaganza yesterday, we are all ready for a blueberry pie. My boyfriend is coming down and seems to think that he will be getting some of the pie, so I'm probably not going to make it till tomorrow since pies don't last very long in our house. I'm almost positive I've already put my crust recipe on here before but in case I haven't I use a 3-2-1 recipe that is so easy to remember.

3 cups of flour
2 cups of butter/shortening/lard
1 cup of ice cold water

Cut the butter into the flour. Add the water. Separate into thirds and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate or freeze till firm. You can cut this recipe into half or even 4ths. I normally cut it in half twice and end up with a shell and a lattice top.

4 cups of blueberries
1/2 cup of white sugar
2-3 tablespoons of cornstarch
2 teaspoons of nutmeg

Mix the cornstarch, sugar, and nutmeg in a bowl. Mix in the blueberries. Pour into the shell. I have been having issues with thickening pies lately. Make sure that even if the crust looks done the pie comes to a full boil. Cornstarch does not thicken unless the mixture boils, so don't take the pie out the minute the crust looks a little dark and there are a few bubbles.

A lot of recipes will tell you to bake at 400 for 20 minutes and then reduce to 350 for 40 minutes. You can do this, but on these hot summer days heating your oven up that much might not be on your agenda. It won't kill the pie to bake at 350 degrees for an hour. Just make sure the pie is bubbling and the crust looks done.

I'm sure you all have your own favorite summer produce recipes. If they aren't super secret family recipes, please share them. I'm sure we would all enjoy trying your blueberry pie or cake or muffins. If they are super secret family recipes please don't comment and leave a recipe with ingredients missing, that's just mean.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Oversharing in a blueberry patch and other faux paus of blueberry picking

"There's so many big ones on the ground." In horror I watched a man in the aisle beyond us was stooping on the ground picking the birds leftover berries. I, being an incorrigible smart ass, loudly told my sister and mom that I hear all of the good ones are on the ground. My sister was horrified, knowing a lesson many of the people picking berries this morning did not know. Blueberry bushes are hardly soundproof.

We were in a rather thick patch of blueberries this morning. It might easily have been assumed that you could tell your blueberry picking buddy all about how you tend to eat food off of the ground that people step on and birds poo on, but in reality a veteran blueberry picker standing 3 aisles away will hear that comment and quite possibly snicker or put it in their blog. Either way oversharing in a blueberry patch is probably a bad idea. Maybe one day they will come up with soundproof bushes, but until then, remember, saying "it's been a while since me and grandma were in the bushes together," will be heard by more than just your fellow pickers.

I don't know how many of you have picked blueberries in the Mid-Atlantic region of the country. Picking down here is very different than in Maine where blueberry picking is done from bushes that are maybe a foot off the ground. Jersey and Pennsylvania berries grow in tall bushes that can become unruly sometimes. The bushes today were beyond unruly. If you were claustrophobic, you shouldn't have been picking at Schmidt's Berry Farm. As you can see from some of the pictures, we were pretty much buried in the bushes.

At the berry farm (doesn't that just sound like the happiest place on earth - the berry farm) my family goes to every year there is a system that each picker must adhere to. Everyone is given a row. You pick the row. You're supposed to pick every berry on the row, which is why I go first and my mom can pick the ones I miss. If you see scads of berries in another row you are not, I repeat are not supposed to skip over to that row and start hopping rows. Row hopping, while it sounds like a brilliant plan full of the best berries, is actually a surefire way to make another picker who is trying to follow the rules miss the good berries in their row. You may think that is their problem, but kharma is a terrible thing and your day will come. Pick your own berries and good fortune will come to you, or something like that.

We picked a lot of berries, as you can see from the pictures. It really was a ton of fun, and now we are going to bake a blueberry pie and freeze some of the berries so that in the middle of winter we can enjoy their fresh taste of summer.

I'm not sure when all of your seasons are, but I hope you are taking advantage of the fresh produce that is coming in and that you are taking the time to actually pick your own. The work makes the reward so much tastier. I'm pulling out my blueberry pie recipe tonight, so I will post that and the chocolate chip zucchini bread tomorrow.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

How to feed 100 people in 15 minutes

A kitchen is all about adaptation. When my arms are full, and I have to open the walk-in door there is a slim to none chance that someone will be there to help me out. I take on the flamingo stance using my leg to balance whatever I'm carrying while I open the door with the hand I just freed up.

Some people aren't terribly good at adapting. When the smoked salmon is too delicate they start tearing at it, ruining half of the pieces. When there is a stack of dishes too heavy to take back to the dishroom, they start asking for someone else to take it back instead of just dividing the stack in half or carrying the whole thing and not being a wimp. Those who aren't good at adapting tend to not last very long in the kitchen. It's easier to do the job and not listen to them complain and ask for help.

Yesterday me and the sous chef Rob were in the kitchen alone doing a party for a 100 people. It was supposed to be a cookout and Rob was supposed to stand at the grill in his finest country club attire so all of the lady golfers could feel like they were at a typical cookout (because typical cookouts normally involve a chef in a white coat, black pants, at a country club). Anyway Rob and I were ready for a quiet 4 hours of getting stuff and making sure everyone left happy. At 1:30 one of the waitstaff comes running in singing about how it's raining. The singing part was less on purpose and more of the way he speaks when he gets excited. It was amusing, but Rob was not sure whether he was going to have to move the whole proceeding inside or whether the ladies were going to want to eat immediately. The second option was rather scary, because none of the food was ready, and it shouldn't take 15 minutes to get food for 100 people together.

In all reality we would have had more than 15 minutes to get the stuff together, but the front of the house people putzed around a little and by the time we found out that we needed to do the food inside it was 2 and we had 15 minutes. Rob threw some burgers on the flat top(kind of like a giant skillet and by giant I mean bigger than the top of your oven). My job was to flip the burgers and as Rob said "mark them." Basically I threw 100 burgers on the flat top, made sure both sides looked done and ran them back to Rob so he could throw them in the oven till they were done.

Next to me was the grill. Rob was marking the chicken on the grill. He yelled back about 5 minutes into the process asking me if I knew how to put diamonds on the chicken. What a silly question; of course I didn't. I went to school for baking and pastry arts for goodness sake. I yelled yes, because like I said kitchens are about adapting and no is not a reasonable answer, and he said turn it a quarter turn. Unfortunately by the time he had yelled back the chicken was already over done and the marks weren't made, but the second time around I got it.

In 15 minutes time the people were eating. They ate quite a bit and we ran around like mad people trying to find the extra potato salad and some extra tuna salad. 40 minutes or so after we started the mad dash to get the food ready we were cleaning up.

There is nothing more satisfying than a job well done. All of the ladies were happy and fed and the fact that we did it in 15 minutes made me (I can't speak for Rob)feel like the magicians that people think everyone back in the kitchen are.

In other news my mom's garden is gorgeous. The zucchini are coming in and the cucumbers and beans. I can't tell you how excited I am to get my hands on the cucumbers and make some pickles. Some chocolate chip zucchini bread might be in order too; we will have to see. I'll be sure to add a recipe for that in the next post.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

A lesson in emulsification

This weekend one of the most patient line cooks at work decided it was time for me to make a vinaigrette. Ever since I started working at the country club this line cook has taken extra time and care to make sure that my lack of culinary knowledge does not mean that I lose a finger or get yelled at for being an idiot. Every week is normally a new lesson of some sort and this week Alice(that would be the line cook's name, or fake name, you will never know) got that excited look in her eyes like she knew I was going to make the family proud. I of course saw the look as a new way for Emily to mess something up while Alice watched.

She handed me the recipe for Balsamic Vinaigrette and I measured everything out; that part went almost smoothly except part of the cap for the balsamic tends to fall into the container and one of the other cooks saw it had fallen in and poured an unmeasured amount of Balsamic into my container to get it out. That crisis was averted thanks to Rob helping me with a little math.

The hard part about making a vinaigrette is that you must create an emulsification. Now Alice rattled off an excellent cooking definition of emulsification, but I tend to not write down definitions of things when I'm at work, so I went to the Encyclopedia Britannica for an easy definition. "In foods, any of numerous chemical additives that encourage the suspension of one liquid in another, as in the mixture of oil and water in margarine, shortening, ice cream, and salad dressing." So the part of the definition we're working with is salad dressing and we were trying to emulsify the balsamic with the oil (2 gallons of it to be exact).

Since the invention of vinaigrettes, a technological advance has been made that makes this whole emulsifying process a smidgen easier. This advance is the burr mixer. A burr mixer basically does what your hand going faster than the speed of light would do with a whisk. It really is brilliant because if I had the whisk while we made balsamic my hand might have fallen off.

The burr mixer I was going to use for the Balsamic was around 4 feet tall, and me being the short Emily that I am put the bucket on the table and then decided it would be a good idea to put the burr mixer in the bucket making the top of the burr mixer almost out of reach. Alice came over and quickly decided this was a bad idea, putting the bucket on the ground. As I said before Alice is probably the most patient person I know and she used the mixer while I slowly poured in the oil. The idea of an emulsification is that the oil is suspended in the balsamic, which is done through the movement, the air which your bringing into the mixture, and the steady stream of oil. I think I did a pretty steady stream. The balsamic vinaigrette turned out wonderful and my family was proud.

If you're looking at a recipe for a salad dressing or vinaigrette, don't be scared. Grab a whisk and maybe a helper and patiently pour the oil while whisking it into whatever other liquid your mixing with it. If a Betty Baker like myself can do it anyone can do it.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Camel Milk and other unusual things that probably won't taste very good

Dubai's Al Nassma announced that they plan on selling their camel milk chocolate all over the Middle East with plans to move into a US market. After watching a rerun of Top Chef Masters last night I am a little more than skeptical about this plan.

I don't know if you've been keeping up this season; it actually has been an extreme disappointment, if you want my personal opinion. But last night they had all of the past Top Chef Master's on before the new one came on, so I caught up on what was going on. In the one episode a Swedish chef made a goats milk ganache as his dessert appetizer. Everyone hated it. The judges said it was awful. The people who they brought in said it was awful. I'm not sure what camel milk tastes like, but I have a feeling that it tastes closer to goat milk than it does cow milk.

Camel's milk has less fat in it, more vitamin C, and less insulin; I guess in some ways this makes it better than cow's milk. I'm sure that will be a selling point for the camel milk chocolate, but I really can't imagine it taking business from the loves of my life at Hershey. Actually the makers of the Camels Milk Chocolate said that they did not want to be in grocery stores; they wanted to think of themselves as "the Godiva of the Middle East."

I know I already told you about my history with milk, but I do have to wonder when drinking some other animal's milk becomes a little creepy. Would you drink your dog's milk, or your cats milk? I guess camel's milk just kind of creeps me out. I mean they spit dangerously; do you really want to be drinking the food that makes little camels spit dangerously? I am normally a proponent of adding chocolate to anything, but I think in this one instance it is just safer to add chocolate to cows milk. We know it tastes good, so why fiddle with a good thing.

Now that we settled the cow milk/ camel milk debate, it is time to make some truffles. Please don't go out and buy goat's milk or camel's milk for that matter; buy some good old fashioned heavy cream. I use a 2 to 1 ration for my ganache to make truffles, so if you buy a cup of heavy cream chop up a half a cup of chocolate (white, dark, or milk). If you are having a creative sort of day, infuse the milk. Pour the milk into a saucepan. You can add some cinnamon to make a Mexican truffle, or a little cayenne pepper for a spicy truffle. If you have fresh mint growing you could bruise some and put it in, or try a refreshing orange truffle by putting orange peel into the milk. Bring the cream to a boil. If you are infusing it make sure you do this slowly so the flavors are given the chance to seep in. Have the chocolate all chopped and ready to go. Once the cream comes to a boil strain it if you infused it, and pour it over the chocolate. Have a whisk ready to go and whisk. I know you have watched shows and movies where chefs whisk vigorously and just splash the contents of the bowl all over. It works for them; it won't work for ganache.

Whisk the center; don't bring the sides in until you have a nice emulsion. How do you know when you have a nice emulsion? Well it will look like smooth chocolate. Once you have this in the center of the bowl you can move your whisk out a little more to bring in some of the contents of the sides of the bowl.

Chocolate is a mysterious and beautiful thing. Many cultures believed it to have powers. I had a chef who told us that if he told the chocolate to not like us it wouldn't matter how much we tried we wouldn't be able to temper the chocolate. "You must love the chocolate and it will love you back." I never had a problem with this, but remember when you are making your truffles chocolate is a thing of love. Take your time and love the chocolate. Once your ganache is beautiful and shiny and all emulsified together, pour it into a pan. The only reason I say to do this is because it will cool evenly this way. If you are in no rush leave it in the bowl. Put it in the refrigerator. Once it is hard, take it out and scoop/spoon out truffle balls. Roll the balls if you are not using a scoop or if it proves to be difficult to scoop out. Roll the truffles in cocoa power, eat them as they are, or dip them in chocolate(if they make it that long).

As a final side note to food that I deem untasty, the Taco Bell dog died yesterday at the age of 15. While I have never been a fan of the meat mush Taco Bell seems to think is worthy of calling food, I do send my condolences to the dog's owner and to a chain that turned Mexican food into the worst form of fast food I have ever consumed.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

11 Herbs and spices code cracked?

Ron Douglas is probably one of my boyfriend's favorite people next to me of course. I think I was dating him for hardly a week when he started sending me the link to recipesecrets.net. "You can make a McDonalds milkshake!" My boyfriend was dating a pastry chef and he was sending me the recipe for a McDonalds milkshake. And people wonder why most Americans don't appreciate good food anymore.

In all fairness there really is something to be said for being able to make something you really like in a restaurant at home. It is pretty impressive to be able to have the taste and knowledge to know how to duplicate a recipe. Of course, what my boyfriend failed to recognize, was that the person who originally created the milkshake was actually far more impressive than this man who, at times, used shiesty methods to crack famous recipes.

Douglas was a finance manager who saw a need. He wanted to learn the KFC secret recipe and in his internet wanderings he found a whole lot of people who wanted to learn their favorite restaurants secret recipes. Douglas started his website, recipesecrets.net, and began cracking the codes. He used every tactic imaginable from feigning food allergies to ordering takeout in order to dissect the food in the privacy of his home. He actually did succeed and began selling his recipes. He quit his job, hired two cooks to help him out, and got a book deal with Simon and Schuster who just recently published his first book of recipes.

Douglas started looking for KFC's original recipe, and in this book it looks like he has cracked the code. Surprisingly KFC is not terribly worried; I guess a lot of people claim to crack their code. Douglas is pretty good though. Just ask my boyfriend, supposedly that milkshake tasted just like it did at McDonalds. Honestly I can't imagine that even if Douglas cracked the code KFC would lose much business. Not many people want to go through all of the work to make what they could buy in 5 minutes. Still the idea of the Colonel's secret recipe cracked is pretty impressive.

Douglas's book America's Most Wanted Recipes is actually only $9 on amazon.com. That's a lot less than it would cost you to go out to eat, so maybe give it a shot, stay in and try some of the recipes that your favorite restaurants would feed you if you felt like spending the money. All of us have more time with the economy the way it is, so it couldn't hurt to give it a try. If you try the KFC recipe, let me know how it goes.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

After dinner mints and a side of conversation

My favorite part of a meal is when everyone is finished, happy, and full and ready to relax around some good conversation. After all of the events of the past 7 or so days I felt like we all needed some conversation like this. The beauty of after dinner conversation is that it may get heated and the conversation may become controversial, but everyone is too full and happy to really mind and the conversation always ends on a sweet note even if that note only comes because of the after dinner mints.

Last Friday Walter Cronkite died at the age of 92. The news broadcasts told of his life and how upstanding of a man he was. It was a pleasant change after the weeks of Michael Jackson broadcasts. I think I heard "Thriller" more times than I ever did in my life. Cronkite lived a much different life even though he also lived in the public eye. Someone was on Good Morning America talking about how he and his wife were perfect for each other and how wonderful of a life he lived. No one once mentioned Cronkite's favorite food. A man who traveled and knew the world like he did had to have his favorite restaurants and favorite night time snacks. I, being the food lover that I am, wonder these sort of things. I know the world will miss the truthfulness and openness of reporting Cronkite had. His passing was a sad one.

Another great died just Sunday. Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes died of cancer at the age of 78. A lot of my high school years were spent perusing around the biography section of the public library. I know that sounds dreadfully exciting, but the lives of the many people who did exciting things and decided to write about those things were truly my heroes. If asked what I wanted to be when I grew up I would probably tell you exciting. I wanted to be like these people; I wanted so many adventures that I could fill a book, or two. I read Angela's Ashes during this period of my life and like all of the other biographies it made me want to run away. I wished I grew up in a dirty Irish home, as hysterical as that sounds today.

During high school I didn't have the ginormas adventures that I had hoped for, but after leaving for college I started to see that everyone is born into their own little adventures. I read so many more books that inspired me in my writing throughout cooking school and now journalism school, but when I heard about Frank McCourt's passing I could not help but go back to Brandywine Community Library and my dreams of adventures and other countries and places.

Life really hasn't changed much since then. I still want to live an exciting life, only now I have a slightly different view on what makes things exciting, working 22 days in a row and around day 20 watching your roommate buy cocaine in your driveway will do that to you. Waking up every morning to my adorable little puppy is exciting now, as is being Betty Baker at the country club I work at.

Not everyone can grow up to be a Walter Cronkite or a Frank McCourt, but everyone has a story to tell; you just have to be willing to stop what you're so busily doing and listen. You may be amazed at the things you will learn.

I can't think of a better way to listen than over food. If I could I would go and get the after dinner mints now. Maybe just treat yourself to a little dessert and thought.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Can I hear a mooooo

Thanks to a dear blog reader's question I have gone on a journey about milk. I know this sounds odd, but milk has always been a sort of mystery to me. I wasn't raised on drinking a lot of milk like some people. My brother had bad allergies and so did my dad, so we just kind of used milk as a way to wet our cereal. When we did this, we used only whole milk. My dad said the other milk tasted like water. I personally thought all of it tasted gross, but I did agree with him that the 1% and 2% kind of tasted like gross milky water. I think my mom's logic in buying whole milk was that, the only milk that actually had a good source of calcium was whole milk. We obviously drank barely any of it, so my dad made sure to tell us to take the calcium pills he would buy. That in essence was my milk history. I remember being a smart mouthed 12 year old and telling my aunt that milk was meant for 600 pound cows and that milk drinking was why America was obese; my aunt was not pleased but my oh-so-wise older cousin agreed with me so I thought I was brilliant.

Now you are probably wondering what in the world this milk question was that started this nonsense. She asked what was the difference between fat free and skim milk. I thought that it was all marketing ploy, but little did I know that it was actually a regulated government thing and you know how much I love those things. It turns out that in some states, things with negligible fat can be called fat free. I'm sure this naming process was more recent, because when I was little I remember it all being called skim milk. I'm sure the milk people were thrilled to be able to find loop holes in state's laws, since more and more people are trying to eat healthier. Skim milk has less than 1% of milk fat in it, and it is exactly the same as fat free milk; some states just give the milk producers more leeway when the naming game begins.

Milk is still a tad bit of a mystery to me. I love it when I'm baking, but drinking a glass of it is about as high on my list of things to do as listening to the one line cook at work yell "Billy!" in my ear every time a Billy Joel song comes on the radio, just in case we were unaware who sang "Piano Man". I have done a little bit of research into raw milk and I don't honestly think my milk journey will be complete until I give that a shot, but I'll save that for another blogpost.

In other news my sous chef Rob (he was a little upset that he had made it into the blogosphere so many times and I had not once mentioned his name) had a very interesting view on free range chickens. Besides being appalled by the thought of a waitress asking him if we got free range chicken, Rob explained to me what makes a good piece of meat. I know some of my more crunchy friends might be a little upset by his view, so just skip over it if you're more sensitive when it comes to animals. The best meat according to Rob is tender, which means the animals muscles are tender. "Why," Rob asked "would you want to let the chickens run around and tone their muscles?" Some of you might doubt that Rob truly believes this, but I can account for the fact that he does and in some ways I agree with the idea that tender meat is better meat.

I personally like the fact that Rob is honest. He wants a good piece of meat and he knows what it takes for the meat to be perfectly tender. I firmly believe that if Rob could he would keep chickens in his yard and make sure all they did was sit and eat so they would be perfectly formed pieces of meat for him to create something incredible out of. I don't hold quite so extreme of a view as Rob with tender meat, but I do know that food is something I feel no one should ever have to apologize over. If you had veal and you loved it, please just come out and admit to it.

All of this serious talk and food journeys have made me extremely hungry for nachos. I know that makes no sense, but it just seems like everyone is talking about nachos lately. My friend Kate reminded me of the nachos we used to make when I was living in Providence, RI. It was pretty much a bag of Tostitos, a can of beans, whatever cheese happened to be in my refrigerator, and some Adobo. I threw all of this in the oven at say 350 degrees and baked until the cheese was good and melty. Someone else actually told me this week about tuna nachos that she makes. It sounded easy and delicious. But quite honestly what I want really really really bad right now are dessert nachos. How would this work? Well let me tell you.

Get a bag of nacho chips. Mix say half a thing of cream cheese, or even mascapone if you feel foody that day with some powdered sugar. Only add enough sugar to make it semi sweet; this is the cheese so we don't want it too sweet. Melt the cream cheese mixture in the microwave. Be careful that you don't make a mess; oh never mind make a mess that's what nachos are about. Pour the the cheese on the nachos. Grab some fruit. I'm thinking a few strawberries and blueberries, maybe a peach. Chop them up into smaller than bite sized pieces. Buy or pick some mint. We have mint growing in our rock wall so buying it would be silly. Julienne or chop the basil and mix it with the fruit. Add a tiny bit of sugar if you feel it needs it. Pour your fruit salsa over your nachos and enjoy. My mouth is honestly watering just thinking about it, but sadly there are no nachos in our house. I hope you have much better luck with your cabinets than I did.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

"No Nasties"

Asda, a grocery chain in the UK, got in a legal battle with a Japanese food supplier over their new slogan that said their food would contain "No hidden nasties - no artificial colours or flavours, no aspartame and no hydrogenated fats".

Ajinomoto Sweeteners holds 45% of the European sweetener stock, so it is no surprise that they should be up in arms over this slogan. The makers of aspartame tend to try to promote the sugar substitute as just as good as sugar. If everyone began to know it as nasty, it might be kind of hard to get anyone to believe this.

I personally find aspartame nasty. During the country club's 4th of July picnic, one of the cooks brought out a big bucket of Vitamin Water 10. I had never tried this drink, and I was terribly disappointed. It tasted like fake sugar or aspartame; to steal a phrase from my friends in the UK, it was nasty.

Some people don't mind the taste of sugar substitutes. I was not raised on anything but pure sugar, which I guess makes me a little bit of a sugar snob. Aspartame actually gives my mom terrible migraines, so we tended to avoid diet soda or any other diet drink. Because of this I know that I am more sensitive to the flavors of sugar substitutes. The sous chef of the country club drank the same Vitamin Water 10 that I tried and loved it.

There are some people who need sugar substitutes. I know many people who have been affected by diabetes. The struggle to enjoy something sweet while staying healthy is a daily battle for someone with diabetes. Splenda would be my sugar substitute of choice if I were to have to refrain from sugar. Splenda still has some of that fake sugar taste, but it's not quite as harsh as products like aspartame. Unfortunately Splenda tends to be more expensive than other sugar substitutes, probably because it is a better product.

The judge ruled in favor of Asda and said that calling aspartame nasty was not a claim on the healthiness of the product, but that it was simply commenting on the flavor. Ajinomoto Sweeteners has three weeks to appeal so who knows where this case will go. I want to know where the hydrogenated fat people are; obviously they have given up the battle to prove that their product is not nasty. Either that or there are still plenty of people willing to buy hydrogenated fat. Maybe the sugar market is just a little more competitive.

I personally am going to stick to a no nasty diet of pure sugar.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Puppy Love

My family recently a adopted a puppy. She is possibly the cutest thing in the whole world, but lately she has taken to eating everything she gets her paws on. This didn't sit very well with her the other day when she had a bad case of a very gurgley stomach. She didn't enjoy whatever it was she ate for very long if you know what I mean, but her interest and excitement over all new things made me feel like some of us have more in common with a little puppy than we normally think.

Puppies see the world in a whole new way; this includes food. Every little bite of something new is savored and enjoyed by a puppy, and then all they want is more. This food epiphany made me think of a meal I had when my family took a trip to Rome. We, being stupid Americans, went to find a meal around 6 when every restaurant in Rome was closed because Italians eat dinner around 9. The one place that was serving was outside of the Pantheon. I ordered lasagna, because I thought it seemed like a good idea. I had never before that moment and have never after that moment tasted a better lasagna. It was all cheese, but the cheese was so creamy it just melted in your mouth. Like my puppy it didn't matter if that lasagna was going to make me feel sick in an hour I was enjoying every bite and wanting more.

As we get older I think we lose some of that experimental side. We decide we don't like hard boiled eggs and we don't bother trying the potato salad because of the eggs in it. Think of all of the food epiphanies you might miss just by thinking that you don't like a certain food. My boyfriend does not like ground turkey. I grew up on ground turkey. I have quite honestly spent most of the time we've been dating proving to him that he might like ground turkey in certain things. One day I made a chili with ground turkey; he had no idea till I yelled from the kitchen "How did you like the chili? It was all ground turkey." I sadly never saw his original face when I told him this, but his sister promised that it was one worthy of a picture. He has admitted that when I cook ground turkey it normally tastes ok. I just wonder what gives certain foods a stigma.

Most likely if you don't like a certain food it's because you had it in an awful dish or was forced to eat it as a child and now to prove to your 80 year old mother that she doesn't control your life anymore you still will not eat brussel sprouts.

I love baby spinach. Last fall we took a trip to Six Flags New England and I made sandwiches. I put baby spinach in the sandwiches instead of lettuce, because I knew it would hold up a little better. When I told everyone what I had done (after they were finished eating of course) I got funny faces like I had just fed them all cow poo. While they ate the sandwiches they were just fine. They most likely even enjoyed the fact that the leaves weren't soggy and everyone got a little added bonus of the food being a little healthier.

"No thanks, I don't like ________" That phrase could possibly be the most rude thing you could ever say to anyone; it's actually more rude to yourself than it is to other people. Try everything and refuse nothing. If it's awful, it's awful. But then again you might be surprised to find you really do like fried cabbage and noodles with ketchup on it.

Puppies are just learning things. They taste everything to see what's good or bad. My puppy tried to bite a beetle today; she got slapped in the nose with its wings and decided beetles are not good food. That experience doesn't mean she won't try a fly later. If I were you I'd steer clear of bugs, but a brussel sprout or two might not kill you.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

By bread alone

Last night was kind of slow at work. We were waiting on a wedding and doing what we could to get ready for the cookout today, but in the end there just wasn't much to do and there was a lot of waiting and chatting going on. One of the cooks and I started talking about bread. He said that whenever he tries to make bread it's always a ton of work and then he ends up with a rock. I know that I am a certified JWU dough ho, but there is just something so relaxing about making bread that hearing this from him just made me sad.

I didn't have a hardcore bread chef in school. The two hardcore bread chefs at JWU were hippies with long hair and calm demeanor. Well they were sort of calm, unless somehow you managed to mess up their bread. These guys loved bread. They would take that freshman baking class and on day one have them make a french baguette. They would pull the bread out of the giant stone ovens when they had the perfect dark color (the flavor is in the color, so for all of you out there who tend to burn things bread is for you) and they would grab a loaf;they wouldn't knock on it or check it's color on the bottom. They would grab the loaf and listen to it. A loaf that is baked to perfection will sing to you; if you don't believe me then you need to make some bread and prove me wrong.

The bread chef I had at JWU was trained at the Culinary Institute of America. He didn't teach the bread class at JWU because he couldn't keep his hands off bread; he taught because that was what was assigned him. This was a tad bit disappointing, but to be honest I hated that bread class. The only thing I liked about it was the fact that my diet could consist of baguettes, semolina, rye, ciabatta, croissants, broiche, soft pretzels, and danish for 6 weeks. Without someone who truly loved and appreciated bread I really didn't see the beauty behind bread baking.

All of that changed when I moved to Maine after I graduated. My first day the pastry chef showed me how to make bread. She explained that every day we made all of the bread for service. I thought to myself "oh great, I hated breads class." But Janna's love for bread really won me over. She kneaded it by hand and rolled out every piece. She was never classically taught how to score the bread (make the cuts on top so that the bread has room to breathe and grow), so I was able to add some of my own wisdom to the mix. Half of the day in the bakeshop was spent kneading and baking the bread. Guests would come and stay in the main house in the inn just to smell the baking bread.

Day after day, week after week I came to love the bread. I looked forward to smelling the bread as it was baking and I became quite familiar with Janna's creative mixes for the special bread. It was in this kitchen that I came to love bread and every creative principle behind it. The beautiful thing about bread is that you can add and mix almost anything into it, you can make it sweet or savory, and you'll end up using basically the same formula for all of it. Janna taught me that a good baguette recipe equaled delicious bread 7 days a week. She'd cook up some onions and add dill and the onions to make dill bread. I was not nearly as creative as she was, but I loved watching her brain come up with ideas on how to make the bread today. For a girl who was taught the rules of baking and not the creativity behind baking working at the Bar Harbor Inn was like opening my eyes to a whole new world.

Now it's time to open your ow eyes. It is time to put aside all of your ideas about bread and go in hands first.

1 tablespoon of yeast
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 tablespoon of salt
1 quart of water (warm- Your body temperature is most likely under 100 degrees Fahrenheit by a couple of degrees, so if the water feels warm it is ok. If the water feels hot it is too hot and will kill the yeast.)

Mix all of those ingredients together. The way to make bread is to make it while you are busy doing something else. If you're making a nice dinner for guests start cooking the meal after you mixed up this part of the bread. You'll want it to get nice and foamy before you move to the next step.

About 6 cups of bread flour
I say about for the flour because the flour really is something that you can't just use an exact amount for. If it's really humid there will be extra moisture in the air and dough will absorb more flour. If it is the middle of winter and dry as a bone, you will use a lot less flour. Listen to the dough. If it looks like it's really wet then add some more flour, and if it looks like it's a little dry maybe use a little less flour. If you have a nice Kitchenaid like I got my mom for her birthday one year, then put the yeast mixture and the flour in the Kitchenaid with the dough hook and start letting it do the work. If you don't have a fancy machine, start kneading the dough. It needs to be smooth, so you will be kneading for a little bit. Don't loose hope; you are building some good kitchen muscles.

Now it's time to let the dough rest. Again make dinner, walk the dog, get out of bread baking mode. Bread is a process and it takes time, but I promise it will be worth it. I like to bake bread with someone; this way when it's time for the dough to rest I'll put some water on for tea and sit and chat. In order for the dough to proof while it is resting you'll need to leave it in a warm damp place. If you live in the rain forest, you can just cover the bread and set it in your house. For all of the rest of us who aren't so lucky heat your oven to it's lowest setting. Place the bottom of the broiler pan on the lower rack of the oven and fill it with water. Turn off your oven once it reaches temperature and oven it a little to cool the oven down. Yeast is a live thing. It likes warm moist climates, but not hot climates.

Once your bread doubles in size take it out. punch it down and divide it into loaves. You'll get about 4 out of this recipe. Knead each loaf till they are smooth. Roll them into snake shapes and place them on sheet pans that have corn meal dusted on them. Take a serrated knife and cut a line down the middle of the loaf. I cut 3 lines to make them look like the bread you buy at the store, but in order to do that I would really have to show you how. It's not very easy to explain. The one cut will do the trick. You don't want to cut the loaf in half, but you want to give the bread room to breathe and grow.

Bake the bread at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for maybe 15-20 minutes. It's hard to say how long it'll take to bake the bread, because it will be dependent on how thin the loaves are and how hot your oven is. Listen to the bread. Watch the bread. And remember the flavor is in the color, so don't pull the bread out when it has a wimpy white flavor.

It will be very hard for you to refrain from breaking the loaf of bread and just eating it right there. There is truly nothing like the flavor of fresh baked bread. Bread really is a process, and it's made of living things. Be patient with it, and remember to relax and enjoy the process. Bread does not have to be something scary, or something you only get when you go out. Make it a nice night in with a fresh loaf of bread.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Everyone can cook

Tonight my chef was gathering up all of the ingredients he had prepared for a dinner that he was doing for a family that bought his services at a charity event. Watching him check and recheck made me think about a very important dinner I prepared for a little over a year ago. I had gotten all of the ingredients together and I was so proud of myself. I was going to be making a meal for what would be my boyfriend and his sister. I was so proud of myself and getting my kitchen all ready. I was making chicken packets.

To make chicken packets you cook 3 or 4 chicken breasts. Then you chop them up and mix them with 8 oz. cream cheese, salt, and pepper. You then take a package of crescent rolls and separate them. Fill each one with some of the chicken mixture. Melt a stick of butter and dip each crescent roll in butter and bread crumbs. You then bake them at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes or until the crescent rolls are baked.

By the time my guests were at my house my chicken packets were in the oven. I was getting ready to make the rice with the meal and of course my soon to be boyfriend was in the kitchen talking to me as I grabbed the bag of rice off of the back of the oven. I thought it was resting safely, because I hadn't used the top of the stove for any part of the meal. I grabbed the rice bag so confident and quickly. Rice flew everywhere. It turned out that the back of my stove was hot because the oven was on and the plastic bag of rice had melted and opened up right as I went to grab it.

To say the least my boyfriend still laughs about that meal. He didn't like the chicken packets, and he learned very quickly that I make a mess in the kitchen. He was definitely impressing me that day, because he actually grabbed my broom and helped me clean up the rice. I can't honestly say I had ever been so nervous about making a meal before that day. Before that I would make meals with my mom as a child in the family; the pressure was not on me. That day the pressure was on me and the rice flew all over the kitchen.

I was watching Ratatouille before work today and it made me realize once again how cooking really needs to be something fun. I learned at that first meal that I should never take myself too seriously when I'm cooking.

I cook because it relieves my stress. After a bad day, the only thing I want to do is grab some butter, flour, chocolate chips, sugar, and baking soda and make some chocolate chip cookies. Some people actually look at cooking as a chore like doing laundry or cleaning the bathroom. This is such a sad thing to me. I know I will not change everyone's mind, but I hope if you have had your rice moment you laughed about it and didn't make that one moment turn you against cooking forever.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Safer eggs with a mere price tag of 81 million dollars

The LA Times reported today that the Obama administration is at it again in regulating the food industry. This time they have targeted the egg and meat industry. Supposedly this whole thing is going to protect our food source and save us all from a painful death. Please pardon the severe case of sarcasm I am now expressing. This whole thing just makes me extremely cynical of our new administrations and its knowledge of the food industry.

Chickens carry disease. Yes all of the new plans to make chicken farmers buy only salmonella checked hens and to set up checks for bio terrorism and rodents may in some ways decrease salmonella, but in the end chickens are dirty animals and will still carry disease. You can have chickens in your back yard, fed food better than the food you eat, living in the cleanest cage you can maintain and the hens will poo on the eggs and the odds are they will leave some diseases on those eggs. This whole plan is going to cost the egg industry 81 million dollars a year. So in a time when the people of America can't afford to buy groceries, Obama is going to put into action a plan that will cost them millions of dollars. You may think that you are not going to be affected by this neurotic power trip, but if the egg industry is losing 81 million they are going to raise prices of eggs till they aren't losing 81 million and they are making money again.

The real problem in all of this is that this plan and the plan that is going to come for meat products is not really helping the food industry at all. All of the small private farmers that already keep track of how clean their chicken pens and barns are, are not going to be able to afford all of these new checks and regulations. The giant conglomerate Walmart farms will be able to afford and follow the regulations to a bare minimum. The food from the private farms will still be safer than the giant farms even with the regulations, but because of the regulations we soon will not have a choice of where we get our food. Small farms just can't afford all of this government intervention in our food supply.

Many of you may be shaking your head in disgust about my feelings. You may think that Obama is just helping make our world a little safer. I'm sure you'll bring up all of the recent food scares and tell me all about how our food just isn't safe anymore. I must ask you, have you ever considered that the reason we are hearing more about food scares in the new millennium is because we know a lot more about science and food than we did even ten years ago. If a bunch of people got sick from food 50 years ago, we wouldn't have the tools to know how many people were sick, what areas were affected, and where the food came from. Even if someone knew the information it would be hard to get the message to everyone as CNN didn't exist, so if the crisis was on the the west coast and you lived on the east coast it might take a while before you even heard about it. Food scares like the ones we've been witnessing lately have happened before. We just haven't had the ability to necessarily see them as what they are.

Another reason why these kind of scares are popping up more recently is because we don't know where our food is coming from. Those cheaper eggs at Walmart may be from a farm in Iowa. Buying eggs from the local farmer may be more expensive, but at least you would be able to walk into their chicken coop and see what kind of condition those hens live in. Unfortunately like I said already this option may soon come to an end thanks to our current administration.

Obama has not been a friend to the food industry. He seems to think that it is a good industry to hit with taxes, regulations, and extra checks. The FDA is not God, and giving the FDA more power will not promise the American people that our food will be safe. If you want safe eggs, COOK THEM!!! I know that seems extra complicated, but it really isn't. If you want safe meat, cook it to the proper temperature. This isn't rocket science people. I can not tell you all of the degrees President Obama has, but I believe it is time someone sent him to cooking school so he could learn the real way to make our food safe.

I apologize for getting so heated about this subject. I can name you so many people that I know who own farms. They work day after day; they do not know of weekends or holidays. These people make sure that we can go to the grocery store and find food there. In my eyes, farmers are as important and integral to our society as our servicemen and women. Unfortunately they are being punished because of politics. I can not even express how sad this makes me. I hope you stay informed as to where your food comes from and that you consider local farms and produce. Fight for local farms or the next generation may not know anything other than giant farms far away that pick produce early and ripen their produce through chemicals, so that it seems fresh when it is at the store.

Happy or maybe thoughtful Eating!!!

Emily

Show me your guns

No no no I'm not talking about a boom boom gun. I want you to stand up proud, hold your arms up, and show those muscles. Contrary to popular belief it takes a strong person to work in a kitchen. I worked on some serious kitchen muscles at my first kitchen job and ever since then I've never gone out of my way to ask for help. If a guy can do it, I am going to try to do it.

For a girl that weighs 95 pounds soaking wet this is saying a lot, but in a man's world like a kitchen you can't be a wimp. I thought in honor of my now pretty impressive kitchen muscles I would give you all a how to on being tough enough for a kitchen.

Can you lift 50 pounds? This is the first step in being strong enough to work in a kitchen. Flour, sugar, potatoes, and onions all come in 50 pound bags. You're not going to be much good if you can't lift some of the most basic of ingredients. For me lifting 50 pounds is pretty much lifting half of my weight. Of course you don't want to get hurt lifting this much, but contrary to what all of the pretty HR posters tell you, you will not have the perfect situation every time. When I was in school, everyone would disappear every time the stock order came in. On a weekly basis I would carry in 5-6 bags of flour and sugar. I was tired by the end, but hey it was good practice. Now my arms don't complain when I carry in just a bag or two.

Can you move a hot pan, without oven mits across the kitchen? My arms and hands have been burned many times trying to perfect this art. Sometimes I watch people that have been working in the kitchen for 30 plus years and they can grab the pan with their apron and carry it all around the kitchen. In my defense these people have burned most of the nerves on their hands and could probably grab the pan itself and never feel it. They are my heroes.

How proud are you of your cuts, burns, and scrapes? Kitchen cred comes from nice looking wounds. When I was in Maine I got a really nice burn from grabbing a sheet pan the wrong way. The same week one of the line cooks was working the grill and burned himself. We stood around comparing wounds after work, and I was as tough as the guys. I know to most people scarred up hands and arms are not a beautiful thing, but in the kitchen scars are a thing of honor. If you have soft smooth hands you must not be working hard enough. This is one of those things that you obviously can't really work on, but trust after a few weeks in the kitchen you'll have something to be proud of. It's also important to remember not to complain about the wound; commenting on how bad it looks is definitely ok though.

How big is your family? The kitchen is a family. At the country club I work at now everyone has picked their places in the family; in most kitchens it's just understood. If you don't have extra room in your life for some brothers and sisters and dads and uncles, then get out of the kitchen, you're not tough enough. Your kitchen family will definitely get on your nerves just like your real family does, but you still have to work with them so it'd be a good idea to suck it up and get along with them.

How much can you get done in 2 hours? Chef Lou in Maine used to look at me every morning and smile at me and say "Emily we get more done by 9 than most people get done all day." The speed of the kitchen is part of the reason why it's important that you can do any job in the kitchen. If someone tells you that they need 15 onions diced and there's a list of things that needs to be done, then you better get moving. No one is going to tell you to take your time in a kitchen. You show up to work or you might as well go home.

I know a lot of people who come to me and tell me that they want to be a chef. If chopping 20 onions isn't a happy job for you then you might want to rethink your future. My first job out in Oregon was to make muffins, dozens and dozens of them. I spent all day making muffins and then on days when we didn't need muffins I made carrot cake, about 30 of them. Think of the worst job and imagine doing it 20 times over and you'll come close to knowing what making that carrot cake was like.

Now I don't want you all out there to think that it is all bad in the kitchen, because honestly I love working in a kitchen. I guess it just takes a certain type of person(with a lot of muscles) and a screw you attitude. I prove myself in every kitchen I step into. Sometimes that means making muffins and carrot cakes, sometimes that means julienning carrots, but every time it means a completed project that tastes good when the job is done.

I hope you all start working on your kitchen muscles. Maybe start bench pressing grocery bags; it definitely couldn't hurt. I hope and pray you won't have all of the scars I have, but one nice one with a good story wouldn't kill you I swear. And without my kitchens families I would be a lonely person, so I hope you all find the families like I have found.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Give me liberty or give me death

Tomorrow is the fourth of July. I am sure most of you know this. It's kind of hard to miss all of the firework stands by the side of the road and the sales on hamburgers and rolls and corn on the cob. I think our family was invited to 3 picnics for one holiday. Because of the hardships many in our country have faced during these last couple of months, picnics, holidays, all of these things mean so much more. For some they mean a meal. For others they mean seeing family and friends and realizing people still care about them. For still others it means laying aside the budgets and bills and enjoying simple pleasures like watermelon, corn on the cob, burnt hotdogs, and cheeseburgers.

The founding of our country was not an easy process. The Pilgrims came to this land and almost didn't survive the first winter. The colonists decided they were sick of British rule and taxes;they got together and Thomas Jefferson penned that beautiful piece of work called the Declaration of Independence, starting the revolution and the founding of our country. The patriots that helped start our country had true beliefs and feelings. They would rather die than give in. They would fight till they got what they wanted.

I know you are all reading this and saying, "Emily I thought this blog was about food. What in the world does all of this history have to do with anything?" You're right. That all had nothing to do with food. But I was raised to be thankful for every bite of food I was given to eat. I feel as if the picnics and meals on this fourth of July will be more appreciated than they have been in past years. At least I hope so. It is not often that our country faces a hardship and a recession like the one we are in the middle of right now, but these hard times normally bring us as a people closer to our family and friends. It is easy to see what is more important when one does not have much to begin with, and what better to share these feelings around than a pot of baked beans and chilidogs.

I hope tomorrow you have a full day planned and I hope that day involves a lot of good food, or even bad food if it also involves good company. If you have been asked to bring a dessert to a picnic tomorrow and are about to pull your hair out because you totally forgot until I brought it up, think about "cooking" up a trifle.

Summer Berry Trifle

The best thing about a trifle is that i never use a recipe. Buy(yes I said buy)a frozen pound cake. It'll save you time and, to be perfectly honest, frustration, in case the cake doesn't work out. Take the pound cake and cut it into slices horizontally and then cut each slice into nice sized squares. Grab that orange you have in your refrigerator, that you haven't eaten but bought because you really meant to eat fruit this summer; cut it in half and juice it. Buy a cup of heavy cream and 8 oz. cream cheese. Put about a tablespoon of honey and the cream cheese into the mixer. Mix the honey and cream cheese till smooth. Add the heavy cream and whip until the mixture is stiff. Taste it and make sure it is sweet enough for you.

Get a nice glass bowl and layer the bottom of it with cake. Pour some of the orange juice on it. (If you have no orange juice and there's some Juicy Juice in the fridge, use it. Just don't use too much, and make sure it is semi tart and not overly sweet.) Next scoop on some of the heavy cream mixture and spread over the cake. A lot of berries are in season now. You can make it one type of berry or a whole lot of different kinds of berries. If you're using strawberries I would cut each strawberry into 4. Blueberries and raspberries obviously don't need to be cut. Put a nice layer of fruit over the cream. Layer another layer of cake(pour the juice on it) and another layer of cream and most likely another layer of berries. The amount of layers will depend on how many ingredients you have and how deep the bowl is. You will probably have a lot of cream so make that layer thicker.

To add a nice touch to the dessert (remember it's always about presentation) zest a lemon or an orange and sprinkle the zest on top. Also top with some of the nicest fruit and possible whole strawberries. Remember this is not a tried and true recipe that you have to follow to a T. Have fun, throw in the kitchen sink, and TASTE IT!!! Only you will know if the cream is sweet enough or if the berries are sour.

Have a wonderful and safe fourth of July and remember all of the things we have to be thankful of on our countries birthday.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Pink is the new white

The sous chef at the country club where I work competed in the Taste of Elegance competition sponsored by the National Pork Board. He was nice enough to inform me yesterday that the new slogan they are trying to promote for pork is "pink is the new white." My guess is their goal is to stop people from overcooking their pork. Pork has to reach an internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit for it to be safe to eat. When it reaches this temperature it will still be pink and tender inside. This goes against everything your mom told you about cooking pork and checking for it to be white, but taste wise you won't be disappointed.

Beef sales have been dropping and pork and chicken sales have been going up. This is good news for the pig people who were crying over the drop in price because of that ominously named swine flu. Pork prices are still pretty low, which is probably why people are eating more of it. The key is temperature. If you don't temp your meat, you are probably eating meat that is either being undercooked or overcooked. So listen to the pork people and make pink the new white.

I was helping to prepare for our July 4th celebration at work last night by husking what felt like 1500 ears of corn. All of that corn husking made me realize that it truly was not yet corn season. The ears of corn were not bad looking, but they just weren't beautiful. Many fruits and veggies are in season now. My mom just made a raspberry custard out of the black raspberries in our yard. My cousin texted me yesterday to tell me that the berry farm near our house was just starting to pick blueberries. It's important not to jump ahead of the season. Just because it's summer does not mean that everything is just automatically fresh and in season. Look for where the fruits and veggies are coming from and make sure you're checking out your local farmers markets for fresh produce.

We're serving around 800 at the country club for the 4th, so I'm getting ready for a lot of busyness. I hope your picnics are much smaller and a tad bit more relaxing.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Five burgers, guys, and a fry

Near my parents home in PA the newest burger joint Five Guys Burgers and Fries has been getting a lot of buzz. To celebrate my boyfriend's birthday we all decided to give it a try and see if all of the buzz was really worth it. Surprisingly it was.

Walking in to any restaurant for the first time can be a tad bit intimidating. This place was no exception. The burgers were listed on the board and then under it were all of the toppings. You could get a small burger or a regular burger. Then you had the regular and large fries and a drink. Well when I was up ordering I forget fries and a drink. It was just too much. I felt like I had ordered everything I possibly could as I was trying to remember whether I wanted ketchup and mustard and pickles and lettuce or onions and peppers and just mustard. It was just a lot, but thankfully my family remembered fries and there were plenty of them. I ended up with the small burger because I wasn't that hungry.

When the food came I was shocked to see that my small burger was literally the same size as their bigger burgers. The only difference was that I got one patty and the regular burgers had two. To say the least I was glad that I got a "small" burger. All of the fries were in a giant brown paper bag and we literally thought all of the fries were just poured into the bag because we couldn't see the cups they were in. They were hand cut at the place, which really made a difference in taste and texture. We introduced my boyfriend to fries with vinegar on them, and we were all so full by the end that there were two cups of fries left over. One fry split between two people would have been plenty.

My only complaint about these burgers that have won Best Of awards all over the country is that they were a tad bit dry and over done. There is a sign over the counter saying that they make all of their burgers juicy and well done, but I was a little disappointed by the dryness of the burger and the need for ketchup and mustard. I am a fan of ketchup and mustard on a burger, but when the burger needs it you know the burger is too dry.

For some strange reason the length of the name of this burger place has caused much confusion in my family. I think my mom has called it everything from Five Fries and a Burger to Five Burgers, Guys, and Fries. I don't know why Five Guys Burgers and Fries is hard to remember, but it is; so if you forget it don't feel bad.

I hope you are going out and trying all sorts of new things this summer. My boyfriend was with my family and me for a week and we had a lot of firsts for him. You don't know if you will like something until you've tried it and how will you ever know to try something unless you leave your comfort zone and visit new people and places. One of our trips to the Kutztown Folk Festival got me interested in the cooking of my PA Dutch ancestors. I'm going to be playing around with recipes for corn fritters and corn pie for the next couple of weeks so keep reading for some recipes and new things to try.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily