Is the crockpot going to burn my countertop?

There are some people in this large world that we live in who love to cook and know how to cook and can mix this spice or that and create something so fantastic that everyone they know begs for their recipes. On the other end of the world there are people who cook because pasta every night gets old. My boyfriends fits in the second category; and his endeavors, since trying to eat pasta for 3 months and finding out that is just doesn't taste as good the 90th time around, have been actually quite honorable.

Yesterday as you can see in the picture he made ribs and mashed potatoes in the his brand new crockpot. Much to my surprise all my boyfriend wanted this year for his birthday was a crockpot. I was never informed of this, but thankfully his mom either was informed or just knew that he desperately wanted a crockpot. He has been anxiously waiting for the right moment to try it out. Yesterday's record heat and his lack of air conditioning gave him the perfect reason to not use his stove.

I guess the crockpot came with recipes, and he decided on ribs. After that decision was made I kept getting phone calls asking about bbq sauce and how much ribs and what color they will turn. Recipes only tell you so much and it can be kind of tricky to cut down a recipe. We always add a little water to the bbq sauce to thin it out and to stretch it out(the recipe of course didn't have that piece of information in it). Many people tell my boyfriend that he's lucky to be dating a cook, but my pastry degree was not really helpful; if I were to run a hotline it would be about creme brulees that have bubbles on top or pastry cream this is lumpy not about how to cook ribs. Thankfully I've helped my mom do ribs many times so I know how to answer most of his questions.

Towards the end of the whole process(I actually assumed he'd be eating soon since I knew the ribs were in), I get an im asking me if crockpots can burn counter tops. I have an incurable case of sarcasm so I responded "Yes if you light a match to it." I then get "ok brb I'm going to put it on the stove." My poor boyfriend did not get my sarcasm at all and was so busy worrying about his counter tops burning; he truly was in a tizzy. I had to laugh. Cooking can be quite relaxing, but when you spend some extra money on ribs and are hoping for a good meal the stress level just seems to rise.

Movies, cookbooks, and TV shows inundate us with the idea that anyone can cook. I do wholeheartedly agree with this concept, but I also know what it is like to do something new for the first time. My boyfriend was so proud when his ribs and mashed potatoes came out that he snapped this lovely picture for us, to display his new cooking abilities. I have also been on the other end of trying something new where the whole thing is a flop. Those moments are hardly picture worthy and tend to make me want to quit cooking altogether.

Cooking is a journey full of high points and low points. The key is to be learning every step of the way. If everything always works out the first time you try it, I hate you. Ok maybe hate is a harsh word, but coming from the perspective of an imperfect cook that has made many mistakes I can say I've not learned nearly as much from my successes as I have from my failures. So here's to the successful ribs that I am hoping we can recreate when I'm in Providence and to the daily flops that teach us we aren't perfect and still have a lot to learn.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Here comes the bride and cake AGAIN

You can ask anyone who knows me well I hardly ever learn my lesson the first time. I blame this and many other quirky qualities on my mother. My dad has practiced with her over and over how to say the word no, but somehow she only seems to know how to say it when "she's up to here(hand goes over head)in paperwork and can't possibly do one more thing(like drop my sister off at her friends)." My sister also can never say no and I believe somehow no was erased from her vocabulary because she doesn't understand it either. I normally have a more balanced sense of the word no and try to frequently use it and practice it, but every now and then genetics kicks in and I just can't bring myself to use the word.

Sunday night a friend of mine stopped me and asked me if I would make her wedding cake. Well I guess her exact words were "I don't know anything about cakes." She's doing a night wedding with just dessert and her wedding colors are black, white, and red. It sounds like a dream to me, dessert, twinkling lights, and a beautiful wedding in her parents backyard. I wasn't one of those girls who planned out their wedding when they were five, but just hearing about her plans made me wish I was five and could plan my wedding(at 21 with a steady boyfriend planning your wedding is a tad bit creepy, 5 was a much better age for such things).

My friend handed me a picture of a cake they wanted and instantly I knew I could do one better. I was already scheming about this cake. She wanted it to be square, which is just so classy. It was going to be covered in white fondant with black ribbon and a bow around each layer and to top it all off red roses on the corners to add a punch of color. To add a little extra finesse I was going to do some filigree work on the sides of the cakes. All of this was just so much fun to imagine and talk with her about; then we got to the icky details.

She wanted no more than 200 people. Well that wasn't terribly icky, just a little bit scary because they were only serving cake so it wasn't a typical cake for 200 people it was a extra large cake for 200 people. This was going to take some work. Also their original date was June 19th, but they wanted to bump it up. June 19th sounded like a perfect day to me. It might be a little bit warm, so everyone would be happy sitting outside and the lightning bugs might even be out which to me would make this outdoor wedding even more magical.

Unfortunately moving it up meant I might not be home from school, so imagine me flying home on a Thursday night spending all day Friday and Saturday doing these cakes(which will be too large to fit in my parent's fridge unless we don't eat for a few days), and then flying back to school Sunday. I'm guessing this will be around finals week, but that is just a guess. I still don't know the exact day of the wedding but I am kneeling by my bedside every night and praying that it will be after Emerson lets out, so that I won't have to go through a stressful weekend whirlwind.

The other details about the cake are that she wants one layer to be vanilla, one to be chocolate, and one to be strawberry. I'm not really sure about strawberry as I have never seen a strawberry cake that has not come from a box, but stranger things have happened maybe I will fall in love with strawberry cakes. Her fiance is allergic to chocolate, so I am going to have to be careful regarding production. I do need to just take a moment and say that this poor man should be met with sad glances anytime anyone meets him. To be allergic to the best thing on earth is truly a tragedy.

You may be reading all of this and screaming at your computer. "Emily I remember the last cake. You were a mess. You said you hated cakes." Yes I did, but remember we are blaming this on my mother. I have a feeling 5 years from now my boyfriend will be doing no seminars with me just like my dad does for my mom. Actually I think he's already done them once or twice. I think I'll start yes anonymous. "Hi my name is Emily and I have used the word no twice this week."

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Bon Apetit!

Tonight I grabbed my mom and sister and told them that we were going to see Julie and Julia. I am still floating on air. There are certain movies that you leave the theaters and feel like you just want to go do something; this was one of those movies. Maybe it was just because I am a baby blogger and a trained chef and I could relate to both of the main characters. Maybe it was because I love Amy Adams and Meryl Streep is a goddess. I don't know what the reason, but if I were a movie critique I would give this movie 5 thumbs up. I would probably have to borrow a few thumbs to do it, but it would happen.

Amy Adams' character of Julie was struggling to do something that would make her life feel more fulfilling. I couldn't help but relate with the feeling of trudging through life and doing things just to get by. I started this blog only because every newspaper in the area told me I did not have enough news experience to get their internships, but that I was uniquely qualified for an internship in their food section(only they didn't offer internships in their food sections). The beauty of Julie's blog was that she had a goal and a mission and A DEADLINE. She also had a supportive husband, which reminded me of my own supportive boyfriend who gets excited about every blog posts and always encourages my new goals.

Meryl Streep's character of Julia Childs was just so human. She made me want to move to Paris and fall in love with French food. At one point in the movie her husband asks her what she wants to do and she says that she loves to eat and that she's good at it. You had me at hello Julia, you had me at hello. The movie takes you through Julia's struggle of learning how to cook and the writing of her cookbook. The struggles she faced were just inspiring, there really is no other word. How does a tall bumbling American woman become an expert on French cooking? She wanted something and she didn't quit.

Cooking is so relaxing to me. Julie said in the movie that this was because cooking was something she could count on to always work. I don't know if that's why I like cooking, but I do know there is nothing like coming home from a bad day and making a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

I don't know where this blog is going to take me. Unlike Julie I don't really have a goal, but I do know that I am enjoying the adventure so far. I hope you are too, whoever you are out there.

I am also starting a new wedding cake project, so stay tuned for cake news. It's going to have to feed 200+ people and I'm going to have to do a tasting in the next couple of weeks. I already warned my boyfriend so he's ready for me to be a little stressed out, poor guy.

Happy Eating or as Julia would say Bon Apetit!!!

Emily

"I'm not interested in food"

What kind of strange person would make a comment like this? Oh just the head of advertising for the United Kingdom Grocery Chain Morrison's. I became pretty good friends with a marketing major at Emerson and I know he wasn't completely 100% passionate about every company his professors threw at him, but through his work and ideas you really could see him starting to get passionate about it. It would be pretty hard to represent a grocery store when you aren't interested in food. It's kind of like taking a job as the head of sales for Tyson and being a vegetarian.

In other grocery store news Whole Foods exec sold stocks and made 1.4 million dollars in a bad economy. This is of course after it was projected that the yuppy grocery store would lose a tremendous amount of money because of the economic hit to its clientele. I suppose no one really knows what's going on anymore.

In other much more interesting news all of this summer's rain has produced possibly the best tasting corn ever reported in the history of Emily eating corn. That may not sound that long to you, but one of my mom's friends got some of the corn too and her parents(who I think it would be pretty honest to say are MUCH older than me) said they had never tasted corn that sweet and fresh.

This morning I spent the majority of my time husking my mom's 150 ears. She always buys a lot, flash cooks them, and then we cut the kernels off so we can freeze the corn and eat it in the middle of winter. We actually experimented a little bit this year, and grated some corn for corn fritters. There are quite a few moments in life when I am seriously sad for anyone who is not PA Dutch and has never tried corn fritters.

Because of the excellence of this corn the corn fritters were like candy that melted in your mouth. I know that you might have never tried a corn fritter, but think of a pancake made of corn. Potato pancakes get corny.

We doubled this recipe to feed our family as a side.

2 Large perfect ears of corn
1 tablespoon flour
1 egg seperated
pinch of salt
oil for frying

Grate the corn. We have a fancy (or not so fancy) grater that my great grandmother had, but if you use your cheese grater just watch your knuckles. Add the corn, flour, egg yolk, and salt in a bowl. Beat the egg white till it's nice and stiff. Fold in the egg white. We fried them on a griddle, but just a frying pan with oil works too.

Be adventurous and remember food doesn't ask you to be interested in it, but you spend a lot of your time making and eating it so you might as well enjoy it.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

A more expensive burger when everyone is losing their job...brilliant!

Sometimes companies have really good ideas. When the Mars company decided to give away chocolate to 250,000 people every Friday, I cheered. I mean what do people in a poor economy need? free chocolate, of course!!!

Unfortunately for every good idea there is a bad idea. McDonalds made an Angus burger with an Angus worthy price tag of $3.99 for just the burger. Now I don't know about you but I don't go to McDs for quality food; I go when I need cheap food. If the food were good and cheap that would be a perk, but that's why I go to Wendys which is a little higher on the fast food chain in my eyes. Even Wendys is jumping on the expensive burger train unfortunately. Yesterday the Wendys execs announced that they will be launching a "premium bacon cheeseburger." When the president of Wendys was questioned about the silliness of offering expensive burgers during a recession he claimed that value was not "defined by $1 price points." I wonder how much this guys makes.

Tonight I was prepping by myself in the back of the kitchen. On nights like these I have a lot of time to think. I wish I would have had this fast food news to consider. I was busy considering what makes someone an important chef. While picking the basil leaves off the plants, my aunts, mom and I were bantering about everything and my Titi Stella brought up Julia Childs. She had just been watching on the old episodes on tv and was laughing at what a horrid cook Julia was.

I believe it was a yule log my Titi was watching Julia make. She said that she had the log and the icing and was about to frost it. Julia went to frost the yule log and half of the cake came up with the frosting. Julia went "oops" and started patting the icing back on the cake. I now know why Julia Childs holds a special place in my heart. Just ask Rob (you remember the sous chef at the country club I work at), I tend to mess things up every now and then. He tends to be the one to help me fix them which is why I say to ask him. I mean if someone like Julia can go down in food history why can't I.

So back to me thinking. There are many famous chefs. Some are famous because they are excellent cooks, some are jerks, some are fun to watch, and a few others just seem normal enough that they make you believe you can cook. I feel like Julia Childs was one of these chefs. She wasn't perfect, but she liked to cook.

My mom and I have a date on Monday to go see Julie and Julia the new movie about Julia Childs and a blogger of all things. I am actually quite excited about this. I will let you all know how amazing it is. Maybe you should stop spending your money on the premium burgers at McDonalds this week so you can save up and go see the movie to. I have a feeling it will be worth it, and your arteries will thank you.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

a fresh taste of summer all winter long

*To be sung to Mary Had a Little Lamb*

Emily grew some basil, basil, basil,
Emily grew some basil and called the Titi's (Aunt in Spanish) oer,
They brought over the oil cheese garlic and pine nuts, oil cheese garlic and pine nuts, oil cheese garlic and pine nuts,
They brought over the oil cheese garlic and pine nuts and we all made some pesto

*Bows*

If pesto had a fan club, I would be the head of it. In fact I might just make a fan club right now. If you care to join you know where to find me - I'll be by the green stuff. For those of you who are completely confused by all of this nonsense pesto is a green sauce made of basil, parsley, garlic, olive oil, Parmesan and Romano cheese, and salt. We put it all in the food processor, but you could just grind up everything by hand if you wanted to be really old school and buy a mortar and pestal.

Pesto can be eaten on pasta (angel hair is my personal favorite); it can also be eaten on fish or as a pizza sauce. The possibilities are endless and the freshness of all of the ingredients just scream summer to me. Tomorrow my dad's two sisters are coming over and we're going to pick my mom's five giant basil plants clean, make, and freeze enough pesto to last us the winter months of nothing fresh and green.

In other food news Nathan Heller of Slate Magazine decided to take on the age old question of who makes a better cup-o-joe. Heller and some of his colleagues blind taste tested McDonald's Coffee, Dunkin Donut's Coffee, and Starbucks Coffee.

Starbucks was rated the worst. Yes Starbucks failed when compared to McDonalds, so save your 5 bucks and the snotty crowd in the morning. All of the blind tasters what I(a coffee hater from way back) knew all along. Starbucks is bitter. End of story.

McDonald's cappuccino was decided by Heller and his crew as the best cappuccino. I guess the golden arches still know how to do a thing or two. Over all Dunkin won the blind taste test. My personal New England tendencies make me want to get up and cheer for the home team.

All of this blind taste testing has made me want to do one of my own. I'm much more of a tea gal, so I'm thinking it's going to have to be a tea taste test. If you have any favorite black teas let me know and maybe we'll make it part of the test. For now I need to get going and finish cleaning up the kitchen; pesto starts at 10 tomorrow morning.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Dear Soapy People

Over the years I have worked with a lot of dish washers. Most of them have been very special characters that did there job well and managed to joke and make it look like it was easy. There have been a few however that have the cockiness of a well trained sous chef; there truly is nothing worse than a cocky dishwasher, because I never met a cocky dishwasher that actually did their job well. In honor of these people who fail at scrubbing pots I have constructed a letter. For those of you who have never ran into a dishwasher, other than the machine in your kitchen, imagine your machine telling you that it won't wash a dish you put in because it's tired and you'll probably know what it's like to work with one of these problem people. We can all learn from these people who stand in the back and make sure the kitchen runs smoothly and clean. The character traits that make a good worker don't change from industry to industry.


Dear Soapy People,

Your job is an important key to a kitchen, but it is not the most important. Without the food there would be no dirty dishes, pots, or pans; so without a doubt a cook is always above you and should be respected.

Sucking up to chefs is really unattractive. Do your job well and you shouldn't have to spend all of that time schmoozing. In case you just haven't figured it out yet the chefs tell you that you are doing a good job and thank you for things because they know you have the worst job in the kitchen and (if you're good) they're praying you don't have high ambitions and want to move up in the world of the kitchen, because it is always hard to replace a good dish washer.

The kitchen is a team. You may be the groundskeepers who cleans up after the game, but you are still a part of the team. If you aren't a team player you are worthless. As shocking as this sounds taking dishes back and helping the team is not done as a favor; it is your job to do what you can to help the team. This is true on the flip side; unfortunately bad dishwashers tend to need a lot of help and tend to not help. This makes you a very weak link.

Helping when someone important is watching and can pat you on the back doesn't count. The quiet efficient workers are the ones that the team would fall apart without. Reminding people how long you have been working at one place doesn't make you a stronger link either. If you've been a dishwasher at one restaurant for 5 years then you should be able to handle a night with one dishwasher down, without needing the cooks to bail you out.

My first job required me to wash all of my own dishes. I know what you do; I've done it. It really is a thankless job, so don't expect a thank you or fish for one. You cleaned the pot; good job that's what you are paid for. In this economy you are lucky to even have a job.

I know this may sound a little harsh and, if you can read, you are probably either fuming or saying that you don't do that and you are the best dishwasher ever. A good dishwasher would never say they are the best; they would be washing dishes right now.

I know I said your job was thankless, but a good dishwasher is worth more than 5 line cooks. Thank you for faithfully and without complaint cleaning off the food that people didn't want. Please don't let the bad dishwashers drag you down and tell you that you aren't appreciated, because you are and the kitchen wouldn't work without you.

***This note is dedicated to a dishwasher who lived in the intern house with me, stole my underwear from my room, got caught, and then proceeded to think the whole kitchen would fall apart if he was not there to scrub pots. On last report this dishwasher is not working there and the kitchen is still functioning. It is also dedicated to a man who called me lazy (underwear can be replaced, but insulting my work ethic is something that will never be forgiven). May both of these dishwashers live long lives as dishwashers, because according to them that is what they are best at. ***

The news is full of stories about how to not get fired, how to get a job, and how to be an indispensable worker. My advice for dishwashers and everyone, work hard even when no one is watching. The economy makes no promises, but it has worked for me so far.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily