Meat cake

It's meat cake day! No winter birthday celebration is complete without a layer cake in meat form. I formed the patties with a divot in the center, so when meat cake puffs up in the oven, we will end up a flatter top instead of the usual dome that would need to be trimmed off for cake duty.

Ta Da! Meat Cake. Frosted with mashed potatoes. With bacon roses. Thank you sous chef MK for wonderful chopping and shopping skills.

We would have encountered fewer structural issues had we used instant mashed potatoes and a more traditional dry meat loaf recipe. But we wanted a tasty moist meat cake instead of 15 pounds of novelty meat brick. A turkey and mushroom layer on top, a roasted veggie beef layer on bottom. And instead of the usual ketchup, there's a sun dried tomato and olive pesto in between the layers. Delicious meat cake.

And that's not all. Fish in cake form.

And veggie cake. Eggplant and squash with 3 kinds of puree filling. Sweet potato, celeriac, and garlic russet potato. Topped with a parmesan crisp.

And mushroom cake. (I know. stretching it. turn your head sideways.)

And butter in cake form. Thank you Stuart for assorted sodas that don't taste like sodas. Such flavors as cucumber and rose petals and espresso.

Somebody ate a mouthful of butter thinking it was cake! Ha!

Fudgie the Whale Carvel cake makes an appearance. Ice cream in cake form! The fluke and blow hole was especially delicious.

And to finish up Winter Birthday Celebration 2008, Megan brings red velvet cupcakes in entree form. Go Megan! The butter is a starburst candy.

I heart salt

Tonight, I work on making heirloom quality Loo Juice. A sodium umami bomb to pass onto the next generation. Soy braised chicken wings, tofu, beef shank, shiitake, and eggs. I should probably get one of those home EKG machines. I'd mod it to spit out menu planning advice. And my EKG machine would support RSS.

Texas toast

I was going to get some cheap ass vodka for pie baking and other nefarious purposes. But I was suckered by marketing yet again. How could anyone resist vodka made in Texas?

This week's Dinner with Davy guest is Flip. Tonight, we have rosemary garlic potatoes. Half baked bread with roasted garlic spread.

And stracoto with porcini mushrooms. The sprig of rosemary counts towards our green veggie requirement for this meal.

Sadly, Flip wasn't under the influence of Tito's Texas Vodka. He's normally like this.

Preston thinks licking fingers does not count as begging for food.

Winter stores

It's the tomato sauce time of the year. This year's Summer of Garden Neglect has produced much less bounty than last year. But we will make do and be grateful for with what we have. Thankfully, supermarkets and Costco have been invented so I'm in no danger of starvation this winter.

I went totally nuts at the Super H Mart bulk bins. All sorts of flavored and dried and pickled fish products. The octopus jerky and candied anchovy snacks were especially delicious. All you pasty white people gagging right now need to get over your food prejudices and keep an open mind. Delicious is delicious in any culture.

I only bought this because she reminded me of those WW2 Rosie the Riveter "We Can Do It." posters. I had no clue what these were when I threw her into the shopping cart.

Tomato sauce. And crimini mushroom tapenade. If I had a basement, I'd totally have a giant freezer chest. And I'd buy an entire hormone free grass fed cow to fill it.

I made Nancy chocolate toffee chunk cookies for Greg's party tonight. I even followed the recipe. It was painful to do so.

Plane crazy

The airport "limousine" is optimistically named. Sigh. Less than 3 days on the ground, and I'm heading back to California already. I'll just have to squeeze all my restaurant hopping in the limited time I have at the airport. 

Korean draft beer is good.

So-so bulgogi. I guess most airport food is of similarly overpriced quality all over the world.

I found a gelato stand in Korea! Black sesame and yogurt flavoured gelato. Surprisingly good. And the yogurt gelato texture was spot on. I got two spoons so I can share with myself.

Black bean tea tastes like dirt. The dirt that the beans grew in. Blech.

Colonel Sanders looks Asian. I'm not sure this will go over well in Kentucky.

And one last fiery seafood tofu stew pot. Then onto the airplane for the 12 hour flight back to LA! Aie! (And yes Meg, I did eat all that.)

Fiesta!

The long awaited Mexican feast I've been obsessing about all week. Thinking, dreaming, planning for days! Most items made from scratch. Strawberry agua fresca with mint syrup. Serving anything in a tall skinny glass makes it fancy. Grilled corn, potatos, and poblano peppers. Tomatillo serrano salsa. And carne asada tacos with roasted tomato garlic salsa and mango jicama slaw.

Delayed gratification

Beef roast with porcini braised overnight with Pinot Noir at 220 degrees rather than 3 hours at 350. Instead of waking up in the middle of the night to deal with the roast, wafting porcini smells flavored my sweet dreams.

Camarones ala chimichurri. I used the shrimp liquid from last night to make the rice. When I took the first bite, I realized that I ate pretty much this exact dish a few years ago at the El Avion restaurant in Costa Rica. Mine might be better, though less scenic.

Crimini mushroom ragu. Has potential to be delicious. We'll know for sure at some future time.

Prep school

This year's entire loquat harvest was consumed within an hour of picking. Very juicy and fresh. But all gone. No more delicious loquats until next year.

I'm practicing my Top Chef skills by cutting roasted beets into centimeter cubes. The ugly ones went into my stomach. At some point in my life I'd like to go to cooking school and learn these things for real instead of watching TV and making things up as I go along.

Searing a roast for stracoto with porcini mushrooms. A little care in the beginning yields a lot of delicious later.

Extracting flavor from the peeled shrimp shells. The broth may wind up in a sauce, mayhaps. Or the beginnings of a bisque, perhaps. Maybe a poaching liquid of some sort, possibly. But certainly, I'm getting my money's worth from this handful of shrimps. I'm skipping composting the spent shells after I'm done. For they be super stinky for long time.

Shrimps will marinate overnight in a chimichurri.

And for even more Top Chef fun, I will be breaking down two Costco chickens tonight.

Chicken building blocks sorted and organized for dishes yet to be imagined.

I may have gone overboard with the food prep and pyrex containers.

Back to my roots

In the Bay Area for a short little schmidge. This combination microwave/mini-fridge looks like a movie space robot from the 50's. I knew I should have packed my silver lamé overalls. Darn it!

Intimidated by the microwave robot, I decide to forage for food in the neighborhood. GPS brought me to sesame tofu salad and plum tea.

And Szechwan beef noodle soup with thick cut noodles.

Palty hair dye. Because blonde is my natural hair color.

Retaining water

New toy! Old toy is now nearly useless for work purposes and will be demoted to recipe lookup duty in the kitchen.



Preston is pondering how the heck did they strap the old telephone pole to the new telephone pole without everything toppling over when they popped it in.



Gnarly. Thankfully, not my sidewalk.



Sometimes spray paint on public property isn't graffiti. These neighbors have street lamps shining into their bedrooms.



We have patriotic fountains. I can't figure out is where the water flows out from the statue. Hopefully not anything like those peeing cherub fountains.



New fire hydrant around the corner. Yay safety.



Delicious pomegranate molasses braised short ribs and celery root puree. Meltingly meaty goodness.