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.

Assembly required

Ramen schmamen. For not much more time to make a 15 cent bag of cheap ramen, a bowl of udon noodles with assorted items can fill your belly. All the bits and doodads are either pre-cooked or take only seconds to be ready. Just boil everything in broth and in a shake and a shimmy, you have supper.

Celery root (celeriac) is one of my favorite vegetables (and also hideously ugly.) It's the Gerard Depardieu of the root vegetable world. People think I'm crazy because I leap for joy whenever I see one of these celeriac monstrosities at the market. We will be blitzing these with butter and a sploosh of half and half.

Salting veggies does many things. Goodbye sponginess and waterlogged flavors.

And some pre-party assembly means extra opportunities to procrastinate tomorrow. We'll put on the last two layers and heat these up tomorrow. If I wasn't so lazy and easily distracted, I'd make a good caterer.

Kitty surprise

In honor of Hello Kitty's 34th birthday, I make beet and walnut dip. Like hummus, but with beets instead of chickpeas. This should make a good sammich spread too. Hello Kitty won't be able to eat this because Hello Kitty has no mouth.

Pretty pink pizza dough results from being too lazy to wash the food processor bowl after making beet dip. Hello Kitty serendipity has gotten me thinking about making a baguette that's pink inside. How awesome would that be? Now that we have pizza dough, we're ready for tonight's pizza flight.

Vegetarian surprise pizza. It only appears to be a gorgeous late summer vegetable pizza. But one bite into it... SURPRISE! A hidden layer of prosciutto! Surprise bacon! Your eyes say it will be delicious, but your tongue tells you it's even more delicious than you first thought. Surprise Bacon!

This one is made with mushroom paste, caramelized onions, artichokes, pecorino and gruyere. Home made pizza crust is so incredibly crispy chewy delicious that I stretched the dough out so each piece has two crusts. This is the most incredible crust I've ever made. I tweaked the dough recipe with rye flour for a more substantial flavor. And of course, I made it pink.

Seriously, this is the bestest most super number one pizza I've ever tasted in the 34 years of Hello Kitty's existence. Perfect thin crispy chewy crust, fresh ripe heirloom tomatoes, pancetta, mozzarella, fontina, and parmesan cheeses. Even tastier than the coal baked pizza I had wandering around the canals of Venice. This is now the new gold standard. The secret is a drizzle of olive oil. Olive oil with a surprise anchovy whisked in.

 

Spicy death

Tuna green curry. Post-travel laziness and a disgusting plague caught from snotty disease ridden children calls for throwing the dregs of the pantry and refrigerator into a pot with something strong and spicy. We will battle the plague with spices and fish sauce.

Egg on face

Bruce sandwiches again. Now firmly ensconced into the repertoire. Bacon makes everything delicious. Thanks Bruce and Meredith!

I'm no longer a fan of the white peaches. Sure, they're super sweet. But they lack soul. The old yellow cling peaches may not be as sweet and commercial, but they have peachy soul- a wonderful balance of acid and sugar. A sense of history and tradition. When a yellow peach is at it's peak, biting into a sun warmed one with juice dribbling down your chin is transcendent. Why bite into a saccharine silicone Britney Spears when you can have the full volume joys of an Aretha Franklin?

Pining after

The world's best-est limoncello ever! Beautiful chartreuse jewel toned colors from the Aaron method- combined with the delicious piney rosemary flavors of the Ed method. And the super aromatic kick from an armful of Davy lemons. Is good. Is very good.

No minors signage hung outside my bedroom. To help me stay out of trouble.

Woodie wagon is back in action. This time sporting fashionable Korean pine planks.

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.)

Variety pack

The Trader Joe's has new fruits to try. This week, we have golden plums, black apricots, and angelcots. Apparently, angelcots are only grown on a 2 acre farm somewhere nearby. Because they're are so juicy, these "saintly" angelcots practically melt at the slightest touch. They are incredibly hard to ship long distances, which probably limits the chances of the rest of you trying some of these. You'll just have to come visit when they're in season next year. I have no idea how the local Joe's got a hold of these. Black apricots are a cross between red plums and yellow apricots. Them sure is sweet. I have no idea how the local Joe's got these also. So this trip was a good score fruit-wise.

In a related note, Food4Less has new varieties of Doritos on special. Food snob I am not. I like to eat junk too. Now if only Frito-Lay would develop angelcot and black apricot Doritos... How awesome would that be?