Blake Makes

We landed in Chicago last night, and got to the hotel around 9pm. We were tired, and still getting our bearings, so we ordered room service. It’s Friday morning, and all I can think about is Alinea for dinner tonight. But, I have a bad habit of over-hyping things in my head, which usually makes an above-average experience seem mediocre. Will this happen at Alinea tonight?

I’m convinced it won’t. In fact, I think it’s going to be the best meal of my life. It will be. I really believe that. Really. I mean it.

It better be.

Topolobampo for lunch today, hopefully the Black Mole (like the one he made on Top Chef Masters). Post to follow.

Visit the Alinea site. We’re doing the Tour. 23 courses, 4 hours. Our reservations are at 9:30pm. This is going to be heaven!

Today’s been a great day. First, it’s Saturday, and Saturdays are rarely mundane. I knew it was going to be a good day when we stepped out the front door, and sensed a hint of Fall in the air. Granted, it was still 88 degrees, but in New Orleans, that’s almost crisp.

Beez and I decided to go to Cafe Degas for lunch. It’s a small, French restaurant in Mid-City. It’s on Esplanade, but if you didn’t know where it was, I bet you’d miss it. The whole building is surrounded by lush, over-growth, which makes sitting in their quasi-outdoor dining room pleasant in the middle of Summer.

Beez liked the chairs with their comfy cushions, and full backs. A mimosa for Bridget, and a Bloody Mary for me, then we each ordered a bowl of French-onion soup to start. The soup was ok, a bit under-seasoned, and I’ve had a deeper, darker broth before.

For our mains, Beez got quiche with Swiss and brocoli, and I got an omelet with grilled shrimp and bacon. Both were perfectly pleasant. We finished with dessert. I ordered green apple mint sorbet, and Beez got vanilla chocolate chip ice cream. Mine was really tart, and got a little too intense. Her’s was better.

What I liked more than the meal, however, was the conversation. Bridget and I can talk for hours, and over lunch we discussed what we were going to make for a baby shower Bridget’s hosting in a few weeks. We really liked these palmiers I made earlier in the week for, coincidentally, a shower at work. They were filled with sun-dried tomato pesto, and, admittedly, the flavors were really strong. Perhaps fresh tomatoes would make it a little less so.

We make a summer tomato tart with nearly the same ingredients, puff pastry, fresh tomatoes instead of sun-dried and cheese, so I’m testing a new preparation tonight, and will let you know how it goes.

Back to Today

After lunch, we went to see Julie & Julia, and I loved it. It was joyous. I love how free Julia Child seemed. She spent some time looking for what she wanted, stumbled upon and went for it! It made me want to do that same thing. Maybe I already am, but I keep feeling what I call a “food calling.” I’m convinced it’s the same thing Peace Corps volunteers, nuns and musicians feel as they are starting their lives.

It feels a little like I’m about to cry, but not in a sad way. It feels open and right. My heart flutters and races. It just feels like something I’m supposed to do. What it is, exactly, I’m not sure. Am I supposed to be a mere food blogger, or a chef, a food writer, a food photographer or something else? Or, am I not supposed to be in food at all? Maybe I’m just misinterpreting my love of Nutella for a true calling.

I’d rather go on believing there’s something bigger at work. I do think I’m meant to do something in food, but I haven’t discovered it, yet. For now, I’ll be patient. I’m on a path, and in pursuit of something. But I’m also patient, and know it will come in due time.

Sounds a lot like faith, doesn’t it? Maybe it is a calling after all.

Chopper

Before I go, I have to mention something weird and cute that Chopper just did. He’s had this little lion toy since he was a puppy. Over the years, it’s been, um, worn-down. A few months ago, it got ripped in two while Chopper and I were playing a game of tug-of-war. I remember when it happened, I felt Chopper’s heart break a little.

Today, we were playing another tug-a-lion game, and a tiny piece of the toy ripped off. It was very small, maybe an inch. Chopper dropped the lion remnant that was in his mouth, and stared at the little stitch on the floor. Another broken heart. But then he did something very peculiar. He snatched the little bit in his mouth, and swallowed it. Swallowed it! A few undulating head movements, and down it went.

I guess that was Chopper’s way of making peace. Poodle closer.

Beets will always remind me of being a kid, but I never ate beets as a child. How can that be? Keep reading.

Beets were always one of those not-a-chance-in-hell menu items when I was a kid. I don’t think we ever had beets once growing up. I knew what they were, of course. They were those deep purple rooty, bulby looking things that probably tasted like crap. Where’s a time machine when you need one?

Today’s MAKE is Roasted Beet Salad.

This beet salad is the height of sophistication and simplicity. So, let’s talk about it and how you make it first, but then let’s talk about Doug.

Preheat your oven to 425. Scrub a pound of beets, and leave on the roots and an inch or two of the stems. Toss the beets on a baking sheet, and slide them into the oven for an hour (or until tender). Don’t season them. Don’t oil them.

When they’re done, take them out and let them cool. I didn’t want to wait for them to cool, so I put them in a colander and ran cold water over them. I peeled them at the same time, under the running water.

Once peeled, slice the beets into to 1/4 inch slices, and arrange on a plate – a white plate, preferably. I love how the deep red beets look against a stark, white canvas. It’s art for dinner.

Next, you need to whip up a little dressing for this salad. Combine two tablespoons of red wine vinegar, one teaspoon of extra-virgin olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper.

Drizzle a little of the mixture (maybe half) over the beets. Use the rest to dress six cups of arugula. Grab the greens in handfuls, and drop them, dressed and dripping, on top of the beets. Finally, shave some big curls of quality Parmesan over the top.

Beez and I devoured this salad. The roasted beets were wonderfully tender and sweet. Sweet like sugar sweet. Beets are nature’s candy. I would recommend that you not dress the salad greens until just before you’re ready to serve. Soggy salad is sad.

This recipe is from Page 90 of Cooking Light magazine, August 2009.

“Ah ee oo, killer tofu!”

Have you ever seen the Nickelodeon cartoon, Doug? I have. I’ve seen every episode of the Nick toon. Although I haven’t watched it in years, when I was a kid, Doug was everything I wanted to be. He had a cool dog, married parents, a two-story house and dreamed of being a cartoonist when he grew up.

Doug and all his friends were ga-ga over a band named, The Beets. That line in bold just above is a lyric from one of their songs. They were like a freaky, punk version of the Beatles, and one of my favorite episodes was when Doug and his friend, Skeeter Valentine, got to meet the Beets in person!

I’ve dropped a snippet of an episode I found on YouTube below. It’s actually one of my favorite episodes. It’s a mysterious episode that involves a guy in a burger suit.

Hello, Blake Makers. I’ve got a new philosophy on blogging. I’ve always been a believer in doing what you love, blogging what you love. You know that I love food, but I also love ideas. From time to time, I’m going to share my latest ideas with you, like this one.

It’s called, TweetMyBumper.com, and it’s a site that makes bumper stickers that feature your twitter username. Its tagline is, “Follow me in traffic. Follow me on twitter.”

Springwise loved us today. I love them back!

I was one of those kids that loved broccoli. Were you? Something about their shrubby tops made me feel like a giant devouring platefuls of trees. I still like broccoli, but I have to admit my recent trips to Whole Foods have me leaving with that lanky broccoli cousin, broccolini.

Whether you like ‘lini or ‘li (or both), today’s MAKE is the basic brock.

Set your oven to broil. Take out a sheet pan, and cut the florets off the top of the broccoli stalk directly onto the pan (I only cook fresh veg, so I’m not sure how frozen broccoli would turn out; let me know?). You could toss the veggies in a little olive oil, but I just sprayed them with olive oil flavored cooking spray (coat them well). Next, sprinkle liberally with salt (I only use Kosher) and freshly ground black pepper.

Slide the veggies under the broiler. After five minutes, move the veggies around a bit and cook for five minutes more. You want to see bits of brown. If you only see green, they’re not fully cooked. If you see black, they’ve cooked too long.

I bet you’ll love this preparation. Steaming takes forever, and boiling can make broccoli soggy. Roasting is quick and easy, and imparts a mild, nutty flavor to the vegetable. I noticed Beez popping the leftover florets in her mouth after dinner. It’s nice to see you again. It’s been too long.

Nope. I’m not going into the cereal business. That clever title was sent to me, jokingly from one of my beloved readers. The worst thing a blogger can do is stop blogging, and that’s just what I’ve done. As we all know, life can be crazy at times. My life has been a little crazy for a while, but things are settling back down. I’m ready to come back, and live up to my tag line, “ONE AMBITIOUS FOODIE.” But, instead of the usual you-ain’t-seen-nothing-yets, and i’m-about-to-change-the-worlds, let me go back to basics and start cooking, eating and blogging.

If you’re still with me, it’s nice to see you again. For those who may have drifted away, I’m coming back for you.

bk

Blake Makes Mag Tease from Blake Killian on Vimeo.

I have been to Herbsaint twice now. The first time, Jenna and I left and had to record our gushed comments on praise in a note on my phone, so profuse were they that I worried about forgetting them all. The second time, I had an unprecedented kind of love affair with my dessert. And yet, I have had a lot of trouble sitting down to write this review. I adore this place, and my conundrum is this: must I dissect this emotion and justify precisely why I feel the way I do? But I’ll humor you, because if there are any cynics out there reading this, the least I can do is convert them to believers.

Herbsaint is located in the Warehouse District of New Orleans, on St. Charles Avenue where it’s one way. The dining room is incredibly bright and airy, with huge windows that let sunlight just flood in and coat every crevice of the room. The room has a luxurious, clean, organic kind of openness that makes it a pleasure to just sit in: it somehow strikes that balance between serene oasis and chic hotspot. So when you take your seat at the table with the white linen tablecloth right by the window overlooking St. Charles, either your standards for a good meal have just shot out the roof or you are so aesthetically satisfied that you are content to just steep in this atmosphere…

…that is, until the people at the table next to you get their first plates. A whiff of delicate fried frog legs with fines herbes and the sight of an impressively dark-rouxed gumbo are sensually stunning and incite a carnal but innocent kind of jealousy. Luckily, when this happened to Jenna and me, it was after we had placed our orders – providentially enough, for the same two dishes. In between bites, the couple at the next table glanced over at us and said, “It sounds like you really know your food!” We laughed and befriended them. As it turns out, they teach at Cornell College in Iowa, and every January, they come live in New Orleans for a month so they can stock up on the food and culture that are apparently lacking back home. We gleefully talked food with our kindred spirits as we gazed lovingly at their food. Ours could not come soon enough.

Now, that is not to say that the service was anything short of superb. We owed our impatience solely to an acute kind of hunger that was sharpened at the sight of some truly beautiful food. At long last, I found myself peering down at my plate full of frog legs as Jenna, across the table, melted in a love-puddle around her gumbo. This being my first dining venture into amphibian territory, I rolled up my sleeves and dove in. Frog legs look a lot like anorexic chicken legs, I think. These ones were fried in an ethereal take on Southern fried chicken batter, topped with a generous handful of fresh herbs, and piled in a pool of spicy, hot oil. As I bit in, I was overjoyed by the texture of the batter… until I got a bone in my mouth. Turns out, I’m not a natural when it comes to eating frog, and my rabid hunger got the best of me. That kind of put a damper on my mood (I have always found unwanted bones and stray shells to be overly offputting), and I found the oil to be gratuitous and overbearing. I did, however, fall in LOVE with the meat, trappings aside: it’s true that it does taste like chicken, kind of, but it’s more chewy; I found its mouthfeel to be quite different, as chicken is generally kind of stringy when broken, whereas frog just falls off the bone in succulent bite-sized parcels.

I felt the same kind of visceral attraction to my second course that I did when my frog legs arrived, but I also felt a degree of surprising restraint: it was one of those almost-too-beautiful-to-touch deals. A small bundle of house-made spaghetti languished in a pool of creamy butter-yellow that was spangled with tiny bits of crushed red pepper and bits of guanciale. Resting jauntily atop this was a golden brown fried poached egg – can you imagine!? The waiter instructed me to break the egg perfectly down the middle, and when I did, it oozed generously in a yolky rush – essentially, a deconstructed carbonara. The spaghetti was tender but not gooey; the sauce was creamy and comforting but with a subtle punch that made it multi-faceted rather than single-noted; the egg, which had been lightly breaded, was delicate and crispy, a wonderful punctuation to each luscious pasta bite. Having never eaten guanciale before, I was a bit startled by it, as it is leaner, less greasy, and unabashedly richer – almost pungent – in flavor. Of course, it’s a delicacy, but it will take just a bit of getting used to, my being so accustomed to bacon.

Actually, I think I’ll cut this entry short here. I know reviews are traditionally written in one fell swoop, but the truth is that this is being published on a blog. You are most likely reading this from your RSS, leafing through a bounty of new posts, and I am aware of this: blog posts just aren’t meant to be prolific. I wish I could have cut to the chase with what I’ll write next. SO: I’m going to just start a fresh post for those of you with taxed attention spans. Sneaky…

Paris Day Two Part One from Denise Elliott on Vimeo.