frites & fries

Link Casserole

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Interesting links I found today:

A peanut butter and jelly wallet
Something I’m going to buy once I find it: an Everything Bagel Spice. I would use it season everything. I love bagels. (via)
The Gadling lists the 20 greatest cities for “foodies”. I really hate that term and my conclusion: the list sucks. If you’re going to mention Chicago, at least mention some of the great molecular gastronomy restaurants. Lastly, you can’t have a complete food city list without naming Paris and New York.
An interactive map from the New York Times showing the best coffee places in New York City.
It’s European Waste Reduction Week. We should take a cue from our European friends and pick food products that have less mess and fuss, aka less packaging (via Eat Me Daily)

(From L-R: bacon & dark chocolate, milk chocolate & pink...

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:17:19 -0500

(From L-R: bacon & dark chocolate, milk chocolate & pink salt, peanut butter & pink salt & Maldon salt & milk chocolate, and pecans & caramel & milk chocolate)

If you live in New York, Chicago or Las Vegas, drop by your nearest Vosges boutique for these decadent chocolate Easter eggs. Even if you don’t celebrate Easter, their chocolates are just really delicious and worth the price.

Tabletop Thursday

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:14:03 -0500

Pulling a tablecloth with a motorcycle: Can it be done? Click on the picture to see the video (via Boing Boing)

[Previous Tabletop Thursday]

Link Casserole

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:29:57 -0500

Neat triangular packaging for spices (via NotCot.org)
Learn how to fold your dinner napkin like a kimono [Fancy dinner parties!]
Bakelab Bakery has an Alice in Wonderland theme for their baked goods. You can order them online! (via)
Bravo is working on a new show called Around the World in 80 Plates. The premise is that the contestants will work in some of the most famous restaurants. I can’t really see Thomas Keller participating, so…I would not watch it. Plus, I don’t have cable. (via)

Now that fashion week in Paris is ending…

I’m looking forward to winter clothes for next year. But I’m looking forward to: spring, getting rid of bulky coats, warm weather, strolling on the cobblestone roads in the West Village, and being able to wear dresses and flats. Don’t get me wrong though — I only dress very girl and I like baking which could be considered very feminine (but keep in mind that some of the best pastry chefs in the world are men). The rest of me just wants soccer to start already, to a lesser extent, baseball, because there’s no more hockey to watch. You can take the girl out of Minnesota but you can’t take Minnesota out of her. On that note, I’ll be traveling this weekend!

Link Casserole

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:40:22 -0500

Not So Humble Pie: science + baking. She’s like my match in blogging heaven. She made atom cookies!
Custom made chocolates: You could make an Annie (toffee, coffee, peppermint, and sea salt)
Bacon Jam exists. I started browsing a great food marketplace online called Foodzie. Think of it as the Etsy of food or a gigantic online farmer’s market (sans produce). I also found beer and pretzel caramels that I really want to buy.
Dan Barber, the executive chef at Blue Hill (a restaurant that I’m still dying to go to), examines sustainable fishing practices at a TED event.

I found this amazing cocktail on Liqurious: a solid Bloody Mary...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:52:00 -0500

I found this amazing cocktail on Liqurious: a solid Bloody Mary from Grant Achatz, the executive chef at Alinea. I’ve written about Alinea in a previous post and I’m dying to go there. I think molecular gastronomy is amazing. I’m wondering, what other cocktails would be great in a solid form? a fizzy Bellini? a classic Manhattan?

Want: Place Setting Placemat

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:07:00 -0500

Now I won’t have to argue with my sister about water glass placement for fancy family dinners. Buy it here.

Archi-meaty Pie [Hey, It's Almost Pi Day!]

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:47:00 -0500

When I was doing research, I remember being cooped up in rooms with no windows and fluorescent lights. I spent most of my day programming, sitting in meetings, analyzing stats and collecting data. This was a little better during the actual experimental phase of the various research projects when I made people wear gigantic headphones, walk around blindfolded or made people run into the wall [accidently]. It was interesting, fun, and you learn a lot about human nature and problem solving. I learned that there are four perks in doing research even though you don’t make a whole lot of money doing it:

You’re constantly learning new things
You can say that you’re doing research: it makes you sound fancy and smart
You can tell math jokes in the comfort of the research lab
You can celebrate geeky holidays because research people are supposed to be kind of geeky like that: a number related holiday (like 1/23 or 3/14), an anniversary of a theory, or the day that you’re finally given the green light by the IRB.

Once such nerdy holiday is coming up…that would be Pi Day (3/14). I made a sweet and savory meat pie because I wanted to take advantage of Archimedes’ name and be able to say Archi-meaty. Word play!

Archimedes tried to approximate the value of pi by drawing a bunch of polygons with a bunch of different sides via method of exhaustion, to make it as close to a perfect circle as possible. Here’s my recipe for the Archi-Meaty Pie, a Greek inspired lamb pie with apples and raisins.

For 9” Pie:

Filling:

2 c. ground lamb (just less than a pound)
1 onion, diced
1 garlic, minced
1 tart apple, cored, peeled and diced
1/4 c. raisins [raisins sound like the French word for reason…so I added it in the pie]
1 tsp. orange zest
6 oz. Greek yogurt
2 oz. feta cheese
1 tsp. honey
salt, to taste
pepper, to taste
Olive oil

Crust:

2 1/2 c. flour
1 c. cold butter, cut into 1/2” pieces
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 c. water (plus additional if necessary)
3 sprigs of thyme
2 tsp. smoked Turkish pepper (optional)

For the filling, coat a medium sauce pan with olive oil on medium high. Let the oil heat up before adding in the lamb. Cook the lamb for a few minutes but it should still be slightly pink. Add in the diced onions, garlic, and apples before adding in the orange zest and salt/pepper to taste. Let the filling cool to room temperature in a large mixing bowl.

While the filling is cooling, make the pie crust by combining all of the ingredients for the pie crust except for the water, pepper, and thyme leaves. Work the dough with the hands and gradually add in the water until the dough looks like cornmeal: coarse. Add in the pepper and thyme leaves before working the dough one more time. Divide the dough in a half and refrigerate for about an hour. Now back to the filling! The seasoned lamb should be cool by the time the pie crust has chilled. In the mixing bowl with the lamb, add in the Greek yogurt, feta cheese and honey. Make sure it’s thoroughly mixed before adding additional salt and pepper to taste. There should be a noticeable sweet and savory contrast.

Once the pie dough has chilled, preheat the oven to 350F. take out both halves and roll on half out on a clean, floured surface with a pastry pin. Flip the dough, flour, and roll it out a little more. Line a 9” pie dish with the crust; trim the excess dough if necessary. Carefully spoon in the pie filling into the dish evenly. Roll out the other half of the pie dough; slowly cover the filled pie with the rolled out dough. Trim and mold if necessary. Cut out 3-4 small slits towards the center of the pie. Place the pie in the center of the oven and bake for about an hour

Link Casserole

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:48:22 -0500

Interesting things to think about:

Why does a salad cost more than a big mac?
Sophie Dahl publishes a cookbook…it looks interesting but what a clash of the fashion world and food world. What’s next? Aggy and a food arts book? Sasha Pivovarova food paintings?
Learn how to make jam
Crazy people are trying to ban salt from restaurants

Tuesday, 5:30pm. West Village, New York City. Pickles, cocktails...

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:33:00 -0500

Tuesday, 5:30pm. West Village, New York City. Pickles, cocktails and wine at Joseph Leonard.

Link Casserole

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:49:37 -0500

We have a mouse problem at work. It could have something to do with this $$$ renovation project and that we are very enthusiastic about bringing in catered lunch meetings. This afternoon, I discovered that they have gone through my stash of cheerios. It had tiny bite marks and they even left me little presents. Chef is having a boozy tasting for the new restaurant [lucky] while I am at work typing this post-cleaning.

I bring you links of interesting-ness (because you probably don’t have a mouse problem and I like making up words):

Find out where your milk comes from at Where Is My Milk From? (via)
An Early Spring! Not only is it almost 60F in New York City I want these bookmarks
You drink what you think: Psychology Today examines wine identification
Grow coffee from your coffee table! (and power your phone with it too!)
I’ve never used millet flour before but I want to try this recipe from Cannelle et Vanille

Matt found an inverse graphing calculator. It calculates a...

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:43:00 -0500

Matt found an inverse graphing calculator. It calculates a function for the word you want to graph…so being the big nerd that I am, I spelled ‘burger’ and ‘french fries’.

Try it! Feel free to spell ‘haggis’ or ‘boogers’. I won’t judge.

Photograph or Painting?

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:08:10 -0500

Is this a photograph or painting?

Guesses?

It’s a hyperrealistic painting by Roberto Bernardi.

Link Casserole

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:39:22 -0500

Yesterday, I went to brunch with Chef at August. I was still sick so it killed me a little to not be able to enjoy my food. The french fries were just salty and my baked eggs are supposed to be garlicky and cheesy but it just tasted salty. I will say that on the plus side, I appreciate salt a lot more.

I read all these random food articles so you don’t have to! Here are some of the interesting ones:

A helpful article at Real Simple if you’re confused about the differences between kosher salt, fleur de sel, and sea salt.
Bacon Rockets: Can Bacon Fly? Nope.
Paste Magazine lists ten musician-owned restaurants. I’ve been to Moby’s TeaNY multiple times — it’s still closed because of the fire there last July.
You can make underwear from banana fibers

(banana photo via; picnic photo via)

Link Casserole

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 13:07:49 -0500

A gummy bear chandelier — I mean, candelier. It’s made by the company Jelio and New Yorkers who have some extra $$ can buy it in Tribeca’s Babesta
Shoes filled with candy, or decorated with candy by Belma Arnautovic. Delicious? I’d like to carry candy on my shoe instead of my purse but I’d have sanitary concerns
Red wine molecule necklace
I want Boozey Brownies from JJ’s in Arizona; they have grown-up flavors like the Cherry Bliss which has Bing cherries, Amaretto, and white chocolate chips

Show Me!

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 12:50:00 -0500

The book, Show Me Now, has a website full of handy how-to’s in illustrated form teaching you how to do things like analyze wine, shuck oysters, weave a lattice pie and a whole list of other things (even how to make a didgeridoo!)

(found via)

What Did You Eat for Dinner?

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 02:00:00 -0500

I want to start a ~~little~~ group photography project and I’d love it if all my site visitors and friends participated. It’s called “What Did You Eat for Dinner?”. Some basic rules:

Take a picture of your dinner one day (appetizers, entrees, soup, sandwich..etc. anything!) — but it needs to be special to you or have some sort of significance that differs from a regular dinner (it can be bad, good, strange, gross, sad…etc).
The photo(s) can be of a shared dinner or your dinner — not someone else’s
E-mail me 1-3 pictures of that dinner (anniew@fritesandfries.com) and also tell me why you chose to take a picture of that dinner and what you ate.

I’d like to collect as many as I can and turn it into a big project. It might be a year long project! I still have to wait for the perfect occasion to take a picture of my dinner, so there’s no deadline.

My dad was the first unwilling participant. He was away on business in Taiwan this past week. There was an earthquake there that was damaging, but thankfully no one was hurt. For dinner, he shared a few dishes with some friends and e-mailed me these pictures:

Now if he just told me exactly what these dishes were.

Remember, this project only works if I have a few submissions! :)

Saturday, 8:00pm. Columbus Circle, New York City. It’s...

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 01:43:57 -0500

Saturday, 8:00pm. Columbus Circle, New York City. It’s impossible to capture the lights at Lincoln Center — the ceiling looks like a giant cherry blossom.

Saturday, 7:00pm. Columbus Circle, New York City. At Bar Boulud....

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 01:41:27 -0500

Saturday, 7:00pm. Columbus Circle, New York City. At Bar Boulud. Before the opera with Chef’s sister. Sitting in front of a meat case/bar trying to figure out all the different cuts/types of meats because we’re both restaurant industry “widows”.

(photo via)

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

(photo via)