kitchenmage

Halloween - The Whole Human: Head to Toe Eating

With apologies to Fergus Henderson.

Halloween approaches, bringing a seeming need to cook food that looks decidedly inedible. Web sites that usually have lovely pictures of tempting treats now drip with body parts, some of which drip with other things. Things we may do well not to look at too closely.

A trip around the web netted a body's worth of disgustingly realistic creations ready for the Halloween table. I give you the Whole Human:

A Modest Proposal to Feed the World

I adore Sarah Silverman for her ability to nail certain hypocrisies and absurdities in an almost sweet video. Here, she has a simple thought on how to feed the world. Audio definitely not safe for work - but funny as hell.

Bacon: One American’s Outrage

This post comes from Chris Perrin, who writes at Blog Well Done. One evening on twitter, Chris offered to write a guest post and I invited him to pick something he might not write for his own site. A few days later, Chris sent me this piece, convincing me that the simple instruction to 'write something you wouldn't post at your place' was a great way to elicit marvelous guest posts. When you are done reasing, stop by Blog Well Done and encourage Chris in antics like Fantasy Top Chef.

The following public service announcement comes to you from Blog Well Done and good, God fearing Americans everywhere.

There’s a threat out there, lurking in the grocery store and hiding in the hearts, refrigerators and arteries of American citizens.  It’s more disruptive to American values than even health care reform, which can only cause all of us to be happier and healthier.  Read my lips, no good will come of it.

But back to the matter at hand.  Some call this threat I speak of a silent killer.  Some find it thoroughly addictive.  Some call it delicious, delicious pork fat.  Everyone calls it: bacon.

That’s right bacon.

Best use of flatbread in a musical number

The music selection is awesome and if you can't tell from the still shot above, the video is NOT safe for work.(direct link in case the embed does not work for you)

...but i digress

I am tempted to give this a newvoices tag and I'm going to claim an exception to my promise to myself not to drag this blog off-topic because TV is covering blogs and he just said something about blogs, but if you aren't watching The Colbert Report, you are missing some truly good stuff. If you hate what he's lampooning, you'll fall over laughing; if you love what he's lampooning, you'll still laugh out loud at his dead-on over-the-top delivery.

Folk who were in the Pacific Northwet while Almost Live! was on might be, as we were, reminded of Pat Cashman at his Uncle Buzz, 40 weight hair product best.

I now return you to your normal food blogging, already in progress.

Cumulus: tears of a cloud

Smell the molecular odorlessness, taste the atomic tastelessness!

from Do the Green Thing, an online community for people who want to mock wasteful drinking be more ecologically aware.

Happy Independence Day

Hope you all have a great day of burning hunks of meat (or tofu) planned. Don't forget the marshmallows, hand-painted or not.

note to self: just because it looks like chocolate...

I have been experimenting with variations on my favorite chocolate cake recipe, one of which calls for dissolving cocoa in boiling water before mixing it into the batter. It is supposed to intensify the flavor of the cocoa when used in cake batters that do not use milk, and it seems to work. What does not work, however, is my auto-pilot. Or maybe it works too well.

Today, I am making the exact same cake for the third time in three weeks. Yes, the cake that was homeless. This cake has a home already planned - although that's a story for another day - and it's a good home, so I am happy to go bake the cake.

What I am not so happy about is that autopilot. Just now, I wiped up a drip of the cocoa-water mixture with my finger. Then I did what any self-respecting cook does when they have a chocolate smeared finger: I licked it off.

Bleech! Oh my goddesses, is that ever disgusting! You would think I'd have noticed the first time, but no!

Apparently there is a fine line between 85% cacao solid nibbling chocolate and cocoa and I can't find it. Or having found it, I can't locate it again a few days later. Because the good part is that this isn't the first time I have done this. Nor is it even the second, for a small failure of memory I could excuse. No, my friends, this is the third time in as many bakings. Because I am nothing if not predictable.

Epilogue: black bean brownies with some MINOR adjustments

...if you have not read the first part of black bean brownies with some MINOR adjustments, please go do so first...I'll wait...

When last we saw Lisa, she and the 6 year-old C had tried the brownies and she said, "C likes them, and I know R & S will eat them."

I asked her to post another update after everyone had a chance to try them out at dinner. Final results after the jump...

"black bean brownies with some MINOR adjustments"

My favorite mailing list has been having a hot and heavy discussion about the Amazing Black Bean brownie recipe that Heidi posted a couple of weeks ago. The thread culminated in one woman, the ever-brave Lisa Whipple, deciding that she was just going to make them and see how they turned out. The brownies are in the oven now just finished and her opinion is at the bottom of this post, but I had to share her email missive with you.