Smith Island Cake

I was charged with bringing a dessert to a family party on Sunday and wanted to make something that would make an impression. As I thought about what to bring, I remembered recently seeing an article about Smith Island Cakes. I spent a lot of time on Smith Island when I was working at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation many years ago and have a lot of fond memories of these islands located in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay.As I mentioned in the previous post, I looked for a recipe on Epicurious, but it was an epic fail. I searched a little more and found a recipe on Saveur’s website. It seemed pretty similar to the others I had seen, so I used that one.

Their recipe said to use Duncan Hines cake mix, but to change it to use a stick of butter, a can of evaporated milk and some additional flour. It also called for chopped peanut butter/chocolate cups, but that seemed to be too much. Instead, I used crushed peppermint candy canes on top.

The main problem with the recipe is that they say ice the cake five minutes after you cook the icing. Of course, it all just slides off the top of the cake and puddles around the bottom. Luckily, I was using a high-sided plate, so it didn’t matter. As we served the pieces of cake, we just scooped the extra icing on to it.It seemed to be a big hit with everyone and there were just two small pieces left, so they went home with two siblings.

Epicurious Fail

I am thinking of making a Smith Island Cake for a family party on Sunday because I spent a lot of time on Smith Island when I worked at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. When I checked Epicurious.com for a recipe, here’s what they came up with: I can’t imagine how they came up with Thai Chicken Pasta as a recipe for Smith Island Cake!

Here’s what it looks like in real life. I will have to let you know how it turned out!

Caffe Falai in NYC

Fellow food blogger, Kitchenography (Julie) and I, went to NYC to meet up with an ex-Baltimore food blogger, Raspberry Eggplant (Roopa) for lunch.

Roopa suggested Caffe Falai for lunch, since it was just a short jaunt from her office at City Hall and it was easily accessible by the subway. It was an inspired choice!

For starters, we all had salads, with Julie and Roopa having an avocado salad (avocado with mixed greens, radicchio, and black truffle dressing) and I had Spinach e Fragole (baby spinach, strawberries, sliced almonds ,reduced balsamic with mozzarella pearls). Isn’t that a beautiful salad? For mains, we all had different things. Julie got Gnudi, spinach and  ricotta balls and a sage-infused brown butter sauce, but instead of the sauce, it had a foam on top. Roopa had Pappardelle Alle Mandelore, an almond flour flat pasta with mushrooms, cauliflower and parmigiano sauce, which was just gorgeous. I had a panini with fresh figs and gorgonzola. It was an incredible mélange of flavours. It was just great fun to see Roopa again, and to hear all about her recent wedding and appearance on Jeopardy.

 

After lunch, Julie and I walked through Little Italy and Chinatown. We saw a store with loads of fresh durian on display. They were cutting them open and selling them. I asked for a tiny taste, but was turned down.

Durian fruits are very forbidding in a lot of ways. Their skin is hard and spiky. Their smell is incredibly offensive to the point of being forbidden on public transport in Southeast Asia. But the taste is reportedly smooth, custardy and quite good. So I was very curious to try a bit, if only to say I’d eaten some.The vendor was opening the durian and scooping out the flesh, which was a creamy yellow. There seemed to be five sections, as well as a seed, and the pulp came out in one piece. A couple buying a durian told us that durian are high in protein and are useful in healing after surgery. The box with the dollar bill is to tip the vendor after he’s cut and boxed the durian for you.

FTC: Bloggers Must Disclose Endorsements

A few months ago, I posted about a Blogger Code of Ethics in which bloggers who receive goods or services and then write about them, should disclose this fact to their readers. It’s not an unrealistic expectation because perceptions change when you know whether the writer is benefitting from what they are writing about. Objectivity may change if a blogger thinks the pipeline of goods and services might stop.

The US Federal Trade Commission has announced that bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service. If they do not, the FTC may levy a fine of up to $11,000.

Here’s more:

“The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement.”

A link to the announcement is here.

Thanks to my friend Julie for telling me about the FTC alert.

Gourmet Magazine Closing

Another one bites the dust! In shocking news, it was announced today that Gourmet magazine is closing. Although I have a food blog, I don’t really cook at all (not that I can’t cook, I just don’t cook.)

I love reading recipes and looking at all of the gorgeous pictures and I have always found great insider tips on places to visit when I am travelling.

Such a shame for everyone involved in Gourmet.

Flushing, Queens

Sometime blogger, Julie, and I took the Bolt Bus to NYC yesterday and then hopped on the F Train out to Flushing, Queens to do some exploring. Ever since she saw this article about this area of the city a year ago, Julie has wanted to visit.
When we got off the train, along with a mass of humanity, we wandered around a little bit, getting our bearings along Roosevelt Avenue and Main Street, and figured out where we wanted to have lunch. We ended stopping at a noodle restaurant on Roosevelt, just around the corner from the train station. We sat for a while contemplating the menu with more than 200 dishes on it! Luckily, a chic young Chinese woman next to us offered us some guidance on what to get.
I lucked out with a dish of crispy noodles with roast pork and bok choy with a sauce and Julie had a roast pork and wide noodle soup. Both were excellent. After lunch, and at the suggestion of our lunchmate, we headed up to Honk Kong Market, a huge store with food and kitchen items. Both of us were agog at the selection of fruits, vegetables, meats, fish and more. We were a little taken aback at the tubs with huge live hardshell and soft shell turtles and LIVE FROGS! We also had a good laugh at the labeling on some of the products, including Gourmet Powder (MSG) and Indispensible Condiment (also probably MSG).
Here are some other pictures of what we saw:


Dragon Fruit or Pitaya
Seaweed knots. I am not sure why they're knotted, but the whole bin was like this and you can find recipes for seaweed knots on the intertubes. These were some sort of dried radishes. They look like... well, I'll let you think of what they look like. Flat fried duck.
Miss Bong Crab Fingers. These were 60% mackeral and 40% crab. Obviously not Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab. They were in little brown tubes. We couldn't bring ourselves to buy them. Not so sure what this is, but we thought it was funny enough to take a picture of.Conch. Tastes like rubber. Chewing rubber bands. Check my other blog for pictures of Little India.

Eating in NYC

Julie at Kitchenography and I went to NYC on Saturday on the BOLT bus... She paid $1.00 each way. I paid 10 times that amount, which is still cheap. The first and last thing we did was to eat. However, our meals were at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

Lunch was at Jing Fong, a HUGE dim sum joint on Elizabeth and Canal Streets. We took a looooong escalator up to the massive second floor where we were escorted to a table with some Austrian tourists. The wait staff pushed carts of food around and stopped at the table to see whether you were interested in what was on offer. We got several types of dumplings, pork buns and some clams. Julie had heard something about soft shell crabs, but we never did see any. One of the more intriguing things we saw was a women pushing a cart with an enormous barrel on it, serving some sort of custard-type dessert.

After lunch, we wandered along Canal Street, looking for something special for me, but seeing lots and lots of bunches of lychees, lots of cherries and a monster-sized jack fruit. We headed into Kam Man, one of the first Chinese grocery stores in the UK. It's got everything from soup to nuts and even dinnerware. We were enamored with some dishes with tiny figurines poking their heads over the edges, but at $15 each, we declined.

Next we headed down Canal Street to Broadway to Pearl River Mart. I am not going to write about this here, but I will post on my design blog in a day or two.

We popped into Gourmet Garage to see if there was something to picnic on, but we really weren't in the mood for that. We did see some gorgeous produce though!

As we strolled through Soho, looking at menus posted in windows, we picked a small corner bistro called Lusso. Boy did we luck out! It was the perfect place to sit and have a quick, but excellent meal before heading back to Baltimore. The menu was brief but innovative. Our waiter was friendly and helpful. Louis Santos, the chef, was charming. And best of all, the Belmont Stakes was on the TV, so we got to watch the New York race in NYC!

Julie started with scallops in a truffle-artichoke puree with artichoke chips. If you know Julie, you know she loves artichokes more than anything!!! I had grilled bread with chicken liver pate, which was smooth as silk and about the best I'd ever eaten - even beating Neapol! How lucky is it that Lusso's website had a picture of our two appetizers that looks way better than mine? Do you know how hard it is to take a good picture of chicken liver pate?

We shared a bowl of lemon risotto, parsley and marscapone cheese, which again, was excellent. The lemon really cut the richness of the cheese and risotto.

The taxi gods were smiling on us and we walked right out of Lusso and into a cab!

Goat Rodeo

My friend, Dog, is a chef at the world's most exclusive club: 100 members only, it costs millions to get in and a new member can only be admitted if another member leaves or dies. So when Dog told me he was looking for goat meat for lunch for the members, I knew it would be an adventure to find it. Dog wanted baby goat meat that he could roll, tie and roast, so we needed someone who could butcher the goat for him.

We started out on Saturday morning, first heading to Big Boy's World Wide Market, an international market on Paca Street across from Lexington Market. They did have goat, but it was frozen and cubed. Since we were in the vicinity, we stopped in to Trinacria, where we met my Sunday partner-in-crime, Julie, who gave us a suggestion of where to look. We checked out Lexington Market, pretty much knowing that they didn't have goat, but we needed coffee, so thought a walk through the market would at least provide us with that.

From Paca Street, we headed over to a halal market on Charles and 20th streets. We walked in and didn't see anyone and finally called out. There was a man sitting behind a huge glass partition, who couldn't even be bothered to greet us when we entered. He gestured us to the back, where there was a butcher. They did have baby goats, but wouldn't butcher them for us, so we left.

From there, we aimed for Huntington and Remington, at Julie's suggestion, although we realized that these two streets don't intersect. We drove up Remington from 25th until we saw another halal store, and stopped in there. "Oh no", they said, "we won't have baby goats until tomorrow. You come back then." They did point us to a place that they assured us was "in front of Yellow Cab" in best Baltimore directions-giving manner.

To give directions in Baltimore, you must direct people via no longer existing landmarks, not actual street names. Needless to say, although we did find Yellow Cab, which is now Veolia Transportation, we didn't find a butcher. Our queries to cabbies in the area yielded no results, although somewhere along the line, we were told about another halal market on 33rd Street, right next to Papa John's.

Close by the Waverly Market, right on 33rd Street, there is indeed a small halal market, which ends up being rather Tardis-like, being much larger in the inside than the outside. After we wended our way to the back, we discovered a butcher shop which did have baby goats that the butcher was willing to cut for us. He chided us for not ordering in advance, but since we didn't know of the existance of the place until about 15 minutes earlier, that was impossible.

After some hemming and hawing, he assured us that he could do the butcher work, he did have enough baby goats and that it wouldn't take too long. How long, we wanted to know. Several hours? No, just long enough for us to go to Pete's Grille for lunch and walk back.

I did take pictures of parts of this adventure, especially the last part, but I have been assured that people will not want to see them. I had a hard time even taking them. If you must see pictures, click here.

The funniest part about this whole adventure was what happened later: I was going to get my eyebrows threaded by a Pakistani woman in the Security area of Baltimore. When I pulled into the parking lot, I remembered that there was a halal butcher and grocery store next to her shop. I mentioned our goat quest to her and she told me that the owner of the store was her husband, he had a butcher on premise and they did have goat in the house!

Lotte Market Sunday

I went to Lotte Market on Route 40 and Route 29 on the advice of Plays with Needles. She'd found the funniest little tooth-picks with wee brushes on either end and I thought they would work for art projects and for cleaning my computer and mouse.

Lotte is a mainly Korean market, but they do have a selection of Latin American and other foods. The store didn't seem as clean as H-Mart, but it was huge. Like H-Mart and Fresh World Market, Lotte has a selection of china and other housewares. Here are some things I saw: Cactus leaves.Fresh Chives.Telephone brand agar-agar. It was the branding on this that made me laugh.Kung Fu Chicken Soup. I thought it was supposed to be Kung Fu Panda.

On the way home, I drove through the Ellicott City valley, just after a storm had blown through. I love Ellicott City, but always forget to go there.

H-Mart Saturday

The chefs and I took a field trip to H-Mart on Route 40 and Rolling Road. As usual, lots of interesting and unusual foods awaited us. Chef Dawg was looking for some fermented black beans and found them straight-away. Meanwhile, Chef Cat and I took our time strolling though the produce section and checking out what we saw.

These little things, which look sort of like tiny yams, are actually fresh tumeric. Even the chefs haven't seen this before! These rhizomes are boiled and then dried and ground for use as a spice.We're all familiar with water chestnuts, but have you ever seen fresh ones?This is mamey, the fruit of an ornamental evergeen which grows in South and Central America. Wiki says that the skin is a cross between sandpaper and peach fuzz and that the inside is creamy and sweet and orange. The flavour is described as a combination of pumpkin, sweet potato and marischino cherries! This woman is whipping up batches of kimchi, the traditional Korean pickled vegetable dish. The Kimchi Field Museum in Korea has documented 187 types of kimchi.

Because English is not the primary language of the staff at H-Mart, misspellings are frequent and frequently funny.

Frozen Frog Legs