Event: Monday, July 29 - Tastemade's Love at First Bite (LA: Santa Monica)

Tastemade, a video making app for food lovers, invited food bloggers and industry cohorts to their studios in Santa Monica to attend a tutorial on how to get started with their new app for iPhone users.  Before the presentation began, however, we were treated to a glorious spread of food and drink prepared by local chefs and small businesses around Los Angeles.  Thanks to Alyse Gilbert of Tastemade I got how to see how they are "connecting the world through food."  It was Love at First Bite.

Beverages

There were many wines featured at the event, including Truth be Told, which brought out a Pinot Noir and a Cabernet to share with wine aficionados.  However, the first drink that Celeste Perez, of Six Taste Food Tours and Empress LA, and I went for was The West Side Pisco Punch made with Peruvian Campo de Encanto.  It was impressively smooth... even smoother than the easy to drink Chamisul soju, a personal favorite.  It might be the reason why the bartender said that on one occasion he had finished an entire bottle by himself without even realizing it.  Impressive alcohol tolerance or just plain smooth liquor? You decide.

Bites

Our first stop on the tour around the studios was at the Cooking with WOW table.  Whitney Oakes Webster (ahhh... I see where she got the name) prepared an array of gazpacho filled into the centers of hollowed out cucumbers.  There were also row after row of colorful figs stuffed with folded curls of proscuitto, soft burrata, honey and garnished with vibrant, green basil.  They were beautifully presented, and we kept popping them into our mouths... to taste the different colored figs, of course.

Next, we hurried over to the Bean & Thyme kitchen to try some of their porchetta sandwiches that smelled like heaven.  Although delicious what really blew my mind away was the cauliflower sandwich.  Now, believe me, I would never order a vegetarian sandwich on my own accord... let alone one made with cauliflower, my mortal enemy of the vegetable world.  However, with a bit of melted homemade American cheese and some runny eggs through the center of the sandwich, Chef Paul Osher turned my vegetable world upside down.

Sharing with kitchen with Bean & Thyme was Bruce's Prime Pickle Company.  The Chief Pickler himself Bruce Kalman was on hand to share his curried cauliflower pickles with golden raisins, cucumber kimchi, and Bloody Mary asparagus with garlic, horseradish and dill pickles.  The cauliflower here was also mind blowing.  There must be some kind of magic in that kitchen, I guess! Thanks for sending me home with some of those cleverly pickled cauliflower.

Way across Stage C were sounds of sizzling that prompted an immediate dash in that direction.  It turned out that Gavin Mills, chef and owner of Mills + Company was grilling up some grass fed beef sliders.  The charcuterie master put incredibly flavorful and juicy beef in between the softest bread possible.  At the same time his wife Jessica Mills was spooning chicken liver mousse over crostini and topping them off with pickled blueberry.  Did I mention that the mousse was equal parts chicken liver and butter? Uh... mazing! Thank you Jessica for also sending me home with a jar of that luxurious decadence.

Sweets

There is no such thing as a food gathering without dessert, right? Well, there was no shortage of dessert vendors at the event.  Celeste and I moseyed over to The Cheesecake Dude for some of the best bites I had all night.  Heather Kuklin (yes, she is The Cheesecake Dude) wowed us with three kinds of "totally awesome" cheesecake... a simple blueberry, Nutella banana, and the awesome maple and bacon.  Sweet, salty, and smooth all around, the maple bacon cheesecake was unlike anything I have ever tasted.  The Cheesecake Dude also made vegan and gluten free cookies that tasted nothing like the typical vegan or gluten free cookie.  Had you not read the sign that said that the cookies were vegan and gluten free, you would not have known.  But had you read the sign, you would not have believed it.

Down the stretch of desserts were the much talked about kouign aman, which described as caramelized sugar croissants.  Baked on Oceanview makes these mini versions of the traditional French pastries as well as mini versions of a seasonal summer peach pie. 

Also on site was also an old fashioned bubble gum machine except that it was filled with peanut butter and jelly macarons.  No coins needed.  We were also presented with meringues that were frozen with liquid nitrogen and when popped in would show us how to breathe like dragons.  What a way to end the night.

Thank you to Alyse and the entire Tastemade team for putting together this well organized and fun event.  It was great to see some familiar faces (shout out to Amy Shuster of Backyard Bite) as well as some new ones.  I'm looking forward to creating videos with the app and doing my part to connect the world through food.  Until the next event, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

Check out my Flickr set for more pictures from the Tastemade event Love at First Bite.

ML - 20130803

Post 119: Portland - Cursed by Voodoo Doughnut's Bacon Maple Bar (Portland: Southwest/Old Town/Chinatown/Downtown)

Every trip to Portland requires a visit to Voodoo Doughnut whether you love doughnuts or not.  It has become an institution in this city since opening its erection.  Some have flocked to this twenty four hour corner store to simply see the snake of a line, but many more wait patiently to experience that yes, indeed... the magic is in the hole.

Angela and I went to the shop to see what the fuss was all about, and I will stop just shy of saying that the doughnut shop put a spell on us because the two of us left with about three dozen doughnuts... for our friends and family, of course.  We were cursed by the voodoo doughnut to have an unrelenting craving for these fried rounds of dough, but partly, it was because we had absolutely no willpower.  None.

Here are the doughnuts that I bought with the exact descriptions from the menu on the Voodoo website... and some of my commentary.  The site may curse you with uninhibited gluttony too, and it may have possessed me to say some of these things.  Beware.

Voodoo Doll.  Raised yeast doughnut filled with raspberry jelly topped with chocolate frosting and a pretzel stake! Apparently, each voodoo doll looks slightly different from the next.

Bacon Maple Bar.  Raised yeast doughnut with maple frosting and bacon on top! This was delicious... my favorite.

Portland Cream.  Raised yeast doughnut filled with Bavarian cream.  Topped with chocolate and two eyeballs, representing the vision of our great city.  Well, what I see is a doughnut, so I think I will eat the vision of Portland.

Captain my Captain.  Raised yeast doughnut with vanilla frosting and Captain Crunch! Like drugs, really.  I can smell the sweetness of the sugar.

Triple Chocolate Penetration.  Chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate frosting and Cocoa Puffs.  Who's gone kuckoo for Cocoa Puffs now?

Grape Ape.  Raised yeast doughnut with vanilla frosting, grape dust and lavender sprinkles! It looks a little like a solidified toxic version of grape Kool-Aid. 

Diablos Rex.  Chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate frosting, red sprinkles, vanilla pentagram and chocolate chips in the middle! This one looks like it's verging on voodoo too.

Dirt Doughnut.  Raised yeast doughnut with vanilla frosting and Oreos! It'd be cool if there were some gummy worms digging their way out of this thing.

Maple Blazer Blunt.  Raised yeast doughnut shaped into a blunt and dusted with cinnamon sugar.  The tip is dipped in maple frosting and red sprinkle embers.  Prices vary due to Blazer Mania! OK, what someone smoking a blunt when they created this?

Marshall Mathers.  Plain cake doughnut with vanilla frosting and mini M&M's! Haha, I get it... it's very punny.

Old Dirty Bastard.  Raised yeast doughnut with chocolate frosting, Oreos and peanut butter! Combine the Old Dirty Bastard, the Marshall Mathers and the Maple Blazer Blunt, and you get a Rapper's Delight.  No joke.  It's on the menu for $4.20.

McMinnville Cream.  Raised yeast doughnut with Bavarian cream with maple frosting on top and two eyeballs and a mustache! Wait, does this guy have a brother or cousin that I've seen before?

Neapolitan.  Chocolate cake doughnut with vanilla frosting, strawberry dust and three marshmallows! Why are we so excited about marshmallows?!

There you have it... a baker's dozen of the most popular devilish delights from Voodoo.  I took them back to So Cal with me.  Angela had a dozen of these too.  We got stares from everyone walking through the weird streets of Portlandia, and when we got moved up to the front of the plane (because the TV screen wasn't working), some of the passengers on the plane accused us of bribing the cabin attendants with doughnuts... jokingly, I think.  And back at Long Beach Airport, a dad even said to his son, "Hey, remember the man with all the doughnuts?"

Sugar overload for real.  Until the next voodoo curse, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

ML - 20120915

Post 113: Portland - Kenny & Zuke's Hipster Pastrami and Cookies Galore (Portland: North Portland/Northeast/Boise)

After finishing a pre-breakfast snack and then our actual breakfast at Tasty N Sons, we thought we should digest our food by walking around a little bit.  However, upon exiting the restaurant we noticed a Kenny & Zuke's across the street.  So we hopped across the street to check out their pastrami, which Angela had on her list of things to eat in Portland.

This K&Z location had opened just that week, and since it was still new, Kenny himself was on hand to help welcome customers.  He said hello to many of the guests and even dropped by to take a picture with me and Angela.

Back to the food.  Angela was dying to have some of their ever popular pastrami slider, sandwiched in between toasted rye and wedged in with melted Swiss, kraut and Russian dressing.

It was a very neatly formed sandwich very different from the layered pile from Langer's in LA or the mile high heap from Katz's Delicatessen in NY.  It looked minimalistic and modern.  Like a sandwich that a hipster made.  Well, it was a sandwich that a hipster made.

While Angela munched on the sandwich, I ate cookies.  Lots of lots of cookies.  And I brought more cookies back with me.  Cookies, unlike the meats from Chop Charcuterie, could be easily taken aboard the flight home.  Unfortunately, they did not make it back to LA.  Half of them did make it back to the hotel though.  My absolute favorite was the walnut lime cookie.  The gritty crushed walnut atop the circular wonder added a welcoming crunchy texture to the otherwise simplistic cookie.  The slight tart from the lime allowed me to continue chomping away when I was already full from eating so much.

I also really liked the peanut butter cookie with strawberry jam.  It was a mini version of a childhood classic, complete with the raised ridges and sweet yet salty flavor.  I loved the jam that was sandwiched in between the two peanut butter discs.  Sweet, fresh, delicious.  Yum.

Other favorites were the pistachio ring and the caramel sablé.  The pistachio ring was fun to eat just because it reminded me of a doughnut but in cookie form.  I like doughnuts, but I would pick cookies over doughnuts any day.

Sable, meaning sand in French, is an appropriate name for these cookies because they are crumbly and have an gleaming golden color.  These tasted almost like shortbread because the cookie almost melted in my mouth. 

Although we only had a small slider and some cookies, everything was made to perfection.  I would return for more cookies for sure, but I would also come back for the half a dozen desserts, the beer selection and the wide variety of cocktails for happy hour.  But another time... because we just ate four meals in approximately four hours.  We were stuffed, and it was due time for a nap.  Oh man.  Until the next meal in Portland, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

ML - 20120914

Post 16.2: Carbohydrate Pairings

For almost every carb there is a complementary, liquid counterpart... call 'em BFF's.  For example, the perfect pairing for a warm chocolate chip cookie is... an ice, cold glass of milk, of course! How about an evenly glazed morning doughnut? It's hard to imagine that without an equally fresh, steaming cup of Joe.  Cornbread, you say? Arguably, it just might be a bowl of chili.

The complementary, liquid counterpart for my thousand-layered, hand-pulled shredded pancake (手抓餅) is the simple bowl of stewed beef soup.  If you can dunk a doughnut into your coffee at breakfast, and if your cookies can take a dive into your milk after dinner, then you can surely dip the shredded pancake into a savory beef soup.  

Like a bloomin' onion, each piece of the pull-apart pancake can picked off... and like string cheese, each shred can be torn away to its roots... if you try hard enough.  And as each piece of the pan-fried pancake sinks into the soup, each drop of soy-sauced soup ascends each fiber of the pancake... and the chili oil from the soup surface obediently follows its leader... remember chemistry class when you tested pH balance by watching the chemicals travel up Litmus paper?

And just when the pancake is holding its own weight in beef soup, it shows you that it has absorbed more than a Bounty paper towel by descending the soup back down the same fibers it's traveled up.  Xylem... up.  Phloem... down.  I hope you have a spoon handy.  And if not you had better be holding your recently drenched pancake over the bowl of soup.

Drip... drip... drip... MUNCH.  After three drips the pancake was at the zenith of perfect balance: when the soaked innards of the white carbohydrates had softened... and the crisp, brown exterior had just started to crumble under the pressure of osmosis.  I just couldn't hold back any longer.

Sometimes I take more pleasure in submerging the shredded pancake into the soup than splashing a classic French-dipped sandwich into au jus.   Ha, you can't spell au jus without A&J.  One of my favorite carb/liquid pairings can be found at A&J Restaurant (半畝園).  What's your favorite pairing, and where do you get it? Until next time, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

ML 20100424/20100321+0419+23