“Can I take a picture of that?” Social Media and Food

They're in every restaurant, tilting their plates for the best angle, chiding people not to take a bite yet or get sauce on the table. They document their meals and are getting a lot out of it. During the past few years, eating has become social. Not just social in that you converse with your dining companions. A good meal can be shared with thousands in seconds. Smartphones and small cameras are extremely portable and quick. How can social media enhance your culinary experiences? Let’s break it down.

1. Twitter

Twitter is an incredible place for a foodie. Everyone from your local barkeep to a national food critic to a magazine editor to your favorite coffee shop probably has an account. They post recipes, pictures, tips and sometimes sales for twitter followers. In the past week on twitter I have seen: Mario Batali answer cooking questions in an informal Q&A, a frenzy over world Nutella Day (February 5^th), menus for food carts near Penn, restaurant tips and countless bites from the lives of the food obsessed. Penn Appetit tweets (@PennAppetit), and I highly recommend anyone interested in food to sign-up for a free account. Twitter can suggest people to follow but searching for your favorite restaurants, chefs, brands and friends is a great place to start.

2. Pinterest

Pinterest is an online pinboard that allows you to collect links from around the web (see the sampling of this author's "Living to Eat" Pinterest page). You install a small bookmark that lets you grab any image from any website and add it to a board. The boards can have categories (food and drink, things to buy, places to visit etc.) How is this relevant to food? People pin recipes from tons of food blogs and Pinterest sorts it by category. Browsing the food and drink category will definitely make you hungry.  The home décor category will make you want to renovate your kitchen. Click any picture that looks good and you’ll be taken to the source. You can check out the recipes and the blogs. You can follow a board if you like one user’s taste in food and their pins will show up in a feed. You can also re-pin a recipe to one of your boards to look at later. I have a board full of recipes I want to make in my apartment next year (I don’t have a kitchen now). Pinterest is invite only (or you can request one and get on in a few days). Comment on this post if you want an invite and I’ll set it up.

3. Foursquare

Smartphone users know that your phone can be an incredible source of food knowledge. Apps like yelp give you restaurant recommendations wherever you are (I successfully used it in France). One of my favorites is Foursquare, the app that lets you check into the places you visit. Not only do you save money with Foursquare (I get free coffee, coupons and other perks for checking into places with specials), you get the inside scoop. People leave tips at their favorite spots highlighting favorite dishes, good places to sit or weekly specials (the picture shows Foursquare tips from Ocean Harbor Dim Sum--we chose well). On a recent visit to Distrito, Foursquare tips led me to my favorite dish, a mushroom flatbread. Foursquare also has an explore feature that recommends nearby places based on your check in history. A search for sushi, coffee or chocolate gets great results and is accessible on a desktop.




4. Photography apps

 Now that you’re eating well, you want your food pictures to look good. Photography apps for the iPhone such as Instagram allow you to add filters to your photos and enhance the lighting. Fun borders add an extra flair. Another favorite of mine is Diptic. It's a cheap app that lets you make photo collages based on a variety of templates. Making a Diptic is a great way to share the variety of dishes at a meal without posting tons of pictures of small dishes. You can export your Diptics in regular or high resolution, and they look great.


Social media has taken the food world by storm and there are countless ways for you to participate. There are so many tools (share more in the comments) that channel a collective passion for food into restaurant reviews, new recipes and overall better eating experiences. In the words of Ina Garten, “How bad can that be?”

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How Lucky Old Souls Became “McDonalds for the Mount Airy and Chestnut Hill set”

No food truck has drummed up more hype lately than Lucky Old Souls, the locavore burger-joint-on-wheels from jazz promoter Matt Feldman. We sat down with Feldman to discuss the music-food connection, his methods for local sourcing, and the wacky menu specials that have made his truck stand out from the crowd.

You’ve been performing and promoting jazz under the “Lucky Old Souls” moniker for years, and you chose to attach that name to this endeavor too. How exactly does a jazz show translate to a burger truck?

I have two main passions in life: music and food, and my interests in both of them focus on avoiding things that are mass produced, in favor of things that are genuine and heartfelt. To me, they really go together; I support local musicians, and I support local farmers. It might seem like an odd pairing, but it’s truly how I live.

I’ve had long-term plans to open a jazz club, and for various reasons, that hasn’t happened yet. I saw the truck as a way to spread the word about shows I promote and about jazz in Philly in general. If and when the club does open, the truck will be a mobile ambassador for it. As for the burgers, it bothered me that there was no place in Philly to get a relatively inexpensive, take-out burger made with good beef—that is, local, grass-fed beef. I have a family, and that’s the way we eat, and the only way to get anything like that would be to go to a bar.

Once you figured out that a burger truck was the right thing to pursue, how did you know what first steps to take? Like, where does one even buy a food truck?

I didn’t go about it in a particularly methodical or premeditated way. I had this idea in the spring, and my wife and I discussed it, and we decided that it was a good idea but—for personal reasons, mostly—not the right time to do it. Fast forward to the end of July, and I saw that the Renaissance Sausage truck was for sale. [Don’t worry, it's still around on new rolling stock – ed.] I was familiar with it, just as a customer, and it seemed like the price was very reasonable. I did some quick research to verify that my initial reaction was right, and it turned out it was a good price. That same day I saw it was for sale, I called the owner, went and saw it, and put a deposit on it. A few days later, we closed on it, and by the beginning of August, the truck was mine.

Around then, my wife and I started working on recipes. Most of them were based on ingredients we used at home. The beef, for example, comes from Rineer Family Farm, and we’ve been using their beef at home for at least two years—they sell at a couple of local farmers markets. I did try some other local farms’ beef to do my due diligence, but we still ended up going with Rineer. Same thing for the rolls, which are from Wild Flour Bakery—we’d been using those at home for a while.

Your specials—which can be really out there—seem to be the biggest thing setting LOS apart. What’s the process for creating them?

It’s not all that systematic. Something comes to me, I try it out, I taste it, and then I have some people taste it. If we think it’s pretty good, we go with it. Generally it starts with me looking at what’s available from the farms and thinking, “What sounds like fun to play with? What can I do with this?”

What are some of the most popular combinations you’ve offered so far?

We’ve been running a special that’s been really popular with collard greens, because they’re so available this time of year. I cook the greens with bacon (which I cure and smoke myself), and thought one day, “That might be good on a burger.” I tried it once, and it was.

Another thing that’s been really popular that, I’ll be honest, took me by surprise, is the smoked poblano mayonnaise. One of my purveyors had poblanos that were pretty cheap, and I honestly didn’t even know what I was going to do with them. I threw a few into the smoker that I use for my bacon, then I pureed them into homemade mayo, and I liked it so much I ended up not even adding anything else.

Other things are just happenstance. With the maple-black pepper shake, for instance, I had bought a whole big case of syrup for my bacon cure, because it was at a good price. I was talking with one of my employees, and he said, “Let’s do a milkshake with it.” At first, that sounded too sweet, but then I immediately thought of black pepper. To me, those are two things that just naturally go together—they’re both in my bacon cure, for one.

The ginger spice milkshake we’re doing now took a while to get right. It was never gingery enough, so I ended up making fresh ginger tea, then straining the ginger out and putting the tea in the shake.

What’s next?

Our next special starts Thursday. It’s going to have sliced apple, homemade mustard, Swiss cheese, bacon, and caramelized onions. I’ve known for a while that I wanted to do something with apple, and last week my wife was eating apple, sausage, mustard, and cheese as a snack, and I thought, “Oh, maybe we should try that on a burger.” We tried one right then and there, and it was great.

Most of these sound at least somewhat reasonable, but how’d you come to pair blueberry jam with habañero cheddar?

That’s a combination you can get on our breakfast sandwich and breakfast burger, and for me, sweet, savory, and spicy are the flavors of breakfast. Every time I go out for brunch, I always have the dilemma: do I get sweet, or do I get savory? In fact, my ideal brunch is when I’m with someone else and we can share one of each. I love getting pancakes, eggs, and potatoes, then putting hot sauce on the potatoes and syrup on the pancakes—to me they just counter each other very well.

You’ve tried locations all over the city. How do they vary in terms of customer preferences?

Depending on location, people are more or less likely to “get” something like the breakfast burger. When I was at the Punk Rock Flea Market, people really got it, and told me, “man, this works together.”

Love Park during the week is mostly office workers, on the lunch rush. Clark Park on a Sunday is more relaxed. We go up to Chestnut Hill on Saturdays to do a farmers market, and there we get a lot of families. We’ll have fathers come and get six burgers to bring home to the family, and that’s something we don’t see anywhere else. We’re like McDonalds for the Mount Airy and Chestnut Hill set, who appreciate grass-fed beef and want their children to be eating that kind of meat.

We also tried a Wednesday stop last week at 33rd and Arch, and there’s a good chance we’ll be adding that as regular Wednesday stop sometime early in the New Year.

What else is on the horizon for LOS—both as a truck and as a jazz organization?

Well, I have to keep reminding myself that we started at the end of the nice weather, so as well as we’re doing now, spring and summer are going to be even better. Plus once spring hits, there are a lot of different possibilities for ingredients.

As far as other LOS stuff, we’re still doing a concert series, and we’ll see what happens with the club. Certainly I can’t be on the truck every day forever, but as far as when and how that change will be made, I don’t know yet.

--Alex Marcus

~

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My Dining Hall Mission

Every year Penn forces their freshmen to purchase dining plans. The meals are mediocre most of the time, but worse, the food is extremely overpriced and nobody ever uses up all of their meal swipes. So I came up with a plan: with only about a month left in the semester and 75 meals remaining to my name, I knew I would have to do something drastic if I wanted to put my meal plan to good use.

So, I decided to find out: is it possible to eat every single meal in the dining halls for a week?

7 days and 19 meals later I can tell you that yes, it is possible, but not very much fun. There were some surprises along the way (food that was actually worth eating) and some low points (food that was plain inedible). All in all, I'm glad the week is over.

I ate 5 breakfasts, 5 lunches, 7 dinners, and 2 brunches in the week. 15 of the meals took place at 1920 Commons, 3 at Hill. and 1 at Kings Court. Brunch was by far my favorite meal that was served in the dining halls. At one brunch I had a made-to-order omelet with ham, mushrooms, and green peppers that was tasty. At the other, I had broccoli quiche and bacon.

Another one of my favorite meals was an Asian salad I had one night at Commons. Usually when I look at the salad bar, I am saddened by the lack of variety in the salad dressings so when I saw one night that they had Asian sesame dressing I was intrigued. I made a spinach salad with shredded carrots and sesame crackers and the dressing. I was surprised that it was actually really good.

The week contained more misses than hits though. One morning for breakfast at Commons I had a sausage and cheese sandwich so hard I could have chipped a tooth. Another day I had a super dry piece of salmon with an overly sweet glaze on it from Hill for lunch.

So I guess my mission was a success. I only have 50 meals left, which I'm sure I'll be able to use up before the end of the semester, and I proved that it's possible to eat in the dining halls for a week. I'm taking a break for a little while now, but I'm sure I'll be back to Commons soon enough.

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Fittingly Fall

After gutting a squash, you find yourself with a dilemma, do you discard those seeds, even though you know it would be easy as pie to toast them?

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Wanna S.N.A.C.K.?

I've always loved to cook; when I was little my favorite toy was my best friend's pretend kitchen set. Flash forward to my high school years and I had moved on to real food, then came S.N.A.C.K., a cooking club stands for Students Now Acquiring Culinary Knowledge. My friend and I started it one day when we had a revelation, we both liked to cook (and eat) and we should gather our friends (who also liked to cook and eat) so we could try out different recipes together. It became a sort of culinary book club where we would decide on a theme such as just desserts, Asian, breakfast, comfort food, or chocolate, and then we would decide which recipe to cook. We had our meetings at our different houses, creating culinary masterpieces, eating tasty food, and making tons of fun memories.

Making spring rolls at our Asia-themed meeting

Our first recipe, berry custard tart

My fellow founder, Russell, with our Sushi

S.N.A.C.K. started out as a summer pastime, but we all wanted more so we started our own club at school. When we all graduated we had one final meeting before everyone went off to college. At this meeting we all vowed that at our respective schools we would start our own branch of S.N.A.C.K. My friend and fellow SNACKer at Stanford has held up his end of the bargain, and that school has its own branch of SNACK now. So I feel that it is my duty to start SNACK here.

Anyone who wants to join SNACK, can. All levels of cooking skill are welcome. Just come ready to cook, eat, and most importantly have fun.

Here's the info:
What?: Penn SNACK info session/first meeting
When?: Wednesday, November 3rd, 8:00 PM
Where?: Location TBD

If you are interested in joining you can send an email to pennsnack@gmail.com and then we can email you with the location and any changes of date or time.

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It's Like Something Out of a Dashiell Hammet Novel

Like a Hammet novel in so far as the answer can only be found once everyone has been gathered at a dinner party. Answer? I haven't asked a question yet. That's the easy part, Can I but together a dinner for 8, have it be ready on time, and make it great tasting?

Last week I decided that I wanted to have some friends over for dinner, and at the same time challenge their palates and my culinary skills. I really like oxtails when I have tried it and I've always wanted to take a crack at making it myself. I found a pretty good recipe and I dove in, planning out the timeline to have a dinner for eight ready by 8 pm Friday night. I made the mistake of telling one person what I was making and she got a little scared, so I kept the menu to myself. So I came up with a game plan: make sure no one could resist, just based on the main ingredient. Good game plan, no?

The Shopping List
8 lbs oxtails - Reading Terminal Market
Thyme
Rosemary
Tarragon
4 lbs potatoes
Milk
2 bottles of red wine- Liquor Store
Large roasting pans
Beef broth
Balsamic vinegar

Primary shopping on Thursday night, and minor prep by premaking the mashed potatoes. Oxtails and wine could not be bought at the local Fresh Grocer and would be bought on Friday.

Thursday
7:30 pm
Food Shopping

8:00 pm (24 hours till game time)
Peel, slice, and cook potatoes for mashed potatoes

Everything goes as planned, I'm feeling pretty good about getting dinner for 8 together.

Friday
10:00 am
Go to class then run downtown to Reading Terminal Market to pick up 8 lbs of oxtails and the liquor store to buy 2 bottles of red wine (a volunteer offered to bring wine to drink).

Reading Terminal Market is surprisingly busy at 2 on a Friday afternoon and I had to wait in a fairly long line to pick up my oxtails. But hey! did you know there is a wine purveyor in Reading Terminal Market? I get to cross Liquor Store off my shopping list. Sweet! Because by then I was running out of time. The oxtails needed about 3.5 hours total cooking time. I need to get the oxtails in the oven by 4:30, so I have have them braising by 5:15, and maybe have some time to finish the sauce before everyone is too hungry.

I don't quite manage this. Following the recipe I set in cutting off the fat from the individual joints of meat. Discarding all the excess fat from the oxtails takes longer than I anticipated. It's a slightly tough cut of meat, and I ended up cutting some corners, as it were, and leaving more of the fat on than I should have, for flavor I told myself.

They finally make it in the oven for the initial cooking time at 4:45. I took a break, opened up the bottles of wine and didn't drink too much of it.

5:25 pm
Back in action pouring in the braising liquid and herbs, back in the oven at 5:30, only running 15 minutes late.

6:00 pm
I take the mashed potatoes out of the refrigerator to come to room temperature before reheating them

7:30 pm
I start getting anxious that the oxtails are not quite fall-off-the-bone-tender yet. I need at least 20 minutes to reduce the cooking liquid to make the sauce. I put the mashed potatoes on the stove and slowly reheat them, at the same time, trying to move my desk into the kitchen to serve as a table extension because my tiny dining table will not fit 8 around. While my back is turned the potatoes start to brown at little - my first real misstep.

7:50 pm
I cut my losses and take the oxtails out of the oven and start reducing the sauce. Sadly my sauce never makes it on the table; it takes much too long to reduce sufficiently and everyone votes to start eating before I can finish it. The oxtails were still delicious, if a little tough to eat, with some fat still encasing them. My second real misstep, even though technically I left the fat on before the first misstep, this is where the less-than-desirable result shows up.

Everyone resorts to using their hands to eat the oxtails and - horror of horrors - someone asked for the salt and pepper for the mashed potatoes.

The answer to the question raised initially: I can, for the most part, put together dinner for 8 people. Things to work on for next time include doing all of my prep the night before, considering how difficult it might be to eat what I have on the menu, and budgeting more time than I think I need.

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Butterbeer Cupcakes

I love Harry Potter. In third grade, I read the first three books in quick succession, spending entire days just with Harry and friends. Thus began my relationship with the magical world of J.K. Rowling. I was disappointed when my eleventh birthday rolled around and there were no owls or Hogwarts missives to speak of. Outwardly I denied that I’d believed it could be possible, but in truth, I’d been pretty sure I was a wizard. So when I came across this recipe for Butterbeer cupcakes on the cooking blog amybites, I knew I had to make them. The recipe is based on the Butterbeer drink they’re now serving at the new Orlando Harry Potter theme park, and includes cream soda, butter flavoring, and oodles of butterscotch. Even if you’ve never even seen a Harry Potter movie (let alone dressed up as Ginny Weasley, as I did for the release of the seventh book), you will enjoy these cupcakes. They are delicious!
Butterbeer Cupcakes

For the batter
2 cups flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup dark brown sugar
3 eggs
1 ½ tsp vanilla
1 tsp butter flavoring
½ cup buttermilk
½ cup cream soda

For the icing
1 stick unsalted butter
1/3 cup butterscotch syrup
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp butter flavoring
1 16 oz package powdered sugar
Extra butterscotch syrup and butterscotch morsels for decoration!

Directions
For the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line cupcake pans with paper liners. Combine your flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, cream your butter until light and fluffy. Add your sugars and beat until well-combined. Beat in your eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Then beat in your vanilla and butter flavoring. Alternate adding your buttermilk, cream soda, and dry ingredients. Fill each cupcake 3/4 full, then bake for 20 minutes until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

For the icing, cream butter in a large bowl until fluffy. Add in butterscotch syrup, vanilla, butter flavoring, and mix until well combined. Beat in powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until reaching desired consistency.

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Pumpple Cake

When does a cake get buzz? Real buzz, people (on the internet, at least). Folks are seriously talking about this cake.

The answer is when it is not just a cake, but a cake with pie baked into it. With the amount of buzz-worthy things you can do to the outside of a cake (Cake Wrecks anyone?) you generally don't hear about anything terribly exciting going on on the inside of a cake.

But here is something innovative. Dubbed the Turducken of cakes, this Pumpple cake is one layer of chocolate cake with pumpkin pie and one layer of vanilla with apple pie baked into it with a healthy layer of butter cream in the middle. The Pumpple is a truly beautiful cake, the sharp contrast between the chocolate cake and pumpkin pie is especially cool looking.

The Pumpple is not just a pretty cake, it is delicious too. The chocolate cake is moist and rich and the vanilla cake is almost pound cake-esque. The pies hold up well to being baked into a cake. The crust of the apple pie is still flaky and the pumpkin pie is still a little firm, not soggy. The coup de grace of the cake is when you get pie crust and cake in the same bite. The taste of pie crust and cake is not something I ever imagined tasting, but it is really great and makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

My hat off to the Flying Monkey Bakery in Reading Terminal for coming up with this cake. At $8 a slice ($4 for the cake, $4 for the hype), Pumpple is an expensive novelty, but totally worth it.

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WIMB: I'll take 5 million

[Part 3 of Worms in my Basement]

After extensive research, I energetically undertook a number of fruit fly extermination and suppression measures as part of Operation Fruit Fly Destruction. First, I set up several homemade traps around the bin. These are simply shallow dishes filled with apple cider vinegar and covered with plastic wrap with small holes poked in it. The flies are attracted to the sweet vinegar and can't get out once they've entered through one of the holes.

I also hung fly tape and put a more solid lid on the bin. Many of the sites I read said that rotting food needs to be buried deep in the bin so that the flies can't reach it to lay their eggs. To this end, I disguised the bin's fertile breeding grounds with several inches of shredded newspaper.

These strategies were all intended to trap the living fruit flies (which can live for up to 2 weeks) and to curb their reproduction. I still needed a way to ensure that my basement's fruit fly population would go extinct.

Enter the nematodes. Beneficial nematodes are marketed as "microscopic warriors" that will eat fruit fly larvae, along with many other garden nuisances. They are often used by gardeners as an organic method for dealing with insect pests. Thus, I found myself, in the wee hours of the morning, ordering 5 million beneficial nematodes off the internet. When they arrived in the mail a couple days later, I applied them to the compost and encouraged them on their mission.

I have had to stop adding more food to the bin as part of the Operation but, in the meantime, my roommates and I have become expert fruit fly trap craftswomen. We know which containers work best (the shallower the better) and the effectiveness of various liquids (red wine and my botched batch of ginger beer are quite tempting) as well as the ideal trapping spots. Now, it is simply a matter of keeping the traps fresh and being patient while the fruit flies live out their short lives and the nematodes work their magic.

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Kiwi Berries

My roommate's mom came to visit a few weeks ago and went grocery shopping for us. Among the many food necessities, she bought us kiwis. I was surprised, but at the same time, thrilled.  I didn't think many other people ate kiwis, and of all other fruits her mom could have bought, she bought kiwi? While I love kiwis, the peeling process always deterred me from eating them.

Then, this past weekend, I was given a new product: kiwi berries. The fruit resembled grapes, yet tasted like the succulent kiwis I had always shied away from. About the size of a large grape, these fruits are coated with a greenish-blue tie dyed pattern.  The skin, much to my surprise, is completely edible. Overall, the unforeseen present as has become one of my favorite fruits. Not only does it merge a sweet berry taste with the tartness of a ripe kiwi, but also the hassle associated with kiwis is no longer present.


Media photo from NZ KiwiBerry Growers Inc.

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WIMB: Problems Arise

[Part 2 of Worms in my Basement]

A few weeks into worm composting, I began to notice fruit flies around the bin. Okay, I thought, some flies are tolerable; I had read about the possibility of fruit flies in my research and had learned that they are harmless to the worms. As anyone who has taken AP Bio can attest, fruit flies have a remarkable ability to reproduce. I soon found myself swatting away clouds of them as I approached the bin with a load of food scraps. For a few days, I was paralyzed by the problem and my lack of a solution: my cursory internet search had turned up nothing helpful. I told my roommates to stay away from the bin and declared myself the sole food scrap-deliverer.

The flies were not satisfied with our clandestine basement meetings. Their desire for more face-time and new spawning sites led them upward - to our kitchen and beyond. One too many fruit flies drifting lazily over their heads while they studied led my roommates to speak up. I was finally stirred out of my state of inertia. The worm bin was in jeopardy and it was up to me to save it. That night, I learned more about fruit flies than I thought possible.

After conducting a more thorough search, I learned that my problem was not unique and that there were a variety of measures I could take before declaring the whole thing hopeless. Thus, I was launched on Operation Fruit Fly Destruction.

To Be Continued.......

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Ekrem's "Cinnamon Bun" Cookies

Ekrem's "Cinnamon Bun" Cookies

I don't like pork. I hate shrimp. And even though I love fruit and I love dessert, I think fruit dessert is simply unnecessary. However, plenty of people disagree. And for all those people, there are recipes that I simply would not enjoy. Similarly, I am posting a recipe today that - although I spent hours crafting it in the kitchen - I don't really like. But my boyfriend's ex-roommate requested the flavor specifically and my roommates both love them. So what's the inspiration this week? An understanding that people have different preferred tastes.

Ingredients

Cookies:

12 oz. white chocolate

1 stick butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 cups flour

1 egg

2 tblsp milk

Streusel Filling:

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 stick butter, melted

1/2 cup flour

1 1/2 tbls cinnamon

Directions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Melt white sugar over a double boiler or in a microwave. Cream the butter together with the sugar and melted chocolate. Beat in the egg and the milk. Stir in the dry ingredients. Mix all the strusel ingredients together. Form cookie dough into generous tablespoon-sized balls. Flatten the balls, and place approximately a teaspoon of streusel in the center. Fold the cookie dough around the streusel to completely enclose in and roll back into a ball. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for about 10-12 min. Enjoy!

Takeaway: These cookies are sweet. Really sweet. Think, cinnabon cinnamon buns dripping in icing. However, sometimes those cinnabon are just what you're craving. The takeaway here is the use of white chocolate to give the cookies themselves that icingy-sweet taste. Without the filling, these could be sugar cookies with a more interesting, subtly chocolate flavor than those made with just white sugar.

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The worms in my basement

People generally respond positively when I tell them I'm composting this year. Friends have been impressed that I've undertaken the project or envious that I have the space. However, when I reveal that the aforementioned decomposition of food is occurring in the basement of my house their reactions tend to change. Regardless of their level of support for the project they have to double-check: "It's inside?!" From there, reactions range from a topic-changing level of grossed-out to relative enthusiasm (as long as it's not their basement).

It was all my idea - or fault, depending on the day. I read somewhere about indoor worm composting and resolved to start a worm bin in my next house. In the past year, I read all the information I could find on the topic and built my very own worm bin. My roommates, while not quite sharing my level of enthusiasm, agreed to humor me in this endeavor.

There was - and probably still is - some hesitancy. I mistakenly told one of my more reluctant roommates the story of a friend whose worms were constantly escaping from her bin for reasons unknown. Realizing my poor judgment, I hurriedly assured her that I would keep the worms happy and that, in the event that they were not, any escapee would dry up before reaching her bedroom.

Still, my four roommates have been great sports, dutifully sorting their food scraps according to the list I posted and even taking the scraps down to the worms when the container gets full. If nothing else, we've discovered that the worms in our basement make a great conversation piece. The highlight of the tours we gave at our housewarming party was, without question, the worm bin. The trivia question for the evening: "Guess how many worms are in our basement right now" (the answer: 1,000). Our worms do not want for PR.

In this space, I'll document the trials, successes and progress of my worm bin - an adventure which has engrossed me more than I could have predicted.

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The New Sugar Cookie

The New Sugar Cookie

I'd like to say there is a pithy story behind the invention of the cookies, but in truth, I was simply looking for a way to update the classic sugar cookie. I didn't want any "add-in" since that would detract from the simple appeal of sugar cookie simplicity. Instead, I decided to make the sugar itself more sophisticated. What can you do to up the up the intrigue of sugar? Cook into caramel...

Ingredients

Caramel:

1 ½ cup sifted powdered sugar

½ cup heavy cream

3 tbsp butter

Cookies:

Caramel

1 stick butter

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 cups bread flour

Sea salt

Directions for the Caramel:

1. Heat powdered sugar over medium heat in a saucepan.
2. Just as the sugar is almost completely melted, stir in cream and butter.
3. Heat caramel until it thickens and turns a deep amber color.
4. Remove from heat and allow to come to room temperature

Directions for Cookies:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Cream butter together with the cooled caramel.
3. Add vanilla, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
4. Stir in bread flour.
5. Drop 1-2 tablespoon size balls onto a baking sheet with parchment paper
6. Sprinkle with high quality sea salt
7. Bake at 350 for 15-20 min

The takeaway here concerns the use of bread flour in place of all purpose flour. Bread flour has a higher gluten content - the protein that helps hold all the ingredients together. This creates cookies that are less tender and delicate, but still puffy and soft (think, the texture of white bread minus the crust). These are sturdy cookies that stay soft and round. In the words of my mother as she tried to describe the surprising but not at all unpleasant texture: little "cakelettes".

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Collegiate Cuisine - Freshman Hill House Style: Stuffed Bell Peppers

This opportunity came to be when the Penn Vegetarian Society decided that a veg-love potluck was in order for one of our meetings.  I was a little hesitant at first never having "cooked" in the college environment and a little fearful of the sketchy kitchen two floors below my room with a countertop version of a convection oven instead of a stove unit.  I was not sure what to expect.  Having raided the free fruits and veggies given as part of the "Eat Local Challenge" day on Tuesday, I was prepared.

Naturally with so many bell peppers, I decided to stuff some of them with...well...more peppers! 


Ingredients
6 Bell Peppers

• red are sweetest, orange are tastiest according to me, green hold up the best in the oven, and zucchini can be substituted 
• Split lengthwise if ginormous
• Cut the top off with the stem and reserve if normal-sized 
• de-rib and de-seed the peppers 
• blanch 1-2 min and shock the bell peppers to bring out their beautiful colors

Brown Rice: about 1.5 cups

Mushroom stock 2.25-2.5 cups for cooking the rice

2 plum tomatoes, diced and salted
4 cloves garlic
1 medium onion (I used a red onion)
1 can black beans, drained(or you can cook dry bean)
6 large stalks chinese broccoli or other hardy greens - blanched
1 large red bell pepper, diced
1 large green bell pepper, diced
1/2 medium summer squash or zucchini
small bunch of parsley
palmfull of cumin
palmfull of coriander
2 tsp of cayenne pepper
salt and paper
1 tbsp of olive oil

Directions:

1. cook the rice and set aside
2. prep and blanch peppers and greens (kale or collards or something on the hardier side can be substituted)
3. rub peppers with just enough olive oil, salt, and pepper to coat
   
4. chop garlic into a paste with salt and sauté, add onions and cook until translucent
5. add diced peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, and greens
6. add cumin, coriander, and cayenne to taste
7. add black beans
8. test for seasoning
9. remove from heat; using a fork, crush and mash some of the beans by vigorously stirring and mashing what's in the pot (leave some whole)
10. add salt and pepper to taste
11. stir in cooked rice to combine
12. spoon mixture into seasoned peppers, put tops on those that were prepared in that style and put in the oven at 350F for about 15 minutes (I used a convection oven with this time and temp)
13. remove and enjoy...they're even better the next day or two days later reheated!

Try sprinkling them with cheese or toasted breadcrumbs.  Maybe substituting quinoa for the brown rice would pique your interest.

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The Intrepid Baker Sets Out: Nuttela Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is my first in what will be a series of posts on the tribulations and exhilarations of concocting new recipes for a cookbook. Each post will include a back-story– the inspiration for the recipe –the recipe itself and the takeaway. The takeaway is a tip or technique showcased in the recipe that can be stored in your arsenal of cooking knowledge. So here it is, my first ever Penn Appetit post!

The inspiration for these cookies is pretty simple. I think all homemade chocolate chip cookies should strive to be as soft and chewy as possible. In my humble opinion, that almost-underbaked gooiness is what separates homemade cookies from Chips Ahoy (don’t get me wrong – chips ahoy dunked in milk is pretty much edible nostalgia). When I began my cookbook venture this past summer creating a chocolate chip cookie that would stay soft even after it cooled became my Holy Grail. Add to this my boyfriend’s love of Nuttela and we have…

Nuttela Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

½ stick butter (1/4 cup)

¾ cup Nuttela

½ cup brown sugar

¼ cup golden syrup (I used “Lyle’s Golden Syrup” but corn syrup will work too)

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup chocolate chips

Directions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream the butter, Nuttela, brown sugar, and syrup together. Add the eggs one at a time and then the vanilla, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the dry ingredients and the chocolate chips. Chill the dough for as long as your patience will hold out (eager for cookies? Stick it in the freezer for about 15 minutes). Drop generous tablespoon-sized balls of dough on to baking sheets lined with parchment paper or wax paper. Bake for about 10 minutes...

The takeaway here is a whole bunch of tips for keeping your cookies soft and chewy. First of all, the Nutella helps. Any fat that isn’t 100% fat (like butter is) will cause the cookies to spread less – less spread means more concentration of dough in one spot, creating the gooey middle lost in totally flat wafers. This substitute fat is often shortening, but you can use peanut butter or Nutella for a better taste. Next, adjust your sugar. White sugar creates crispy cookies. Brown sugar has more moisture so the cookies stay moist. I took that one step further with the addition of a liquid sugar. Any liquid sugar – corn syrup, molasses, honey, etc. – will have the same effect. You can make any cookie recipe thicker and softer by adjusting your baking technique. Chilling the dough means the butter won’t melt and spread the cookies thinly as soon as the heat from the oven hit them; it gives the dough a chance to bake before flattening out. Also, placing your cookies on parchment paper or wax paper instead of greasing the baking sheets also prevents over zealous spreading. And remember, be careful not to overbake, the cookies will continue to cook as they cool.

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Meating Expectations

Environmental friendliness. A healthy, energy-rich diet. A rejection of startlingly inhumane slaughterhouse practices. And a step closer to becoming a true West Philadelphia hipster. When considering these and the many other benefits of becoming vegetarian , I realized that along with my perceived advantages, my impending lifestyle switch was sure to bring its fair share of drawbacks. Would I be able to retain a varied diet, or would I be stuck with the same frozen vegetarian dinners day after day? Would I go hungry without the rich servings of protein to which I had become accustom? And, most importantly, how exactly could I survive without enjoying the rich, smoky tastes of the meats I had come to love and reluctantly, abruptly rejected?


Fortunately, others had these concerns long before I first considered them. The concerns of my vegetarian and vegan predecessors led to the creation of the wide array of imitation meat products that masquerade among the real deal on grocery shelves. Think of a meat and you're sure to find its meatless analogue, cleverly named as to ensure that the product conforms to a flesh-free vegetarian diet. What could be a better way to maintain health-conscious diet, while still enjoying the characteristic tastes of your favorite meats that your omnivorous friends continue to relish? Of course, a pressing issue is immediately raised: how exactly can something that is not meat taste like, well, meat? Could I really incorporate these faux foods into my diet and never crave the real thing again?

To answer my question, I decided to compare different brands of imitation meat to see how they stacked up in flavor and texture to the bona fida counterpart. Such a question is broad in scope, so I decided to split up my experiments by type of meat, choosing to sample a different variety each week. This week's subject is the processed, casing-encompassed delicacy known as sausage. I made a trip to Fresh Grocer to pick out everyone's traditional favorite along with a triumvirate of imitators, all claiming to retain the flavors of the original, but without the health disadvantages...or the meat.

To test the limits of these impostors' meatiness even further, I employed the help of my carnivorous housemate to determine if the flavor lived up to the advertised standards of being a true meat replacement. If he liked the overall taste, feel, and texture, of the products, it would stand to reason that they could be a viable meat alternative; but if he couldn't even tell the difference between real and fake, then perhaps my loss stemming from my newfound vegetarianism was grossly overstated. Meat without the meat? Maybe it just was that easy. So how did these fake meats fare?

From my first bite of Lightlife's Italian Style Veggie Protein Sausages,the full flavor that I would expect from a product calling itself a sausage immediately assured me that these veggie-catering companies seem to have it figured out. I could tell that their food engineers took great care to devise a product that approached the taste and moistness of a real, meat-filled sausage, and my taste buds were almost duped. This edition lacked the spice and bite I would expect from a sausage. While not perfect, this product lived up to its meat-imitating expectations, emulating the taste and texture surprisingly well while still maintaining an air vegetable lightness. And regardless of its ability to live up to a real meat taste, the product is delicious overall, assuring me that there are tasty, healthy, and meat-reminiscent alternatives to my favorite foods that still fit within my new diet. My taste-tester correctly guessed that the product was in fact an imitation, claiming that it did not, as its makers advertised, taste like meat. Although he appreciated the overall taste and texture, it looked like my quest for a perfect meatless replacement would have to continue.

Once we moved on to Morningstar Farms Veggie Breakfast Sausage Links our prospects were looking even better. Almost prematurely, and to the delight of both myself and even more longterm vegetarian housemate and onlooker, my taste-tester declared the product to be "a meat one." Experiencing a more satisfying tinging in his taste buds, he claimed this product to be "definitely spicier," with a peppery, more characteristic bite to it and a sharp aftertaste to go along. I agreed with him in his judging of the meat-like qualities of these links, surprised that it surpassed the already impressive authenticity aspirations of the Lightlife sausages. Smaller in both length and circumference, these sausages are the perfect side complement in a vegetarian or vegan breakfast, definitely deserving as a replacement for more traditional, meat-oriented sides. As with all other soy-based faux meat foods I've tried, they still maintain that quality of legume-like taste, however masked by added spices and flavors they may be. Overall though, thanks to the soft yet non-crumbly texture that provides for this sausage's satisfying succulence, we found Morningstar Farms' take on the meat to be a genuine replacement for the traditional pork-filled breakfast sizzlers.

Expecting to be even more impressed by Veggie Patch's Sun Dried Tomato and Artichoke Meatless Sausages, I was disappointed immediately when my teeth encountered a jarring feeling of chewiness and rubberiness, not what I would expect from a product attempting to replace a normally tender meat. The slightly juicier nature of these sausages did little to offset the unnerving synthetic feel that their unsatisfactory textures provided which added an additional layer of fakeness. My taste-tester seemed to have a more positive outlook, commenting on the pleasing, if slightly subdued, overall taste, even though it was really meaty in nature. Out of all the variants, though, we both agreed that Veggie Patch's rendition was by far the most glaring of impostors, doing little to approach the taste of a real pork sausage regardless of independent taste. I appreciate this imitator's respect for a juicy, flavorful product, but the limited spiciness contribution left my taste buds feeling flat and unfulfilled, something that might just not cut it for your average ex-carnivore.

While none of the products could be completely equated with the real thing, both critics in this experiment were pleasingly impressed with the overall quality of these promising meat analogs. None was completely indistinguishable from the original product, as is the ideal, and after tasting the traditional smoked pork sausage my taste-tester could easily tell that the competitors were just imitations. However, if you're considering becoming a vegetarian, but are reluctant to abandon the spicy, juicy taste of meats like sausage, your fears might just be assuaged thanks to these tasty and healthful products like the ones we tried. Stay tuned for the next rendition of this series, which will hopefully put even more of your meat-withdrawal anxieties to rest.

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Mocktails

Still flung out from Fling? Try these non-alcoholic mocktails at your next party or get together.

Lychee Martini
Ingredients:
2 parts apple juice
2 parts pear juice
1 part pineapple juice
the juice of one large can of canned lychees
Directions:
Mix ingredients in large pitcher, then refrigerate until cool. Serve chilled in a martini glass, and garnish with a canned lychee on a stick.

Passionfruit Margarita
Ingredients:
1 part passionfruit juice, sweetened (sold at Trader Joe's, but mixed with other juices)
1 part orange juice
juice of 1/2 lime
Directions:
Mix ingredients and blend with ice, then serve in margarita glasses.

Love on the Rocks
Ingredients:
1 part cranberry juice
1 part ginger ale
splash of grenadine
Directions:
Mix ingredients and serve in a martini glass. Garnish with a rock candy swizzle.

The Dragonfly
Ingredients:
1 part pineapple juice
1 part guava juice (sold at Fresh Grocer)
splash of grenadine
Directions:
Mix ingredients and serve in a tumbler glass, garnished with dried, sweetened hibiscus flower (sold at Trader Joe's).

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Milk of the Irish, or: How I Learned Everything I Never Thought I Wanted to Know About Whiskey

photos by Jonathan Coveney

The tables were spread with an aesthetic arrangement of six whiskeys ranging in hue from light amber to deep honey, and complicated flavor diagrams and timelines lay in front of us. After an extensive description of whiskey's history, production, and politics - Ireland and Kentucky, pot stills and column stills, moonshine and prohibition - we got down to the tasting. We were informed, not without a definite sense of superiority, that whiskey possesses orders of magnitude more flavor profiles than wine - when you smell whiskey (learned: don't swirl or you're alcohol will evaporate) you are smelling 1000s of smells. The motions are similar to those of wine; don't swirl, but hold by the bottom and tip the glass back over your mouth and nose and inhale to catch all the smells, then taste, and perhaps circulate - all sides, tongue, throat - and aerate your sip on the palate, swallow, and judge. What kinds of smells are there? Depth of flavor? Does the flavor linger or just disappear? (Learned: Finish is important!) How do you know what you're tasting and if it's 'good' or not?

Whiskey #1: Irish Whiskey; yeasty, toasty, floral, sweet, smooth, clean, fades off the palate, weak, unassuming Learned: women smell more things than men, they can taste more and pick up more flavor notes.

Whiskey #2: Single Malt Scotch (Glenlivet; Dad would be proud); light, sweet, simple, strong but clean finish Learned: The Glenlivet distillery used to be protected by armed guards / 100% pot still distillation therefore no two batches are alike - single malts are variable and seasonal / water is critical to the flavor profile: the limestone in the Scottish highlands give Glenlivet it's prized flavor.

Whiskey #3: Blended bourbon (Crown Royal); sweet, gentle molasses - a blend of bourbon, single malt, and grain alcohols Learned: not all Canadian whiskeys are rye / Crown Royal was blended for the queen. Bourbon takes three years to make.

Whiskey #4: Single Malt Blend (Johnny Walker/Chivas Regal); sour, smoky, peppery, harsh, bite lingers. Learned: the longer a whiskey is barrel-aged the more concentrated - higher proof - it becomes / the greater the proof, the higher the tax

Whiskey #5: Single Malt (Bruichladdich); iodine, tangy, spicy, not so sweet, salty, salt caramel, ocean, smells like nausea. Learned: Before WWII there was no Single Malt to speak of in the U.S. It came from Europe. It tastes like the ocean because the distillery is on the ocean; environment influences flavor!

Whiskey #6: Bourbon (corn) (Wild Turkey); butterscotch, cinnamon, cloves, caramel corn, robust, 100 proof. Learned: Bourbon needs a higher proof because it needs more flavor. All whiskeys and red wines have acetone in them.

(Surprise!) Whiskey #7: Single Malt (Bushmills 21); tangerine, caramel, citrusy, fruity, strong beginning, smooth end. Learned: That burn? Not alcohol, but rye. Single malt is over 1000 years old, distillation originated in the Middle East (alembic) and eventually got to Scotland via monks (and presumably some other people).

The following statements are up for debate but were the gospel by which the class was taught:
Do not add ice or water: whiskey has to be full proof or else you're robbing it of its soul.
Whiskey is artisanal; it reflects a particular tradition, history, and place, and is one of the last true artisanal spirits.
There is not a bad whsikey in the world; there are some that are better than others.

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Bake-Off!

Well, we didn’t win but we sure had fun. Nearly four hours after the start of the bake-off, the results were in. The two-tiered “present cake” (as it was fondly and unofficially dubbed by fellow participants in the bake-off) came in first place, winning its bakers $100 and points in the College House Cup. This cake—complete with a “wrapped present” exterior made of fondant and a raspberry coulis—dazzled the senses and the judges. My team’s cake slices, however, well… didn’t make the cut.

My friend Peter and I formed Team Nine of the College House Bake-off which took place in the Hill dining hall this past Friday. Together we created a delicious dessert: carrot cake with cream cheese icing—a family recipe. Each step of the recipe flowed smoothly, and there was a natural ease with the two of us in the kitchen; one of us would hand the other a spatula the moment the other seemed in need. As two bakers, we clicked, and it showed in our culinary result. The carrot cake batter came out with the perfect consistency and cooked evenly in the convection oven, gently pulling away from the sides of the pan in which it was baked. The icing, silky smooth, was delicious—just the way my mom makes it.

But, of course, there was that inevitable moment of putting our cake on the presentation table, comparing our results to those of our competitors, and eagerly awaiting judgment. As we placed our cake on the stand, Peter and I knew our faults: our competitors has used intricate chocolate drizzles, multiple icing colors, three dimensional fondant, and hardened sugar structures. Shoot. Our cake tasted amazing, but in a competition in which “presentation” and “creativity” accounted for two-thirds of the points, we were the underdogs.

The results were announced and we didn’t win, but it didn’t feel like a loss whatsoever. Do you know what? We had a blast. During the competition, music had blared from a speaker which was attached to another participant’s iPod. Peter and I danced our way through grating the three cups of fresh carrots the recipe required. The fun continued as we cleaned (and danced around) our cooking space while the cake baked in the dining hall’s convection oven, and as we put the final touches on our finished cake, Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” kept the beat.

Win or no win, this competition was a way for people to get back into the kitchen—even if it was that of Hill dining hall. Spirits were high. Friendships formed. Compliments and helpful tips bounced around in all directions, as members of separate teams interacted positively with one another. Moreover, the sense of competition in the kitchen was tempered by the friendliness and generosity of the bakers. The sifter and handheld blender Peter and I used to make our cream cheese icing was borrowed from another team. Our measuring cup was used by several other teams. Yes, there were nine teams in this competition, but altogether they formed a unit, sharing the space of one large, communal kitchen. The competition occurred in a dining hall kitchen, but somehow it soothed the soul. Perhaps that’s the magic of cooking, that the activity itself is so comforting that even the most industrial of kitchens can feel like home.

And at the completion of the day—whether it was spent in class, at the office, or running errands—it’s really nice to put an end to all the chaos and spend some quality time in the kitchen. Lots of fun. Good friends. Good love and a good meal—or for us, carrot cake with cream cheese icing.

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