Attack of the Desserts!

Food is never fun unless you can share it, so here's a culinary assault on my dear classmates at school. Where we'll strike next, and what will we serve? You never know!

Follow Up to to the "Will Whatever's in your cart" post

Hey food fans,

Hope you all had a great memorial day weekend. Something happened to me today that I just had to write about right away.

So I'm going to class today with a plate of Emily's "Black and White Brownies" that I made over the weekend. They're the first dessert I learned how to bake from the book. As I get out of the elevator, a woman who had to be in her late thirties or early forties was walking in and almost ran into me. She says "Oops" as she gets out of the way as I say "Excuse me." But then her eyes find their way to my plate of brownies, to which she then responds with an exotic "Ooooohhhhh!"

So maybe I have found an alternative chick magnet to a dog or a baby.

Oh, by the way, I was announcing a baseball game over the weekend when the same young lady I mentioned in the shopping cart post walked by my booth. Our eyes met and she flashed a smile at me. I blushed. But then again, I had just had one of those brownies, so I was pretty amped up to begin with.

How to cheat on your ribs

Okay, enough about desserts for now. Since Memorial Day is coming up, a BBQ post.

Sometimes, we’re so hungry that we eat so fast without a thought to how something was made. Granted, we all need to eat, and there just those days when you need something fast to fuel up.

Last summer, a review on espn.com rated the best stadium food in baseball. Omitted from the list was the Dodger Dog, much to the dismay of Dodger fans. The review explained its omission, stating that the dog was hastily prepared and had been cooked via boiling rather than grilling.

Within a couple of months, the word “Grilled” appeared next to every mention of the Dodger Dog inside Dodger stadium.

Back ribs can be prepared in a similar way as well. Purists and aficionados insist that the slow cooking, smoking, and indirect heat methods used to cook most ribs are sacred and not to be tampered with. The same people would not even dare use a gas grill. Many an amateur griller makes the mistake of cooking the ribs on the grill from the start, resulting in a burnt outside and an undercooked inside.

However, this recipe from Bon Apetit reveals another way to prepare back ribs that ensures the tender, falling-off-the-bone doneness of smoked ribs without the six-hour wait. This recipe can be duplicated with the more common pork back ribs. To the people I’ve served it to, they don’t know the difference.

Here’s hoping your guests don’t either.

I love LIME, especially spelled backwards (hint hint)

It's really hot these days down in the OC, and what better way to great an Orange County heatwave than with. . .LIME!

Key lime pie to be exact.

Okay, when I first heard about Key Lime Pie, I really wasn't impressed. I mean, how good can a pie made out of LIME taste? I already know how to make good lemon squares, so how could this be so much different?

Well, turns out that this pie is great after a hot and muggy day. Its citrus tart and tang mesh well with a ginger cookie crust and whipped cream on top. Our dear eaters in Florida (I know of at least ONE Floridian who reads this blog) swear by the pie and are somewhat particular about how it should be made. I don't have a lot of fruit desserts in my arsenal, but this one is a great addition for the warm months ahead.

So I thus present to you dear eaters my Key Lime Pie, with the hopes that it just might be able to cool down my rampant spring fever (yeah, that kind=).

Learn how to make it HERE

Will whatever's in your cart help you get to her heart?

A couple of years ago, Wal-Mart had a "singles night" promotion, where if you were single and looking, you could attach a pink ribbon to your cart while you went shopping to indicate your status. It was immensely popular in foreign countries, but didn't quite fly in the U.S. I think Jim Rome addressed it on his radio show, indicating that having to go to Wal-Mart to meet your future spouse "was clearly a sign your life has not gone as planned."

I mention this because I was at the local Trader Joe's today when I saw a beautiful young woman waiting for her friend near the check-out line. I thought about going up and saying hello or something or other, but I began to worry about the items in my basket. Every now and then, one of the check-out girls asks me what I'm shopping for after they look at what I'm buying. Naturally, I think this a great opportunity to score some points.

Today, my basket contained a box of Clif Bars, a bunch of basil (for pesto, see previous post), a pack of Chicken Andouille Sausage, Frozen vegetable eggrolls and frozen chicken eggrolls. Not a terribly boring spread, but not an impressive one either (like the one I had a couple of weeks ago when I was shopping for a dinner party). Not thinking much of my basket, I walked by and attempted to flash a smile.

So what does what's in your grocery store cart say about you to a potential mate? Had I been shopping for a bunch of ingredients for pastries and desserts, I might've had a little more confidence and something to talk about. Had I had a cart full of frozen pizza, I might've just kept on walking since the contents of my cart would easily scream "douchebag."

Which reminds me, I just got my copy of Classic Stars Desserts, which you can buy in our webstore. Maybe I should start planning a dessert party sometime soon. Stay tuned.