Perhaps the best use of two dollars, Meiji's Kinoko No Yama ("mountain mushrooms"), are found at even the most average Japanese market. The chocolate cap and biscuit-like cracker stem harmonize wonderfully. And the chocolate-to-cracker ratio is spot on. While the milk chocolate isn't great quality, similar to Glico's Pocky, there's something about the chocolate's density that offsets the cracker stem perfectly.
The Grocery Ninja leaves no aisle unexplored, no jar unopened, no produce untasted. Creep along with her below, and read her past market missions here.
Has anyone else been in a situation where you bump into someone from somewhere completely fabulous—say Cambodia, or Fiji, or Mozambique—and, horror of horrors, you find, after asking them a million and one nosy questions about the food back home (questions you've always wanted to ask but could never find the right books or expertise to), that this fabulous person, with such a potentially fabulous culinary background, isn't much of a food person at all?
How tragic is that? There is nothing more heartbreaking than hearing someone say, "Food schmood—it's all fuel." (I justify such blatant bigotry on my part by equating it to a dog lover saying, "He's an amazing guy, but we're not going to work out. He's just not a dog person." And yes, props to all you food bloggers out there—the world is a livelier place for the wonderful work you do!)
So it drives me nuts that the Russian housemate isn't much of a food person. Now, don't get me wrong, unlike the aforementioned tragedy of complete indifference, the guy appreciates a tasty bowl of marinated mushrooms like the rest of them. It's just he's never thought about it. Never asked his grandma why, why do the 'shrooms need to sit for hours in sunflower oil? Why the sidekick of raw, sliced onions? What are the little brown and beige seeds bobbing alongside?
The eponymous husband of My Husband Cooks, on the raison d'être of his latest recipe: "For a long time, I just ignored my wife’s love of mushrooms and mushroom soup. This changed recently when we had the good fortune to be in New York and at Café Boulud. She turned and said to me, “This mushroom soup might be better then Brussels.” It was a sign to me. I couldn’t lose my wife’s palette to a Frenchman or to a Belgian. I decided I must learn to make a soup from our own kitchen that would make her this happy."
Buy a shiitake mushroom log, keep it in a cool, dark place, and you'll have your own crop of shiitake mushrooms in ten days. They say the log can produce a new crop every 8 to 12 weeks for a few years. That's a lot of tasty mushrooms! $29.95 at Wine Enthusiast.
[via Tastespotting]
Sizzling hot: Bay Area chefs and diners rediscover the irresistible appeal of fried chicken by Amanda Byrne: "The weird thing about chicken at Town Hall is that I couldn't sell it before," says chef-partner Mitchell Rosenthal. "Then I put this fried chicken on the menu, and now I sell upwards of 35 orders a night." Really thorough article that manages to also be mouth-watering—I'm having fried chicken for lunch today as a result! There are great tips at the end on frying chicken plus four recipes, in case you'd like to make your own, and also a selected listing of SF Bay Area restaurants that serve fried chicken.
Other highlights:
Marlene Sorosky Gray, on how real maple syrup isn't just for pancakes: "May Lawrence, chef-owner of Lure in San Mateo, grew up in Canada, where 80 percent of the world's maple syrup is produced. "Maple syrup is underused in this country," she says. "When I think about my childhood, we used to pour it over ice and eat it like snow cones." She cooks with maple syrup because, she says, it has a distinct, powerful flavor without being too heavy, as in a sauce for sweet potato gnocchi. She makes the sauce by slowly reducing maple syrup with milk for at least an hour until it becomes rich and thick, then seasons it with garlic and marjoram, pours it over the gnocchi and tops it with shavings of aged manchego cheese." People, please stop using the high-fructose corn syrup abomination that is "pancake syrup" and start using maple syrup, it tastes so much better and it doesn't cost that much more. Trader Joe's Organic is a good one to start with.
Tara Duggan goes mushroom hunting: "During porcini season, Bay Area chefs such as Todd Humphries of Martini House in St. Helena might drive several hours up the coast to collect mushrooms with him. In 2004, Hunter estimates that his land yielded 200-300 pounds of porcini. During a good season, he says, "On the walk between my house and my car, I can pick enough mushrooms to put them in a special at the restaurant."
I can't decide whether this mushroom kitchen timer is so cute it's hideous or so hideous it's cute, so I'm just going to say that it's 3"x3.5", from Japan (if you hadn't already guessed), $12 at Fred Flare, and you should buy it if it makes you happy.
[via Apartment Therapy]
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