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Is it just me, or does this look as unappealing as it is unhealthy?
Roman Chicken, courtesy the Food Network
This is Giada De Laurentiis’s Roman Chicken, which the Food Network is touting as a “healthy choice,” presumably to pander to all those soon-to-be-blown New Year’s resolutions. Now, I assume the Food Network employs a passel of food stylists, cooks and photographers to ensure that each and every dish is shown to its best advantage, with maximum visual appeal, promising a party in your mouth. So how to account for this? Is it me, or does this look like it’s already been chewed and partially digested? Puzzling.
Hey party people! How ’bout a snack?
Give 'em a finger!
In my family there are two traditional party foods, items without which we cannot mark life’s great events: births, deaths, marriages, conditional releases, the Superbowl, what have you. Obviously I’m talking about deviled eggs and finger rolls. And although they have been disparagingly referred to as retch & puke, the evil twins, trough fodder, and Oh-Christ-not-that-shite-again by my nearest and dearest, I would like to point out that at any given family gathering (from wakes to commitment hearings), the trays are always empty long before the fighting starts.
I won’t lie, I love ‘em both. Partly it’s a nostalgia thing; the sight of a bridal gown or a bail bondsman just automatically triggers a yen for a ham salad roll. But there are also practical considerations, primarily that ingesting large quantities of protein, mayo and bread gives you an unshakable foundation for an extended drinking binge, and my people tend to be all-occasion tipplers.
Finger Rolls
Finger WAVES ccourtesy pinneduphair.blogspot.com
In the 1960s (I have heard) finger sandwiches were the height of party chic, a glamorous staple of la dolce vita American style. Finger rolls, not to be confused with finger waves, lend themselves to a variety of fillings: crab, lobster, chicken, egg or ham salad are the usual suspects. Anything else is considered “ethnic food” by my folks, so we don’t serve liverwurst, cream cheese and olive or anything more exotic than protein and mayonnaise with the odd pinch of pepper. But if you like to walk on the wide side, you can slip a little pineapple in with the ham or a little tarragon with the chicken. Improvise ferchrissakes, as my Grandpa Harvey used to say (usually right before he said, “Who the hell ate all the crab rolls, ferchrissakes?”).
Deviled Eggs
Just like Mom used to make, courtesy mixedgreensblog.com
Now, before you turn up your foodie nose, let me assure you that a tray of deviled eggs at a party goes faster than tissues in Whitney Houston’s dressing room. I swear, people LOVE them. Of course recipes vary, but I tend to be a bit of a purist. Boil those bad boys up, slice ‘em in half, scoop out the yolk, chop up a couple of whites (you can leave this out, but I like it this way), mix in some mayo, mustard, salt and pepper and mound it up. I don’t hold with adding curry powder, onions or suchlike, but if you feel the need to tart them up with a little smoked salmon or even a shrimp, have at it. I do shake a little paprika over the tops just for color.
I’m having fun already!
Better pies are a snap, not that I’d know anything about THAT
So easy even a monkey could do it!
I’m visiting my sister, who does everything better than I do, not that I hold it against her or resent it in any way, even though our parents clearly loved her more and gave her better presents at every goddamned Christmas and birthday of our lives. So today she made a pie in the time it takes me to floss my teeth and even cleaned up after it on the same day, but again, no resentment here. I am big enough to share her triumphs, rather than being embittered by them, no matter how much I have suffered at her hands over the years.
So, pies. She uses one of these groovy plastic mats to roll out the dough. Not only does it tell you exactly how big the crust should be for every conceivable size pie plate, but it also saves you from cleaning up a big sticky, floury mess afterward. Or scraping the dried dough gobs and petrified flour remains off the counter with a butter knife once you emerge from the sugar coma eight hours after consuming the entire pie, a la mode, straight from the dish with a spoon. Not that Miss Perfect would ever do anything like that.
I’m going to get one. And I am NOT copying her!
Rachel vs Guy: January 1 and my New Year’s resolution is already blown
(NOTE FROM MANAGEMENT: The following is my rather clumsy, half-assed attempt at a live blog. Apparently WordPress doesn’t have this feature, so I improvised. It’s a cautionary tale of how bad things happen to good bloggers when they overreach their technology limits.)
Joined the party late owing to circumstances beyond my control. OK, the hangover was a little tougher to manage than I anticipated.
First thing: How many more fingers can be double dipped? I mean I do it, but only when no one’s looking. Oh my God it’s a Petri Dish!
9:25 Aaron Carter’s ranch dressing nearly makes someone puke. Perfect.
9:30 What the hell is going on with Taylor Dane’s lips? Is she cooking? Who cares?
9:35 Lou’s turbo ribs look to be the winner. Look at Joey Fatone’s sombrero! Charming? I think not.
9:40 There’s a whole lotta arm fat goin’ on there. Ladies, sleeves please.
9:41 Aaron Carter’s gone for that macaroni.
9:42 Guy Fieri’s beard is the nastiest thing I have ever seen. It looks like Pam Anderson got about halfway through a brazilian but chickened out, jumped off the table and took the peroxide to what was left.
9:46 Rachel’s team wins! Coolio lives to cook another day. His pigtails will return! Has anyone noticed he gets no air time? Clearly nothing that comes out of his mouth is suitable for a family audience.
9:58 Aaron’s definitely going to cry.
9:58 Lou DP is a bit of a tool, no?
9:59 Next week: Dessert and Taylor Dane cooking in a dress that plunges to the navel with hair hanging in the food. Who’s going to eat that? The food I mean.
Butter me up, Ina! I’ve got a yen for chocolate cake.
“Psst, your collar. Your collar is UP.” (courtesy Food Network)
People swear by the Barefoot Contessa, but I don’t agree. It’s not just that her bangs bug me, though they most certainly do, or even that I get so preoccupied with the desire to flip her collar back down where it belongs that I can’t focus on the food. What really gets up my nose is the not-so-subtle nagging quality to Ina’s recipes: use extra large eggs, finest quality chocolate, freshly brewed hot coffee. I mean really – once a cup of coffee has been baked into a cake, who could possibly tell the difference between a freshly brewed cup and one that’s been sitting around on the counter for an hour? I’ll tell you who. Nobody.
Then there are the oven temps where the Fahrenheit is always indicated, as in “350 degrees F.” Now there’s an important safety tip, Egon. You don’t want to take a chance that people will think they should set their ovens to 350 Celsius, which if memory serves is approximately the surface temperature of Mercury. But of course, our Contessa spends so much time on the Continent that one understands her need to clarify.
Kitchen Slattern 