S'mores! MMmmmMM!

This past weekend was Lag B'Omer in Israel and despite reading the wikipedia page and asking several friends about it - I have no clue what the holiday celebrates.  All I really know is that they have bon fires and the place to be is right in front of my house.  Last year we were surprised by the wonderful our balcony provided of the festivities; so this year, we invited our friends over to "Observe" the holiday with us.

The odd thing about this Israeli holiday is that they make tepees out of their cardboard and trash and pallets, then light it all on fire, and watch for about 15 minutes as the thing flames.  They usually have a blanket or small table set up with food, and a few select (orthodox) groups will bring music.  Being American I had to put my own touch on things...so I decided we'd have S'mores!

This wouldn't seem like anything too extraordinary but there were actually two friends who had never had them before - so for them it was their best S'more ever. Well..their best 2 S'mores ever because you really honestly couldn't have eaten just one of these.

The other extraordinary thing was there are no graham crackers here!  Shocking!  They have a cookie that is close - but not good enough.  So I....look up a recipe to make graham crackers from scratch.  Didn't look too difficult but it called for brown sugar (which thank god I'd just gotten in a care package from my dad!) and honey which I didn't have - ironically.  What I did have (from the same care package) was maple syrup.  Oh my husband would kill me if he knew I used his maple syrup to make these cookies!  Final ingredient - AMERICAN marshmallows.  They are flavored here...like strawberry and some other crappy taste.  A friend tried the whole "Israeli S'mores with their pseudo graham crackers and flavored marshmallows" - you can find her picture on failblog.

Anyway, the making of the graham cracker was a bit tricky because the recipe said to cook until they were slightly brown - but they were brown to begin with because of the brown sugar and the maple syrup.  The first round (or two) came out a little crunchy.  The later ones were better.  In the end, the dark and light ones looked good together and magically, in the 4 hours between when I tried the first one and when we served them - they got better!

I'd like to tell you that I don't want to brag...but I do.  They were freakin' amazing!  One friend (a foodie!) said they were the best S'Mores he'd ever had in his life!  (No - this wasn't his first.  He is American.)  I put all of the ingredients in a cute little stand (and practiced my food photography skills).

I would have taken more photos of the roasting of the marshmallows or the finished products or friends enjoying them...but my hands were sticky!  This was the only photo I managed to take before devouring this cookie...and making another.

Amazing Books I Should Own

In spite of my dislike for the low quality of subject of the amazing photos on foodgawker.com, they have led me to some interesting food blogs which have led me to some interesting foodie books on Amazon, which have led me to more interesting books!  One of which is Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes by Jennifer McLagan.


First, I love this book because it is just enough of the food science to validate the author's points.  (By food science, I'm referring to her description of butter, not to the references to specific vitamins and proteins which, agreeing with Michael Polan, I do not agree with.)  Second, I love her defense of butter and am curious now to experiment with lard - although my husband would hate that.  Third, great photos, a necessity in the realm where you can't smell or taste the food. Finally, history and culture.  This really falls in line with Michael Polan's In Defense of Food, taking his points even further.


I should own this book.

"Food" Blogs

In the past week I've made an interesting revelation about "food" blogs and the amazing mouth-watering website foodgawker.com.  Here it is, the sad truth:  To be a great food blogger, you just have to be a great food photographer.  That is really all there is to it.  The proof of this is that in my estimation about 1/3 of the posts on foodgawker are not of good food or from artist chefs.  I mistakenly thought it was a great resource which compiled the best of the armature chefs.  (Oh...maybe I should create THAT site!)

Anyway, it was a sad revelation to see cheap products in good photos or no recipe attached to the photo.  But, I have to cut them some slack because Food Network does it too.  I was watching a Thanksgiving Day special a few years ago and the celebrity chef put a dash of salt into his dish.  The other chefs laughed and pointed out to him that he had mistakenly used the sugar and not the salt.  They all laughed and noted that "it just has to look good - no one is really going to eat this."  Hmm...

At least they've led me to several good food blogs.  And they do have delicious photos!

Personalized Fortune Cookies

“It is an Asian themed dinner.  Could you bring an appetizer or a dessert?”  I don’t do Asian food.  Not that I don’t like it, or I think I’m too good for it – quite the opposite.  I don’t know about it, where to get the ingredients or how make them into something delicious.  I couldn’t even think of an Asian dessert, so I Googled it, and the simplest, best looking dessert:  Fortune Cookies.

Not that they looked simple to make, but they didn’t involve unavailable or unknown ingredients.  I can’t say I had never thought of making them before.  I had.  And I had wondered how in the world you bake the cookies without the paper getting burned!  Well, now I know.

The dough for the fortune cookie is more like a batter.  My sponge cake skills came in useful when dealing with the egg whites and gently folding in the whole 8 tablespoons of flour.  The recipe in itself was really simple (with only the smallest amounts of the easiest ingredients) and the steps were pretty straight forward.  Until the end.

So I mixed up the batter, no biggie.  Pouring the batter onto the pan reminded me of making pancakes – not too tough.  Moving the pan in a circular motion to form circles was a little trickier.  Lucky for me, my favorite game on the Wii fit uses these same balancing board skills, only in the game you are trying to get the balls in the holes without falling off the board.  In the fortune cookie game you are trying to make identical circles on a pan. 

The recipe said you could make 4 or 5 on a pan…I was scared, so I did only two.  Why was I scared?  Because from the time you take them out of the over, you only have 20 seconds to insert the fortune and fold them into the right shape before they harden and it is too late.  The first one didn’t go so smoothly.  I am great at special reasoning, but I couldn’t fold the hot circle into a fortune cookie.  It was more like…a circle folded into fourths.  Ha ha.  The second one wasn’t much better because I had already used about 14 of my 20 seconds on the first one.  The result of my final 6 seconds…well, I didn’t take a picture of it J 

As the second tray of cookies was baking I pulled up a picture of a fortune cookie and thought it through, imagining myself folding the hot little circle in my hands.  (Closing my eyes and making the motions…that is how I roll.)  The result:  fortune cookies!

These cookies were for a farewell dinner where we were all wishing our friends luck as they head on to Afghanistan for work.  After dinner, we all opened our cookies and shared our hand written notes with the guests of honor.  Homerun!  This will now be my go-to creative impress-your-pants-off party favors.

Experimenting with Israeli Fruit

 

It is part of life in the foreign service, but a part that we haven’t yet experienced.  Our first departure.  Not ours, but our friends.  They were the first friends that we made here and they are moving on to Afghanistan.  I don’t know if it has fully set in that my friends are moving away, but the “normal” reaction to a friend moving away is slightly different.  For one, we knew when we met them that they’d only be around for a year.  Two, they are going to Afghanistan and there is a chance that we could overlap with them there by a month of so next year.  Three, they are also Latin Americanists, so if we all had our way we’d be serving in Latin America in the future (there are many posts there and they all know each other pretty well…so we could likely be neighbors again).  And finally, there were our neighbors in DC!  We didn’t know them then, but they only lived 1 block from us, and there is kind of this general feeling that someday all of us will be living in DC again.

So they are really great people because they are always happy and optimistic.  No one here (besides Paul) has encouraged my cooking and baking as much as Liz because she is so complementary of everything I make.  It may not be amazing or professional, but she thinks it is!  I will also always remember the eloquent soliloquy Liz gave on a long car ride professing her love of all things Israeli.  And so, for one of their final nights here we are having them over for a dinner including our best Israeli dishes.  It will pay homage to Liz’s passion.

Paul is making his delicious hummus – and though the Israeli’s don’t put additional flavors in their hummus (that is an American thing), we are probably going to make it a roasted red pepper hummus.  The red peppers are from Israel…so it is still pretty Israeli.  For dinner Paul is making shakshuka.  Friends and family that have come to visit have had this great dish!  It is a spicy tomato base with poached eggs on top.  We serve it with this great olive or onion bread from the “bread guy” in the market. 

Dessert – that is my specialty.  But I don’t do Israeli desserts.  Primarily because they aren’t good .  But the theme of this dinner is Israeli so I thought I might do a modern (improved) take on an Israeli dessert, or make an American dessert with distinctively Israeli ingredients.  So I went to the market and got two fruits that I’ve never even tasted before.  A challenge!

My safe starting point for dessert is a cheesecake.  I have a great recipe and I happen to have cream cheese, thanks to my recent visit to the States!  (You can buy cream cheese here, it is just $7 or $8 for a 6oz box.)  I’ll not describe the cheesecake process to much except to say that a.) I don’t understand the Israeli dairy isle and I may have used Greek yogurt instead of sour cream, and I forgot to read one VERY important line of the recipe.  Nonetheless, the batter tasted amazing when I cleaned the beater so I’m sure it will taste amazing!  (It is just slightly more golden brown on top.)

Pastry Porn

I try to restrain myself from visiting the NYT’s Style page – and by style I mean dining & wine section, primarily because…the NYTs really doesn’t update their web page enough to keep up with modern technology.  Especially the Americas page…which led me to browse the now beloved dining & wine page.

Anyway, most of the links on the page right now are purple – meaning I’ve already clicked on them.  Work has been slow.  So I was pretty excited to find a new link to a very short article about a bakery.  Mmmm.  Within the article was a link to the bakery’s website – which didn’t work, I’m telling you, the NYTs is needs to catch up on the technology! – and the web page…breathe taking! (I can't steal their pictures, so you'll have to go there yourself if you want to see what I'm talking about.)

I watched the pictures on the main screen for about 5 minutes, making sure I’d seen all of them before following the first link.  Ehh...let’s start with salty.  Quiches – hmmm, I knew they belonged in a bakery and that is why I love making them.  No picture….three clicks and no new pictures. L 

Okay…classic quiche – voila!  My face lights up and I am so happy.  I have to examine the picture carefully to see how flakey the crust is, how thick it is, how brown it is, did they put a glaze on the crust.  How thick is the egg, what is the egg to veggie ratio, how much spice is evident, what is the plating?  Oh my goodness!  Next link, next link.  I feel like a puppy just bouncing and ready to be amazed!  Boo…they used the same picture for the Françoise and the Françoise with no bacon. 

Hmm...I’ve never cooked with smoked mozzarella.  Mm…they look a little flat and heavy.  And I think the ones with spinach (and broccoli) make for a better presentation than the non-spinach ones.

On to the sweets!   First up:  apple crumble.  Whaww whah L  It looks like a poor version of mom’s Dutch apple pie.  It has a pie-like crust which makes me think it is more of a pie with a crumble topping.  Belgium cheesecake – great brown color on top.  I’d thought I was burning mine when it got to that point, but it really looks nice.  Belgium chocolate mellow…looks like heaven.  It is very moist and the center has sunken back in…like it is super mellow.  Brazilian banana – maybe it just needs another name.  I don’t know if they have coconut in Brazil.  Oh, I guess they are “Brazilian mix” nuts?  Hmm…could be improved upon.  Mostly just needs a name change.  Sugar and orange crumble?  Hmm…like candied oranges?  Desserts really don’t usually look good to me.  They are just fun to make.  Okay – walnut and fruit cake mix looks great though.  Like too much of the best part of the pecan pie!  I would lose the top.  Show off that gewy deliciousness!

Apple crumble is $3.5 a piece…$25 for a full pie.  Here I think it would cost me $10-$15 to make, mostly because the apples are so expensive.