Happy New Year! I think of you both often. Have made the transition to vegetarianism. Maybe vegan one day. It’s a process. I love the challenge to be creative and the health benefits as well. Come to Austin and visit me sometime.
Karen
Okay, so I am coming to this way late, but I just wanted to commiserate on the Money Pit situation. We are considering selling our house next year just to avoid putting in a new roof and furnace. I know I don’t want to stay in this house for another five or so years, so I know we’d never get our money back (we’d have to finance those repairs). Well, there are other reasons why we want to sell but those are big ones. As it stands now we have a huge To Do list just to get the house ready to show. Ugh.
GREAT letter! But I was shocked to see the notebook paper with FIVE HOLES! At a Catholic school? No wonder you Mount Saint Joe’s/Joe Paradox chicks were completely out of control!
I would still love to do a little “wax on wax off” with Ralph Macchio.
Ever since my Granny’s house was torn down - it just hasn’t been the same when I visit my relatives. I visualize every detail - details that they have no recollection of or attachment to ... sad. :(
I had no idea your AC was out!!!
And I’m so glad we get to share the GLEE obsession together!!
I feel the exact same way about my grandparent’s house and it has been 3 or more years since it was sold. I still can’t drive by because I don’t want to see it without the milk tin on the front porch.
That is an excellent point. Wheat and soy-based ingredients are so prevalent in vegan cuisine, so to take those out of the mix could seem daunting. And, it’s a competition, so I’m betting nerves played a part, as well.
Ok, how awesome is Rick Bayless’ restaurant to be so accomodating? That says a lot about his leadership as the owner, and about his philosophy of feeding people.
What you’re saying about fake meat products is so true. From time to time, we overuse them for protein, because they cook up fast and are easy to add to one-pot meals. The most delicious meals are the ones which feature one key, flavorful ingredient, or those that require a bit more creativity than just opening a package.
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About Me
vegan. teacher. opinionated. loves books, shoes, hanson, ‘the amazing race’, the 80s, ‘waiting for guffman’, mid-afternoon naps, musicals and breakfast cereal. four cats. one redhead. hi.
I don’t think I can say it enough. I love Ikea. With the exception of about three things, our entire house is has been furnished by the good company of Sweden. Some of my favorite new purchases include this lamp and these chairs. In red, of course.
I bought this book: Beginning CSS Web Development: From Novice to Professional by Simon Collison with a gift card over the summer. It’s fantastic! I am a complete novice with this sort of thing, but I’m learning quickly thanks to this book. Thanks to Collison, I’ll never forget to top center my background image again.
If you like playing with color and color palettes, you’ll love this site - Colour Lovers. I’m playing with a blog redesign right now and it’s the perfect place to create a palette. Fun!
‘Ello. ‘Ow are ‘oo? Since this blog started out as a diary of sorts, I’ll just update quickly about some of the things that have been happening lately.
I switched jobs, which has turned out to be one of my best professional moves. Mostly it’s solidified my decision to pursue a certification in administration, which in real-life terms means that I would be applying for Assistant Principal jobs in a couple of years. I think I’d do well as an AP.
The house continues to suck our wallets and patience dry. We’re looking at sinking several thousand dollars into The Money Pit soon, to replace botched flooring, roofing, and tile. In the meantime, our AC system went down and our dryer is on the fritz. This place is the Amityville Horror of home repair. I’d rather deal with ghosts and bleeding walls.
The house I grew up in, where my grandma lived until she passed away in April, was sold. I wonder if the new owner will find some of the things I accidentally dropped into the heat register when I was a kid. I hope she appreciates those pink Barbie shoes. It’s sort of weird to think that we won’t be able to walk through the doors of that house again. Even though I haven’t lived there in over 20 years, I could always stop in and reclaim that childhood feeling of safety and security that enveloped me there. I guess now it’ll just be the house I drive by and point to and say, “That’s where I grew up.”
Glee has quickly become my go-to stress relief show. Every line is brilliantly written, and it’s a visual treat, too. It’s taking the place of Pushing Daisies in my repertoire of favorite shows. My tv-watching list has shortened considerably since we finished watching the Doctor Who DVDs, and I’ve been reading more books lately. Imagine that. Books. Recommendations welcome.
After five seasons, two specials, and innumerable “proteins,” the Top Chef franchise has finally gone vegan. Top Chef Masters Hubert Keller, Anita Lo, Art Smith, Michael Chiarello, and Rick Bayless were challenged to prepare a five-course vegan, gluten-free, soy-free lunch for actress Zooey Deschanel and friends. After being buttered-up with a burger Quickfire, the Masters went meatless.
When the challenge was announced, Chef Art Smith declared knowingly, “I smell a rat.” Not exactly, Chef. Rats aren’t vegan. And as far as I know, they haven’t come up with a rat-meat substitute. Zooey Deschanel appeared on a monitor, informed the chefs of her dietary requirements, and a protein-addicted freakout ensued. Actually, preconceptions about veganism, vegan cooking, and vegan eating began with the title of the episode, “Dietary Restrictions.” After all, veganism is all about denying oneself what one really desires, isn’t it? Once the word “vegan” was pronounced, several chefs started thinking of all the things they couldn’t cook, instead of considering all of the wonderful things they could create for this lunch.
A few sound bites that I think embody the way in which some chefs approached this challenge:
Chef Michael Chiarello: “Zooey’s diet goes like this: Think of all the things you love to cook and just say, ‘no.’ I love to cook beef. NO. How about some seafood? NO. How about some dairy? NO. What about some eggs? NO. How about some pasta? NO. It’s all about NOs. It’s off-putting to say the least.”
Them’s fightin’ words to us vegans. For us, veganism is exactly the opposite. Veganism is about saying YES to the variety of delicious, nutritious, and often decadent plant-based ingredients available to us. Many of us scour non-vegan cookbooks, watch the Food Network obsessively, record episodes of Top Chef, and visit as many gourmet vegan restaurants as we can in our travels to explore the world of food. Instead of saying, “Oh, but we can’t eat that,” we say, “How can we make that vegan?” We experiment with alternative ingredients to create vegan dishes from non-vegan recipes. We strive to understand how food chemistry works to create fabulous baked goods and pastry. We never say we can’t have something. When Zooey Deschanel arrived on the scene, the first thing she did was apologize: “I’m sorry I’m so difficult.” Twice she said, “No one ever cooks for me. It’s so rare that I get to eat anything other than raw vegetables.” And worst of all: “There could’ve been some choices made that would have made this as good and make you forget that it’s vegan.”
That brand of veganism is exactly the type that people like Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Dreena Burton, and countless other spectacularly talented vegan chefs and cookbook authors are trying to combat. Veganism should never be about what we can’t eat. It should always be about the choice to eat a plant-based diet. And yes, it can be delicious and decadent. With respect, I don’t have “one hand tied behind my back,” Chef Chiarello. And I certainly don’t want to “forget” that what I’m eating is vegan, Ms. Deschanel. Why would I want to forget my own conscious choices?
Chef Art Smith: “I’m not comfortable making vegan and allergy-sensitive entrees. And so I decided to do dessert. I was thinking I’ll make something with rice milk but I don’t know how to make rice milk ice cream. So I bought a beautiful organic rice ice cream. This dish...is it gonna be reflective of who I am? NO! But I’ll give it some love and most of all, hopefully the guests enjoy it.”
You’re not comfortable making vegan entrees, Chef? You could have fooled me! Chef Smith had already prepared a marvelous vegan dish in one of his Quickfire challenges, Multigrain Risotto with a Crispy Grain Salad. This dish looks positively scrumptious, and it contains no animal-based ingredients whatsoever. I can’t wait to try that recipe. Chef Smith’s love for food, and love for pleasing people through his craft was clearly evident, and if he hadn’t been tripped up by the V-word, he probably could have come up with a beautiful fruit cobbler or some other Southern-style dessert that reflected his culinary point of view, just without all the butter and eggs.
Chef Rick Bayless: “In the Mexican repertoire, there’s a lot of really super delicious things you can do with vegetables and beans and grains, and all that sort of stuff. So I can do this thing! When my daughter was young, she had all kinds of struggles that made her gluten-intolerant for some time, so I’m comfortable with what we’re doing.”
Can I hug you right now, Chef Bayless? His attitude was wonderfully refreshing. Chef Bayless understood that he could bring his particular cuisine to this luncheon with fantastic flavors and ingredients. When presenting his course to the table, he was the only chef who said, “Pleasure to be able to cook for you.” Thank you for that, Chef Bayless.
Chef Keller approached his course with the desire to “get that whole palate hopefully excited.” His plate was a feast for the eyes, bursting with color. His food looked like a melange of lovely textures and flavors, although the diners and judges felt his timbale was a bit too dip-like for such a sophisticated course, but I appreciated that his decision to add fat to this course was a thoughtful one.
Course 2 - Chef Anita Lo
Spicy Grilled Eggplant
Lentil Salad
Cashew Sauce
Chef Lo seemed thrown by this challenge. I think her confidence took a hit during the burger challenge, in which she was criticized harshly by the judges (including Morgan Spurlock and Chef Spike Mendelsohn) for floating tiny burgers in a cheese soup, rather than going in the sandwich-style direction. Perhaps her creativity and expertise would have shown through more had her confidence been at its peak. Overall, her dish was bland looking, and although her Indian-inspired spices were praised, everyone seemed to find her eggplant mushy and oily.
Despite his initial grumblings, Chef Chiarello executed a very successful dish. I don’t know why he waited until Judges’ Table to say, “Italian food, in the end, does not rely on meat. Meat is a secundo. It really was a celebration of the tomato.” Everyone declared his course homey, satisfying, and delicious.
Course 4 - Chef Rick Bayless
Sweet Corn Tamales
Chili-braised Black Beans
Braised Greens with Glazed Mushrooms
Wow. For me, this was the most beautiful course of the day, and the one that looked most appetizing on television. I wished for a John Waters scratch-and-sniff page, so I could vicariously inhale the aromas of that plate. Zooey Deschanel loved the combination of the sweet corn and the smoky black beans. I bow to Rick Bayless’ greatness.
Chef Art said, “This rice stuff is just awful.” He’s right. Frozen rice milk is not very good. Jay Rayner described a “cereal back taste” which is quite right. But thousands of other vegan desserts are very good. Chef Smith made a mouthwatering almond brittle, drizzled with bittersweet chocolate. I believe that if he had gotten out of his own head in the planning stages of this meal, he would have come up with a superb dessert for this luncheon, and blown all the other chefs out of the water. Even Rick Bayless.
The Judging
Before I begin discussing the judges’ reactions to each course, I must comment on how much I loved Gael Greene’s fascination with The Vegans.
“The Vegan that I was sitting next to was thrilled to discover there was quinoa pasta.”
“I loved seeing the excitement of Vegans at the table, finding the food to be so exceptional.”
“The Vegans seemed so surprised. God knows what they get to eat!”
I took no offense to any of this. I found it amusing, to say the least. I loved that a schooled, experienced food critic could be so naive about vegans and vegan cookery. Some of the finest Top Chef editing, that. Bravo.
Judges’ Table was rather uneventful, minus a few notable moments.
Jay Rayner remarked, “In my experience, vegan food tends to be a symphony of beige, but this wasn’t. This was bright and vibrant. There were lots of punchy flavors today.” Again, it fascinates me that foodies and food critics have this perspective. I bet Jay Rayner happily eats vegan food all the time, without a second thought. Once the Scarlet V was attached to this challenge’s bosom, everyone viewed the food through a completely different lens. Of Chef Chiarello’s dish, Rayner said, “That was the dish today where I stopped thinking, ‘Oooh, it’s a vegan dish which I’m enjoying,’ to ‘Oooh, it’s a dish that I’m enjoying.’” Had Chiarello served him this dish silently and with no preamble, I wonder if his reaction would have been different. I suspect he would have been using his highly evolved palate to scrutinize and enjoy the flavors, without presupposition.
Both Chef Chiarello and Chef Smith were questioned about their decision to purchase the main ingredients of their dishes. Rayner: “Was there any point that you questioned whether you wanted to do a pasta dish given that you would have had to buy the product ready-made?”
Instantly my hackles were raised. Aren’t all “proteins” ready-made to some degree? Chefs rely on butchers to grind and prepare cuts of meat all the time. Chiarello’s response was correct: “Oh, Italian cooking is all about celebrating the artisans of what they do, and making a hard pasta at home is never ever as good as somebody else that’s really set up to do it.” To Rick Bayless, he added, “Would you make a salami if Giuseppe the salamaria maker made a great salami? No!”
Rayner to Chef Smith: “You bought that (rice milk)? Do you feel that buying the central ingredient qualifies?” I felt this question was somewhat unfair because to me, the central ingredient was not the frozen rice milk, but the strawberries. Was everyone focused on the ice cream because it was the “vegan stuff?” I don’t know. Nothing was made of Chef Smith’s Strawberry Champagne Soup, however. I wondered, too, if anyone questioned whether or not the champagne was vegan. While I did agree with Rayner’s comment, “If you go to any great restaurant, they never buy in any of their ice creams,” I think the focus here should not be on the lack of homemade ice cream, but rather on the fact that Chef Smith did not put his stamp on this course as he could have. I did love his assertion that when cooking for a party, without a familiar recipe, a chef should focus on making a dish that tastes wonderful. While he didn’t use his culinary expertise and experience to come up with a really special dessert, his desire to make something really tasty is commendable.
Course 1 - Chef Hubert Keller
Diners - 4 Stars
James Oseland - 4 Stars “A thoughtful journey into meatless cooking.”
Gael Greene - 4 1/2 Stars
Jay Rayner - 3 1/2 Stars
Course 2 - Chef Anita Lo
Diners - 2 1/2 Stars
James Oseland - 2 1/2 Stars “Appealing spicing, but a too-mushy eggplant.”
Gael Greene - 3 1/2 Stars
Jay Rayner - 3 Stars “Big on taste, light on elegance.”
Course 3 - Chef Michael Chiarello
Diners - 4 1/2 Stars
James Oseland - 4 Stars “A comforting bowl of yumminess.”
Gael Greene - 5 Stars “A treat for vegans, a revelation for me.”
Jay Rayner - 4 1/2 Stars
*The winner of this challenge and episode.
Course 4 - Chef Rick Bayless
Diners - 3 1/2 Stars
James Oseland - 3 1/2 Stars “A joyous tamale.” He gave a “slight deduction” for the dish’s “lack of focus.”
Gael Greene - 4 Stars
Jay Rayner - 4 Stars “You met the challenge and cooked like Bayless.”
Course 5 - Chef Art Smith
Diners - 3 Stars
James Oseland - 2 1/2 Stars “Beautiful strawberries, but I wanted more cooking.”
Gael Greene - 2 Stars “A bit of a hodgepodge.”
Jay Rayner - 1 1/2 Stars “Great brittle, but so sorry you bought the ice cream.”
* Eliminated.
Hopefully Top Chef’s first foray into vegan cooking won’t be its last. James Oseland offers praise for meatless living in his blog entry There Is Life After Bacon. Of note:
I also think that making vegetarian meals turns you into a more thoughtful cook. Not being able to fall back on the sumptuous, umami flavors of meat lays your cooking bare. If you really want to get a sense of somebody’s ability in the kitchen, ask that person to do away with the chicken broth and ham hocks and other meats and meat-derived ingredients hiding up most cooks’ sleeves. Vegetarian and vegan cooking are essential, reductive: the core flavors of the vegetables that form the basis of this kind of cuisine are subtle, and the cook has to be attuned to how to draw out, complement, and emphasize those flavors. When it’s done right, such cooking can be extraordinarily sophisticated and refined.
Thank you, sir.
At the end of all this, I’m wondering what the producers’ intentions were in creating the topic for this show. I hope the intention was to showcase vegan cooking, in the hands of highly capable and skilled Master Chefs, for all its delicious possibilities.
It’s a rare occasion that I can visit the BRAVO website, pull up a recipe, and begin to prepare without thinking of substitutions or replacements. I’m not complaining. It’s just a fact. After viewing this episode, I couldn’t wait to get Chef Smith’s Almond Brittle recipe. Hooray, it’s available!
I’m sure I haven’t exhausted all of the possible “wow-factor” birthday presents I could possibly give Tony, but this year I decided that instead of one big (sports-related) gift, I’d go the whimsical route with a Doctor Who theme. We’d just finished plugging through all of the seasons with Doctors Nine and Ten so it seemed fitting. Waiting for him when he got home from work was a TARDIS-shaped birthday cake - my first attempt at making a specialty fondant cake. I decided not to chance my maiden voyage with a 3D model. Here’s how it went down:
I baked two carrot cakes in 9 x 13 pans, and stacked them with a layer of vegan cream cheese frosting in between.
I covered the entire cake with a thin layer of the same frosting. I think Buddy the Cake Boss (LOVE that show!) calls it “dirty icing” the cake. I dirty iced it!
After dyeing the white fondant by hand, I rolled out a big enough piece to cover the entire cake with blue fondant and smoothed it out.
Using a picture of the TARDIS to guide me, I started cutting out some of the details for the cake with white and hand-dyed black fondant. I wasn’t quite sure how to best make the light at the top, so I formed a ball of fondant into a light-ish shape, and added white fondant details to represent the beams of light.
My lettering leaves a lot to be desired. For the phone box sign at the top, I used letter presses and then filled in the lettering with stiff icing (not well, I might add - need to work on that!) and hand-scripted the phone box sign with an edible-ink marker. I used a knife to mark out the panels on the TARDIS, and finished up with a few more fondant details on the windows and doors. (The actual TARDIS has one more set of panels at the bottom, but I didn’t quite scale the cake properly to account for those. Oops!)
I surrounded the cake with an electronic TARDIS, an Ood action figure, a sonic screwdriver (which doubles as a pen), an electronic Dalek, and a Doctor Who Encyclopedia (and as a little extra non-Who related present, a copy of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog on DVD). I didn’t wrap anything because I thought they looked more fun in the packages all around the cake. I think the effect worked - he was very pleasantly surprised when he came home from work and saw the kitchen counter covered with Doctor Who birthday treats.
After dinner, we opened the TARDIS. It’s bigger on the inside.
I want an Adipose. I can’t stop looking at pictures of Adipose. I might need an Adipose intervention.
For those unfamiliar, this
is an Adipose. A marshmallowy creature who survives and spawns in a human host. I would totally host an Adipose and put the human race in danger if I could have one of these little snaggletoothed blobs walking around my house, squeaking.
Since Adipose aren’t real, I will have to settle for any or all of the following to satisfy my Adipose obsession. As you peruse, please imagine me screeching “I want an Adipose! I want you to get me an Adipose right away!” in my best Veruca Salt twenty or thirty times in a row and see how fast you get me an Adipose just to shut me up.
If you’re not completely convinced by now that Adipose are the cutest things in the whole wide world, there must be something very wrong with you. Stand close and I’ll use my sonic screwdriver to try to fix you.
A schedule. Yeah, that’s it. That’s the ticket. A schedule will help me post more! Let’s give Music Mondays a try, shall we? (I know, I know. It’s corny, but roll with me.)
iPod on shuffle. First five songs. Here goes:
“I Made it Through The Rain” by Barry Manilow. Great song, made better by Captain Jack Harkness. (for Audra)
“Hold On” - Green Day
“One More Try” - Richard Marx
“Too Much Heaven” - The Bee Gees
“Utopia” - Alanis Morrissette
Trivia Question: On what popular after-school Canadian television show did Alanis Morrissette appear? (The same television show that featured Christine “Moose” McGlade, who denied her identity when I recognized her at a Grateful Dead show in the late 1980s. Yes, I was at a Grateful Dead show. No, I’m not proud of that fact.)
Correct answer-ers will be entered into this week’s prize drawing. Answer in the comments or email me at joeparadox at gmail dot com!
Raise your hand if your blog is covered with cobwebs since Facebook, Twitter, and every other microblogging website came along! Both hands high in the air, here.
With summer vacation comes plenty of time for me to march around the internet, visiting all of the blogs I rarely get to read during busy work months. While Facebook and Twitter have kept me connected with people, I truly miss reading and commenting on my favorite blogs. I miss the excitement I always felt when my email inbox showed a new comment on a recent entry, and I miss the exercise of writing. I used to have so much to say, but I got sucked into the vortex of immediate gratification that social networking provides.
In an effort to rekindle my romance with joeparadox.com, I decided to try to teach myself some semblance of blog design. I wouldn’t dare say “web” design, because about the only thing I can do right now is some CSS and a little bit of functional coding. So, I’m learning. Over the last week or so, I plugged away at a new design and for the first time I was able to complete one that works in both Firefox and Explorer. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but it actually looks better in Explorer. I figured out how to make transparent gifs for the first time, which was sort of a breakthrough in my understanding of how this all works. This new design isn’t perfect and it’s not professional, but I like it and I feel pretty good about what I was able to teach myself. If you want to see it, check out the “Slip me some skin” drop-down menu in the sidebar and choose “Blue Plate Special.” There it is.
With this new design comes new ideas for this blog. Lately I’ve gotten really tired of all the navelgazing that pervades the internet. Cryptic facebook updates meant to “intrigue” really just scream, “I need attention! Look at me! Notice me!” And I guess I’m just a little weary of the Dooces of the world and their macro photos of baby wipe warmers on their blogs. Now I’ll totally contradict myself by saying that I love reading diarist blog posts of people I know and have followed for many years, and I enjoy writing them, too, but I really prefer the commenting and discussion that an interesting or entertaining blog entry can provoke. That’s where I’m going here.
A serious effort will be made, people! To update! Yes, from time to time, there will be pictures of the cats and stories about the various levels of destruction and havoc that they wreak on us and our home. There will be TARCon stories and celebrity encounters. But there will be more. There will be more frequent trivia questions and games. And prizes! Everyone likes prizes, right? I’m going to try to review some of my favorite vegan (and non-vegan) products and recipes. And, I’ll probably be talking more about interesting things in general, and I hope you’ll leave your thoughts in the comments.
If you’re still reading this blog, thanks for sticking with me. I hope you find something here to entertain you, inform you, or at the very least, occupy you until you regenerate enough energy to do more jobs on your favorite Facebook game.
And we’re off! The theme for this summer’s trivia is television and movie characters (including reality tv contestants). For each quiz, I’ll provide the names of five characters, and all you have to do is name the show they were on. There’s a hitch - the letters of the characters’ first and last names will be scrambled! I’ll place an asterisk to indicate how many letters in the first and last names...FOR NOW!
In case you’re wondering why this entry looks identical to the last one you may have read, it’s because I heeded my good friend Sheri‘s advice and scrambled up the first and last names separately, instead of together. A bit easier - it is summer, after all!
There will be prizes again! The first person to answer the quiz correctly will win an iTune of their choice. Answers (character names and the name of the show) can be emailed to me at joeparadox AT gmail DOT com, or posted in the comments section of the blog entry. Have fun y’all!
Summer vacation has begun, officially! And you know what that means!
Trivia and games and quizzes are certainly on their way. Last year I bit off a bit more than I could chew with my 80s video tournament. It seemed like a grand idea at the time, but my overzealous ambition (not to mention a touch of OCD) got the best of me. In the end, I made the executive decision to declare a-ha’s “Take On Me” the best video of the 80s, since we took Thriller out of the running at the very beginning.
This year I promise to return to my roots and provide you with the kinds of fun, finish-able trivia quizzes to which you’ve become accustomed, here on joeparadox.com. I’m not sure yet what they’ll be, so stay tuned!
