Tales from La La Land

Right now it’s hard to imagine cooking (or eating) anything.

Our Christmas Eve dinner consisted of a 15-lb prime rib covered in sea salt, horseradish, olive oil, garlic and pepper. Apparently, 1lb of meat per person wasn’t sufficient, so we also had a huge batch of my brother-in-laws homemade raviolis. And, of course, a bevy of side dishes ranging from oven-baked macaroni and cheese to spinach salad.

Here’s what a 15-lb piece of prime rib looks like prior to cooking.

For desert, we revisited the deliciousness that is the lemon pudding cakes.

Everything turned out really well despite the fact that there were multiple people trying to cook in the kitchen at once, and that every few minutes a three-year old would run by trying to grab everything in sight.

I started thinking about the Leek throwdown, which will take place on January 6, because the prime rib recipe called for parsnips. I had to google it before going to the store. I have never eaten a parsnip in my life. No one else seemed entirely sure what they were either. So, I was looking forward to cooking them with the roast and seeing what they tasted like.

They seem to have a pretty bland flavor on the own, so thankfully they were swimming in meat juice.

When I first told Laef that I got to pick the ingredient for the next throwdown, he said, “I know what you’re going to pick.”

And then he said: Garlic.

It is true. I love cooking with garlic. But, I wanted something I’ve never used.

I guess it’s only fitting that I chose leeks – a vegetable from the onion and garlic family.

Most of the recipes I have been wanting to try were some kind of soup, but after reading further, there are plenty of options for cooking with Leeks.

I hope you all will participate. Hopefully by January 6 you will be recovered from all the holiday food.

Once you have put your throwdown blog up, come over and leave a comment that says, “I’m up.” Moi will go around and visit all the sites and take care of the judging.

Another decade in the books.

Which means, come January, there are no new year’s resolutions.

This January, it’s all about the next decade.

As Lady Gaga said, “You can be whatever the fuck you want to be.”

And, if Jen can be a doctor, certainly, I can do anything I decide.

The first order of business was to move my blog from Blogger to WordPress. Honestly, I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into. But, I was determined to figure it out and do it. I have spent the last week googling html codes, figuring out how to link to twitter, resizing photos, creating pages and generally going insane.

I must thank Nick and Meghan for helping me when my frustration reached a boiling point.

It is still a work in progress, but this is a start.

Like many people, my life is a continuous routine. I wake up at the same time everyday, eat the same cereal in my car on the way to work, listen to the same sports talk radio, park in the same parking garage, read the same trashy websites before doing any actual work, eat the same morning snack, watch the same TV show while running on the treadmill at lunch, eat the same afternoon snack, drive the same route home, drink the same wine to unwind, fall asleep on the same side of the bed and wake up at the same time in the middle of the night thinking about the same random shit.

Having said that, I don’t totally hate a routine life. It means shit’s not completely fucked up.

However, I do hate that sometimes I am reluctant to shake things up.

So, I moved the blog and am looking forward to mixing things up over the next 10 years.

Maybe I’ll have some babies. Maybe I will learn to surf. Maybe I will sleep on Laef’s side of the bed. And, just maybe, I’ll be brave enough to leave the confines of my cubicle to do something that truly inspires me.

After all, I can be whatever the fuck I want.

Maybe it’s the holiday spirit or Padma’s baby bump, but after a totally lackluster Top Chef season finale, I was kind of digging the reunion show.

I laughed quite a bit, so I don’t have a lot of negative things to say.

The way that they interacted on the reunion show and some of the clips that were put together only reinforced in my brain that the process is stressful. Unless you are Kevin, the chances of coming out looking completely sane, sweet and sincere are slim to none.

I will probably take a lot of flak for this, but I thought Isabella redeemed himself a little bit on the reunion show. He’s a jersey guy, which is a unique breed, but even Jen admitted that he was an OK guy. He could totally laugh at himself and seemed to take ownership of who he is. I can respect that.

Speaking of which…Um, could Bravo have been any more obvious when it panned to Jen and then to Isabella after Andy Cohen asked a viewer question about whether there were any on-set love affairs?

Rumor is that they had some kind of tryst, but seeing as Isabella was recently married, I’m sure we’ll never really know.

Other notes:

- I love Jen even more than I did before. She is one of the guys who likes to booze and cook. She is my pretend BFF.

- Ash is such a tool. I can’t pinpoint it, but something about him and his teabagging of the entire cast really annoys me.

- Bryan and Mike aren’t so bad. Bryan has zero charisma and Mike is quite confident, but bottom line is that their mom is good people and I would like to think that good moms raise good people.

- Ron. Andy said that people were sad when Ron was sent home. I don’t believe that. OK, he’s a cuddly teddy bear, but the dude was out of his league. Who was sad?

- Mattin. Thanks for playing, buddy. I got dry heaves again after having to look at your ceviche made in the desert.

- Padma. “I ate a lot of huevos…”

- Robin. At least you got air time. Can’t say the same for half the other people sitting there.

- Kevin. Best. Line. Ever. “It’s Fun To Be Smart.” He continued to be adorable. Even in his defense of Eli. So cute.

So, whatever, whatever. It is what it is. I had an OK time watching the reunion show. Felt like I could have gotten wasted with that crew and had a blast.

In other cooking related news!

I recently stumbled upon some cooking blogs that host a Culinary Throwdown. A couple of months ago, I got brave enough to tred into their turf and compete in the beet throwdown.

All of the bloggers that partake were very welcoming, friendly and encouraging so I went for it again a couple of weeks ago.

For each throwdown, there is a specific ingredient, style of cooking, method of cooking, etc., that must be featured. And usually, Moi will do the judging.

The winner of the challenge gets to host the next challenge and pick the theme or ingredient. Moi must have been drunk because she labeled my salt-womb pork the winner of the last challenge.

Sooo…I will be hosting the next Culinary Throwdown.

Yay.

Posts should be up on Wednesday, January 6. Don’t be shy! It’s a fun group and a fun challenge. Just put your post up and come on over to my blog and leave a comment saying, ‘I’m up.”

And now…for my choice of ingredient.

I’ll just say this: What I’ve loved about the throwdown’s is trying new things. I picked something that I have never, ever cooked with. I picked something that I always assumed I wouldn’t like, but never actually tried it.

I picked: LEEKS.

At first, the idea seems so logical.

Let’s make cookies for all of our friends and coworkers as gifts. It will be cheaper, more thoughtful and meaningful.

And then reality sets in when you actually count the number of people both Laef and I work with along with the neighbors, the UCLA basketball team and the mail man.

But, I was determined to make three kinds of cookies: Paula Dean’s Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies, Paula Dean’s Ginger Cookies and Tyler Florence’s My Big, Fat Chocolate Chip Cookies.

In the end, I realized the errors of my ways, and realized that making two different kinds of cookies – or even one – would have been more manageable.

I thought everything was fine until I hit a wall midway through Sunday afternoon, had a mini-meltdown and practically divorced Laef for eating the cookies and not vacuuming.

Seriously. I was a FREAK.

I was so tired from standing in the kitchen, rolling dough into balls and washing 4,343,502 dishes that I was beginning to go insane.

Which is the only explanation for also making Martha Stewart’s slow-cook lasagna in the middle of all the cookie mayhem. (It’s actually a really easy recipe and was to die for when it was done. Super yummy).

After it was all said and done, I was happy I did it and we had 40 bags of cookies that looked like this:

I have sent Laef to work with 20 bags, and am curious to know how many bags he eats and how many he gives away. The over under is at 10 each.

After the cookie debacle was finally done, we walked downtown to watch the annual Manhattan Beach Christmas firework show. For some reason, we have never been for this, and despite the fact that my back was killing me and I was at stage four of five on the psycho meter, we went.

We stopped by our neighbors’ house on 18th street to give them cookies and a Christmas card. These are the people who came out of their houses at our wedding to throw rice at us and give us champagne.

Neither was home. The current residents informed us that they are only there during the summer.

I hate them. They totally should have had Laef and I watch their houses during the winter. We would have gladly made sure nothing went wrong.

Anyway, all of the shops downtown are open. Some have hot cocoa, some have champagne and most offer some sort of treats. There are thousands of people camped out on the closed streets.

Despite the fact that Manhattan Beach celebrates Christmas with fireworks, it was the first time this month that I actually felt like it was the holiday season.

We walked home right after and I promptly went to sleep at 8:20 p.m.

Moral of the story: It sounds logical to make homemade gifts, but sometimes a box of chocolates is just fine.

For some reason, I was bored to death by last night’s Top Chef Season finale.

It might have had something to do with the fact that I was in a food and wine coma after a work Christmas party, but at no point did the show do anything that got me remotely excited. In fact, I was almost asleep by the time they announced the winner.

To start things off, I was annoyed by the overall challenge. The mystery box stumped all three of them, and at this point, these guys don’t need to be “challenged” with quirky curveballs.

I think the final challenge should always allow the chefs to cook whatever they want for ALL courses. What I want to see is each chef’s true style and true vision of food.

In this case, they were only allowed one course to cook whatever they want. And, sadly, I thought all three were somewhat lackluster. Perhaps it was that the chefs were sidetracked by worrying about that stupid box or the fact that they had to cook a dessert.

Or that their moms were there.

WTF.

I am sure they were all excited to see mommy, but this is probably one of the most stressful times in their lives. I’m not sure I understood that twist, but whatever.

Not only were the chefs – who were by far the best three of the season – dealing with that stupid box, of course Bravo brought back all of the contestants from the season and had the finalists draw knives to see what two castoffs would be their sous chefs.

Bogus.

Why the fuck would they bring back everyone? Kevin was screwed when he drew Preeti (they only showed her for one second, and it’s the first time this season that Kevin seemed genuinely pissed and way off his game, so maybe he booted her after she spent 17 hours chopping one squash).

I’m sure Bravo was hoping that Mike V. would get Robin or some stupid shit like that, but why not just bring back Jen, Eli, Ashley, etc. – people that would actually HELP the finalists and not hinder them?

So, anyway, they all prepare four dishes, all look decent, but nothing was over-the-top awe-inspiring. For the first time, Kevin really seemed off, which was sad to see.

My memory is not the greatest, but I don’t feel like they have looked at one of the top 3 and said, “You are NOT Top Chef.” Am I wrong about this?

I thought it was weird that Padma said, “Kevin” … long pause … “You are NOT Top Chef.”

Despite the fact that he didn’t knock it out of the park, I thought he had won. Because I couldn’t remember them ever doing that.

Which led me to believe they really wanted to set up that last scene with the two brothers.

Lame. Kevin deserved better.

Mike wins and it seems that Bravo has been setting this up for the past two weeks. He didn’t come off nearly as cocky last week or this week. We even see him joke and shed some tears. Bravo was really wanting us to be OK with this win.

I’m OK with it. He’s a good chef. He makes interesting food.

If I had the option of going to all three of their restaurants, it would probably be in this order:

Bryan
Kevin
Mike

Until next season!

Once again the Culinary Throwdown has led me down a road I’ve not ventured before.

This is my second throwdown, and it brought me as much excitement and confusion as the beet challenge.

This time around, La Diva Cucina is hosting. She won the last throwdown, and thus, got to pick the theme: Salt.

Obviously, I use salt to cook. But, I’ve never once made dish centered around salt. Which is weird because Cup ‘O Noodles is pretty much my favorite thing to eat.

I contemplated making some noodle dish with salty broth, but when I started googling around, I learned that there are actual techniques one can use to cook with salt.

In the end, I settled on Salt-Roasted Pork Loin. This is not an original recipe. Because this isn’t something I was familiar with, I figured I’d need a guide.

I have to say, I was skeptical throughout the entire process – how is dumping an entire 3 pound box of salt all over the pork loin not going to make it taste like ass? How is it NOT going to seep in?

So, with all of my confusion…I went for it.

I prepared my ingridents with a little help from The Sanch.

It was so disappointing to learn that you should hide bits of pancetta within the meat to prevent from drying. I HATE delicious chunks of pork hidden within pork! NOT.

That was pretty much all it took. I sliced holes in the pork loin and stuffed pieces of pancetta that were mixed with sage, nutmeg and mustard. Again, I was confused. I didn’t put anything on the pork loin. But, I have to say, the sage gave a really nice flavor.

Once the pork was stuffed with more pork, I buried it in salt. This is when I started questioning everything and started to think we’d be ordering a pizza for dinner.

As it was baking, I made the spicy apple creamy slaw thing that goes with it. I was thrown off by the horseradish. I love horseradish, but I normally eat it with beef, so I was unsure how it would go with pork. Um, it was delicious. Maybe it was the 5 tablespoons of heavy cream.

Finally, it was time to check the damage.

It was amazing. The salt formed a cave, never actually soaking into the pork loin.

After cutting it out of its salt womb, I sliced the pork and served with the apple slaw. It was super moist and an amazing revolution.

Spicy Salt-Roasted Pork Loin
2 1/4 pounds (1 k) bonless pork loin
A 1/3-inch thick (1 cm) slice flat pancetta (see link to photo), cut into half-inch sticks
3-4 leaves fresh sage, chopped
A pinch of freshly ground nutmeg
A teaspoon ground mustard
A green apple, peeled, cored and grated
The juice of a lemon
5 tablespoons heavy cream
3 tablespoons grated horseradish
Pepper
6 1/2 pounds (about 3 k) coarse sea salt or kosher salt

Preheat your oven to 460 F (230 C).

Make as many cuts into the top of the meat as you have sticks of pancetta. Mix the sage, nutmeg, and mustard in a bowl, seasoning the mixture with a grind of pepper. Roll the pancetta sticks in the seasoning and stick the meat with them.

Line the bottom of a baking dish deep enough to comfortably hold the meat with a 3/4-inch (2 cm) layer of salt. Put the meat on it.

Cover the loin to an even depth of 3/4 inch (2 cm), using as much of the remaining salt as necessary.

Roast the pork loin for an hour and 15 minutes.

While it is roasting, squeeze the lemon, collecting the juice in a bowl. Peel and grate the apple, stirring the apple into the lemon juice immediately to keep it from discoloring. Stir in the grated horseradish too, and next lightly whip the cream. Fold it into the sauce too, cover the sauce with plastic wrap, and refrigerate it.

The salt crust will be browned, and may even look burnt because of the reaction between the heat and the juices drawn from the meat. Don’t worry, but rather crack it open, remove the pieces of crust, and brush away excess salt.

First, I want to say thank you to all of you who commented for the crockpot giveaway. I used Random.org to determine the winner. It’s a pretty simple process, and based on the comments to the blog, it should come as no shock that AJ won! Yay. She commented the most and there weren’t tons of comments, so the odds were stacked in her favor.

Meanwhile, back at the crib.

We are in the midst of holiday chaos and basketball season.

Something new that I have learned about Laef: He can not get dressed in the morning without turning on the light, opening and closing his dresser drawers 50 times, putting his cold-ass hands on me to warm them up and generally making sure that I am WIDE awake by the time he leaves.

I don’t know why the glaring light from outside is enough for me to get dressed in the morning, but not him. While I try to tip toe around the bedroom so as to not bother him, he will do the following:

1. Turn on light. THEN say: “Cover your eyes!”
2. Stand in front of the closet for 5 minutes, which makes no sense because ALL OF THE UCLA SHIRTS LOOK THE SAME, HONEY!
3. Open his sock drawer.
4. Close his sock drawer.
5. Open his boxer drawer.
6. Close his boxer drawer.
7. Open his sock drawer.
8. Close his sock drawer.

Me: “OHMYGOD, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?!”
Laef: “I need socks”.
Me: “In the dryer.”

Laef will then walk outside to the dryer (it’s a long story, don’t ask) and leave the light on in the bedroom. Then, from outside, he will yell into the bedroom window: “I NEED NEW SOCKS!”

Once this has been determined, he will come back to the bedroom, get his pants, spray them with water and go back to the dryer so that he can “iron” his pants.

It never dawns on him to turn off the light, but it’s just logistics, I guess.

By the time he leaves for work, I am awake and wondering why some things have to be so hard.

And then the other day while I was shopping at Ralphs, I was staring at dish soap for a good 5 minutes. Normally I make such purchases at CVS or Target because it is usually cheaper. However, I was in a rush so I went to Ralphs.

I stared at my options for at least 3 minutes trying to figure out the best deal. All the while this little old man kept walking up and down the aisle, mumbling.

Finally, he came right up behind me and said, “Starch.”

Me: “Starch??”
Him: “Yes.”
Me: … completely baffled. I am thinking starch as in foods with starches.

We start wandering up and down the aisle together, and I’m just as lost as he is. I ask him if I can please look at the list, and when I see it, it is so obvious that his wife wrote it for him in her pretty writing. She had the brand and everything.

I’m still baffled. Finally, we both realize that I’m of no help and I wander away.

And, about five seconds later, I realize: “OHMYGOD! SPRAY STARCH! MY PARENTS USE THIS!!”

I run back to the aisle and the man is still there. I say, “spray starch?!” And the excitement comes over him. “YES!”

Me: “Like for ironing?”
Him: “Yes.”
Me: “I know this!”

And there it was, on the top shelf of aisle 6 (where the little man needed me after all because he could not reach this shelf).

I practically skipped away so proud of myself.

And then I realized: What a total loser. Ironing in our house consists of a spray bottle and a dryer. I can’t remember the last time I have ever used our ironing board let alone spray starch.

So, I am thinking that men either really don’t know how to shop or that they pretend not to so they can ask random girls to help them.

Jury is still out.

I’m having a really hard time focusing today, and thus, this recap might be less than stellar. (I usually write these while I’m watching the show and then watch the show again to fill in gaps. I know…TOOL).

Last night I was tired so I didn’t do the second watch.

Today, I’m thinking about one thing, and one thing only: Oregon vs. Oregon State for the Rose Bowl.

Go Ducks.

Back to Top Chef.

This is probably my favorite top 4 ever. Top to bottom, all four of them are super solid, each in their own way. Yes, there is the ego issue with Mike V., but he should be in the top 4 hands down. He’s amazing.

I’ve missed them, and when they all meet up again at the train, it seems like they all sort of missed each other. I don’t know if they’re BFFs or not, but it would appear as though they have a huge amount of respect for each other.

Which is nice. Remember when Lisa rolled into the top 4 with Richard, Antonia and Stephanie? That was painful to watch and Lisa should not have been there.

Anyway, the chefs are met by Padma and Michael Chiarello. Meh. He’s a great chef, but he got on my nerves on masters.

Like Kevin, I hate the idea of the quickfire being on a train. I would barf. Or fall. But, they all put together nice dishes, and at stake is a brand new Toyota Prius. I wanted Jen to win so bad because she has a 2000 Chevy Cavalier.

Laef had a Chevy Cavalier when I met him, so I can understand Jen’s pain. She’s listening to cassette tapes for fucks’ sake!

She does well, but Mike V. wins for his grape leaf thing. Can’t argue with it. He nailed the challenge.

For the elimination, they have to serve two dishes for 150 people. One has to be vegetarian.

They all do really well. It seemed that the judges really had to search to find things wrong – too little salt, too much salt, etc. There weren’t any MAJOR flaws with any of the dishes.

Which actually made it somewhat suspenseful. Jen didn’t seem as comfortable as the three other chefs. Once again, she was frazzled. She did prepare a nice duck dish, so I was never certain it would be here going home.

(Sidenote: I love that the guys are all awake one morning, breakfast is already made and they are texting Jen because she’s not awake yet. I also loved the scene where they are wine tasting and she says, “I don’t really need any alcohol right now.” She then asks what the alcohol content in one of the wines is and later exclaims: “I have a high tolerance!” Giggle. I love Jen).

For a split second I thought that maybe Mike V. would go because of the egg. But, his other dish seemed so strong that it doesn’t seem feasible.

It’s not: Jen is sent home. Boo.

Bryan is declared the winner of the elimination challenge. I’m actually happy for him because he really hasn’t won anything.

Kevin keeps it simple, but his flavors and colors are spectacular. As is his beard.

By the way, when the chefs are drinking Quickfire wine and even my husband notices (and he doesn’t give two shits about this show) you know Bravo went overboard on the product placement. Nicely done!

Laef also notices Padma’s dress at the elimination challenge (“What the fuck is she wearing?”) and Gail’s boobs at judges table (“Yours are better”).

Good answer, honey.

I am so excited for the finale. If they all show up and do what they’re capable of doing, it will be nearly impossible to pick a winner!