BLESSINGS FOR 2007

We are heading off for a little New Year's fun in Las Vegas and I'll be back to posting in 2007. I'd like to wish everyone a very blessed 2007 filled with

Abundance

Good Health

Infinite Peace

and of course...

Boundless Love !

HAPPY NEW YEAR.

"SERIOUS EATS" GETS A LITTLE LESS SERIOUS

To anyone who's perhaps been hopelessly lost in a shopping mall since December 4, let me tell you that Ed Levine chose that day to launch his new all-encompassing food site "Serious Eats." This full-flavored, almost completely edible website contains original food-related content, forums and lively discussions, videos, blog links and cultivates abundant crops of information for the hungry reader. I've been visiting the site daily and I've found it totally engrossing and informative.

The site gets seriously talented help from its contributors who include Adam Kuban (managing editor of Serious Eats and creator of A Hamburger Today and Slice), Meg Hourihan (creator of Megnut) , Alaina Browne (creator of A Full Belly) and Adam Roberts (The Amateur Gourmet). Actually this holy cast usually is referred to as simply Ed, Adam, Meg, Alaina and (another) Adam much like we know Cher, Britney and Gwen.

Serious Eats is in its infancy but is already a well-seasoned resource for information pertaining to good eating and drinking. I was totally shocked to pull up the site this evening to find the following link under their "Required Eating" section:

A Tiny Dynasty in Gingerbread and Icing

Okay, I admit that I was a little pissed that Adam Kuban was more clever than I when he created the name for this entry. It references a recent Acme Instant Food post about gingerbread houses I've made in the past. The "Dynasty" title cleverly refers to a house that a friend of mine christened, "The Aaron Spelling Gingerbread House." Aaron Spelling was of course the man who produced the hit TV series "Dynasty," as well as countless other TV shows. I built the house during a dark period of unemployment when I was obviously suffering from too much unstructured time and possibly dementia brought on from inhaling too much flour and powdered ginger.




When I began Acme Instant Food I didn't really expect anyone to actually read it. I historically have been very bad at documenting the measurements and ingredients that I tossed together in my extended kitchen play sessions. I started the blog as a tool to help me record my successes and failures. Pure silliness, bad grammar, and what I like to think of as "creative" spelling come together (much like a quickly stirred bowl of alphabet soup) to describe the inspiration behind recipes that I've created or tested from another author. The words "highbrow," "dignified," and "studious" are not generally words that one would use to describe the content found on Acme Instant Food.

I've balanced Rye bread on a dog's nose and parodied Don McLean's song "American Rye."

I created "Madonna's Discofied French Toast" one morning after an evening of too many martinis and temporary blindness brought on by a giant glistening Swarovski Crystal-encrusted disco ball at the material girl's "Confessions" concert.

And I all but added a third story to the house one afternoon while waiting for a pot of simmering sugar to transform into deliciously chewy caramels (which were doomed to be filed in the bulging Trash Compactor Files).

It's for these reasons that I'm HIGHLY flattered but terribly surprised to see that a respectable site like "Serious Eats" is referencing an Acme Instant Food post. Perhaps they felt that potential readers were being put off by the "Serious" part of the title so they schlepped over to the less-visited and uncharted corners of the Internet to show they have a sense of humor. It's the Internet equivalent of wearing one of those fake plastic glasses and mustache disguise for a laugh.

I don't pretend to know anything about web servers or bandwidth. I'm technically challenged. This was demonstrated this past weekend when I was unable to successfully use a remote control to play a DVD. Instead, after staring at the black screen for longer than just a few minutes, I turned to counting and noted with interest that we have three remotes for the bedroom TV and that there are exactly 147 buttons housed on them. Is this really necessary? I miss the days of simplicity. I've noticed that my hit counter now shows several visits that were referred from the Serious Eats link. I am concerned that a spike in visits (from my four regular readers to perhaps upwards of seven or eight) might cause my site to crash. I'm further concerned that people will use the comments section to correct my spelling, facts and grammar and poke fun in general.

Acme Instant Food is like the facade of a building on a studio backlot. Looking for depth and substance would be like hiring Bekins to move you into that backlot depiction of a brownstone in New York. You'd be disappointed and most likely have to replace your furniture when it falls through the plywood floor and rolls downhill and lands on the 101 freeway to be crushed by Angelyne's pink Corvette. I hope that the spotlight doesn't illuminate the fluffy content and bad template too well.

Perhaps what I'm really afraid of is that my regular four readers will discover the great content over at Serious Eats and abandon me for good. When empty, the Acme warehouse is lonely and totally not funny at all. Besides, who'll let me chase them around with wallpaper remover turned pseudo-vodka?

RETRO DRINK RECIPE CHALLENGE--THE MANHATTAN

"The sun is shining, the grass is green,

the orange and the palm trees sway.

There's never been such a day...in Beverly Hills, L.A."

I've never spent a Christmas anywhere but in Los Angeles so it's the only kind that I've really experienced. And yeah, when the calendar reads December 25, the mercury often hovers around 82 degrees. If I want to experience the festive chill of winter while opening my Christmas presents, I have to:

*Douse my underwear with pine-scented Lysol and pop them into the freezer overnight.

*In the morning run through the house shooting aerosol whipped cream into the air and pretend I'm catching partially hydrogenated oil snowflakes on my tongue while I shiver and enjoy the chilly pine fragrance.

*sigh*

If you long for the images of ice skaters in Rockefeller Plaza around a giant frozen Christmas tree, just down a few of these Manhattans, sit in front of the Christmas tree and wait for your underwear to thaw.

Laura Rebecca lives in New York so she is probably shaking her head and is convinced that too much sunshine causes irreversible damage to a person. She may be correct.

Here is my offering for Laura Rebecca's Retro Drink Recipe Challenge

The origin of this drink, according to Cocktail times is:

The Manhattan was invented in the late 19th century when socialite Jenny Jerome asked a bartender to mix a special cocktail for elected Governor of New York, Samuel J. Tilden at the Manhattan Club in New York City. And the cocktail was named after the bar.

The Classic Manhattan

2 oz blended whiskey
1/2 oz sweet vermouth
dash Angostura bitters

Stir with ice in a shaker and strain (or serve on the rocks as I have) into a cocktail glass. Pop a cherry into the glass and go shopping for new Prada shoes on 5th Avenue.

Manhattans do have a very sweet/smoky flavor which don't make them an idea drink to sip with most dinner selections. But as a fun libation before you hit the dance floor--they can't be beat!

TOOLBELT FOR SALE--SLIGHTLY USED, SPOTTED WITH CRISCO STAINS

There was a time when I was in construction. I actually designed and built entire housing communities. The towns that I built boasted fine houses that stood in long-lost grand Victorian fashion. They featured lots of pointy gables offering views of the street below and stained glass windows in glowing tones of amber, red and green that reflected the snow outside. Every home had piles of logs outside the back doors to ensure abundant warmth and light. I also built churches with steeples that rose into the sky, complete with the keystone where a brightly decorated wreath hung overhead and greeted worshipers on Christmas Eve. Clock towers were erected under my watch, keeping the towns in prompt order. Lampposts were placed on every corner and hedges of crinkly green holly, resplendent with intensley-colored red berries trimmed the yards like ribbon on packages. I once even built a train station with dual platforms awaiting travelers to exotic destination. Fences were tall and sturdy. Topiary gardens were designed around circular gazebos. Walkways were paved with tile and always kept clean and clear of debris.

This was exhausting work. The benefit was that I got to nibble occasionally on a shingle, a shutter, or a doorstop when I got hungry. And also, of course, after all of my homework was completed.

I was wildly fascinated with gingerbread houses as a kid. A cookbook in my mother's library was devoted entirely to cookies. In the back, there was a section on building gingerbread houses. It included the recipes for the gingerbread dough and the royal icing used to cement the structure together. A basic diagram laid out the plans for a simple, four-walled home with a pitched roof. The task seemed very do-able and one very messy weekend later, I had completed my first gingerbread house. As I recall, it was fairly respectable for a kid who was probably around 10 at the time. It should also have served as a blinding harbinger of my gayness to anyone who was paying attention. My first gingerbread house (thanks for the picture grandma).

Each year I looked forward to November as the time when I'd roll up my sleeves and draw the blueprints for the houses I wished to build. Candy shopping expeditions became an Olympic endurance event, requiring just the right colors, sizes, shapes and durability to decorate the houses. If the closest grocery store didn't carry the holiday M&M's in red and green, I'd insist on hitting each store until just the right ones were found. I turned into a pre-pubescent interior designer with a rock candy chip on my shoulder.

While construction was in progress clouds of flour hung in the kitchen air choking off any breathing creature not fortunate enough to wear a mask. The windows developed a ghostly, snowy haze even though the outside temperature was in the 80's. Our vinyl floors lost their sheen and developed a thin, sticky coating of molasses. Dinners had to be eaten on TV trays in the living room because the dining room table had become a workbench covered in crispy cinnamon-scented walls, roofs and gingerbread men fence posts. My family loathed me during December and they silently prayed for New Year's Eve to arrive which would signal the moment that the cleanup would begin and doorknobs throughout the house would no longer be sticky to the touch. New Year's Day also meant that the numerous ant traps could be removed from inside the house.

The only existing photos of the early houses (thanks again grandma). I was never good at documenting anything on film.

The houses grew more and more complex over the years. I eventually tired of building houses and branched out to other architectural challenges such as churches and train stations. I once even built a snowy North Pole village out of countless pounds of sugar cubes and hard candies. I'd pride myself on the fact that every house, bridge and building was completely edible with the exception of the heavy board it was built on. I found myself defending my properties from hungry visitors. These visitors were mainly my older brother and his posse of long-haired friends. After an afternoon jam-session and pot smoking break, they developed the munchies and their glossy red-eyed stares met my sugary creations. I stood by like an armed Hatfield defending his livestock from a low-life McCoy neighbor. In case anyone ever did successfully sneak a taste of the gingerbread, their taste buds would be shocked to discover the extra levels of cinnamon, allspice and ginger I had added in order to lend an extra dramatic scent to the dwelling.

Many years ago, I had a friend named Rhonda who once heard about my pre-adolescent gingerbread craftmanship. She asked to have me build one for her for the holidays and she insisted on paying me for the effort. I obliged and a very whimsical candy-land type house was created. Rhonda worked in the newsroom at a local Los Angeles TV station. She called me on the morning of December 24 and told me to tune in to the local live morning talk show. I found Stephanie Edwards and her co-host (Robert Story?) "ooowing" and "awwwing" over the gingerbread house, which was firmly anchored on the desk between them. Stephanie's flame-red hair was even over-shadowed by the gaudy candy colors eminating from the gingerbread cottage. It remained there throughout the broadcast and I felt like I had taken my first bite out of my proverbial fifteen minutes of fame.

I eventually found that building gingerbread homes was far too time consuming and as I grew older I began to suffer from the typical hurried holidays and found my gingerbread house toolbelt collecting dust instead of flour and baking soda. The houses began to appear only every few years and in rather scaled down designs. Until,about seven years ago when I found myself unemployed for a stretch of time that lasted well through the Christmas season. To escape my boredom I sat down to design a grand style gingerbread house. The dimensions of the property were roughly four and half feet long by two and half feet deep. The blueprint included:

*A central structure from which an east and west wing protruded

*River rock construction

*Four chimneys

*Walled-in formal gardens with poinsettias

*Three decorated wreaths

*A circular driveway

*A water fountain at the entrance with frozen water

*An octagonal ballroom with decorated Christmas tree visible through the windows


Cindy came shuffling into my house one day in her Grinch slippers. She eyed the mammoth house in the living room and proclaimed,

"Oh

my

God.

You built an Aaron Spelling gingerbread house. Honey, you really need to get out a bit more. I'm so worried about you!"

Aaron Spelling's house in Holmby Hills was the talk of the town during its construction. It is a 56,500-square-foot chateau, known as "The Manor", and was finally completed in 1991. It sits on six acres that previously belonged to Bing Crosby. It's embarrassingly large and opulent and includes every amenity that can possibly be built into a house. It is rumored that Candy Spelling even had a special room built just for the purpose of wrapping gifts. As if that woman ever wrapped a single gift in her life!

The christened, "Aaron Spelling Gingerbread House."

*These crappy scanned Poloroid pictures are the only photos I can find.

That was the last gingerbread house I constructed and I don't see any clove-studded real estate in the near future. I think the market has crashed. After the recent death of her husband, Candy Spelling put the Manor on the market and it's rumored to have up to a 150 million dollar price tag. Her daughter Tori isn't speaking to her and just this last weekend stopped traffic in her neighborhood with her two-day long garage sale. I imagine that she offered most of the things her mother gave to her over the years at rock-bottom prices. Some things just aren't meant to last forever.

SOMTHING UP FROM THE LAND DOWN UNDER

Usually a trip to the mailbox yields reams of junk mail interspersed with bills. It was quite a pleasant surprise to find a package from Sydney, Australia, that wasn't hard to swallow.


Kate, from Veggie Friendly, sent this Maggie Beer spiced pear paste and quince paste as her offering to the Blogging By Mail exchange hosted by Stephanie at the Happy Sorceress. This looks like a great reason to lay out some cheeses, uncork some wine, and have a party (yeah, like we need a reason to do that!) Thanks Kate!

BISCOTTI SO TASTY YOU might possibly EVEN ENJOY THEM WITH DECAF (gag)

I promise I'm not going to sing, or tell some ridiculous story about my childhood, or imagine that famous television mothers are sharing a cup of morning coffee with me, and I definitely won't divulge any dirty, embarrassing secrets.

I'm just going to post these recipes because they are SO DELICIOUS! And thanks to the very talented Lis of La Mia Cucina for providing the motivation to get everybody baking biscotti. I still haven't forgotten about Auntie Ann's pizza ('cept I'm gonna grill em).

CHOCOLATE ALMOND BISCOTTI (from Heaven to your mouth)
just barely modified from a recipe on Epicurious

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
6 TBS UNsalted butter--room temperature (reduce salt by half if using salted butter)
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs-room temperature
1 cup roasted, unsalted almonds, sliced or chopped fine
3/4 cups semisweet chocolate, chopped

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (or butter and flour).

Whish flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt together in a bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until creamed and very fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until well combined. Slowly stir in flour mixture to form a stiff dough. Stir in almonds and chopped chocolate.

Divide dough in half. Form each half into a log about 2 inches wide and lay on prepared sheet. Remold if necessary on sheet and flatten the logs slightly. Bake for 35 minutes or until outside feels firm. Remove sheet from oven but leave oven on. Let logs cool on sheet for 15 minutes.

Transfer biscotti to a cutting board. Using serrated knife, gently slice logs diagonally into roughly 1/2 inch slices. If crumbling is a problematic, use serrated knife to "saw" just through outer crust and then use a very sharp (non-serrated) knife to slice through--using a motion straight from the top down. Arrange cut biscotti on their side on baking sheet and return to oven for an additional 10 minutes, or until crisp. Once cool, you may optionally dip half of each biscotti into melted dark or white chocolate.

**I intend to try these again made with just a pinch of cinnamon mixed into the dry ingredients and the grated zest of an orange mixed in with the nuts.



BISCOTTI WITH CRANBERRY, GINGER AND WHITE CHOCOLATE
This recipe was also taken from Epicurious and modified slightly. These are not as amazing as the chocolate version, but great for those wanting biscotti that is a little less sweet.



2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup dried cranberries
1+ TBS chopped candied (crystallized) ginger
3/4 cups white chocolate chips

Additional 9 oz white chocolate chips to coat finished biscotti


Preheat oven to 350°F. Line heavy large baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in medium bowl; whisk to blend. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, butter, eggs and almond extract in large bowl until well blended. Mix in flour mixture, then dried cranberries, ginger and white chocolate. Divide dough in half. Using floured hands, shape each piece into 2 1/2-inch-wide, 9-inch-long, 1-inch-high log. Transfer both logs to prepared baking sheet, spacing evenly.

Bake logs until golden brown (logs will spread), about 35 minutes. Cool completely on sheet on rack. Maintain oven temperature. Transfer logs to work surface. Discard parchment. Using serrated knife, cut logs on diagonal into 1/2-inch-wide slices. Arrange slices cut side down, on same sheet. Bake 10 minutes; turn biscotti over. Bake until just beginning to color, about 5 minutes. Transfer biscotti to rack.

Stir chocolate in top of double boiler over simmering water until smooth over very low heat. Remove from over water. Using fork, drizzle chocolate over biscotti. Let stand until chocolate sets, about 30 minutes. (Can be made 1 week ahead. Freeze in airtight container. Thaw at room temperature.)

WASABI CRUSTED CHICKEN BREASTS STUFFED WITH APPLES, HONEY AND CURRY

*Sung to the tune of "My Favorite Things"

Crispy chicken breasts stuffed with lovely basil
Also some apricots brought to the table
Add tart goat cheese to make your taste buds sing
These were a few of my favorite things...

...the other night at Mark's restaurant on La Cienega! I ordered a chicken breast stuffed with sweet apricots, fragrant basil and goat cheese. Although the chicken was a tad over-cooked, the flavors were wonderful. The sweetness of the apricots played off the tart goat cheese really well and fueled a desire in me to make a similar sweet/savory dish at home. Since Ed thinks that apricots are vile fruits picked from the Devil's orchard, I discarded that flavor palette and created something completely different.

It began as I was stuck on the 101 freeway on the way home, listening to Gwen Stefani sing "Wind it Up" and I found myself wanting a cup of Swiss Miss hot cocoa and a trip to Austria. I shook off that creepy feeling and popped in the Mikado. Inspiration struck to create a meal with an Asian flavor. I've wanted to experiment using crushed wasabi peas as a breading and here was the perfect opportunity to try it.

We both devoured the resulting dish and I'm quite sure I'll be making this one again and again. It's another one for the "keeper" file.

WASABI CRUSTED CHICKEN BREASTS STUFFED WITH APPLES, CURRY AND HONEY
1 tart green apple, chopped fine
1/4 sweet yellow onion, chopped fine
non-stick oil spray (canola or olive)
1 tsp sesame oil
1/4 apple cider
1 tsp curry powder
2 tsp honey
salt & pepper to taste

1/2 cup wasabi peas (from good ole Trader Joes)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Spray skillet with non-stick spray and add apple and onion. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes. Add sesame oil, apple cider and curry and continue cooking until liquid is absorbed and apple and onion are tender. Remove from heat and stir in honey and salt & pepper. Let cool slightly.

Place wasabi peas in plastic bag, or food processor, and crush into crumbs. Place into shallow bowl.

Wash, pat dry chicken breasts and pound with meat mallet to flatten into 1/2 inch cutlets. Spread half of apple mixture on each chicken breast and roll up, jelly roll style. Spray rolled chicken breasts with oil and roll into crushed wasabi peas. Place in lightly greased dish and bake at 425 for 18-20 minutes or until chicken is just cooked.

I served these over green tea noodles that I sauteed with sliced bok choy, snow peas and julienned carrots.

HOW THE GRINCH BUSTED JUAN VALDEZ UPSIDE THE HEAD

This is an excerpt from an e-mail I received from my friend Cindy:

As I was being bent and cracked last night by the fabulously gay, wide shouldered, thick chested chiropractor Dr. *** I was grunting out info regarding your love of morning cups of coffee and he is adamant you switch to decaf and says he can guarantee your adrenals are shot to hell and even gave me a test to give you in case you don't believe me. I said you would believe me, you just wouldn't be interested in switching to decaf being the snotty little bugger you are. The point is....maybe you should get some Adrenals at GNC or something if you don't wanna get off the speed, you addict you. Good adrenals can help your immune system and boost your metabolism and all kinds of other dandy stuff.

I began reflecting on this because she is correct and I am a "snotty little bugger" (thanks Cin--remember that as you stand in front of the Whooville Christmas tree on December 25, crying in the snow because the mean ol' Grinch snuck down your chimbly and stole your Wham Doodles and Whing-Tinglers while you slept).

Hello.

My name is Kevin and I'm a coffee addict.

I adore coffee. As soon as I unlock my office door I head into the kitchen and start the coffee. I drink it strong. I drink it black. It needs no extraneous cream, sugar, caramel flavoring, crystal meth or anything to be absolutely perfect in its pure state. The flavor and aroma of strong (not burnt like Starbucks) rich coffee just makes me happy. And I continue being happy in it's presence through the early afternoon. I used to be able to enjoy strong coffee with dinner and then have no problem drifting off to sleep. Lately I find that I can't always nod off so fast if I consume caffeine at night. So I've sworn off caffeine after 6 pm and allow myself wine, vodka and tequila only. Water will do when absolutely nothing else is available or if I'm traveling and the local vodka supply is undrinkable or possesses a stale odor.

The good folks at the National Coffee Association drummed up the following statistics:

In the U.S., 54% of the adult population drinks coffee daily

Per capita men drink approximately 1.9 cups per day, whereas women drink an average of 1.4 cups of coffee a day.

Over half the population of the U.S. drinks at least two cups of coffee a day.

Twenty-five percent of coffee drinkers consume about five cups daily, and another twenty-five percent drink ten or more cups a day.


Excessive coffee and/or caffeine can contribute to:

Acid indigestion
Anxiety, irritability and nervousness
Candida or yeast problems (doubtful that's a problem for me)
Colitis, diverticulitis, diarrhea and other irritable bowel symptoms
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and other auto-immune disorders
Diabetes or hypoglycemia (low blood sugar)
Dizziness, Meniere’s syndrome or tinnitus (ringing in the ears)
Gout (Elevated Uric Acid levels)
Heart disease or heart palpitations
High blood pressure
High cholesterol
Insomnia and interrupted or poor quality sleep
Liver disease and gallbladder problems such as gallstones
Kidney or bladder problems including kidney stones
Migraines or other vascular headaches
Osteoporosis
Skin irritations, rashes and dryness
Ulcers, heartburn, and stomach problems such as hiatal hernias
Urinary tract irritation

YIKES!!!

With the exception of the aforementioned trouble sleeping if I drink caffeine late in the day, I experience none of these ailments. I do however, recognize that too much of anything usually isn't good. For example, I discovered in high school that eating an entire pan of lasagne, washing it down with wine coolers and then playing Twister is a bad idea.

I never make New Year's resolutions because I feel that you should resolve to make positive changes in your life at times that are appropriate and necessary rather than by the turning of a calendar page. So I'm resolving now to REDUCE my caffeine intake--not eliminate it. I don't honestly feel that caffeine, consumed in reasonable doses is harmful to me and I'm not willing to cut it from my diet entirely. I will however, wean myself off the large continual supply of the drug throughout my day by mixing decaffeinated coffee into my regular ground beans.

God help me.

And more importantly, God help the people around me.

Juan Valdez, I send my apologies to you. It's nothing personal but I just can't keep seeing you like this. Our relationship has to change.

A LITTLE STOCKING STUFFER

Soon enough, I'll be sharing more information about me that you'd care to know. This includes information about my serious addiction to coffee and building gingerbread houses that occupy their own zip code. Until then, I offer you this little tidbit. Aaron Horwitz is a talented young film school graduate. He made the short film below. This piece was shot years ago, before he even began at the USC school of film and he claims that, technically, it is one of his greener, rougher pieces.

I LOVE this.

Oh yeah, this Aaron guy happens to be one of Ed's three talented sons. Keep your eye on this one.


WheelChair: The Movie