Top Chef: Las Vegas

In the period of no cable (which I am rapidly realizing was awesome) Sam and I missed the start of the new Top Chef Season.  Luckily, we’ve only missed the first four episodes as eps 5+ were all “On Demand.”  We didn’t start watching the last season until midway through, and after watching the first few I’m pretty glad.

There’s too many chefs!  I like to see Tom talking to each chef for a while and see several comments about the food – it is educational at times.  But all these chefs really take away from it.  And there were commercials On Demand!  I had to sit through the exact same Tom commercial about Diet Coke.  Diet Coke will never be something I enjoy as my soda drinking is limited enough.  When I actually drink it, it will be the real stuff.  Research (actual, rigorous research, BTW, not the fake Fox News research) suggests diet drinks generally increase your appetite, anyway.  That makes you fatter.

Well, comparing Las Vegas with last season, I must say I prefer last season.  The chefs were far more colorful in character – thus far, the LV chefs seem better at cheffing.  My favorite is Kevin, who seems to cook amazing food and seems to be an all around nice guy.

I still maintain the show ought to be “Top Dish,” though.  It’s asinine not to take into account previous challenges.  The show is subjective anyway, so there’s no need not to.  It’s not like they can’t change it – it’s a TV show.  People change things all the time.

Anyway, the restaurant wars was pretty crazy – but not as crazy as last season.  There was no decorating the restaurant or naming the leader beforehand.  It was all “cook a meal for fifty people.”

Top Chef is a pretty okay show this season, but I see why they sometimes pick people with crazier personalities over technical folk.

I still maintain Toby is a bit of a jerk, though.

 

Announcing The Quest: Pizza Crust

My blog here is slowly dying.  This is my fault.  I had the awesome luck of the Poetry competition in the spring to ensure I updated.  Hopefully in November I will update everyday with a NaNoWriMo thing.  How then to fill the space?  Well, last Spring I was getting heavily into baking.  It is something I greatly enjoy doing and it has been far too hot lately to do it.  With the weather cooling off, however, I feel far more comfortable getting back into the swing of it all.

I wish I had the organizational skills to have separate blogs for all my interests, but categories will have to suffice.

The Quest is my name for a quest.  The Quest to find the best recipe for a certain item I really enjoy.  Last Spring I was amazed at the wide variety of pizza crust recipes I found.  There were so many variations on time of rise, amount of kneading, amount of yeast, oil added, and the most controversial topic:  The pizza stone.

My hope is that every Friday I will be able to cook a pizza.  After consumption by myself and my beautiful assistant (Samantha) I will describe it here.  If copyright allows, I will reprint the recipe, but I will more likely link to it.  There are several recipes out there, so I cannot be sure how many I will utilize before I finish.  There will be a few rules I will try to follow:

1)  I will use the same sauce for each pizza.  Once the crust is achieved, the Quest for Sauce may start.  Or it might not.  Whatever.  In the interest of time, I will be using plain storebought sauce.  Any additions for flavor will be noted and kept throughout.

2)  Toppings will be consistent.  The fairest thing to do would be a simple mozzarella/sauce combo with herbage.  If it’s a good crust this should be sufficient – but the store-bought sauce could negatively affect this.  This rule could change.

Those are all I have so far.  Now, there will be additional recipes added no doubt.  But the ones I plan for sure to use are:

Alton Brown’s Pizza Pizzas recipe which uses bread flour
Rose Levy Berenbaum’s recipe which does not.
Beer Crust Pizza – I will find the source
Jiffy brand Crust – Is it just as good out of the box?  I doubt it!
Store Bought Crust – Probably Boboli, just to be fair
Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook – The classic checkerboard cookbook offers a tasty pie as well.

And so we have six contenders at this point.  I may axe the pre-made crust but if my ultimate goal is the best pizza possible I should take it into account.  Right now, my money is on Berenbaum or Brown but anything can happen in The Quest.

I will hopefully make the first pie tomorrow and post it up post-eating.

 

Sourdough: The Writer’s Bread

I am making my first loaf of sourdough bread with homemade, wild starter.  I don’t know how well it will turn out.  I am always nervous I haven’t kneaded enough.  I see strands of gluten, though, so I think that part is okay.  I let it rise overnight and am letting it rise a second time right now.  It is in the safety of the oven for this rise.

The reason I call it “The Writer’s Bread” is because it takes a long time to make.  The actual mixing and kneading do not, but it takes a long time to properly rise – especially if you don’t use commercial yeast.  You can do all sorts of things while it rises – including write a story.  I think one could probably draft a complete story in that time, and finish editing another.

The starter is good for a writer, too.  It’s like having a pet.  Once a day – or so – you can hop up from the desk and say “I need to feed the starter!”

The only real problem I have had is finding recipes.  There are plenty online, but most use commercial yeast.  There’s nothing wrong with a little help in the rise, especially if the starter is fairly mature, but I really get a kick out of doing things the old-fashioned way.  I was going to use the recipe from The Bread Bible, but I turned it back into the library.  It got checked out again.  So, I am using a combination of recipes and my own know-how to make this loaf.  If it fails?  Well, I have plenty of starter.

Soon, baking will be by the wayside as I will be at camp.  But in the fall, when I have time, I will be doing some pizza crust testing.  It should be pretty fun.