tis the season

December means candy canes. Oh sweet pepperminty hooks that hang on my tree... I love you.

You Didn't Know You Were Missing It

But now it will be a Thanksgiving standard for you and yours:

TATER TOT CASSEROLE

1 (32-ounce) package frozen potato rounds
1 (16 ounce) container sour cream
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 (6 ounce) can French-fried onions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch-baking dish. Arrange tater tots in the prepared baking dish. In a mixing bowl, combine sour cream, cheese, and mushroom soup.

Pour this mixture over the tater tots. Sprinkle onions over the top of the casserole. Bake in the 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) oven for 45 to 60 minutes.

They have fudge there

In Red Hook, New York there is a little cafe called Taste Budd's. They have fudge there, by the pound.

Meat in the Beans

This is an actual image of the barbecued brisket and fresh green pickles from Fette Sau, this BBQ-restaurant-pub place we found in Williamsburg. We ate there last night with good friends, one of whom is a Parisian Tunisian fantastic cook who competes with the partner of my fellow blogger Smas for who can grill the best meat. This is a competition I am always happy to partake in, and my friend the Parisian Tunisian was impressed with the meat at Fette Sau as were we all - tender, juicy, spicy, meaty, mouth watering goodness. So when Smas and her fantastic cook come visit, we'll go again for their opinion.

Here's what I think about bean dishes: I know it's a vegetarian staple, but last night's baked beans at Fette Sau proved it for me once again - you should always have meat in your beans. Saucy innuendos aside, it's true.

PS This just in: Fette Sau is German for Fat Pig. MMMMMmmmmm. Yum.

Would you like a punch in the mouth? No thanks I'll just have some pretzels and mustard.

I have discovered the combination of salty and tangy is well loved in New York City. At the bodega near my apartment I counted twelve different varieties of salt and vinegar potato chips - from ridged and kettle cooked to thin and crisp. Of course I've been setting out to try each, some salty and sour and strong enough to nearly cut your tongue.

At my new job I was introduced to a salt/tang combination I hadn't yet obsessed over: salty hard pretzels dipped in super spicy mustard. Oh my! You must try it today. It satisfies many snack-worthy requirements such as aforementioned salt/tang combination, crunchy texture, the hand-to-mouth action we find so pleasing, and of course a prized element that can strike excitement in the imagination of many snack lovers: little dipping sauces.

Bet you didn't know: in the eastern most town of the US of A, Eastport, Maine, resides the last remaining stoneground mustard mill, Raye's. I discovered Raye's mustard through my Maine born-and-bred colleague, Arlen. Arlen is strange and wonderful just like this mustard, which you can only sample through visiting Eastport Maine, or by ordering online. Things you can also order online via www.rayesmustard.com include Award Winning Executive Packs, Raye's Old Mill Fudge, and a series of paperbacks by Sara Graves featuring "mystery and intrigue centered around hoome repair homicides in Eastport" with such titles as Unhinged, Tool and Die, and the most curious Dead Cat Bounce.

I Can Has Cheezburger?

A terrible website introduced to me by two different friends. Don't know what to say except guilty.

The Birthday Month!

In my circle we like to celebrate birthdays all month long - and why not? Birthdays involve, in addition to other favorite things called presents, very festive snacking including but not limited to: chocolate, champagne, beer, birthday cake, ice cream, and the best ritual of all in which on your actual birthday you are allowed to eat whatever combination of favorite snacks you want, such as a certain well-known combination of cheetos and Guinness, to be discussed in a later post. How this birthday ritual of eating whatever you want differs from the daily lives of the two bloggers from The Daily Snack, I don't really know - but it being your birthday it just feels that much more festive and exciting.

I bring all of this up because this month of October happens to be THE BIRTHDAY MONTH of my fellow blogger, Smas. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SMAS! Yippeee!

Dare to Snack

I moved recently, and in my transition, I've found it very difficult to focus. Yesterday in my new neighborhood in New York I found a treasure: an actual, real, big bustling supermarket - with real price scanners, aisles, produce sections, bulk foods, and lots and lots of snack options. I can't believe I now have affordable choices beyond $5 crackers at the bodega.

And inside this newfound homeland of grocery shopping, there in 'the cookie aisle' was my favorite studio snack: the lemon cream cookie with the painted cockateel on the package. It was like finding a long lost friend.

When I have trouble focusing on my work, I like to trick myself with an obsessive routine I call the studio snack. This is one favorite snack of mine that I only allow myself to eat while in the studio. After a while of studio snacking and focused working, the precious snack becomes like a mental and physical trigger, signaling now it is time to work on your work and shut out all the other noise in your head. It's simple, and self-indulgent, and it seems successful.

So now while adjusting to living and working on this other coast in this crowded, dirty, noisy city, my cockateel cream cookies are helping me shut out those screeching distractions and focus. Plus anything involving treats, as we know, becomes a sacred ritual. Yay.

Apple Pie (Mamma)

October brings these American things that I like (for now we'll skip past the American things I don't like):

School Supplies
The World Series
Apple Pie

My mom taught me to make pies, and this is her recipe, typed out from my memory. Things I love about pie dough include how it can tell you what the weather is like -- wet, stormy, hot, dry and quite nice.

Use the extra scraps of pie dough from the overlapping edges to bake pie crust cookies -- just lay them out on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, and bake them on one of the oven racks until baked and bubbly and crispy brown along the edges.

Mamma's Apple Pie

Pie Dough
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour , plus extra for dusting
1 teaspoon table salt
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
8 tablespoons vegetable shortening (chilled)
6 - 8 tablespoons ice water

Apple Filling
4 pounds Granny Smith apples (8 medium)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons granulated sugar-cinnamon mixture , for topping


Peel, core, and cut apples into thin slices. Mix all other filling
ingredients and toss with apple slices. Set aside while preparing the
dough.

Combine flour, salt, and sugar in a large bowl. Add butter and
shortening and cut into flour mixture with pastry cutter or two knives
until mixture resembles cornmeal with butter drops like small peas.
(Or pulse everything in a food processor slowly until you get the same
effect, and turn mixture into a large bowl).

Sprinkle the ice water slowly, tablespoon by tablespoon, while lifting
the flour mixture quickly with a fork until dough starts to get moist
and come together. Test the dough with your fingers-it should hold
together. Don't add too much water or over mix or over work your dough
- risk working with a crumbly dough rather than a dough with lots of
water, it will be tough and too chewy otherwise.

Squeeze dough gently until cohesive and divide into two equal
sections. Gently flatten each into thick little disks. Dust lightly
with flour, and if your kitchen is warm and the dough is too soft to
work with, wrap separately in plastic or parchment paper, and
refrigerate, at least 30 minutes, or up to 2 days, before rolling. Or
make lots of dough and freeze it in little disks and then you're ready
to make pie whenever you want.

Remove dough from refrigerator. If stiff and very cold, let stand
until dough is cool but malleable. Adjust oven rack to center position
and heat oven to 425 degrees.

Cut the toe off of one clean sock that you don't need anymore and
cover your rolling pin with the sock, then spread flour over it. Roll
one dough disk on a lightly floured surface into a 12-inch circle.
Roll swiftly around a rolling pin and gently lay into pie plate.

Turn fruit mixture, including juices, into pie shell and mound
slightly in center. Dot the top of the fruit in the pie with several
tablespoons of butter.

Roll out other dough round and place over filling. Trim top and bottom
edges and tuck the edges of the top dough underneath the bottom to
seal your pie. Flute your edges, or make them pretty, or not. Sprinkle
the top with cinnamon sugar. Cut little slits into the fop of your
dough in order to let steam escape - you can do this in the shape of a
star or not, whatever you want.

If your oven tends to run hot, you can cover the edges of your crust
with aluminum foil and then remove the foil during the last 20 minutes
of baking. Bake until top crust is golden, about 25 minutes. Reduce
oven temperature to 375 degrees; continue baking until juices bubble
and crust is deep golden brown, 30 to 35 minutes longer. Transfer pie
to wire rack; cool to almost room temperature, at least 4 hours

Candy is in the Mouth of the Beholder

Today, the New York Times ran an article arguing that the best candy is made in the UK. It's mostly about candy bars and suggests that American chocolate is inferior to English and Canadian chocolate. I don't know. I like chocolate but it's not my first choice in candy so I don't really care if the argument is true or not. The thing is, the article mostly quotes people who live in the U.S. but grew up in Britain or Canada so it's a somewhat one-sided debate. Of course Brits and Canadians are going to pine for the food they ate as children, especially the candy, just like us Yanks. Ask any American and I'd be willing to bet Snickers, Milky Way, Reeses, etc. will come up more often than anything made by Cadbury UK. So, even though I don't really care about the contest, I feel compelled to weigh in with my neutrality. Candy is delicious the world over -- why make it into a pissing contest?

That being said, I will now make a list of some of the best candy ever (not necessarily in order of bestness):
Milky Way Midnight, Swedish fish, Haribo gummy bears, Andes thin mints, Dove milk chocolate, Reese’s pieces, Milky Way, sour berry Lifesavers, Bubbalicious bubble gum (old formula - since 2004, it's sucked), watermelon Jolly Ranchers, Snickers, cherry Tootsie Pops, Lindor milk chocolate truffle balls, Laffy Taffy, Maynard's wine gums, Twix... more to be added as they occur to me (or as I eat them and decide they have bestness)

The Daily Joke (Art Camp)

My apologies for our long and unfortunate hiatus from The Daily Snack, I am just gettling settled into Art Camp where I will be having scheduled mealtimes as well as occasional snacks for the next 8 weeks. And although it may sound fishy, no, Art Camp is not a clever name for Rehab, though I think there might be scheduled mealtimes there too.

This is a joke that is unrelated to snacking, but I thought it was appropriately bad enough for our Daily Joke category (via my new friend Brian Bress from Los Angeles, California, who also likes snacking, and telling bad jokes):

Q: How many performance artists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: I don't know, I left after 4 hours...

How to Feel Like a 4-Yr Old

I was sitting on the couch this weekend, watching something educational on TV (Celebrity Fat Club, I think), when I happened to look down at the t-shirt I was wearing and saw what appeared to be a peanut butter stain. Then, I looked down at the pants I was wearing and saw another peanut butter stain. Two things occurred to me simultaneously -- that I hadn't eaten peanut butter in 4 days (an oddity in and of itself) and that I was wearing the same clothes that I had worn 4 days ago. While I was pondering this gleefully slobby situation, I dropped the peanut butter cracker sandwich that I was preparing leaving yet another splotch of peanut butter on my clothes.

Which brings me to my tutorial on how to make a peanut butter and wheat thin cracker sandwich:
Step 1: Buy Nabisco Original Wheat Thins and Jif Crunchy Peanut Butter (blue screw top)
Step 2: Go home
Step 3: Open recently purchased brand name processed foods; dip finger in JCPB to test its delightful creaminess
Step 4: Using a butter knife, place a glop of peanut butter onto a small plate; retain knife for future use
Step 5: Reach into box of Wheat Thins and grab a handful of tiny square crackers; place on plate
Step 6: Go sit in front of TV; find a re-run of CSI or Scrubs
Step 7: Take one Wheat Thin cracker in left hand
Step 8: Using butter knife retained for this purpose, scoop some peanut butter and carefully spread on cracker (amount will vary according to taste)
NOTE: Jif Crunchy Peanut Butter is not the easiest substance to spread onto a 1.5" square surface - if not done carefully, this step may result in peanut butter stains on clothing you should have washed already
Step 9: After laying knife down carefully on plate, take another Wheat Thin cracker in your right hand, place on top of recently spread peanut butter and look at TV
NOTE: Butter knives are notoriously bottom heavy - if not placed carefully on plate, this step may result in peanut butter stains on slightly overweight cat who was napping peacefully on lap until a second ago
Step 10: Eat meticulously prepared peanut butter and wheat thin cracker sandwich; enjoy
Step 11: Repeat steps 7 - 10 as needed

Kevin Bacon or ham sandwich?

A fun game to play at work is "Which One?". Here is a list of Which One questions that have been asked and answered (answers are final):

Which one: Kevin Bacon or a ham sandwich?
Winner: ham sandwich

Which one: Ramen or pho?
Winner: Ramen, even though pho got more votes. When I'm the poster, I'm also the decider.

Which one: Wristwatches, leather band or metal?
Winner: While there was a vote for leather and a question about including other band materials, the overall winner was "I don't wear a wristwatch"

Which one: Bono or the Boss?
Winner: The Boss

Which one: Peanut butter toast or cinnamon toast?
Winner: No clear winner although all agreed that toast of any kind will always win

Which one: Buddy Holly or Halle Berry?
Winner: Buddy Holly - I can't remember why but probably because of his glasses and also Halle Berry can't move her forehead

Slight variations on Which One:

Who would you rather be stuck in an elevator with, Oprah or Martha Stewart?
Winner: Martha Stewart, by a landslide, but only because Oprah was the other choice (plus MS seems resourceful like MacGyver)

Who would you rather get a drink with, Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert?
Winner: Jon Stewart, but only because he seems more laid back - SC is hyper and might knock people's drinks over

That Sounds Dirty

The lyrics Tom Waits sang last night as I was working late:

I'll be clickin' by your house about two forty-five
Sidewalk sundae strawberry surprise,
I got a cherry popsicle right on time
A big stick, mamma, that'll blow your mind

'Cause I'm the ice cream man, I'm a one-man band
I'm the ice cream man, honey, I'll be good to you.

Baby, missed me in the alley, baby, don't you fret
Come back around and don't forget,
When you're tired and you're hungry and you want something cool,
Got something better than a swimming pool

'Cause I'm the ice cream man, I'm a one-man band
I'm the ice cream man, honey, I'll be good to you.
'Cause I'm the ice cream man, I'm a one-man band
I'm the ice cream man, honey, I'll be good to you.

See me coming, you ain't got no change
Don't worry baby, it can be arranged:
Show me you can smile, baby just for me
Fix you with a drumstick, I'll do it for free

'Cause I'm the ice cream man, I'm a one-man band
I'm the ice cream man, honey, I'll be good to you.

Beer + Cupcake

An odd but lovely combination of snacks is cupcakes and beer. This combination was introduced to me during my first friend-date with none other than MS, the co-author of this blog. I don’t remember if MS had discovered the pairing prior to our date or if it was serendipitous but I do remember that we were both hungry as well as thirsty and MS suggested getting a cupcake as it was one of the few choices of food at the establishment. We both decided that vanilla cake and chocolate frosting with sprinkles is the best flavor of cupcake. Any flavor of beer will do.

Definitely Not Anemic

Today my doctor called to give me my yearly exam results, ticking through all the things, and when she reached iron count she said, “And you’re definitely not anemic.” Which I attribute (but didn’t admit) to the fact that I eat hamburgers at least once a week. For a bit, because it’s my favorite bar and because of the ridiculously priced happy hour, we visited the People’s Pub (Die Volkskneipe) for burgers as many as three days between weekends. It sounds kind of gross, but hamburgers, especially $5 burgers served old-school cookout style with soft sesame buns, mayo, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles and fries, are addictive in a way that can only be stopped when you begin to feel ashamed by the realization that your diet resembles that of an eight year-old without any parents. At least if having the diet of an eight year-old without any parents seems shameful to you. Sometimes, it is very fun, in fact it's even better, because hamburgers go with beer.

The Daily Joke

Q: What do you call a lazy baby kangaroo?

A: A pouch potato

The Daily Confession

I'm addicted to Swedish fish. Oh God.

Something I Didn't Know

Today I discovered something while throwing food at the cat -- diced red onion travels the same distance as a puffy Cheeto. Which surprised me. I naturally assumed that the more dense red onion bit could be thrown further than the puffy Cheeto, which is essentially air covered in delicious orange powder. But I never took physics so maybe this is only a discovery to me.

Other things I discovered include:
My cat does not want to eat a puffy Cheeto
My cat does not like rosemary salami
My cat does not like having water flicked at him, even though he often goes in the bathtub and sits under the dripping faucet
My cat does like yogurt but it makes him throw up

Every Culture Has a Pancake

I learned recently that the appropriate way to add blueberries to your pancakes, in order to avoid grey, streaky pancakes and bruised and burst berries, is to sprinkle them softly into the doughy disks right in the frying pan, after ladling in your batter. I had a dream I was making blueberry pancakes in my grandmother’s condominium in Anchorage, AK—the dream wasn’t so much about pancakes as a revisit to the home she’d had my whole life, 1950s style, cramped, demure, Scandinavian, hushed, and warm. With orange curtains. Fellowship hour in the Lutheran church she brought me to when I’d stay over on Saturdays included a spread of the following: black coffee with sugar cubes, mild sliced cheddar cheese, wheat thin crackers, baby carrots, pickled herring, Danish butter cookies from the blue tin with tiny paper wrappers.

She grew up in Morris, MN with parents who had emigrated from Norway. Norwegian tradition gave us lefse each Xmas—a thin, tender potato pancake brushed with melted butter, sprinkled with sugar. Midwestern families can divide their communities according to which homes use white sugar on their lefse and which use brown—we used brown. It’s a simple, understated dessert and a good lot of work: potatoes are boiled, riced and cooled. A dough is made and kneaded, balls formed, rolled with a specific lefse roller which has ridged concentric grooves down the length of it. The pancake is floured and placed on a specific (expensive) lefse grill, and carefully cooked and turned using a special stick.

Probably I could make a decent lefse pancake without all the special tools, which I don’t own, but I never will. There are rituals we keep.

To Salt

Wikipedia says “Edible salt, usually called just salt, is a flavour enhancer, comprising primarily of sodium chloride, and is one of the few minerals commonly eaten by humans.”

What it doesn’t say is that salt makes things delicious. Even as I type, I am eating salty goldfish crackers – first I bite off the tail and then I eat the head (to everything its process). Without salt, ham would just be soft pink meat and Gatorade just vaguely sweet brightly colored water. That poor Morton’s girl would just be one more crazy kid walking in the rain with a tube under her arm. Cows wouldn’t have anything to lick and pretzels wouldn’t have the same appeal.

Oh Salt! Thank you for being in our food! You make my snacks tasty! Here is a list of my favorite salty snacks (not necessarily in order of preference):
Cheetos (puffy not crunchy)
Popcorn with butter
Goldfish crackers
Tiny ham sandwiches
Cheese (oh cheese)
Bacon
Pickles
Peanuts
French fries
Margaritas
Ramen

Ramen vs. Pho

It's not a fair fight -- ramen will alwaysalways win.

It's cold in my office and I'm hungry which makes me dream of warm noodle soup, of which there are only two varieties that I would ever fantasize about -- ramen and pho. Mmmmm, hot salty broth and tangly slippery noodles.

Things that I love about ramen (tonkotsu, please) include:
creamy salty pork broth, firm curly noodles, thick moist slices of pork

Things that I love about pho include:
clear salty chicken broth (I think), cream puff, hotsauce&plumsauce for dipping thin slices of slowlycookinginbroth beef, cream puff

I would happily eagerly eat either soup right now but if I had a choice, I'd choose ramen. And then I'd go to the pho store and get a cream puff.

The Daily Joke

Q: What's red and not there?

A: No tomatoes!

Facing My Fears

Here is a story about facing scary things:

Yesterday I made banana bread. I had read that the best banana bread is made from bananas that are black but not fuzzy or oozy which is a hard state to reach – you have to catch them and freeze them at exactly the instant they turn black because fuzzy and oozy isn’t far behind and I’m not about to touch something that is fuzzy and oozy. Except maybe a kitten covered in pudding, touching that wouldn't be so bad.

I started making this banana bread several weeks ago, saving one overripe banana at a time. I’m a very picky banana eater – the peel must be bright yellow with no blemishes or soft spots -- a bit of green at the stem is optimal. Once the brown streaks show up on the peel, it’s near the end of what I consider “edible” – after that, it’s all soft bruise-y mush, in my opinion. Anyway, out of a bunch of five bananas, I can usually eat four (one a day) before they turn on me which leaves one banana in the bank for banana bread. After five or so weeks and four wrinkly black bananas in a baggie in the freezer, it’s time to make bread.

Banana bread is one of the more perfect foods in the world. It’s fruit, nuts, and bread all in one moist delicious treat. It also happens to be one of the more disgusting things to prepare. I should qualify that by saying I have a mold phobia – mold is evilbad. Rotten food is bad and out to get me. Banana bread is made with rotten bananas or darn near close to rotten which is the same thing as far as I’m concerned.

So I had four frozen bananas that needed to thaw before I could mash them up – when I took them out of the freezer they were rock hard and inoffensive. By the time I was ready to bake several hours later, they had transformed into sickeningly soft sacks of goo, threatening to pop and spray me with fermented potassium-rich banana flesh. At arms length, I peeled each one and gingerly laid the flaccid mucus covered slug-like fruit into a steel bowl. Once I was done peeling (washing my hands obsessively after each banana) and my skin didn’t have to come into contact with the slimy bits any more, the prepping got a lot easier – I may have even whistled a happy tune. I mashed banana and sugar into a yellow pudding, added a few other ingredients and put it all in the oven. In five minutes it began to smell ohso good that the rotten food handling became a vague memory.

I ate the bread just now and thoroughly enjoyed it. I faced a fear yesterday and am now a stronger person for it. Rottenbadbad food no longer makes me shiver and I can confidently say that I will not hesitate to touch moldy food in the future as long as I’m wearing elbow-length gloves and an apron and maybe safety glasses or a welder’s mask or something.

Butter and Eggs in My Bed

According to the rivetingly detailed research portal Wikipedia, the origins of the breakfast sandwich are “unclear.” However, it is known that several types of bread can be used to constitute what is commonly known as ‘the Egg McMuffin’, including: biscuits, bagels, toast, and specialty breads.

Mmmm McMuffin. Meat, cheese, and eggs on toast, with or without jalapeno peppers, tobasco sauce, or savory jelly. Sometimes drive-through American culture produces treats that are dirty good. My favorite includes sausage with either salty american or drippy cheddar cheeses, on buttered english muffin or biscuits. Of course sausage, ham and bacon each deserve their own blog postings, to come…

Do you suppose the breakfast sandwich could be related to the breakfast taco? OH tacos.

As I was writing this very general first post of The Daily Snack, Bob Dylan sang these lyrics from his most recent album, Modern Times:

I woke up this morning, butter and eggs in my bed
I woke up this morning, butter and eggs in my bed
I ain't got enough room to even raise my head