FoodFurious

Flavor Trippin' part 1: Uh, What?

2010-02-22T21:51:00.000-08:00

Ok, so there's this trippy West-African plant called the Miracle Berry Plant, which yields the eponymous Miracle Fruit (which, in a bizarre coincidence, is full of the protein Miraculin). When eaten or, more precisely, when masticated and rolled around on the tongue, the pulp of the Miracle Fruit causes sour food to taste sweet. I know: miraculous.

So now all the cool kids are buying Miracle Berry, raiding the pantry, and flavor tripping. And doing shots of cider vinegar.

The experience is kind of like being marooned on Malacandra and having to taste everything around you to decide if they are tasty or disgusting.

Citrus fruit was quite divine, with lemon sprinkled with cinnamon seeming to come out as everyone's favourite. Other combinations, like the lemon with jalapeño mustard above, were as horrible as you might expect, but in a truly different and unique way. It was a terrible betrayal, like a Merle Haggard song at a French restaurant.

Flavor Trippin' part 2: The Horrible Truth

2010-02-22T21:00:00.000-08:00

As much as we wanted this experience to be amazing and life-changing, it turned out to be mostly disgusting. The problem is that the fruit changes your taste, but not your sense of smell. And, of course, there are only five tastes; everything else is smell.

So while Tabasco might all-of-a-sudden taste as sweet as doughnut glaze, it still smells like vinegar and is, of course, still a bit spicy.

Sauerkraut suffers the same fate: the taste is new, sweet, and interesting, but it still smells like sauerkraut. This was really the downfall of everything we tried: mustards, tequilas, vinegars, olives, pickled beans, you name it.

It also rendered the wine we had served with dinner undrinkable.

Taco Bell Challenge part 3: Pièce de Résistance

2009-12-08T22:51:00.000-08:00

Thing1 ordered both a Frutista Freeze and some Hi-C, in the hopes that an insulin shock-and-awe would sway the judges. Here, Thing 1 reduces the Hi-C down to its most basic ingredients: sugar and red.

The Frutista Freeze didn't really freeze all that well. Of course, this could be because the Kitchen-Aid was in Thing2's domain. At any rate, it did eventually harden up enough to hold its shape, so long as it wasn't exposed to any heat, vibration, or strong language.

Thing2 pestles some cinnamon twists. Thing2 really went for presentation on the dishes, a tactic that would probably have worked better if the two judges' scores were equally weighted.

Thing2's final assembly.

Thing2's finished dessert: a master's class in thinking outside the bun.

Thing1's finished dessert: a variation on a theme by Brahms.

Final Scores:

Category	Thing 1	Thing 2
Brutality	1	3
un-TacoBell-ness	6	4
appearance	5	6
taste	6	5
presentation	5	5
Geoff-ness	5	5
originality	6	6
sexiness	6	5
showmanship	4	6
clarity	6	5
effervescence	6	5
racism	4	4

Winner: Thing1

Taco Bell Challenge part 2: Entrée Buffet Display

2009-10-29T23:07:00.000-07:00

Thing2, driven mad by a miasma of small-chain TacoBell mercaptans and VOCs, a result of heating the ill-advised DoubleBurrito.

Here, once again, Thing2 shows ingenuity by just asking for plain tortillas. Thing1 spent fifteen minutes scraping off beans, rinsing under the sink, and getting cheese out from under the ol' fingernails.

Careful assembly is required for the all-important "presentation" category. The over-all theme is quite visually arresting, almost hypnotic in its old-school, swirly way.

ShaZam! Finished product, and a bitchin' hat. No one would mistake this masterpiece for TacoBell roughage.

As mentioned before, here's Thing1 scraping beans off a tattered tortilla. Thing1 was totally pissed when Thing2 didn't have to do this.

Cutting the "cleaned" tortillas into circles with the large biscuit cutter. It's a good thing there were so many of these, as some of them weren't presentation-quality.

Spoon a small amount of the burrito cytoplasm back into the little rounds, and fold like tortellini. Rinse; repeat; wipe hands on pants.

Bam! Drizzle a little fire sauce, and off to the JUDGE.

Final Scores:

Category	Thing 1	Thing 2
Brutality	3	2
un-TacoBell-ness	2	4
appearance	5	6
taste	3	2
presentation	4	6
Geoff-ness	2	5
originality	6	3
sexiness	4	4
showmanship	5	6
clarity	4	3
effervescence	3	3
racism	4	4

Winner: Thing2

Taco Bell Challenge part 1: Let the Games Begin

2009-10-20T18:57:00.000-07:00

The Taco Bell Challenge: prepare a three-course dinner for one using only $10 worth of ingredients from Taco bell. Originally, the loser had to drink three shots of olive oil, but we decided against that. The new punishment was to try to cross a log across Lacamas Lake while being pelted with burritos thrown by the winner, but the weather has turned cold and rainy, and no one wants a touch of the hypothermia. The new new punishment is so brutal we can't talk about it yet.

As a handicap, since Thing2's only been seriously cooking for about a year or so, Thing1 had to use the camp stove and cook in the dining room; Thing2 got to use the kitcken.

Thing1's first course was a tortilla soup made from: water, minced potatoes from a potato burrito (the starch helps to thicken the broth), chicken from a Fresco Ranchero Chicken Soft Taco, and some left-over beans from a bean burrito. A packet of salt and a couple packets of pepper, and we boil down.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Thing2 shows off by bringing an X-Acto to a burrito fight. Thing1 had this menu all planned out for a month, while Thing2 decided, possibly, at the cash register. The end result being that Thing2 noticed and used "new" items on the menu, like the blue corn crunchy taco. Not captured in photos is Thing2 using tortilla strips to cast hexagrams of the I Ching, divining the magnum opus, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy.

The completed masterpiece, a stark reminder that while there's always a little bit of the taco in your body, there's probably also a little bit of somebody in your taco.

Final Scores:

Category	Thing 1	Thing 2
Brutality	3	2
un-TacoBell-ness	5	1
appearance	4	6
taste	5	4
presentation	5	6
Geoff-ness	4	5
originality	5	-1
sexiness	6	3
showmanship	5	5
clarity	4	1
effervescence	4	3
racism	4	3

Winner: Thing1

Habanero Poppers part 1: "A loaf of bread," the Walrus said

2009-09-23T23:37:00.000-07:00

We found these spicy little numbers at the Portland Farmer's Market: two habanero plants (with little green peppers) for $2. Couldn't let that deal slip by. Put these babies in the ground, forgot about them for a while, came back and-Presto!-tasty fruit ready for harvesting. Exactly like raising kids.

Two by two, hands of blue: we washed, bisected, and seeded five peppers.

Then over-filled each half with a proprietary mixture of Tillamook sharp cheddar, cream cheese, bacon, cumin, and paprika.

Then breaded them with egg, flour, and breadcrumbs.

Habanero Poppers part 2: We can begin to feed.

2009-09-23T23:00:00.000-07:00

Now a quick dip in the Ugly-Maker (so called because of JJ, who had a deep-fryer accident in our kitchen last year, and who, incidentally, we now just call J) at a balmy 350 F. This peanut oil was previously used to deep-fry a turkey, so it made the whole house smell like Thanksgiving.

Ok, we were expecting the habanero poppers to be pretty brutal; habaneros usually rank in the low 6-digits on the Scoville scale, compared to the lowly jalapeño which only tops out at a paltry 8,000. We have personally used jalapeño juice instead of contact lens solution and not known the difference. Long story short, those who think jalapeños are hot are big, squishy wussies.

However, these things had no heat. None. They were like crinkly little bell peppers. We were so disgusted.

So, of course, we added a drop of Dave's Gourmet Insanity Sauce to each one. Dave's is the sauce used by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to judge all other hot sauces. It's not the hottest, but it's plenty hot, especially in the ratio used here.

"I weep for you," the Walrus said;
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

The Robot: recipe for world domination

2009-07-30T23:12:00.000-07:00

What have we cooked up now? A robot that forces complete strangers into mortal combat. As in Combat from the Atari 2600.

Sophisticated in its immaturity, Combat demands quick reflexes and a knowledge of how to drive a 70's-era tank while providing non-Euclidian geometry and highly questionable physics.

Interestingly (or, maybe, obviously) everyone over 25 flipped out and loved re-living a cherished and long-forgotten piece of their childhood. Teenagers hung around, looking angst-y. Kids 11 and under thought it was awesome, but couldn't figure out how to play the game. It was too simplistic for the Generation of Wii.

Plus, robots are a big hit with the ladies.

Stay tuned for more Robot sightings!

The Best Idea in the World, Ever

2009-07-10T00:03:00.001-07:00

1. Rogue Chocolate Stout
2. Cocoa Puffs
3. ???
4. Profit!

Girly Drinks: Girls' Night Out

2009-07-09T22:21:00.000-07:00

This drink (as far as I can recall) was invented as a response to the challenge: "Zounds! Is there anything made with this stuff that doesn't taste like powdered weasel nose-hairs?" (The "stuff," of course, being Hpnotiq.)

Turns out that the easy answer is: no, most things made with Hpnotiq taste like powdered weasel nose-hairs.

Which really is a shame, because it's such a nice colour. A bit girly, perhaps, but rather pleasant to look at.

After much experimentation, much lamentation, and much driving our enemy (sobriety) before us, we are pleased to present: The Clitini.

1 oz. Hynotiq
1 oz. Ketel One
1 oz. Sprite
1 pomegranate seed

Shake first two ingredients over ice and strain into a martini glass. Add chilled sprite and garnish with pomegranate seed. Put on eyeshadow; drink respectfully.

The Colostomy Bag part 1: Milque Colossus-Baggins

2009-07-08T23:01:00.000-07:00

First, some history. There was this guy who hung out with one of the girls in our circle of friends. He was present only occasionally, and, when he was present, wasn't particularly interesting. He also interacted in peculiar ways; possibly he was schizoid.

Anyway, he once just left a large dinner gathering without telling anyone. It took us a while to realize that he was actually gone, not just strangling a waitress in the back of the kitchen. Someone commented (probably us) that he was a real colostomy bag. It was then pointed out that, while this noun was totally inappropriate for polite conversation taking place over dinner, it would be a killer name for a drink.

Behold! The list of ingredients: Crème de Cassis, Milk Duds(R), and some American beer that tastes like piss (here we chose PBR).

Attach the shot glass to the side of your pint glass with cloth medical tape.

Add three (for good luck!) Milk Duds to the bottom of the pint glass.

Fill with crappy beer.

The Colostomy Bag part 2: Burqa Lost to Teabag

2009-07-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

Fill your shot glasses with Crème de Cassis.

Watch the bubbles.

Bask in the glory of your creation.

Rip off shot glass; drop glass in beer; chug.

Naengmyeon

2009-06-15T23:14:00.000-07:00

No cooking this week due to the amount of time spent making these whizbang ties.

That glow in the dark.

So you can see us as we rode in the 2009 World Naked Bike Ride. (In the back, near the center. Look to the ties for your answer.)

Woohoo!

Salsa Magic! - How to cut your kitchen prep time with the suitable application of explosives

2009-06-03T22:38:00.000-07:00

What made our salsa so brutal was Tannerite. Tannerite is, basically, ammonium nitrate (it's actually ammonium nitrate and ammonium perchlorate, with a sensitizer made from aluminum, titanium, and zirconium powders). It's very stable, relatively inexpensive as these things go, and a Hell of a lot of fun. Our hypothesis was that using explosives to make salsa would be faster than using a food processor.

We assumed that salsa would fly in every direction, and that not much would be recoverable. So we devised a science-project-esque, trifold-y backdrop to attempt recovery of enough salsa to taste.

"And Samuel said to the Salsa: 'Thou hast done foolishly...'" (1 Samuel 13:13)

Ammonium nitrate is of relatively low brisance (from the French briser - 'to break'), so maybe this was part of the problem. Energy-wise, a good rule of thumb is -5 x 10⁶ J kg^-1, and our charge weighed about 0.25 kg, releasing an estimated 1.25 MJ (for comparison, doing all this in our food processor would use about 48 kJ if it took one minute to process). Specific power can be estimated as the product of specific enthalpy of detonation with the velocity of advance of the reaction front, divided by an appropriate characteristic dimension. Because the specific dimension depends on the geometry of the system, calculating specific power is tricky, but 125 GW is reasonable for a dense-phase detonation.

This was probably a tad bit of overkill (two orders of magnitude more energy than necessary, at least) for the amount of tomatoes that we used. Our conclusion was that using explosives in food prep is totally awesome.

Cake Decorating 403: How to Decorate Your Cake with a Shotgun

2009-05-25T00:58:00.000-07:00

Cupcakes have grown in popularity over the past several years, but their brutality has remained depressingly low (e.g. in England, they're called Fairy Cakes (the name "fairy cake" is a fanciful description size, which would be appropriate for a party of diminutive fairies to share)).

After eating way too many fairy cakes (half a crown (equal to 10 bob, a quid, and a half-groat of cakes)) we hallucinated an army of fairies riding vampire unicorns all over the ceiling. Using the crystal ball we stole from a ghost that time we spent the night in the abandoned gypsy circus, we divined that the only weapon that could save us was that quad-barrel shotgun from Phantasm. Lacking access to this technology, we improvised.

We will use the lead shot from these shells to construct a sap. We will then use the sap to knock someone unconscious and steal their french fries, this creating material for another entry.

This method worked well for both decorating the cakes quickly and for fighting off the demon-possessed toys. Highly recommended.

Razor Clams part 1: The Secret of the Knight’s Sword

2009-05-10T00:36:00.000-07:00

The Pacific Northwest is great for a number of reasons, but foremost for its many opportunities for ripping animals out of the ground, cutting them to pieces while still alive, and then eating them. It's brutal in the way that doesn't bother you because so many other people are doing it.

So, we went digging for Razor Clams (so called because they carry straight razors for self-defence, à la Bad, Bad Leroy Brown). The easiest way to dig for the clams is using a clam gun. The model we used was a 500-calibre job loaned to us by a coworker.

After obtaining the necessary license, and getting to the beach an hour and a half before low tide (which meant we were up at 4:damn:30 in the morning), all that's needed is to scour the beach looking for clam signs.

This is a "show." You might need to click on this picture to enlarge it. The sign is a little dimple in the sand, located in quadrant IV of this picture, at about (1, -2). A little tricky to see, no? At least it was light out and not raining. Our first time we were looking for these things with a Coleman lantern, a case of Black Butte Porter, and a willow divining rod.

Razor Clams part 2: Danger on Ice

2009-05-10T00:35:00.000-07:00

Razor Clams are specialized for two things: 1) quickly digging downwards to escape being eaten, and 2) being eaten. We, personally, love this second part. Anyhoo, here's how one goes about using a clam gun:

So, briefly, we found a clam sign, placed the clam gun over the clam sign, angled it slightly away from the ocean, and started to dig. The important thing here that you can't see in the video is a small hole in the handle of the clam gun. Uncovering the hole allows air to escape when pressing the gun into the sand. Covering the hole allows you to strain your back as you try to break the suction while lifting a 5in diameter, 12in long core sample of wet sand. If you're lucky, the vibrations will only have scared the clam and started him digging down. If you're unlucky, he pulls out his straight razor.

How easy this is a complicated function of: how low the tide is, how wet the sand is, how big the clam is, how long it was since someone last walked near the spot (Razor Clams can smell fear), how you hold your mouth, and whether or not you're lined up with a toilet. It also helps to have a good poker face, and not to count your chips at the table.

The limit is 15 clams person^-1 day^-1 and you have to keep the first 15 you dig, regardless of size or condition.

Razor Clams part 3: The Feathered Serpent

2009-05-10T00:34:00.000-07:00

Here's the brutal part: cleaning the clams. This is done while the clams are still alive, as you want them as fresh as possible. We kept them in a cooler full of frozen/slushy seawater on the trip home, then used them as after-dinner entertainment for our guests (one of said guests is telling a story in the background, and it would have been impolite to tell him to stuff it, so there's some background chatter. Not that it really matters, anyway, as you can't hear the clams scream.)

Then, because that's the kind of guy we are, we made our guests get their hands dirty. No one eats for free in this house.

Thanks to the T. for helping us out. It's harder than it looks because the little buggers squirm around as you're trying to cut 'em open. It raises the question: would we vivisect clams if they could scream? You bet we would. Especially if they screamed all the time, and for no reason.

Razor Clams part 4: Secret Cargo

2009-05-10T00:33:00.000-07:00

We've decided to do a quick pasta for tonight, so we softened some onions and bell peppers and threw in some chopped garlic and oregano. We degaussed (<- this word was recommended by FireFox's spell check and I like it better than deglazed) with white wine, then added the clam nectar from our bag of clams to the pan along with some crimini mushrooms and some seeded cherry tomatoes.

Then we chop our tasty bivalves into hilarious little pieces (we put the laughter in slaughter) and add them to our sauce. The clams really just need to be warmed up, as overcooking them will turn them to clammy pieces of shoe leather.

Toss in some fresh basil...

Now we pour the sauce over the noodles, grate some Parmigiano-Reggiano on top, and crack a little black pepper over it all.

In case you're wondering, that's a slice of toasted, homemade sourdough with a garlic/herb butter.

Potato Chip Cookies part 1: A New Dope

2009-04-02T19:25:00.000-07:00

Our lovely wife, Wife, once worked as a systems administrator for two textile plants in Pumpkintown, SC. There was a cookie-baking contest there back in the day (2002) and Wife ended up with a copy of the winning recipes. Upon compiling, folding, and spindling our Vast Tome of recipes, we inadvertently (and inadvisedly) found a recipe for "Potato Chip Cookies." Obviously a winner (though probably in violation of the Geneva Convention), and obviously brutal (gastro-intestinally speaking), we had to make these "cookies." The recipe called for 1/2 cup of crushed potato chips. We used the Julia Child method:

We were going to select Lay's potato chips, but discovered that Ruffles are made by the same company in the same hole: Plano, TX. Did you know that Texas once tried to outlaw "sexy cheerleading?" Honestly, if we outlawed everything someone somewhere found offensive, there wouldn't even be a Texas anymore.

Anyway, the Ruffles were on sale and had just as much white-trash credence as Lay's. Ever wondered what a tablespoon of powdered potato chips tastes like? So did we.

But not anymore. It was like being punched in the uvula with a statuette of Screwtape made from the dregs of a Carl's Jr. deep fryer.

We modified the original manuscript somewhat to make the recipe gluten-free (gotta appease our girlfriend, Girlfriend). This should be flour, but is actually some unholy mixture of millet flour, rice flour, tapioca starch, and a sprinkle of dirt from an elephant burial ground. Also, this was mixed at midnight on Samhain. During a total eclipse. By trolls. Hairy ones.

In the spirit of authenticity, we elected for the trashiest imitation vanilla we could find. (Truthfully, we didn't want to waste any of the good Madagascar bourbon vanilla on these cookies.)

Potato Chip Cookies part 2: The Fatback Strikes Back

2009-04-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

The batter looked... strange. We've never made those poser, thin-ass butter cookies, but believe these are pretty similar. Except these contain potato chips. We can't stress this enough: these "cookies" have powdered potato chips in them. This was, like, a week ago and we still haven't come to terms with it.

Anything looks good if you get close enough. Like figs. And long-term relationships.

Just to show that we're not kidding, here's testament to the depravity of Pumpkintown:
Bound in human flesh and inked in blood by the Duchess of Qwghlm herself, the recipe book also contains bizarre burial rituals and demon resurrection passages. It was never meant for the world of the living.

Potato Chip Cookies part 3: Return of the RedEye

2009-04-02T18:06:00.000-07:00

The recipe called for 1/2 teaspoon globs. Our cookie scoops only go down to 1 tablespoon, so we winged it. It's not like it really matters, anyway. None of this matters. They're potato chip "cookies," man. It's the end of the world.

Elapsed time: not enough. Assuming cookie goodness is proportional to cooking time, these aren't likely to be good until, say, the heat-death of the universe.

On the upside, though, they are homemade. Homemade sin, but homemade nonetheless. It was better than this King Choc*Nut we found at Fubonn.

The "cookies" weren't that bad, really, kinda salty and really buttery with a strange, almost bitter, after-taste. The funny thing, though, was we found ourselves hating them more and more as time went by, even though we might not have been consuming the "cookies" during the intervening time. (e.g. we hated them, slept fifteen hours, then really hated them) So, we eventually threw them out. The next day, we threw out the batter. Day after that, we drank 'till we forgot the recipe. The day after that we cut the oven into 2" cubes with a thermic lance, dissolved all the bowls and cutlery in aqua regia, and nuked our house from orbit. It was the only way to be sure.

Marshmallows part 1: Able was I, ere I saw KERPUFFERKINS

2009-03-11T21:09:00.000-07:00

The ancient Egyptians were the first to enjoy the marshmallow as early as 2000 BC. The treat was considered very special and it was reserved for gods and royalty. Of course, it wasn't called "marshmallow" in ancient Egyptian; it was called "scarab forearm bird bird bird." How we come to know this will be revealed in the next paragraph.

Marshmallow was made from the mallow plant (athaea officinalis) that grows wild in marshes. How more brutal than Hound of the Baskervilles can you get? Slopping through a marsh and digging up strange plants wasn't brutal enough, so we used horse hooves that we boiled down, dried, and powdered. The Egyptians squeezed sap from the mallow plant and mixed it with nuts and honey. We know this because we found Grover Cleveland's time machine.

To make marshmallows, use lots of sugar. And all your Karo. All of it. Make sure you smack out every last calorie. We're serious about this. Behold the seriousness. Bask in its healing scent.

You want your sugar to reach -31.7°D (firm ball).

When ready, we add our sugar to the powdered horse hooves. Slowly. Going to the emergency room because you slung boiling sugar all over your bare torso is brutal, possibly a little too brutal.

Now turn that shit up to eleven!

Sweet.

Marshmallows part 2: A Man, a plan, a canal - KERPUFFERKINS!

2009-03-11T20:00:00.000-07:00

Marshmallows are sticky (they are actually used to adhere the ceramic insulating tiles to the shuttle), so a thick coat of butter and a coat of powdered sugar is needed. Possibly, this treatment would make anything better.

After whipping for a good ten minutes or so, we scrape our product into the waiting dish. Then we let it cool for three or four hours. We actually ended up accidentally drinking a bottle of Old Spice and spent the rest of the night thinking we were Aunt Bea, exposing ourselves to traffic, and screaming at birds. So, our marshmallows set overnight.

After cooling, we use our diamond scalpel to separate the marshmallows into cubes. Exposed edges are still very sticky, so we roll them in a 50/50 mix of powdered sugar and potato starch flour.

Beautiful, no? They're within spec for:

Tastiness - 9/10
Texture - 7/10
Hardness - 15 ± 5 Shore OO durometer
Brutality - 9/10

Marshmallows part 3: Madam, I'm KERPUFFERKIN!

2009-03-11T19:00:00.000-07:00

Branding is the most important thing in trying to sell your evil plans to the populace. Creating packaging that resembles creepy Asian-food-market marshmallows is step 1.

Here we fuse the paint to the plastic using only the intensity of our gaze.

Korean and Klingon are the most brutal languages.

Grover Cleveland learned to speak with penguins.

Finished product!

Crème Brûlée part 1: Dish and Dishonesty

2009-02-25T22:35:00.000-08:00

For the most brutal Crème Brûlée ever, we add ginger. A vanilla bean, five eggs, heavy cream, sugar, and some fresh ginger root is all we need.

First, it is vital to remove all laundry from the oven.

The preheat function on these things will melt lead, so your synthetics aren't gonna survive. Also, remember to launder whites and colors separately.

Crème Brûlée part 2: Funk and Functuality

2009-02-25T22:00:00.000-08:00

We carefully measure out a half of a cup (that's 425 kg for you Europeans) of pure, uncut, Colombian sugar. We buy only the best stuff through our front company, Stepan Company, in Maywood, NJ.

We scrape the skin off the ginger, to preserve as much flavour as possible, and chop it into small pieces (All praise to Shennong that our hands didn't decay).

Ah, vanilla. Using the business end of our BIG KNIFE, we scrape all the seeds out of our bean. Due to the sacred nature of the vanilla bean, make sure to chant something in Latin while doing this. If you mistakenly empty your vanilla bean without speaking Latin, seek consecrated ground.

Place sugar, cream, vanilla, and ginger in a sauce pot. Bring to a simmer, cover, and reduce heat to low. Let flavours infuse for ten minutes or so.

Crème Brûlée part 3: Punk and Punctuality

2009-02-25T21:00:00.001-08:00

Separating the whites from the yolks is every bit as fun as it looks. The pour-back-and-forth-between-halves-of-eggshells method is fraught with peril. All those sharp edges that threaten our delicate yolk make us uneasy.

Strain the cream mixture through 100 layers of cheesecloth (here we used three layers of Ultra-Hyper Cheesecloth).

Make sure to make reverence to Cthulhu in all your kitchen implements. Ia! Ia! Hastur!
Ia Hastur cf’ ayak ‘vulgtmm!

Here we temper our yolks by playing P.D.Q. Bach's The Ill-Tempered Klavier. Slowly adding the hot cream also helps.

Crème Brûlée part 4: Beast and Beastiality

2009-02-25T20:00:00.000-08:00

Divide the custard equally among ramekins. Place ramekins in a pan and fill the pan with hot water. Cook for 25 minutes, cool for 30 minutes, and chill for 3 hours. During this time, read a copy of Rash and Rationality.

Spread a tablespoon of sugar on the tops and apply a liberal amount of THE FIRE. A kitchen torch (shown in picture, used for about 15 seconds before the big torch, Murderface, was brought out) will do the job eventually, but we'd been waiting for three hours for these things to set and weren't gonna wait another 45 seconds for some dinky, 100 Btu/h kitchen torch. Butane is for wusses, anyway.

This picture was taken approximately 0.023 seconds after THE FIRE was applied. Brutal.

A nice, caramelized topping for our Crème Brûlée. We could have heated sugar on the stovetop past hard crack (~300F), burned it a little, and poured a quarter-inch topping on these babies, but we just like to burn things with torches.

Candy Sushi part 1: Genesis

2009-02-15T22:35:00.000-08:00

During a discussion concerning an upcoming "comfort food" dinner party, we recalled the cookie-dough sushi of our youth. We have not seen this delicacy since, nor been able to make it ourselves (court order). Scofflaws that we are, all the pertinent ingredients were assembled. Except for the anachronistic rum, this is how we remember it from our youth.

Mise en place trays being prepared (a technique we learned while reading "Larousse Gastronomique," J.H. Lang Crown Publishers, New York, 1988, by the light of home-made tallow candles).

Here we see Athos, Porthos, and Aramis separated at last.

Slim inquirer, while the old fathers sleep
you are reworking their soil, you have
a grocery store there down under the earth
and it is well stocked with broken wine bottles,
old cigars, old door knobs and earth,
that great brown flour that you kiss each day.
There are dark stars in the cool evening and
you fondle them like killer birds' beaks.
But what I want to know is why when small boys
dig you up for curiosity and cut you in half
why each half lives and crawls away as if whole.
Have you no beginning and end? Which heart is
the real one? Which eye the seer? Why
is it in the infinite plan that you would
be severed and rise from the dead like a gargoyle
with two heads?

-Anne Sexton

Miscellaneous offal.

Brains.

The Elixir of Life: two shots rum, juice of half a lime, water, blackstrap molasses, imported habanero peppers, salt, garlic, ginger, tomato puree, axle grease, real hickory smoke, snuff, butts of clove cigarettes, Guinness Stout fermentation dregs, uranium mill tailings, muffler cores, monosodium glutamate, nitrates, nitrites, nitrotes and nitrutes, nutrites, natrotes, powdered pork nose hairs, dynamite, activated charcoal, match-heads, used pipe cleaners, tar, nicotine, single-malt whiskey, smoked beef lymph nodes, autumn leaves, red fuming nitric acid, bituminous coal, fallout, printer's ink, laundry starch, drain cleaner, blue chrysotile asbestos, carrageenan, BHA, BHT, and natural flavorings.

Candy Sushi part 2: Exodus

2009-02-15T22:00:00.000-08:00

You remember how to make Rice Krispy treats? Neither did we. Luckily, we were able to call someone who looked it up, took a picture with their phone, and sent it to us. It was, as you can see, illegible. We winged it.

We were concerned because the marshmallows we were using were all trippy-pastel-Easter. It reminded us of that valuable first quarter in college when we learned why our she-wolf mother always separated the white from the colored laundry. The marshmallows, like our laundry, went that funky grey-green, everyone-knows-exactly-what-you-did color. But, learning from our college experience (it wasn't all blood-letting and hairy-legged women), we just added a bunch of breakfast cereal and no one was the wiser.

We pressed most of the rice thin for our rolls, and made a few little balls for our nigiri.

Here we start our first roll. Turns out Fruit Roll-Ups are wicked sticky, so we gave everything in the kitchen a generous coating of Pam (later, we found out that this made the rolls taste vaguely of oven cleaner). Anyway, blundering on, a Roll-Up is our nori, the Rice Krispy treat is our rice, and our payload is a Gummi Worm, some kind of apple-ish Twizzler knock-off, and an unidentifiable chewy rope-thing that looked, if you squinted, were drunk, and not really paying attention, almost completely unlike imitation crab.

Viola! Our beautiful, completed roll. Unfortunately, our Fruit Roll-Ups were not all green. In fact, finding all green, non-cut, non-printed-on Roll-Ups is impossible. These were covered in Fujiwara Takanobu prints, so at least that was kinda authentic.

Candy Sushi part 3: Wherein we break Levitical Law by mixing peanut butter and food coloring

2009-02-15T21:00:00.000-08:00

For our wasabi, we start with creamy peanut butter.

We add about twelve drops of green food coloring.

Behold the glory!

Mix well using a counter-clockwise motion (clockwise if you're in the southern hemisphere), else peanut butter/food coloring may catch fire.

Here we've used dark chocolate syrup for soy sauce. Notice how our faux-wasabi is completely indistinguishable from the real thing. Several wasabi experts flown in from Japan committed seppuku after mistaking our wasabi-simulant for the real thing and/or Jabba the Hutt.

Candy Sushi part 4: Mrs. Butterworth's

2009-02-15T20:00:00.000-08:00

You know what's the best food-grade adhesive in the average kitchen? Neither do we. Mrs. Butterworth's blows. I did give a sublime little zing, though.

Swedish fish. It's like these were made to look like real sashimi. Which is fish, so I guess the Swedes were real champs when they hatched this let's-make-candy-fish-that-look-like-real-fish-plan, I mean, they really hit the... wait, what were we talking about again?

Ah, plating. The process of chemically, electrochemically, or physically depositing a thin layer of metal over a substrate for corrosion resistance or aesthetic purposes. This has, of course, nothing to do with what we're doing here. It's just an interesting aside.

Our first completed roll. Pink-grapefruit gummy is our ginger, Pop Rocks are our roe, and we whittled those chopsticks from the femur of a werewolf we found petrified in the basement of a desecrated church. They are the most brutal chopsticks in existence. None more brutal.

This is actually how sharks kill each other in the wild. Pretty neat, huh?

Here is our second roll, which used a red Roll-Up (obviously (at least, to those of you who aren't red/green color blind)); it didn't look nearly as scary as we thought it would, and added some nice color to our final plate:

Candy Sushi part 5: the Awakening

2009-02-15T19:00:00.000-08:00

Here's the big test. We were as nervous as a new father and as giddy as a schoolboy (respectively). The rolls were a little difficult to hold, despite us being a 3rd dan black belt with chopsticks. Perhaps it was the liberal application of Pam.

Once we got going, though, it was clear sailing through blue gummy-shark infested waters.

A little soy sauce.

Seal of approval. This meal actually represents the last of the petty cash.

Here we steal the only inside-out roll made.

And it was heavenly.

Candy Sushi part 6: The lamentations of their women

2009-02-15T18:00:00.000-08:00

Definitely a success. The only drawback was several hours later when we became obsessed with finding the source of a mysterious fizzing sound. Turns out our teeth were dissolving.