Coaching Cooking

Happy New Year!!

As part of a new year, I am making some changes at Coaching Cooking by introducing a litany of posts in a new schedule. Although consistency has not always been my best friend, I aim to include more consistent posting because it makes my bosses happy and it keeps me writing.

So here’s the new schedule:

Movie Madness Monday: On Mondays I will pair a great movie with a complete meal that matches the movie’s theme, characters or plot.

Tasty Treat Tuesday: Tuesdays are for new recipes or inventive dishes that inspire cooks great or amateur.

Wine on Wednesday: Cooking with wine is always fun and delicious (and even if much of this wine is consumed during cooking process, hey, it still tastes good).

Thirsty Thursday: A new beverage post to compliment any great meal and I promise to post beverages boozy and non-boozy.

Fruity Friday: Who loves fruit? I do and I will write about a new fruit every week and maybe even post a recipe or two to match.

Weekend Wonderland: Saturday or Sunday is the day to cook a cozy meal at home and the menus in these posts will follow the seasons in addition to including quick make-at-home meals.

Of course I reserve the right to do things a little differently depending on what’s out there and what inspires me. This new schedule has a lot to offer and the focus is always on the food. My best to you and all of your foodie dreams!

“When I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and it is all one.”
–M.F.K. Fisher

The San Jose Mercury News is offering an adorable wrapping paper that you can print from their site. So, enjoy (note: this wrapping paper will print in black and white unless you want to such the color ink from your printer just for cute penguins in wintery hats).

Happy Holidays!

I was all ready to decorate my sugar cookies with silver balls and icing, when I decided to do a little research of those silver balls a.k.a. silver dragees. According to this SF Chronicle article, silver dragees were removed from stores in California in 2003. WHAT?!! This is a reason why people mock California. We should be able to eat foods or even decorations that aren’t good for us because we should be able to choose to eat what we wanna eat! Yeah, I have to get all ranty because I think this situation is just ridiculous.

So I now possess contraband…and Mark Pollock can just come right over and take them from me. Yeah, I dare you to drive down from Napa to collect my silver balls. Go get some of your own…

I posted my Top 10 predictions for 2007 here and then, as part of the contest I entered at ProBlogger, I’ve chosen some of my fav posts for the contest. Here they are:

As a newbie, I need all the help I can get and I’ve got some thanks to this post by Yoav.

I’m a sucker for the pretty pictures plus I just loved the title of Anthony’s post.

I enjoyed this next post by Northern Girl because I work with teenagers in the high school setting. Yeah, it’s always a nice experience (or at least it must provide great fodder for blog posts).

And one more: Glen L. Johnson, you are the man. I just love LOVED this post on plus size fashion predictions. Since I am someone whom everyone seems to think is currently PREGNANT. Yeah, I’m just a fat girl. Whaddya want? So I really appreciated Glen’s thoughtful musings on the growth (okay, I could have used a different word, but who cares?) in the plus size industry. Rock on, Glenn!

Oh, and here’s everyone and their fabulous posts at ProBlogger’s website. I would link it up like a pro, but I’m just not that good yet.

It’s Christmas tiiiime in my kitchen…and I’m using these cool silver balls that I purchased [somewhere that shall remain nameless] that I can’t shut up about it…oh, except see my more recent post on the topic.

So, coming soon are: cookies with silver balls (insert maudlin joke here) and cinnamon cookies from a recipe that I got from Monique (who kicks a lot of ass! Thanks for the recipe, Monique!).

Look for both in the next few hours…

In honor of junky quizzes everywhere (and my own half-assed attempt to lure in the readers via ProBlogger’s latest writing group contest), I present my Top 10 Food Trend Predictions for 2007 (in no particular order…) with the answers at the bottom of the page. Yes, some of you will attempt to read the whole thing and many of you will scroll up and down like crazy monkeys. Enjoy!

1. Hershey’s Kisses will release its newest flavor of chocolate kiss (in honor of their 100-year anniversay) and fulfill many a skinny-legged celebrities dream of total and complete train-wreck, nightmarish and that flavor is….

2. Carl’s Jr. and Jack in the Box will team up and make the burger famously known as…

3. Someone will finally invent diet food in pill form and call it…

4. Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie will jointly release their long-awaited cookbook called…

5. Donald Trump will open a restaurant called…

6. The new Top Chef, winning in a sick and twisted fate, will be announced and that person is…

7. Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods will battle out the latest form of microfood that is…

8. A well-known dish will be banned by this major city:

9. Starbucks will unveil its latest drink called the…

10. Pork, in a massive coup attempt, will tire of the label “the other white meat” and team up with….

Answers:

1. self-loathing…oh, and cucumber slices. Yeah, it’s not their best-seller. I prefer the candy cane ones myself.

2. the Ten-Dollar Super Testosterone Sirloin Philly Cheese Spicy Jack Ultimate Portuguese Double Patty with Sauteed Onions, Onion Rings, Onion Wedges, Onion Bits on a Sourdough French Ciabatta Roll with Bacon Guacamole Sauce…and it’ll come with its own leather carrying case and a shovel.

3. NWRs (NeoWonkaRichies): these pills will include flavors like: Vodka and a half-slice of olive, Melba Toast and Tuna (no mayo), that “diet� salad plate from the local diner with the tomato and hamburger patty, and a piece of chocolate (made with Splenda). These pills will help a person lose water weight super fast, but then they will also feel the urge to dress like the Olson twins and to wear makeup straight from “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?�

4. “OMG, the Simple Meal: Tips and Tricks on Roadside Cooking� with recipes for Humble Hermès Pie and Dehydrated Water.

5. D’Or: the restaurant where the glitterati and the slight of body go to strut their quickly waning stuff. Signature dishes include the foie gras with caviar, seared ahi tuna and abalone stuffed in a jewel encrusted shell topped with a rich gold flake sauce. Signature drinks will include the “You’re Effen Fired!� featuring black cherry Effen vodka, bitters and a signature cocktail pick with the Donald’s face on it (and the unemployment office number on the back).

6. Michael Midgley (a.k.a. Mike or the Dude Who Always Looks Stoned). At this point Tom Colicchio will have a heart attack while Padma Lakshmi tries to revive him with her bare, sexy hands. Gail Simmons will also try to help, but no one really cares.

7. microchips in flavors like scallion valley, cucumbertino, munchie view and san franchese with caraway seeds. These chips will come in teeny-tiny bags made from soy-flavored ink and pressed, organic rice paper and each bag will include inspiring quotes from gurus like Mitch Albom, Rachael Ray and Suze Orman. The microchips may cause a little bloating at first due to their high smug content, but in the long run you’ll feel pretty self-satisfied until it catches up to you when you mix carbohydrates with any alcoholic or dairy beverage (try the Compiaciuto!).

8. Boston will finally ban Manhattan clam chowder just like it has always wanted to since the turn of the last century. Some chefs retaliate by secretly slipping tomatoes into New England clam chowder. In retaliation New York City will to outlaw the term “chowdah� and the two cities reach an ugly tipping point involving several thousand cases of oyster crackers and a televised debate.

9. Compiaciuto with double shots of espresso and high-quality chocolate imported from sterile monks in Rome who hand-sort the cacao beans while wearing silk gloves. This drink induces pleasant feelings of worthiness until you have to remember that you paid $9 for it. Oh and it comes with a side of airy milk foam a la Ferran Adria.

10. creamed spinach to form the ultimate, modern steakhouse meal. Beef, in a fit of jealousy, will hire Dr. Phil’s consulting company to beef up it’s image. Yeah, ha ha ha…

Check out the other predictions, reviews and lists at ProBlogger. Hey, we can’t all be Nostradamus. Some of us are just going for that cheap, snarky laugh! Thanks to Darren Rouse for the motivation to write all this silliness. Not that I need motivation to be sarcastic…

Happy Holidays! May your drinks stay effervescent and boozy and may your food taste better than the Ten-Dollar Super Testosterone Sirloin Philly Cheese Spicy Jack….

In honor of Hershey’s 100th anniversary in 2007, the company is introducing new flavors of Hershey’s Kisses including Candy Cane (out in November of this year), Cherry Cordial (out in March 2007) and Special Dark (coming out in January).

I was able to get an advance sample of the Cherry Cordial Kisses and they are awesome. They taste just like chocolate-covered cherries. I’ll even go so far as to say that they taste almost as good as the ones from See’s Candies.

I’ll be making some cookies with the Candy Cane Kisses so look for those soon…

We sailed home from Brisbane as the water sparkled beside us in the bay and the other cars whizzed by while we collected ourselves.

The warehouse adventure is over for now. I plan to attend the second set of warehouse openings for Le Village in December.

I’m prepping photos of my spoils, but I will catalogue the purchases so you can see what I made of with today:

1 jar of tarragon dijon mustard
1 jar of seeded dijon mustard
Several bottles of cider including hard cider, pear and apple cider and cherry cider
1 large round of Pierre Robert
1 container of silver dragees
1 container of duck rillettes (duck meat sauteed in its own fat with duck liver added)
Several pieces of pate de foie gras with foie gras pieces
2 packages of mini toast (cute and delicious)
1 jar of fig jam with orange

The feast continues after I get some glamour shots of these latest members of my pantry.

As I stated before, in my post entitled “Mecca Part Deux,” the Le Village warehouse openings are as follows. I encourage all foodies in the Bay Area to visit the warehouse for great food gifts, free tastings of different French foods and beverages, and a great time. You may even find me staring longingly at the pate table. Or eating the rest of the baguettes…

Warehouse address:
211 South Hill Drive
Brisbane, CA 94005-1255

The Le Village Warehouse open to the public on these days:

Friday, November 17, 2006
2:00pm - 6:00pm
Saturday, November 18, 2006
8:30am - 1:30pm

Friday, December 15, 2006
2:00pm - 6:00pm
Saturday, December 16, 2006
8:30am - 1:30pm

Thanksgiving is fast approaching and I am thinking about pumpkin ice cream. When I used to live in Santa Cruz, I would buy the delicious ice cream at Marianne’s on Ocean Street. Their pumpkin ice cream is wonderful. This year I’m not living quite as close to Marianne’s so I thought I’d try making an ice cream pie using pumpkin ice cream from a local brand.

Thus, I have to embark on a quest to sample from various locales including Rick’s Rather Rich, the Milk Pail and Baskin Robbins (okay, I just threw that one in for capitalistic measure).

I’ll report back…

Ruch Reichl is my foodie hero. She is currently the editor-in-chief of Gourmet Magazine, but she was also the New York Times restaurant reviewer and she is a published author. Currently, my favorite book of hers is “Comfort Me With Apples: More Adventures at the Table.” This book is a must-read for anyone who loves to read about food and who is also interested in women in the food industry. Reichl poignantly describes experiences as a food writer while divulging her own personal loves and losses. I’m an ardent California girl, so reading about Reichl’s many adventures in Berkeley, L.A., and San Francisco adds just one more truffle to the decadent box. One of my favorite chapters, where Reichl and her husband finally part ways, includes a recipe for Swiss pumpkin. I’ve read and re-read this recipe countless times and today I am actually going to make it. I’ll check in later when it’s done!