Score!

Oh, Gentle Reader, it's funny how life presents you with little gifts when you least expect them.

Earlier this summer, I slightly rearranged the kitchen to make room for the second refrigerator we received. (We hadn't originally intended to have two working refrigerators and had actually intended the new arrival to replace the aging-but-still-functional one that had conveyed with our house. But I was slow to clean out the old one in order to put it up for sale on Craigslist, and we soon realized how damn convenient having two functional refrigerators is.) The long buffet of a design reminiscent of Japanese temple gates went into the yoga room to make room for refrigerator #2, which meant I had to find a new way to hide the three remaining bread machines I'd collected. Which meant I had to finally unpack a big box of kitchen crap I'd tucked into the pantry after we moved to Chez Boeckman-Walker in late 2001, and doing so gave me a place for those bread machines. I was happy.

And then the husband and I went Goodwill hunting today. It's Halloween time, and Goodwill is the best damn place to shop for Halloween stuff and other things because Goodwill saves the best stuff for Halloween time. On a larf, we strolled down the household appliance aisle and, lo and behold, my eyes fell upon the Holy Grail of bread machines.

Yes, Gentle Reader, it was the Zo.

If you're not in the know (and how could you not be, Gentle Reader!) about bread machines, the Zo is the Zojirushi BBCC-X20 (or the BB-CEC20 or the BB-HAC10) bread machine. As well all know, Japan totally rocks at making life-changing household appliances and bathroom fixtures, and Zojirushi means top of the line stuff, even in Japan. Back in the day, I coveted a Zojirushi rice maker because they were slick, sleek and...Japanese. Zojirushi bread makers were raved about in the numerous online posts and product reviews when I first started investigating these kitchen wonders, and I believe that my inspiration for making bread on my own--Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle featured a Zo.

Of course, the $240 price tag was a wee bit prohibitive, and I quickly learned to love my Welbilts and my Breadmen that I'd acquired from Goodwill for a mere pittance.

But then today, miracle of miracles, I stumbled upon a Zo just waiting for me at Goodwill. I hastily rushed to its side, removed the tape sealing the oven door, peeked inside and almost squealed in delight. Not only were the paddles present (a rarity for many of these donated bread machines), but it also had its original, well-preserved, four-color instruction/recipe booklet and a measuring cup. The bread pan was in great shape, and the unit itself hadn't a scratch or a ding on it.

I held that Zo to me like it were my own child as the husband and I finished our rooting and rummaging at the store. I even politely but firmly refused one of the employee's offers to get me a cart for the thing. No way in hell was I letting my Zo go!

I haven't had a chance yet to clean Zo up, for it was indeed used by the previous owner. Given the fantastic shape it's in, my Zo's previous owner cared for it as much as I will care for it. Now all we have to do is decide what recipe we want to use with it for its participation in the ongoing (never-ending?) Battle of the Bread Machines. Stay tuned, Gentle Reader!

I Too Get Inspiration From Julia Child

So, Gentle Reader, have you viewed Julie & Julia? Read--or suffered through, in my opinion--one or both of the books the movie used as source material? Okay, I'll confess that initially I enjoyed Julia's My Life in France, but once the narrative moved past the time when she and her husband were living in France full time and came to focus on when she was largely engrossed in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I grew disenchanted. I mean, it takes a lot of gall (Gaul!) to lament one's inability to drop everything and escape from the demanding world of public television production and book tours to hide away in one's cozy little hideaway in Provence. What a hard life that must have been!

(As for Julie & Julia the book...well, I pray to the FSM that I don't come across as that petulant and immature in my writings here on this blog. Granted, maybe the authoress' own blog posts don't suffer this problem and I wouldn't know since I have not read the blog itself. But her retelling of her culinary misadventures--and other life happenings during that time--in novel form are just...taxing.)

While I haven't yet watched the movie and may not ever unless I get a freebie rental from Redbox (because yes, Gentle Reader, I am that cheap and won't pay a buck to watch a movie), I've read enough about Julia Child to (1) be just about full-up with her and her life and her metamorphosis and (2) actually get one useful culinary thing from it all.

And here it is!

"Here is what, exactly?" you ask, Gentle Reader? Well, isn't it obvious?

No, it's not her fashion sense. And no, it's not in those books before her. It's certainly not in her coiffure.

Here, maybe this'll make it more obvious:

D'you see it now?

Okay, let me make it painfully obvious:

Voilà!

That's right, Gentle Reader. Julia Child--along with her husband, Paul--inspired me to hang some of my pots. My cabinets are crammed and simply too full to accommodate the All-Clad sauté pan and sauce pan I scored two weekends ago at Marshall's. Since the kitchen's crappy fluorescent lighting is recessed in the slightly drop ceiling, I thought, Hell, why not remove part of that cracked light panel and make use of that wall space in the recessed lighting...thing!

A trip to Home Despot, then to (B)Lowe's and finally to IKEA later, I have nifty hanging pan storage. I may never get the kitchen of my dreams, but I've got more storage space--and what more can a faudie want?

Things You Won't Ever Find in My Kitchen

See all the crazy gadgets on HuffingtonPost.com.

I have to admit, though, the recipe display is kinda nifty. But without a means for jotting down notes, substitutions, observations and, well, futzings, it really wouldn't be that useful.

By the by, if you want to see the real musical cake slice, check out its Web site. I feel sorry for the object that appears to be a gravy boat warmer. It's misidentified and deprived of an entry. And the maligning of the gravy boat continues....

And speaking of crazy ways to spend money on food preparation, I want a set of pans that makes these crazy-ass things:

Yes, truly these are a classic.

Here's Something Else That Should Scare the Hell Outta Ya

I'm taking a knife skills class!

(Yes, Gentle Reader, run for the hills and pray for the people taking the class along with me.)

Miracle of miracles, a place opened up for me in Central Market's October Knife Skill 101 class. I'd been trying to get into it or Whole Food's version without much success, but I finally got lucky. So next Saturday evening, me and my R.H. Forschner by Victorinox chef's knife will be spending a little time getting some real culinary training.

Hey, maybe after next Saturday, I'll be able to chop an onion in less than 15 minutes!

Let Us Eat Cake!

Thursday morning I found myself with a tough decision to make: Should I (A) kickbox then hit the gym to calibrate my new Nike+ sportsband with a four-mile run; (B) just hit the gym to calibrate my new Nike+ sportsband with a four-mile run or (C) just stay home and kickbox so I could immediately finish ripping a big stack of CDs that we'd selected to sell to Half-Price Books come the weekend rather than have to wait until after I bathed and chilled out?

I couldn't decide. So I baked a cake.

Yes, I know, Gentle Reader, baking a cake was not one of my options nor an obvious activity for helping me to decide among my choices. But in addition to ripping a bunch of CDs, I had at my elbow a stack of older Weight Watchers Magazine recipe collections I planned to offload at HPB as well but first had to jot down some recipes from them. While thumbing through the Just Like Home edition, I came across a recipe for orange angel food cake. I'm a sucker for citrus, and I love angel food cake. Plus I just so happened to have a Betty Crocker angel food cake mix from...gads, I'm not sure how many years ago, but those things don't go bad, do they? I mean, dear 'ol Betty makes her cake mixes much like Twinkie the Kid makes his treats--built to last a friggin' nuclear holocaust so that the cockroaches can feast.


But I digress...and very well and very often, I might add.

You Can Have Your Cake and Kickbox Too
The recipe is quite simple because if you can't make a cake from a mix in a box, then you probably don't even qualify as a faudie. You're just a flop.

Ooh, was that me getting judgmental? Maybe a little. And I'll admit that I've screwed up cake mixes from a box before, often because I was attempting to make them more healthful. Don't even get me started on how many ended in disaster and heartache because of equipment malfunctions (and the primary equipment at fault was not my brain).

The recipe calls to replace the liquid required by the mix (usually just water, or at least that's been my experience) with water and OJ, then you add some orange extract to kick up the orange flavor. I'd given have a thought to throwing in a bit of orange zest--either fresh (because, hey, the pads of my fingers are finally healed after that recent zesting fiasco) or from a bottle I'd bought at World Market way back in 2000 (so you know it's just packed with flavor). However, I opted not to because I wasn't sure if having citrus rind particles would hinder the cake's rising. I can always throw some on top, I told myself.

After cleaning out the rust from my angel food cake pan (only on the outside) that formed when it was washed and left to dry (and rust!) in the dishwasher after the last time I used it (which, believe it or not, was early this year when I made the boy's birthday cake that was supposed to look like the scene in which Qui-Gon and Obi-Won fight Darth Maul--Obi-Wan was hanging on for dear life in the center shaft, which the boy finds oh so amusing in the movie), I poured in the batter, saw that Lumpy was all preheated and ready to go, popped the cake pan into the oven and off I went to kickbox.

Lumpy, dear beloved Lumpy, did such a fantastic job that I was able to remove the fully baked cake from the oven 11 minutes early. Yes, that's how well Lumpy works. 'Ol Lady Kenmore probably would have needed an extra 11 minutes to get the cake anywhere close to being ready. But not Lumpy. I found yet another reason why...

I Heart Lumpy!

Forget Duct Tape--Rubber Scrapers Will One Day Save the World
I had planned to use one of my wire racks to rest the overturned finished cake on while it cooled, but the center metal cone piece didn't want to rest evenly on it. I didn't want to wind up with a potentially lopsided or torn cake from having it resting at an angle while cooling. By the FSM, that cake had come out of the oven perfectly spongy, and I wasn't going to let some minor equipment failure screw it up!

So once again I relied on those culinary cure-alls--a pair of rubber scrapers--to prop up two curves of the pan so it wouldn't tilt:

Is there any problem a pair of rubber scrapers can't solve?

Then to Top It All Off....
I'll admit, Gentle Reader, that I was quite at a loss for how best to embellish this citrusy confection. I didn't want to screw it up by put anything too heavy on top of it (such as buttercream frosting--not that there's anything wrong with a faboo slice of angel food with great buttercream frosting), and I didn't want to detract from the orange-infused cake itself by slathering on a filling of orange marmalade or vanilla pudding made with orange extract and orange zest, but I didn't want to, well, underwhelm it by making a tub of fat-free whipped topping available. Plus I had another problem: my cake storage container was currently occupied with the remains of a castle cake, and my alternative storage container didn't exactly have a lot of space for pretty exterior toppings.

While I was pondering my options (while I was shopping for a new pair of running shoes and spending way too much money I can't really afford with the rationale that for as much as I run and with all my body's little, um, quirks, I really do need a quality pair of shoes), I recalled the discounted jar of Stonewall Kitchen white chocolate orange sauce we'd picked up at the Calphalon outlet when we headed up to Giant Appliances of Round Rock the first time. Hmm, I wonder if there's a way to drizzle that sauce over a slice of the cake without it smooshing the oh-so-light cake? I pondered as I thumbed through comics at the south Austin HPB in search of some issues of The Outsiders we needed to complete a Teen Titans story.

Much later, I realized, Duh! Why not just make a simple syrup with orange flavor. There must be easy recipes online for something like that! And there are. Or at least they appear easy. I chose one because it, unlike others, didn't call for an egg or egg yolk (because as you well should know by now, Gentle Reader, Chez Boeckman-Walker is a whole egg-free zone).

Perhaps this recipe is simple and I just screwed it up by replacing the sugar with Clabber Girl Sugar Replacer. Or I didn't have the right kind of boil going in the Windsor pan in which I prepared it. Or perhaps I was just too impatient and should have waited for it to really thicken, but instinctively I knew there was no way in the FSM's giant fettuccine bowl that I was ever going to get the watery substance you see in the picture to the left to magically become yummy orange sauce. So I cut my losses and got out of that culinary misadventure before even adding the two tablespoons (really, just two tablespoons) of OJ.

So we wound up topping off the cake with the white chocolate orange sauce, which I'd set out on the counter as I was preparing to make the orange sauce which we will never speak of again. Because it had had a chance to warm up, the orange chocolate sauce was a great consistency, and it drizzled over my slice of cake without weighing it down. See for yourself, Gentle Reader:

Looks yummy, doesn't it?

New Recipe, New Tools
Thursday's culinary misadventure presented me with the opportunity to use not one but two new tools.

The first was the...slender set of beaters that came with the mixer I bought late last year at Penneys. (I'd burned out the motor on my previous one trying to whip up some fudge for friends.) This one came with not only the traditional beaters with the thin but flat and somewhat wide stirring blades (or whatever you call them) but also with a wire whisk and a pair of beaters whose blades were very narrow, round wires. The use of the whisk option seemed obvious, but I was unsure exactly in what mixing situations you'd use the wire beaters. (Plus their lack of surface area makes the task of licking the beaters after the prep work's complete a pretty big letdown.)

Since I needed time to think about how I was going to burn calories that morning and I figured I couldn't overly screw up the cake mix, I decided to try out the wire beaters because I thought perhaps they, like a whisk, might stir more air into batter, and I thought that angel food cakes, like whipped egg whites, need a fair amount of air mixed into them to make 'em fluffy and light. (I haven't a clue, really. All I really do know about angel food with some certainty is that if you try to make one on a humid day, you're screwed.) And my batter was very airy and fluffy when all was said in done, although that might have been the result because I made sure to follow the mix's instructions for mixing times as precisely as I could for I know well the agony of an overbeaten cake batter.

The second new tool I used was an object that looks like it should appear in a cheap horror movie and not on the pages of the King Arthur Flour catalog. This angel food cake serving tool is supposed to neatly tear away a slice of cake; a knife that you must saw back and forth will smoosh the cake as the person wielding it tries to find just the right pressure to cut through the spongy cake. It's sat in my baking goods drawer for several months now, awaiting its big debut and occasionally stabbing me in the nailbeds while I was rummaging through the drawer in search of some other tool. (Shameless little tool, ain't it?)

So did this tool live up to its promise of not smashing the cake? Eh, I can't say. It sure as hell didn't neatly cleave a slice from the cake--or maybe I didn't apply enough lateral force to get the job done. I wound up using it to perforate a cutting line that my serrated knife could then follow to make the slice with less jagged tearing and smooshing. I guess I'll have to track down some operating instructions online before I serve cake tonight.

Ample Opportunity for Experimenting
The orange angel food cake recipe as it appears in Just Like Home includes instructions for variations, which I'm including here. Angel food cake really is a versatile dessert, so I encourage all my fellow faudies to play with it. Let me know what you discover.

Orange Angel Food Cake1 16-oz. package angel food cake mix
1 C water
1/3 C OJ
1 t orange extract

(See, I told it's a simple recipe.)

1. Place one oven rack on the lowest position; remove the other one(s) if necessary to make room for the pan. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
   
2. Prepare the mix according to the directions on the package, substituting one cup of water and one-third cup of OJ for the liquid called for by said instructions.
   
3. Stir in the orange extract.
   
4. Spoon the batter into a 10-inch tube pan. Do not prep the pan with cooking spray beforehand.
   
5. Bake for 40 minutes or until the cake springs back when you touch it lightly at its center.
   
6. Remove the cake from the oven, invert the pan and let it cool completely in the pan.

Yield: 16 slices
Serving size: 1 slice (obviously)

Nutritional Info
Calories: 109
Fat: 0.1 g
Protein: 2.6 g
Carbs: 24.7 g
Fiber: 0.1 g
Na: 209 mg

Variations
(That's the name of the column under which the "alternative relationship" personal ads appear in The Chron. Hmmm... Don't get any kinky ideas here, Gentle Reader.)

• Peppermint Angel Food Cake -- Prepare batter per package directions. Fold five crushed peppermint candies and 1/4 teaspoon of peppermint extract into the batter before pouring into the pan.
  
• Chocolate Angel Food Cake -- Combine cake mix and 1/4 cup of sifted unsweetened cocoa, then stir well. Finish preparing and making the cake per the package directions.
  
• Coconut Angel Food Cake -- Prepare the cake mix per package directions. Fold 1/2 cup of toasted sweetened coconut flakes and 1/4 teaspoon of coconut extract into the batter before pouring into the pan.

Now go be naughty little devils, Gentle Readers, and whip up some sinfully delicious angel food cake!

Toy Joy

As I mentioned yesterday morning, the boys went out for Star Wars Midnight Madness at the stroke of midnight on July 26 and got bubkes thanks to the local Wally World's lack of...planning or awareness or foresight or whatever. To compensate for the disappointment, I encouraged them to head back out after the sun had risen on July 26 to see if the stocker had ever returned from his break.

Turns out he did--sorta. The boys didn't find too much more out on the shelves. Missing entirely were the Wally World exclusives, which is just an unbelievable act of totally dropping the ball, if you ask me. In other words, the disappointment continued.

But only briefly, for they then headed to Target as it was opening at 8 and found fully stocked shelves and toys galore. I'm happy (and hugely relieved) to report that the boy didn't end up with a sixth lightsaber. In fact, he didn't get anything. The husband, on the other hand....


I'm not sure that all the toys in this little tableau were acquired Saturday morning at target. I know for sure that the odd-looking Yoda and Obi-Wan are from a set of concept figures that was Comic-Con exclusive last year that I picked up for the husband while I was in Chicago (and had planned to give him for Pancha Ganapati but just couldn't wait that long). The boy described this little scene as a big party; Yoda brought the queso.

(And yes, Gentle Reader, it's not uncommon at Chez Boeckman-Walker to dine with Star Wars action figures set up in scenes at your elbow or taking up valuable real estate elsewhere on the table. After so many years of trying to express my frustration, I just let it be. If I can dine with my toys--my laptop, occasionally my iPod--at the table, I should let the husband have his toys at the table.)

The boys, incidentally, wound up skipping the Saturday trip to the gym. That's fine. I happily did my time with the weights and treadmill (another 7.38-mile trek) and went home. After all, we had a full afternoon planned and the boy surely needed a little quiet time at home before all the excitement.

It's a Rock. It's Round. Let's Name a Town After It!
Round Rock's one of those odd little cities in Texas that is huge but never lost its small town feel. You can build computer giants (or, rather, computer giants can build the town for you), sprawling housing community development after sprawling housing community development, minor league baseball teams, "upscale" outlet shopping centers, massive importers of build-it-yourself furniture--and yet you can't seem to take that small town feeling away. There's nothing like traveling five miles or so up I-35 and feeling like you've traveled 500+ miles up I-35 and returned to yer old stomping grounds.

But I digress. Our sojourn to Round Rock served two purposes: to honor the boy's request to celebrate his finally achieve nighttime bladder control with a trip to a small water park and to visit the aforementioned "upscale" outlet shopping center so that I could visit a few shops I'd been wanting to visit since rediscovering my kitchen. There's not much to report about the water park trip. We were there two hours in the blazing sun; the boy was able to do more this year thanks to his lessening dislike of water (helped by a pair of goggles we scored at the Target Dollar Spot); and I got in in some quality reading time on Wolves of the Calla.

After a less-than-quick refueling stop at the Sonic not too far from a miserable place where I worked briefly last summer, we moved on to the consumerist portion of our Saturday afternoon. First up, IKEA, for the husband wanted to score some of the store's delectable cinnamon rolls. Laugh if you will, Gentle Reader, but the cinnamon rolls at the IKEA are damned good and taste much like something one could make from scratch at home, not reheat in a quickie counter top oven a la Otis Spunkmeyer.

Fully refueled with a cinnamon roll (two were saved for Sunday's breakfast) and Sonic Blast treats, we got mall-ed.

The Boys Got Their Toys. Now I Get Mine.
First stop at the outlet center: Calphalon. Of course, we're greeted at the door with a four-foot stack of eight-quart Dutchies in Cabernet for a price just a wee bit cheaper than what I scored my Chive for in Chicago. But let's be honest, Gentle Reader: what the hell do I need an eight-quart Dutchie for and, more importantly, where would I store it in my already crammed kitchen? After trolling the clearance racks in the back, I found what I thought might be clearanced replacement lids for pots and pans, including one that I knew would fit a 12-inch skillet, but it lacked a price tag. After consulting with one of the clerks on duty, we learned that no, those lids were meant to go with the pots on the shelf below them, but the store did carry some replacement lids. Long story short: I scored a Calphalon lid for my dinky Chefmate copper-bottom skillet from Target for the low price of $12.50. Woohoo!

Next stop: Corning/Revere. My soul aim here was to find replacement plastic lids for my Corning casserole dishes. Found them I did (and actually have to exchange one that was too big for a second of the smallest one), along with--surprise surprise--open stock Visions pots and pans. I sincerely thought Corning had stopped making Visions, so perhaps this is old, lingering stock or I'm wrong.

The Corning/Revere outlet is next door to the Disney outlet, and we appeased a sun-drained little boy with a trip there. He found, for $4 each, a Prince Phillip sword and shield that he thought he needed initially. Then he decided no, he'd save his money for Legos. Smart boy. The FSM knows he didn't need a third sword and shield set.

Fourth stop: Nike. I have to admit that I have a love-hate relationship with Nike. I love some of its clothing (basic designs, good quality fabrics that are durable), and I hate some of its clothing (impractical designs, obnoxious color schemes or patterns, fleeting availability). I love finding the stuff I love on discount (such as the two pairs of pants I scored on clearance racks while in Chicago), but rarely do I find such things at a Nike outlet. So I went in with one goal: to get another look at the Nike+ sportsband.

Okay, Gentle Reader, I won't lie to you. I went into that Nike store with the intention of buying that sportsband if the store had it. And sure enough, it did. The clerk who got one out of the storeroom even gave me a coupon for 35% off other items (the sportsband didn't qualify since it sells for the nondiscounted price), and, well, who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth? I walked out of there with a second pair of basic black crops, a deeply discounted pair of black crops with a funky-fun lime green waistband and the sportsband for a good price. Woohoo!

We then hit Harry & David so that the boy could get some gummis (which we'd hoped would shut Crank-or up because he was fading fast at that point) and had to make use of the center's facilities. Shopping with a full bladder is not fun.

Relieved, we moved on to Kitchen Connection, one of those creepy catch-all crappola stores that populate outlets and "full-price" malls. I went in just to browse, knowing full well that it wouldn't have anything out of the ordinary or, really, any bargains. In truth, outlet malls rarely have the true bargains that so many people go there seeking. The "original price" on the tags are often ridiculously jacked up so that clueless shoppers think they're getting a great price on seconds (such as the dozens and dozens of Chives and other five-quart Dutchies at the Calphalon store) or ugly-ass stuff nobody wanted and should never have been made in the first place.

But I digress. We did find something truly out of the ordinary at Kitchen Collection:


The husband loves Twinkies. I need a pan to make Emeril's version of pigs in a blanket from the boy's There's a Chef in My Soup and can't bring myself to shell out $11.99 for the cornbread stick cast iron pan from Lodge Logic that the recipe needs. In a way, all three of us got something all for the low price of $9.99. Woohoo.

And for our last stop....

Le Creuset Is in Da House!
Yes, I stopped at the Le Creuset store. And drooled. And circled the entire store two dozen times. And drooled. And was given a 35% discount coupon for any one item. And then drooled even more while bemoaning my lack of long-term employment.

I got my hands on a cast iron wok that I'm now convinced, Gentle Reader, that I need. Really. I need it.

But I left it on the shelf (for now). I instead used my coupon for a more affordable piece with the brand emblazoned on it so that I can display it with pride in my kitchen and proclaim,

"Le Creuset est dans ma cuisine, fashizzle!"

Since the husband opted not to buy the $100 AT-TE, perhaps I can convince him to spend twice that for a wok. Yeah, it could happen.

At Long Last, My Chicago Wrap-Up

I realize I've been home now almost a week, and yes, it's taken me that long to find time to get pictures ready for the oft-promised wrap-up of the goodies I acquired in Chicago. So without further ado (because, Gentle Reader, you've had enough ado already), on with the show!


I wouldn't mind having a pair of lions guarding my humble abode. Alas, these guys are firmly affixed before The Art Institute of Chicago. We'd planned to go there Thursday evening since admission's free (and I'm all about free), but a three-hour jaunt to O'Hare to retrieve the younger sister and an evening shower put the kibosh on those plans.

Since I have no sense of direction, I can't tell you if this big guy is On the Prowl north lion or Stands in an Attitude of Defiance south lion. (Methinks Chicagoans ought to give them better names.) Nevertheless, bringing this guy home as a souvenir would have been nifty!


Here's proof that I went to a bar. That's a stylized H in the center of the circle, the gang sign for Howl at the Moon.


Nifty shot, non? Makes a boring 'ol Metra train look manga-rific, huh?

Anywho, this is the last train headed out to Ravinia before the start of the Lyle Lovett concert. There's nothing like a train that'll let you booze on board!

The younger sister took some pics of the concert, but the stage lighting made things a bit difficult.


Here's the initial view from our eighteenth-row seats. Too bad it didn't stay this head-free!


Lyle lights up the stage--literally--in his beige suit. I tell ya, there's something fun about a band who wears very nice suits. One of the backup vocalists, Sweet Pea Atkinson, was tres stylish in a nice fedora.


Meanwhile, back at Chez Boeckman-Walker, the boys girded their loins for battle.

Fearsome, ain't he?


P-Dude just slept. That's what he does.

Toy Time!
Since I'm a big freak and wanted to shop for culinary implements of destruction and creation, many of the gifts I brought home were kitchen tools.


I'd never seen a combo lemon-lime squeezer before, so I couldn't resist picking this one up for the husband while at The Chopping Block. Granted, he'd actually wanted an orange squeezer after seeing one in action on America's Test Kitchen, but we'd have far more use for a lemon-lime one.


Two in one! Me likey!


I believe I related the great hunt for the deep-dish pizza pan in another post, but here it is in all its Chicago Metallic glory. The castle cake pan is for the boy, who saw it at The Surly Table a few weeks back; the sword-fighting knight wannabe decided he needed it for his next birthday. Since it was on discount at a Linens 'n Things that's closing, I couldn't pass it up.

Annual Gift Man Comes Early
Bright and early Monday morning as the (bleary-eyed) human residents of Chez Boeckman-Walker prepared to start another week, I took time to dole out gifts.


The boy received his vintage Cubs hat (as in vintage logo, not as in used and sold at a glorified Goodwill that calls such used garments and whatnot "vintage" just to justify the ridiculous markup) and the Junk Food t-shirt he got from his eldest auntie.

I also gave the boys one of the other fun treats I hauled back from Chicago: cold, leftover sausage deep-dish pizza from Pizzaria Due for breakfast.


Yummy!

Last year when the three of us visited my elder sister in Chicago, we waited some three hours (1.5 for a table, 1.5 for a pizza) at Due. The following morning, the boy and the husband had cold pizza for breakfast. Naturally, having cold pizza for breakfast was one of the top three highlights of the boy's trip to Chicago. So what kind of mother would I be if I didn't somehow let him relive the experience?

Eh, I'm still a crappy mom.


Okay, that officially wraps up coverage of my Chicago trip. While you let it all soak in, enjoy this shot of the city skyline, taken at the butt-crack of dawn last Sunday morning from the elder sister's condo patio by the younger sister. I do hope, Gentle Reader, that you enjoyed reading about my misadventures outside the "Oasis" of the Lone Star State. If not...well, you could have navigated away from this blog at any time.

Ode to an Enamel Cast Iron Dutch Oven

Oh! how I love my Calphalon chive
It cooks chicken quite well--
And that's no jive!

There you have it, Gentle Reader--solid evidence that I'm no poet and surely do know it. (I'd tell myself to stick to my day job, but I don't have one!)

As I sit here and lick my fingers from supper and try to blog, I congratulate myself for having the foresight to lug that big 'ol enamel cast iron dutch oven around Chicago the day I bought it and to lug it home (which entailed standing watch over it for two and a half hours at Midway). Trust me, folks, this thing is heavy. Not something to be dropped on pets or small children or wayward appendages.

I chose a pretty simple recipe, chicken with mandarin oranges, to inaugurate the Dutchie because (1) I've never used one before, and while my very helpful and knowledgeable sister-in-law swears by her own Le Creuset Dutchie, I know me and my ability to totally FUBAR something simple, so I wasn't ready to embark on some complicated feast for my first time own with 'ol Chive; (2) the recipe is one I hadn't prepared before and didn't want to be all nervous about mucking up the recipe and ruining my expensive-but-acquired-on-deep-discount (and find out how good Calphalon's lifetime warranty is); (3) I'd been editing monographs all day and knew I'd be hard-pressed for time for elaborate preparations once I got my 20 monographs scanned and uploaded for the coders in Delhi and (4) I have a massage tonight at 7:30, and I needed to have supper on the table well in advance so I wouldn't resemble a beached whale while at said appointment.

As you probably already know, the chicken turned out finger-lickin' good. Okay, the chicken itself was just, well, chicken. The mandarin orange sauce/glaze/whatever that you pour over it and let simmer before serving--that was finger-lickin' good. I think the husband and I could whip up some of that and eat it over rice as a meal in and of itself. The boy, naturally, wouldn't touch it. Quoth the boy, "Now that I see what kind of sauce it is, I don't like it."

Thanks, son. Love you too.

The husband and I are admitted suckers for citrus. Yes, you can screw up citrus, but when you're using ready-to-go products (lemon juice in a bottle, orange marmalade in a jar, single-serve cups of mandarin oranges), it's kind of hard to screw up. (I know, I know--famous last words.)

As for the Dutchie, I'm anxious to try it again. It came with a Mediterranean chicken recipe and a cranberry wild rice pilaf recipe that look quite scrumptious, so I'll have to give them a whirl sometime. I'll add them to the ever-growing pile of recipes I so very much want to try but just need to get my rear in gear and make. I was eyeballing a cabbage pooriyal recipe I so very much want to try but am reluctant to do so for fear of screwing it up and for knowledge that the boys won't go near it. Le sigh...

Okay, 'tis time for that massage. Begone foul knots in my upper trapezius! Get thee to a nunnery, oh lumps in my supraspinatus! Be thee banished to the hinterlands, oh wearisome SI dysfunction!

Back in the Saddle Again

My kitchen missed me, I think. The FSM knows I missed my kitchen. And since my misadventures in Chicago generated some ideas for culinary misadventures, I opted to carry them out while they were still stored in my brain (whose reliability and usefulness is highly in doubt most of the time).

Idli-palooza
Of the four big kitchen tools I hauled home from Chicago, I was most anxious to try out my new microwave idli steamer. While I could probably survive on idlis and sambar, I've got to feed the boys something else. Since we just so happened to have a good amount of sauce left over from our America's Test Kitchen chicken tikka masala experiment and I was anxious to try adding some coconut milk to a chicken tikka masala recipe after dining at Tiffin last Friday, I'd imagine I don't have to tell you I whipped up yet another Indian feast (albeit a leftover-ish one) last night.

I was only marred by one setback: Gandhi Bazar was out of the freshly prepared and ready to pour idli batter it sells in its cooler. Bummer! So the clerk recommended the Gits brand of idli mix. We also picked up some Deep frozen Madras-style tomato chutney, recommended by the other clerk, and another pouch of our favorite MTR sambar to accompany them.

For a first-time outing with the idli steamer and idli mix, I was quite pleased with the results--or at least I didn't horribly screw up. The batter was awfully foamy at first, and I don't think I mixed it well enough to create the "smooth" consistency the directions told me to create. But the idlis were very edible, and that's what counts, right?

The chutney was fabulous! I'm pleased to say that I'll probably never attempt to replicate my favorite onion chutney from Madras Pavilion (which really should be called tomato chutney, methinks, but hey, I'm not going to complain or protest) from scratch again. Why go through the frustration--not to mention the mess--when I can just pop one of these little bowls in the microwave, nuke it for 40 seconds and be done?

Broiling Done Right(er)
Since we only had leftover tikka masala sauce, I got another chance to broil the chicken. Heh, I seem to recall last time expressing a desire to have more time to let the chicken absorb the spice rub. Wishful thinking that was! (I'll explain later.)

Anywho, despite being pressed for time, the broiled "tandoori" chicken came out much better this time. I did again use the Hi setting for the broiler, but I cut the time almost in half: five minutes on one side, five minutes on the other and then an additional two or three minutes on Lo because the husband was concerned that after ten minutes of broiling on Hi, the chicken wasn't quickly reaching 160 degrees when he speared one with the food thermometer. The smoke alarm did not go off this time, and the breasts did not look like burned sacrifices when they were finished. Now that's what I call a culinary victory!

As If I Didn't Do Enough Shopping While in Chicago
The husband came home early from work because he was the walking dead and desperately needed more than three hours of sleep. While he napped, I edited some monographs then took a nap myself. Since we were both refreshed and re-energized by the early afternoon, we opted to head out and have a little fun in addition to picking up a few groceries.

Having read in several places online that TJ Maxx and Marshall's sometimes have high-end cookware and culinary supplies at pretty decent discounts, the two of us headed over to the TJ Maxx in the Arboretum after swinging by Sur La Table (again, it's an addiction, which is a disease, and should not make me the subject of ridicule) to look for the Mario Batali polycarbonate pizza wheel but wound up buying a knife guard designed specifically for chef's knives (the one I brought home from The Chopping Block worked, but I didn't like that it left part of the blade exposed), some food-grade mineral oil to keep the Batali "magic" spoons in good condition and a chocolate-marshmallow treat for the husband. (I'm now kicking myself for not picking up that Batali pizza cutter at The Chopping Block while in Chicago. It was on sale and right there in front of me!)

Our local Maxx did have some very nice higher-end cookware and bakeware, as well as a Le Creuset cannister of some type, but we didn't acquire any of these pieces. What we did acquire was a 11.5" x 13.5" x 0.75" bamboo cutting board from TruBamboo for $9.99 (woohoo!) as well as three too-damn-cute cat plates from Japan that are very similar to some too-damn-cute cat rice bowls from Japan we already own. The plates together were less than ten bucks, so we were quite pleased. Good finds, if I do say so myself.

I didn't realize until we got home and I started shooting pics of our goodies for this blog that the bamboo cutting board needs to be tempered daily for a week before use. While the manufacturer (obviously) recommends its brand of bamboo cutting board oil, I poked around online this morning and determined the food-grade mineral oil from The Surly Table will work just fine. Hot damn!

By the time we wrapped up a trip to the North Lamar Half-Price Books (Addiction! Disease!), picked up the boy from daycare, hit HEB and hit Gandhi Bazar, we got home around a quarter 'til 6, and I'd so wanted to have supper on the table by 6 PM so that we could have have a relaxing evening and get to bed early. Wishful thinking that was!

I promise I'll have pictures from the trip to Chicago up as soon as I can. I'm still waiting for the younger sister to email the pics she took for me, plus I have some more photos to shoot myself. And yes, if I don't find a better way to organize and manage my time so I can get everything I must do in a day done, I am going to shoot myself.