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Testing
I recently told you all about the fancy-shmancy Cuisinart soup blender, and since I know the story was so compelling you all went out and bought one, I figured I'd provide the recipe for the fiery sweet potato soup I made with it. Actually, you don't need this gadget to bang out this velvety peach-hued purée; any blender will do. Just be sure to cool the soup down before blending. Unless you want sweet potato soup all over your walls.
View galleryI'm usually way the hell up on mortifying junk food products, but I hadn't heard of Trader Joe's Cookie Butter — yes, a spreadable, PB-like product made from cookies! — until Adam Riff, the most brazenly informed man on the Internet, asked me if I'd tried it. I said no, dropped the infant I was holding and sprinted to the TJ at 22nd and Market to cop mine. A friendly, lacrosse-haired sales associate informed me I was wicked late to the draw — Philly shoppers had depleted their cache weeks prior, and the store wouldn't have another shipment in until late January. Not surprised — Philly was just named the most depressing place to live in America, and few things scream I HAVE GIVEN UP quite like cookies in butter form — but damn disappointed.
Lucky for me, Adam Riff manned up and did what any snack enthusiast would do for a fat-fixated cohort — priority-ship me a jar from a TJ's in Northern California.
It's been two months since my C's bridal shower, and we're only beginning to scale the terrain of stainless steel, enamel-coated cast-iron, renewable bamboo and fired porcelain that's growing in the basement like an untended tumor. (Need a muffin pan? I've got 11.) Since I do most of the cooking at Casa Erace, C graciously abdicated the registry throne, letting me load up the gift list with every kitchen gadget I could have ever wanted. In other words: dangerous business.
It can be daunting trying to outfit an entire kitchen, punctuated with many "do we really need this?" moments. To which I replied again and again: YES. To the automatic yogurt maker. To the pasta crank. To all of it. But even I was a little dubious about the Cuisinart Soup Maker & Blender. This contraption looks like a widemouth version of your everyday blender, but comes mounted on a pedestal that transfers heat to a metal plate in the base of the pitcher. This lets you sweat or saute aromatics and bring liquids to a speedy boil, simmer and purée all in one spot. But isn't that kind of extravagant? Was I really that lazy that I couldn’t make soup in a pot and transfer it to a blender?
Recently, I learned about a new product Nabisco is rolling out: the Double Triple Oreo. It's a bastardized cookie endorsed by pro athletes — Shaq, Venus and Serena Williams, the Manning brothers, Apolo Ohno — who probably never consume Oreos in real life. The Double Triple consists of a classic Oreo cookie wafer, a layer of vanilla cream, another wafer, a layer of chocolate cream and another wafer. Each one is 100 calories and contains 4.5 grams of fat.
I filed mental note of the cookie away with eventual plans to pick some up for a Delicious or Suspicious, but then the boyfriend and I went to the supermarket and there they were. Cue music, cue sonorous angel voices rejoicing, cue Oreogasm. We bought them. I wasn't concerned with my stepping over the excess border into gluttony land because I just knew it would all be worth it.
Have you guys heard of Subway's new barbecue pulled pork sub? I sure hope you have.
I’m a pulled pork enthusiast — I'll eat it from anywhere at any time. Those old dudes eating cheesesteaks at Pat's at 9 a.m.? That's me with pulled pork sandwiches. So naturally I was excited to try Subway's; my thought process was, "Even if this isn't awesome, it can't be that bad."
"It’s on a bagel. It can’t be that bad.”
That’s what my boyfriend offered before we tried the new tuna salad sandwich from Dunkin' Donuts.
Glanced from Target's "outdoors" aisle of stringable lotus-blossom lanterns, garden-hose charmer boxes and mammoth fire pits, the KitchenAid Gourmet Grilling Skillet seems like just another trifle of HGTV's four-car garage/in-ground pool set. I had to have it.
Tired and peckish in Northern Liberties the other night, we wandered into the Foodery (837 N. Second St.) and bought some promising-sounding Good Bean roasted chickpeas. The Berkeley-based garbanzos come in four flavors (sea salt, sweet cinnamon, smoky chili & lime, cracked pepper). We copped the first two. Crispy chickpeas, we figured. What could go wrong?
Chick-fil-A has been lambasted for, among other things, its right-wing position against same-sex marriage, donations to anti-abortion groups and — worst of all — consistently denying the good people of earth Polynesian Sauce on the Sabbath. But no matter how you feel about the chicken chain personally, there’s no denying it knows its way around a nugget. The staff at our local outpost (2204 S. Columbus Blvd.) is alarmingly friendly and efficient, and the nutritional numbers support the fantasy in our heads that Chick-fil-A is the “healthy” alternative in the icky, nebulous realm of fast food.
The Philadelphia Science Festival (April 15-28) isn’t just about Dow Chemicals and the Space Grant Consortium. The fest will also feature several "Science Cafés" with the likes of Yards, The Continental and Kite & Key in collaboration with the Monell Center, Philly's internationally regarded center for smell and taste research. Last weekend I was invited to a preview of one of these public tasting events — "Flavor Tripping: The Magical Miracle Berry," scheduled for April 18 at The Continental. The idea behind the experiment was to see what you might be predisposed to in terms of taste and how certain chemicals (including those found in the infamous "miracle berry") can heighten or alter one's perception of flavors.
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