Bye Bye to an Old Friend

He was a  trusted friend for over 10 years.

Worked furiously to help me make mini's first birthday cake when we had no idea how to bake without eggs.  Helped us try countless cookie and recipes, letting us know which worked best.  Sat patiently while we worked on batches of frosting upon frosting, not caring that he was sticky and covered in cocoa powder everywhere.

He helped us with baby showers for friends and coworkers.  Helped mini eat healthy food when we discovered pumpkin protein bread, zucchini bread, and spinach muffins.  He brought warmth, comfort, tradition to every holiday, helping us with everything from hamentaschen to honey cake.  He was our secret weapon for the perfect apple pies at Thanksgiving, and homemade whipped cream.

It was because of him that oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for the doormen on Christmas and entertained children on playdates brilliantly for short bursts of time.

In short, he was always there when we needed him.

And then, suddenly......he was gone.  Just. Like. That.

Review: Cookies for people with food allergies that actually taste like cookies

We had the recent pleasure of devouring elegantly tasting some new products from Home Free Treats.  A little about Home Free:  the company was started by a mom who has a child with food allergies and like many of us, was frustrated by the lack of options out there.

These were our favorite. Shocking, we know.

Mini was most excited at this project, as she rarely gets store-bought cookies, if ever.  One of the downsides of having a mother who can bake, we suppose.  But these are lazy-day alternatives we can actually feel good about: they have more whole grains and less "bad" ingredients than most store bought treats, and, as mini pointed out "they have fruit, they are made with apple juice!"  (side note, if any of you have followed our adventures in trying to get mini to eat fruit, you will understand the pathetic significance of this statement).  They are also kosher, which is cool for some of you.

We were able to try the mini vanilla, chocolate chip, and chocolate chocolate chip cookies, all of them deliciously crunchy.  We laid out 3 cookies for each person, and a glass of regular milk for dipping the chocolate cookies in, and chocolate milk for dipping the vanilla cookies in.  (Please use rice milk or nothing if you have a dairy allergy instead!)

The verdict: YUM! Seriously, all three, gobbled up quickly.  We especially appreciated that the vanilla cookies came in a box filled with little individual portion bags, like many of you who buy goldfish snack bags may be familiar with.  It's super convenient, especially if you are buying for more than one kid.

Our only request: please make individual bags for the chocolate chocolate ones too!

Since other companies are starting to get hip to the ideas that there is a market for allergy-friendly cookies, we have also put together this complete list of treats you can buy that are both allergy friendly and kosher.  We will keep this list up as a link in our "blogroll" and will be sure to update it when we can.

*Full disclosure: the cookies were provided to us from the Home Free Company, but all comments, thoughts and opinions are solely courtesy of Poker Chick.  Thanks, Home Free peeps, for letting us try your food!

Cooking on the Edge of Insanity

You might wonder why it's taken us so long in getting around to write this book review.  After all, it came out months ago.  The author, Emily Rosenbaum, first published this as an e-book (you can get it on nook or kindle e-reader), and due to its popularity has also been published in hardcover as well. 

 

So again, you ask, why so late on the review? Well, peeps, it's all well and good to read a book when it comes out, but we are of the firm belief that when it comes to a cookbook one must actually try a few recipes before you can give it a fair assessment.  If you ever saw the size of the closet kitchen we cook in, you'd understand why it took so long.

That said, the good news for you peeps is you know we're not feeding you any bullshit when we say we've actually used her recipes a lot.  You'll know we mean it when we say that mini, lover of all foods white, brown and bland, child who thinks fresh fruit is the stuff horror movies are made of, actually likes the spinach-chocolate muffins in this book.

Now we know the trend is all "hide it and they'll never know," but we went ahead and involved mini in the cooking process.  The hiding thing may be all well and good for some peeps, but mini is too smart to be outsmarted like that.  Not when it comes to food, anyway.  If she ever found a muffin tainted with a peach or an apple (the horror!) she'd stop eating muffins of any kind, altogether.  And mark our words, peeps.  She would know.  No matter how hard you tried to hide it, she would know.

But of course, if you read Emily's book and her endearing stories about trying to cook something all three of her children will eat, in the two minutes she has free between pickup and pulling out her hair, you'll know that if she can do this, you can do this.  And if her child will eat it, yours might too.

So instead of hiding things we sold mini on the idea of how fun it is that you're eating fruit, it's healthy for you, and you can't taste it at all!  This actually worked for a while, especially because it's really fun for kids to press that giant black button on the food processor and make that whizzing sound.  And once we calmed her down after the panic attack she had upon seeing the neon green substance in the food processor that is all the wet ingredients, she stopped hyperventilating long enough to realize that it all turns to brown once you mix it with chocolate.  Ahhh, chocolate.  

See? Brown.

What was next? Well we would never in our lives have considered making tortillas from scratch, but after a trip to whole foods where even the tortillas are processed on equipment that handles eggs and seeds, it was time.  So we broke out the flour, braced ourselves for the mess, and followed Emily's easy tortilla recipe.

These tasted delicious

While we were at it, we figured we might as well follow her method for cooking garlic, her spinach recipe, and her black bean recipe (forgive us, we used cans!)  Amazingly, despite smelling the cumin and curry that went into the beans and declaring them "disgusting!!!" to her mother and her friend, both mini and her friend gobbled it up.  Even with the visible chunks of onion and garlic.

So tomorrow, instead of a bland soy nut butter sandwich on whole wheat she doesn't like or eat anyway, mini will be bringing a bean burrito with homemade tortillas to school for lunch.  And a spinach muffin for her after-school snack. 

Seriously, if you have kids, and you care about what they eat, you should get this book.  The recipes are totally doable for those of us who cook in the real world, and even if you only cook once in a while, you'll be glad to have this one in your arsenal.

Fruitless Parenting

Those of you with food-allergic kids understand how hard it is to figure out safe foods, especially when eating out.  Those of you with children period will understand how hard it is to get your child to eat healthy foods at all.

Mini will never, not ever, eat fruit.

Just to make life more interesting, mini is one of those picky eaters.  If she could eat pizza for every meal, she would, except for the meals where there may be a tasty mac and cheese or occasional french fry.  Unfortunately, while we try and find her something to eat when going out, in addition to avoiding anything that may have come into contact with egg, nuts or sesame seeds/oil, her pickiness has created yet another class of foods that must be avoided at all costs:

Fruit.

While mini will eat her broccoli, she can never be coaxed into eating fruit.  This weekend, in fact, yours truly was sent away from the kitchen table as she could not stand being in such close contact with a watermelon.  Poker Chick was forced to wash her hands after her snack before being allowed to continue to rousing game of war they were playing.  Then she was sent back again, this time to use soap.

You're probably thinking this is common, right?  Think again.  By "fruit" we mean anything that resembles fruit, is made from fruit, or contains some ingredient or flavoring that once resembled some sort of fruit at some point in its life.  No luck.  We tried the typical parent trick of hiding fruit in yogurt or muffins or pancakes but all that ensued was a subsequent refusal to ever eat yogurt or muffins, thus making her food repertoire even smaller.  Pancakes, peeps!

After trying pretty much every fruit there is out there, her desperate parents moved on to what we call "Phase 2: the "soft" fruits".  Phase 2 involved pureed fruits such as applesauce, all kinds of fruit juice, dried fruit (raisins) and "fruit" cups.

Phase 3 came soon after.  Phase 3 included things like apple butter, jam, jelly, and "it almost counts" type drinks such as lemonade.  Even the processed pink stuff next to the orange juice.  When that failed, we tried to focus our efforts in the dessert category.  Strawberry ice cream.  Key lime pie.  Ice pops.  Apple pie.  None of it worked.

Out of desperation, we moved on to Phase 4, which counted "fruit" flavored items such as "fruit" leather, lemon lollipops, froot loops, and starburst.  Hell at this point, toothpaste and vitamins counted if they were fruit flavored.

After several years of this, and an outstanding $100 reward to any adult, parent, teacher who could get the child to chew and swallow more than one damned piece of fruit, we succeeded in only the following:

1) Prune juice.  Duh.  What kid doesn't like prune juice?
2) Applesauce.  This one was quite useful, as it allowed her parents to crush and sneak in vitamins daily.
3) Ketchup (tomatoes are a fruit, you know).

Pretty sad, huh?  So after all this it came as a surprise even to Poker chick to learn that there was one category of fruit she hadn't tried.  You've been thinking of it all along, haven't you?

Yes, the ever popular, deep fried and salted fruit.

Sunday, mini went to a restaurant and ate fried plantains.  Unbelievably, she kept on eating them, even after we told her that she was really eating a green banana.

Plantains, as mini ate them

Plantains, as obvious fruit

There's only one logical conclusion after all of this.  We must get thee to a casino, pass go, collect our $100 and put it all on black, pronto.

Oh, mini.  Your mama is so proud.

Help! Holidays Have Overtaken Regular Days!

Did you know there's a big day coming up?  That's right, better start those diets now because National Donut Day is coming up soon - June 3rd.  We know this because the Entenmann's box at the store told us so.  It seems as if there's a day for everything these days, doesn't it?

A few years ago, Poker Chick wrote about International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  Since then, it seems days are popping up everywhere.  Now, since one of our favorite pastimes is food (we like it so much, we eat it every day!), we thought we'd explore the year through food holidays.

Let's talk about fresh meat, shall we?
May is National BBQ Month.  It is also National Hamburger Month.  This has us asking the obvious question: if you broil your burgers instead of grilling them, are you a heathen or something?  If the months overlap are you committed to always cooking your burgers a certain way or else they don't count as the right kind of burgers?

Of course, this makes perfect sense.  Having marketed hot dogs for several years, Poker Chick can tell you that May is also the [un]official kickoff to National Hot Dog Season.  This is not good news for hamburger manufacturers, who lose money to hot dogs.  So when people started breaking out their hot dogs to grill for national barbeque month, they must have all gotten together in some secret meat meeting to conspire against the hot dog makers.  The result?  National Hamburger Month.

One bizarre piece of the puzzle doesn't fit though.  National Hamburger Day is December 21st.  Good luck figuring that one out.

Now to you hot dog lovers, fear not!  You can enjoy as much of the processed mystery meat as you like on National Pigs in a Blanket Day, April 24th.  Apparently people like to spend their tax refunds on hors d'oevres.  Who knew?

There are also other kinds of meat.  If you're a chicken person you can enjoy the bird throughout the month of September, which is National Chicken Month.  You can eat chicken boiled, baked, breaded, stewed, fricasseed, but make sure not to eat it fried.  National Fried Chicken day doesn't take place until July 6th.

Turkeys have their own month, which is of course, you guessed it, Nov......er......June.  Because that makes sense.  Clearly part of the turkey growers' conspiracy to convince people it's not just for Thanksgiving.  For progressive peeps who can't bear to discriminate against the two birds, you'll want to look into National Poultry Day, March 19th, which of course falls right in the middle of National Noodle Month.  After all, having it fall during chicken or turkey months (or any other meat for that matter) would just be really discriminatory.  Ergo the neutral noodle. 

Now, if traif pig is more your style, you have a couple of options in swine consumption.  On March 7th there's National Crown Roast of Pork Day.  Whatever that is.  We'll give peeps the benefit of the doubt and assume it's more complicated than sticking a tiara on a pig while you roast it.  But if that's too much you can enjoy regular good old fashioned suckling pig on National Roast Suckling Pig Day, December 18th. 

Don't cook me! Please!

What we'll be celebrating
In case you can't read in between the lines, we think this National blah-blah day has gotten just a little out of hand.  We've covered half the calendar above and we haven't even gotten out of the meat section!! Think of all the other foods! Now think of diseases, memorials, secular holidays, costumes, teachers, assistants, family members, pirates, and other random nonsense.  (Yes, we intentionally put pirates next to family members).  

Having said that, there are a few days we will be celebrating.  Pay close attention and you'll notice a theme.  First reader to guess the theme wins a shoutout in the next post.

June 3rd: The aforementioned National Donut Day
April 12th (or thereabouts): National Free Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Cone Day
October: National Dessert Month 
(We pretty much celebrate this all year long, just to make sure we're doing it right).
September 12th: National Chocolate Milkshake Day

Finally, we saved the best for last.  Can you believe there's a "National Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk Day"?  Yep, falls on this chick's birthday.  How 'bout that.

Stay tuned for our announcement of National Useless Holiday Day*.  In the meantime, here's wishing you a happy National Nylon Stockings Day.  Or, as you may call it: Sunday.

*Wait! They already have one of those! Some peeps may know it by its more popular name.  Interested parties can read more here 

Adventures in Fruits & Vegetables

Day six

Breakfast: Green apple with some raw honey

Lunch: Green salad, tomato, cucumber, feta, olives, tossed with plain oil and vinegar

Snack: "Detox" juice made with carrot, cucumber, lemon, apple*

Dinner: Baked sweet potato, plain turkey burger, roasted brussels sprouts

No, we're not on a diet.  It's the Jewish low carb diet Passover, and there's two more full days to go.

In the meantime, while you're counting the minutes until you can order a pizza, please to enjoy this vintage Poker Chick commentary on Passover from three years ago. We were trying to write something new and witty, but really this pretty much says it all.


We Were Slaves in Egypt, and I'm Hungry, Dammit!

Oh, and Happy Easter to you peeps out there celebrating.  Enjoy your peeps and all that. (sorry, couldn't resist!)

*only because it was hot, we were hungry, and Pinkberry yogurt apparently contains rice starch. Evil torturers!

Study Shows People Don't Give A Crap About How Much They Eat

According to a recent CNN article, we can post the calories in as many eating establishments as we like,  it's not going to make a lick of difference.

"But Poker Chick", you ask? "You can't possibly mean using guilt as a tactic to remind overweight people how much they're really eating isn't going to bring about a positive change in eating habits?  That we can't heal a nation of obesity with a few easy signs?"

That's exactly what we're saying, as a matter of fact.  Too bad these researchers didn't read this post we wrote in June of 2008.  We'd say "told you so", but that would be smug and immature.  We'll just hope that at the very least, those reading this blog are well-informed enough to understand the concept of moderation.

Oh, and we told you so.

Trends in Sweets

Pie is the new cupcake. You heard it here first.

Food, there it is!!

Once upon a time, a good friend, along with Poker chick and Poker husband, wrote up a plan for the ideal restaurant. Since this restaurant does not yet exist, we did the next best thing: evaluate every place we did eat at. The criteria for how well we liked a place depended on how well it performed on the following foods:

1. French onion soup
2. Crab cakes
3. Fresh guacamole made to order
4. Chicken and steak fajitas (not either or, just that specific combo)
5. Fresh warm crusty bread with butter that is spreadable, but not melty
6. Macaroni and cheese. Mmmm.....cheese.
7. Fries. Crisp on the outside, warm, and nice and salty.
8. No salad (you don't make friends with salad)
9. Sliders (this gives a place bonus points)
10. Key lime pie.
11. Donuts. They could be fancy donuts, but still - donuts.
12. Only the following liquor: Belvedere vodka, margaritas with at least 20 different tequila options, and Veuve Cliquot champagne. Good bubbly is important.

If anyone knows a restaurant in New York that has all these things (or a lot of them), let us know. In the meantime, today we wish this friend a happy birthday!!

.....Barracuda!!!!

So Morimoto was crazy. The entrance to the restaurant looks like this:

Inside, it's like a giant old warehouse or something - kind of like a very modern and clean Iron Chef set, except you see at least a dozen sushi chefs working at the bar when you go in.

We had this waiter "host" us all night throughout our 10 or so different courses. He gave Poker Chick some sake, which she liked so much she actually wanted more sake instead of dessert. If you know Poker Chick and her love of all things dessert, that must have been some damn good sake.

He also had to explain the menu, particularly some of the weirder items like "blowfish: prepared three ways" (minus the killer poison), etc. And though she steered clear of that one, after a lengthy conversation as to whether or not they have fins and scales or not, she had a go at some Barracuda sashimi, fully expecting to wince and think it was weird. Shockingly, it was good.

Actually, everything was amazing. This was the first appetizer:
In case you missed it, that's tuna tartare with seven different toppings you "roll" it into. Tasty and fun! We would have taken more pictures, but we didn't want to be labeled as "hey!" "look at those cheesy tourists over there! never been to a celebrity/chef restaurant before!" Nuh-uh, we don't think so. Poker Chick likes to play it cool.

To top off a royally bizarre eating experience, Poker Chick was driven home by this guy, who proceeded to tell her the day she was born, followed by a joke, in Hebrew.

The oddest part of the day? We got a reservation the same day at this place. And another New York tradition bites the recession dust.

And Today's Secret Ingredient Is.........

A while ago, we wrote about how Poker Chick would make a crappy judge on Iron Chef. Well, tonight's as close as it gets. She's taking the husband to dinner at Morimoto's NYC restaurant.

Let's see if this guy can really cook or what. More tomorrow.

Decisions, decisions

Poker Chick is debating whether or not to eat the white-chocolate chunk chocolate brownie in the fridge, or go to sleep.

Excuse Me, Did You Just Pour Salt On Your Fudge?

And the answer to that is yes. Yes, Poker Chick did. How did this happen? Well, it goes back to the mini having food allergies.

A trip to all local fudgeries resulted in only two flavors without nuts. Chocolate and Vanilla. Very exciting, huh? Notice the sarcasm. Unfortunately, the most delicious-looking flavor was the peanut butter but sadly it was not to be.

So we improvised. Once the kids were asleep Poker Chick had the idea to take a spoonful of Soy Nut Butter and put it on her chocolate fudge. Only this stuff isn't as salty as peanut butter so it usually needs some to taste like it. One bite and she realized it had potential, just needed salt. But the idea of pouring salt on fudge? Gross!

She was dared to do it and it was good! And that is how she found herself, pouring salt over a fudge/soy nut butter "schmear" that she made up.

Damn, it was goooood. Don't knock it until you try it, peeps.

The Script if I Were a Judge on Iron Chef....

Once in a while, a girl's gotta experiment. If you know Poker Chick IRL, you could probably write most of this yourself. If not, please to be amused.

Chairman: Today's secret ingredient is.......BUTTER!!!

Mmmmmm.........butter.

Battle Butter is a tough one. Iron Chef fat guy battles fancy shmancy restaurant owner. Both literally sweat it out as they use tools you've never seen or heard before (the giant parmesan slicer! the sausage pot! the bonito flaker!) A third chef (we'll call him famous balding cook) provides color commentary.

Poker Chick watches this "frenetic culinary battle" intently, along with her fellow judges:
Mrs. Hatsushihamamama (Japanese housewife and sometime food critic who lives in Poker Chick's imagination), Fukui-san (imported commentator from Iron Chef Japan) and that dude from Queer Eye. Finally, the moment, arrives. Poker Chick is presented with a series of small plates, each weirder than the next. She takes a fork and pokes at her
food.

"What's this?"

"This is a local delicacy where I come from. Polenta cakes on arugula, topped with pureed cow brains."

"Um, right. Where's the butter?"

"The butter is in the flavor. You have to taste it, you can't see it."

"I see. What else you got, big guy?"

"Voila, anchovies and tomato paste with mango salsa. That's a whole boiled baby quail right next to it."

"Eew!"

(Eyes stare disapprovingly on Poker Chick now)

"Where's dessert? Don't you have to make a dessert too?"

"I am sorry, there is no dessert"

"There's five courses. But there has to be dessert!!"

"I'm afraid there is not. But please, taste this butter-fried cod with lamb tongue. It's divine."

"Five courses and no dessert? But you peeps always make dessert!"

(Blank stares. Apparently, they don't always make dessert.)

"What's this?"

"First of all, I believe the word you are meaning is 'people'. Now that is a baked cheese flan with frisse greens and tomato coulis. It is in a cup made from the wax paper surrounding the butter."

"That's so friggin' cool! "

(picks up fork, clearly entertained)

"Now it was tough to pull off in an hour, but on top of what you are eating is special eel sauce. It really pulls the flavor of the butter out."

(tastes, gags, spits out)

"Phhhhttt! That's gross, right there."

"Well, I am certain you'll like my final dish. It's a butter BLT".

"Oh, that's bacon. I don't eat bacon."

Chef leaves, dejected. Challenger shows up.

"I don't suppose you made dessert either, did you?"

(chef beams)

"But I did. Butter-soaked bananas with valrhona chocolate."

"Can't eat bananas. They're icky."

Something tells me Poker Chick would not be invited back to the show. Despite what one might think, battle butter was not butterific.

A different kind of butter battle.