- Nee Nee offers up our favorite solution yet for the great how to peel a hard boiled egg mystery:

This is en egg-peeling solution only for cooking solo and not sharing food. If you crack a bit off the hollow end of the egg and put your mouth around it while making a seal and blow hard for a few seconds, it loosens the egg from the membrane and makes it much easier to peel. Gross, I know, but it work really well.

A-mazing. That might have to be the official ES-endorsed way to crack an egg.

- Meanwhile, bcarter3 disagrees with Fuchs Foodie’s Top Chef dismay:

Nonsense. “Top Chef” is a game show, not a cooking lesson. Does anyone watch “Survivor” for tips on how to survive in the wilderness? “The Price Is Right” for shopping hints? “American Idol” for singing lessons?

But rose saunders expects more from the Emmy-winning Padma & Company:

On Top Chef, the contestants are “experts” in their field, not at all analogous to “Survivor” or “Price is Right,” which features everyday folk trying to excel in an arena where they have no expertise. “American Idol” is a different case, but is still not analogous to Top Chef, because the AI audience is viewing to (a) be entertained (which they can fully appreciate via their eyes and ears) and (b) see how their everyday appreciation of various performances coincides with that of the judges. Obviously, Top Chef viewers can’t taste the food (we’d like to see it, as this blog points out there is decreasing opportunity for!). The audience is viewing to learn about food preparation and food appreciation. I’ve learned a lot from Top Chef over the years, not so much this season.

- Finally, yet another Glen Beck-ite checks in to bash our Top 10 Foods Only America Could Have Invented. Tav68:

Someone needs to set this poster straight. America is actually number 11 on the list of the worlds fattest nations.
This is Directly from the UN web site. Not from some reporter who wants to bash America but from the UN who keeps statistics on this type of thing NOT used for the purpose of Nation Bashing.

Australia is the world’s fattest nation, with 36.2 percent of adults being obese.

Here are the Top 15 fattest nations according to Actual Data from the UN Web site.
Not from some nation Hating Reporter who has an Agenda.

Australia 36.2 percent
Nauru 35.7 percent
Federated States of Micronesia 35.1 percent
Cook Islands 34.9 percent
Kiribati 34.5 percent
Germany 34.5 percent
Egypt, 34.1 percent
Bosnia-Herzegovina, 33.9 percent
United Kingdom, 33.2 percent
Israel, 31.9 percent
U.S.A 31.7 percent
Croatia 31.4 percent
New Zealand 31.0 percent
Cook Islands 29.9 percent
Argentina 29.4 percent

Well I stand corrected (aside from this very reputable UN website data listing the Cook Islands at both #4 and #14). By no means did I ever mean to say that only America has the ability to make people obsecenly obese. If someone wants to tackle it, I would love to see a Top 10 Foods Only Australia Could Have Invented post.

(Photo: artbandito)

This week’s episode of Top Chef saw our Chef’testants pack their knives and say goodbye to DC, heading off to Singapore– but they still had one last showdown with the good folks at NASA.

Yes, that is Buzz Aldrin sitting next to Padma. Oh, and Anthony Bourdain.

Shocked, we shared Tiffany’s tears as she was sent packing.

Endless Simmer: A lot of people thought Ed might be going home, were you surprised it was you?
Tiffany: One thing I’ve learned is never to be too surprised and never act like you know exactly what is going on (laughter). I was a little uneasy with myself and not quite wanting my dish the way I wanted it. I felt like it was going to be me. Everyone else seemed more confident at the end with their product.

The mussels were frozen, in retrospect do you think there was something else that would have made the dish more dramatic?
(Laughs)… The whole thing was kinda crazy. What I would have done is definitely cleaned the plate up a little bit more, the rice was not quite sticky enough to hold in the ring mold and so if I was to do it all over — don’t get mistaken, the flavors of this dish were good — The mussels would have just been added to it. I think I would have just cleaned it up. I heard that the judging came down to plating.

What exactly happened, the food was just too cold?
Yeah, supposedly. I don’t know if the refrigerator went into a defrost mode or it just dropped the temperature. It killed all of my herbs, it froze my tomatoes and it froze the mussels completely. I didn’t want to get into it at judges table. I didn’t want to bring it up because I knew it was going to upset me even more. The reason you might be going home is the refrigerator froze, something you have nothing to do with. You trust it with your food. I’m thinking technically I should get more mussels, that’s not what they thought.

After you’ve served the dishes to the judges and you’re back in the kitchen sampling each competitors’ dishes, what runs through your mind?
It’s funny you ask this question — when I went back into the kitchen and tasted everyone’s food, I kind of felt like I’d be OK. People didn’t pull it out the way that I though they would with crazy bold flavors. For the space challenge we wanted to give them very good flavors. Eddie’s dish I thought was bold, but there was so much going on, so I didn’t know if they’d appreciate it. I thought I might have been OK but I knew my plating was horrible.

Did you meet any exciting politicians through the show?
I was really excited to see Anthony Bourdain (Editor’s Note: not a politician). I really enjoyed seeing Marcus Samuelsson but when I saw Anthony I was so excited. I think its because that he does the type of show I want — I want a cooking show (Editor’s Note: he has a travel show), so it just excites me that he’s able to do what I’d love to do. I’d so go with Anthony and go try out all that crazy stuff.

What about any politicians?
No, not really.

In last week’s episode, we saw Ed in your  yellow dress, what was up with that?
(Hysterical laughter)… I have no clue. I was sitting in my room and Eddie said, “Let me see one of your dresses.” I had only two dresses and I was like, “What dress for what?” He took the yellow dress and I was like oh… my gosh. It was just a moment to lighten everything up.

(Photos: Bravo)

After the two-hour drive to Des Moines, Iowa, my taste buds were ready for the greasy foods on a stick and ridiculous fair concoctions that only the Iowa State Fair could deliver. My goal was to attend the fair on an empty stomach so I could report back to you, dear ESer, about how the delicious fried things on a stick tasted. But I have a confession to make: I WAS NOT HUNGRY. After a sweet and greasy fried twinkie that got me all sticky, my body said “no way are you eating any more of this shit.” No, the wasp drowning in the sugary residue around a funnel cake was not appetizing. And last time I checked, hot beef sundaes would make any normal person want to vomit. About eight bottles of water and 500 pictures later, I was exhausted, smelly, tired and grossed out. I never did find those chicken lips on a stick. I feel somewhat cheated.

It was a twilight zone of meat: pork, steak, chicken, turkey, bacon, sausage, meatballs, 1/2 lb tenderloins, hamburgers. And it seemed that every other person I saw was a walking example of what happens if one eats state fair food as one’s daily diet. The people watching just got better and better and more alarming as we made our way around the fair. (Picture the humans in the movie Wall-E.) I couldn’t snap my camera fast enough. In speaking with one seemingly regular gentleman, he asked me what I was doing with the big camera. I told him that I was photographing state fair food. He asked me, “are you taking pictures of all the freaks?” Yes, yes, I was. I couldn’t keep my shutter shut.

We were also lucky enough to catch a few of the animals left in their pens, including a gigantic pig that looked like a hippopotamus, sheep, goats, turkeys, ducks and cows. The smell, oh the smell, can only be described as hot and pungent. And most likely, very soon, these animals would be on a stick somewhere. Gross.

Pop a few antacids before you browse the selection of photos:

gansie: This is a seriously beautiful picture
80P: Yea, thanks
gansie: Well, what’s funny about it
80P: I can’t think of any more funny things about food
<<<It is the 103rd Artsy Photo of the Day that we’ve had to think of a caption for>>>
gansie: Well…
80P: I think it looks like the Loch Ness Monster
ganise: Uh…the Loch Ness Okra?
<<<Wow, it really does look like Nessie>>>

Editors’ Note: DC-based blogger Fuchs Foodie just can’t take it anymore. Today, he joins the ES team to point out just what’s been bugging a lot of us about Top Chef this season.

Recent press about Top Chef reads like the notes of a marriage counselor trying to figure out why a once-meaningful relationship has taken a nosedive. In a July poll, the L.A. Times found that 60 percent of people surveyed thought that Top Chef is “losing its heat.” Food writers have offered plenty of opinions to explain the sudden disaffection towards this once exceedingly popular show. The chefs this season aren’t talented enough, says John Horn in the L.A. Times. There aren’t any villains you love to hate, says Josh Ozersky in Time magazine. Yumsugar is tired of the same challenges recycled from previous seasons.

As a long-time watcher of the show, I see some truth to each of these theories, but I can think of a more fundamental problem: Top Chef is a show about food that no longer teaches us much of anything about food. Instead of actually entertaining its foodie audience with inventive dishes, the producers obsess over portraying every personality quirk they can mine from the contestants. In between quirks, the producers share mundane details about the contestants’ lives.

To see if I was imagining things, during last week’s episode, I kept track of the information I learned about cooking in one column, and, in a second column, information about the contestants’ personal issues/dog-walking habits.

Here’s what I learned about food:

- There’s something called bacon froth that was mentioned once, but the show never bothered to say how you make bacon froth or the best way to use it. Why not?

- Cabbage is a good way to cut the sweetness of a dish.

- Oyster sauce is a good ingredient for glazing pork buns. Mysteries that remain unsolved: what were the other ingredients in the glaze, and what cut was used for the pork (belly?).

- If you don’t add oil to tuna tartare, it will become oxidized and turn an unappealing gray. This last bit was actually kind of interesting. It was the only kind-of interesting information I learned about cooking during the entire show.

Now, here’s what I learned about our problem-plagued contestants:

- Angelo is “weird.”

- Angelo “needs to clear his head.”

- Ed likes to wear the dresses of plus-size women.

- No one likes Amanda.

- Amanda throws herself “pity parties.”

- Kevin wants Angelo “to go home.”

- Ed “looks like a potato” (close to learning something about food, but not quite).

- Kevin says the rest of the competitors do things he wouldn’t do.

- Amanda has been surprising herself.

- Kelly “only thinks about herself.”

- Ed’s “falling victim to the pressure.”

- Ed is “like the Tasmanian Devil.”

- Kelly is “ingenious and ballsy.”

- Angelo “can’t be trusted.”

- Kevin “needs to calm down.”

- Ed tries “to do too much.”

- Kevin’s “perspective needs to be more open and optimistic.”

- Angelo misses his Russian fiancé and compensates by French kissing telephones.

- Ed needs to “stop doubting himself.”

- Kelly starts her day by walking her dogs.

- Amanda is “pushing herself harder than ever before.”

Over the course of an hour-long show, Top Chef shifted the spotlight to the dishes prepared by the chefs only three times: there was a five-second shot of each dish produced during the Quickfire; a five second here-it-is-now-it’s-gone peek of the food for the elimination challenge; and, later on during the judges’ table, a barely perceptible three-second clip of the same elimination challenge dishes. Doing the math, that’s 13 seconds for each contestant’s food, and just over one minute to admire their work during a 42-minute show. Then consider that, while you’re trying to comprehend what you’re seeing as you get flashed like a paparazzi watching Lindsey Lohan get out of a car, you also have to process the voice-over (often, a chef discussing various insecurities) and the words on the screen describing the food. In other words, not only are you unable to taste all this amazing food, you never even get a good look.

Admittedly, screentime for food has always been scant on Top Chef. In the past, however, I was happy with Top Chef despite the oddly fleeting glimpses of food because the show educated me in another way: it introduced me, however briefly and superficially, to cooking techniques and ingredients with which I wasn’t familiar. But now it seems Top Chef just rehashes the same repertoire of once-novel-to-gobble concepts: chimichurri, sriracha, sous vide, wasabi foam, harissa, tartare, rinse-repeat.

So here is my recommendation for how Top Chef can win back its peripatetic viewers next season: Get out of town. In fact, get out of the entire country. Maybe spice things up with Top Chef Thailand. The cast should travel to Bangkok for a competition that’s focused on perfecting Thai flavors for a judges’ panel that includes Tom Colicchio and a couple of prominent local Thai food critics. Guest judges would range from government officials to champion Muay Thai kickboxers. The foodie audience will have a unique opportunity to learn about obscure Thai spices and ingredients like makrut lime and native chilis.

If Top Chef takes my advice and shifts its focus back to interesting food, there may be those who miss learning all about the contestants’ personal lives. To satisfy appetites for stuff that has nothing to do with food, maybe Kelly can do a spinoff reality show about her dogs.

What do you think? Has Top Chef outworn its welcome?

(Photo: Bravo)

No, really — it works. I swear.

On a recent trip to Chicago, the best meal I ate was at aja, an inventive find in the otherwise bland River North neighborhood downtown. Joshua Linton is a 30-year-old chef who has worked under a whole bunch of notable names, including our boy Jose Andres in D.C., so you know he’s got some tricks up his sleeve.

Before I dined at Aja, several Chicagoans all told me the same thing — be sure to try the hamachi guacamole. Um…what? That does not sound right. Clearly, I had to taste it.

The raw hamachi (a fish commonly called yellowtail on sushi menus) was placed over a sizable chunk of creamy, lime-y guacamole, which was sitting in a little pool of soy sauce, with a few jalapenos and red onions thrown on top for a spicy kick.

You don’t pick this up and eat this like it’s a piece of sashimi. Rather, they give you crispy chips to scoop it up with, just like it’s a regular guacamole. The textures of the fish and guac were surprisingly complimentary, and each chip had just enough flavors on it that it didn’t go over the top. It’s one of those dishes where one more ingredient would have made it awful, but this was just crazy enough to be brilliant.

So next time you need a secret ingredient to add to guacamole, don’t forget to consider raw fish.

(Photo: Courtesy Aja)

Now that I work from home my morning routine is different. Instead of springing out of bed, having waited for the last of the possible “snoozes,” I now roll over, shut my alarm off and open my email. Right there in bed, with the ease of my newly updated (software version 4.0.2) iPhone.

First I check my work email to make sure nothing insane has happened, then my personal email. I receive a few blog posts directly to my email (otherwise I’m really terrible at keeping up with other food blogs that I enjoy). One of these is from Macheesmo.

Yesterday Nick wrote a thoughtful piece on the recent egg recall. As eggs’ number one fan, I knew this sort of danger was coming. But also as eggs’ fan, I know to buy my yolky treats straight from farmers. Farmers (thank you Truck Patch) that raise chickens as chickens should be raised, not cramped in an immoral amount of space and fed, well, I can’t be sure, but it’s not natural.

While most egg buyers tucked their sunny side up desires away, I, instead, dreamed of how I would use eggs in my lunch that very day.

Egg Salad with Oven Roasted Tomatoes

While we’ve had some trouble hard boiling eggs before on ES, I had an easy time of it today. I placed four farmers’ market’s eggs (enough for multiple servings) in a small pan, topped, by an inch, with cold water, covered, and brought to a boil. Once it started boiling I placed the pan on a cool burner and let it sit off the heat for 9 minutes.

Then I drained the water and shook the pan so the eggs would crack while bouncing off the sides, making it easier to peel. This also starts to cool off the hot eggs. (Jacques Pepin taught me this trick.) Then I placed the eggs in ice water and soon after started peeling. It wasn’t the easiest peel job, as the eggs were fresh and I couldn’t slide my finger under the membrane to release the shell.

I cut the eggs in half, placed the bright yellow yolks in a small bowl, and placed the chopped whites in a larger bowl. In the yolk bowl I added: spicy mustard, grainy dijon mustard, prepared horseradish, apple cider vinegar, celery seed, caraway seed, salt, pepper and a touch of water. I promise, you won’t miss the mayo.

I mashed that all together to create the dressing. I then mixed that in with the whites, threw in roughly chopped oven roasted tomatoes (a variety of the little tomatoes, which I have been obsessed with slow roasting this season) and served it with sliced and peppered cucumber.

One last sous vide post for ‘ya!

When we last left our humble SousVide Supreme machine, we had learned that cooking sous vide is not quite as revelatory as Top Chef had led us to believe, although it is pretty darn impressive for cooking meat exactly perfect through every bite. Now you know we weren’t gonna send this bad boy back before finding out how it can handle an egg.

And once again, the answer is “perfectly…if you’ve got all day.”

Set at the correct temperature, the SousVide supreme can cook a soft boiled egg with a perfect, runny center every single time — no more risks of overcooked yolks! The problem is that it takes 45 minutes.

FYI – I took my sous vide egg and threw it over a crispy tostada, topped with some black beans and sriracha sauce, for a sort of crazy play on juevos rancheros.

We tried out a few hard-boiled eggs too, and while they took an hour, every egg was indeed cooked perfectly — with a beautiful yellow yolk, no graying whatsoever. So, if it’s breakfast for one, the SousVide Supreme seems a little inconvenient. But if you’re having a crazy soft-boiled egg party, or have to make egg salad for your entire extended family, then this guy is your best friend.

Previously:
Sous Vide Cookie Dough
The Sous Vide Supreme

From what I’ve seen so far, there are two philosophies on farmers’ markets. One is of the hyper-local paradigm. Everything sold at the market must be grown within a 200-ish mile radius of the market. Produce should be grown with respect to the environment (no-no on harmful pesticides) and animals should be treated like animals, with room to hang outside and eat what their bodies are meant to eat (not corn, corn, corn, corn, corn). If vendors sell prepared food they must also adhere to locally grown ingredients and use the least amount of packaging possible.

Then there’s the farmers’ market that features produce, as well as crafts and ready made food, without abiding to an all-local creed.

A carbon footprint rant will have to wait for another day, as I found the latter type of market (raved about here) in Long Beach, California. Most of the produce came from a few hours from SoCal. But not all vendors followed. This is where I found Patrick Pirson and his hyper-authentic, yet totally not locally sourced waffles.

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Liege waffles are named after a town in Belgium and have a yeasty batter, almost like a brioche, explains Pirson. But that’s not what makes them inherently different from other Belgian, or Eggo, or whatever Williams-Sonoma batter waffle you’ve previously doused in syrup.

It’s pearl sugar. (See dough above.) The sugar must be imported from Belgium. And this sugar is special. “It doesn’t melt right away,”  Pirson sheepishly gloats, “so it stays in a clump for a pocket of sweetness.” There are plenty of pockets of sweetness checkered within each waffle, a staple street food in its home county.

And actually, waffle shops found their way to every neighborhood when I was in Japan and South Korea this May. I cannot, however, verify if they are still adding delicious, and unseen, calories on the hips of the legging-wearing women of those countries.

Also in SoCal
Top 9 Foods Found Only at SoCal Farmers’ Markets
Artsy Guess the Photo of the Day
ISO: Avocado Orchard
I’m Coming Out Cake Batter
Artsy SoCal Photo of the Day

Gansie’s recent post about avocados, citrus trees, and Hollywood celebrity sightings had me envious of all that is SoCal, including the seemingly perpetual 75 degrees and sunny forecast. I woke up this morning and it was 49 degrees outside! You see, I live in a part of Pennsylvania where it also snows or flurries every day from December to March, so my envy was coming from the fact that summer is quickly coming to an end.

School buses are beginning to pop up on every block, some leaves are becoming slightly tinged with yellow, and political ads are everywhere. Fall does have its culinary benefits; things like pumpkin pie, green chicken chili, agave and cinnamon acorn squash, pumpkin ravioli with sage butter, fresh orchard apples and the roast chicken with sausage and apple stuffing that I make with those apples….OK so maybe fall’s not all bad, but I am getting off track.

It is still summer and in the hopes of filling the remaining weeks of it with delectable meals for all those in ES nation, I thought I would post my top 3 “summer” dishes. Summertime food to me does not have to be complex or have exotic ingredients.It is quick, simple, fresh, can often be cooked outside and pairs well with any adult cold beverage (my favorite lately has to be Flying Dog brewery’s Classic Pale Ale). Take a look and feel free to shout out your top summer dishes in the comments.

3. Grilled Sweet Corn with Chili-Lime butter

Variations of this have popped up more and more on many a cooking show, but for good reason; it may be one of the simplest and tastiest sides out there. Corn’s flavor doesn’t last long. As soon as it is picked, the sugars in each kernel start turning into starch, so the key is to get it fresh. Whether it is a farmers market or a roadside stand, you can find it almost anywhere during the summer. I have seen recipes suggest that you should soak the husks in water and other such steps, but I firmly believe that down and dirty is the way to go. Husk the corn, toss it on a hot grill and turn regularly until the kernels have a slight char. While the corn is cooking begin melting a stick of butter and add the juice of 1 lime. I leave the chili powder for everyone to sprinkle on themselves because some like it hot and some don’t. If you are feeling up to it, you can always make your own chili powder, which far outshines  any store-bought option.  For this dish, I recommend toasting dried chipotle peppers (smoked jalapenos) in a skillet for a few minutes on medium heat until they become nice and fragrant. After that, just grind them up, sprinkle and serve. If the citrus and heat doesn’t do it for you, make your own butter. Some ideas for flavors to incorporate could be roasted red pepper, green goddess, raspberry, almost any herb….the possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

2. Grilled Tomato and Onion Salad

There has been quite a bit of talk about tomatoes on ES recently so I will share one of my favorite uses. Fairly self-explanatory…hot grill+ olive oil+ your favorite tomato varietal+ vidalia onion= sweet, fresh, juicy deliciousness. Really all that is needed is to slice the tomato and onion, then lay them on a hot grill for a few minutes per side. Try not to mess with them too much but if you lose a tomato or two through the grates, just chalk it up to gaining experience. To up the flavor even more, a quick dressing can be made with: 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, 3 tbsp brown sugar, 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce, 3/4 tomato sauce and 1 tsp black pepper. (If needed you can substitute agave nectar or any other sweetener for the sugar.) Mix everything together, put it in a small pan until it simmers and then whisk in  some olive oil until you reach the consistency you want.

1. Crabtacular Faux Crab Cakes

So the wifey is from Southern Pennsylvania, near enough to Maryland that crabs were a regular part of her life growing up…she may hurt me for the way I phrased that, but it is staying in! However, now that we live in the Pa mountains, it is an ongoing challenge to find quality seafood. Because of this, in the summer we often utilize a great recipe for faux crab cakes, using fresh zucchini. It is a great substitute for the majority of us who may not be able to get fresh and reasonably priced crab meat. The ingredients and prep are simple.

Take the following: 2 1/2 cups zucchini (peeled and grated), 1 beaten egg, 1 tbsp melted butter, 1 tsp Old Bay seasoning, 1/2 tsp prepared mustard, 1 cup seasoned bread crumbs, 1 small onion chopped fine, a few chopped scallions, salt and pepper to taste. Mix all ingredients, form loose hockey puck sized patties and then cook. You can fry them stovetop in oil or just bake at 450 until golden. Saucing is up to you but I stick with just a little squeeze of lemon.

So there you go, some summer dishes beyond the typical coleslaw, potato salad, hot dogs and beans that are often pictured on checkered picnic tablecloths. With all of the fresh produce and cooking options in the summer, this list could be endless…so what are your faves?