Corduroy Orange

Do even the dark chocolate kisses taste waxy to you? Because I find that just the milk chocolate ones do. Even though the dark chocolate kisses are not high quality dark chocolate, they still at least have the flavor I seek from dark chocolate.

Even though I’m not a milk chocolate fan, I AM a big fan of both the caramel and peanut butter Hershey’s kisses that are now on the market. The last bag of PB kisses that entered our house did not even last 1 day.

–Aurora

Wifey–

So glad you asked.  I don’t really like cheap dark chocolate.  In fact, I would choose milk chocolate over dark in this context 2 times out of three.  On the other hand, offer me my choice between quality dark chocolate and quality milk, I’ll choose the dark every time. I value quality dark chocolate to the extent that the imitation frustrates me because it’s such a paltry shadow of the real thing.

The peanut butter Kisses are actually pretty good.  I’ll gobble them down by the handful if there’s a dish in front of me.  The caramel ones tickle my throat after I’ve had more than a couple.  It’s an odd sensation I find displeasurable.

I used to love Hershey’s Kisses: little bits of chocolaty goodness, I thought, wrapped up in foil.  Of course, they’re way too expensive for me to get on a regular basis, but every year I look forward to February 15, because there’s always all sorts of red-wrapped candy at pennies on the dollar.  I always get at least one bag of kisses and then I devour them.

This year, the devouring is going slowly.  You see, over the past year, I’ve developed a taste for fine chocolate.  I’ve on occasion dropped as much as 8 or 10 bucks on a single bar of high cocoa content (75% +) dark, though I’ve also scouted out lesser-priced brands that still offer a high-quality snack.  I’ve gotten used to letting the small bits melt on my tongue; a process of slow-paced enjoyment.

I didn’t let this snobbery get in the way of my 2/15 candy-buying bonanza, though, and I still got my bag of kisses.  Unfortunately, they now taste like wax to me.

It’s sleeting in Pittsburgh after a long day of snow. I haven’t left the house all day. Seems like a great time to pull out a couple of the bags of potato crisps my sister brought back from London for me—Oven Roasted Chicken with Lemon & Thyme and Vintage Cheddar & Red Onion Chutney.

I tasted the Chicken ones first, and I was surprised by how well delineated the flavor was: everything appeared on my tongue—first the chicken, then the lemon, and sure enough right there after, a touch of thyme. It’s really quite remarkable what they can do with chemicals these days; the whole of the sensation comes from “Chicken with Lemon & Thyme Flavour.”

The Vintage Cheddar & Red Onion Chutney crisps are not quite so well delineated in their flavor profile. The flavors were tough to distinguish and somewhat less concordant than those of the chicken and thyme crisps.

Check out all of Walker’s creatively flavoured crisps whenever you’re in the UK. In addition to the kinds I tried, you might also find Slow Roasted Lamb with Moroccan Spices, Gently Infused Lime & Thai Spices, or Thai Sweet Chili. I just wish I knew somewhere that sold them in the states.

Savory French Toast and its Cousin, Savory Bread Pudding

I felt like having a grilled cheese sandwich yesterday for lunch, but when I cut into my sourdough baguette, it was stale. My disappointment didn’t last long, because I quickly realized that stale bread is great for French toast. I had already cut several slices of cheese, though, so I made the leap to the savory side of French Toast.

Admittedly, this is not a very groundbreaking concept—people have eaten Monte Cristo sandwiches for years. I opted against the sandwich format, though, and instead topped it with Muenster cheese then served it with some Siracha Sauce and a side of cole slaw. It was a quick and easy meal, and I expect that I’ll experiment with the possibilities of savory French Toast in the future.

The batter was incredibly easy to make: instead of adding cinnamon, allspice, and vanilla to a mixture of eggs and milk like I might have to make a sweet French toast, I added about a half-teaspoon each of salt, cayenne pepper, and cumin. I added the cheese as soon as I flipped the toast and it melted while the second side cooked.

When I finished the usable portion of the baguette, I still had some eggwash left, plus the heels of the bread and the end of another loaf. I didn’t want to let it go to waste, so I decided to make Savory Bread Pudding (a dish that could quite easily be called French Toast Casserole).

I cubed the bread and tossed it with enough eggwash to moisten everything thoroughly (I had to supplement what was left with a couple more eggs and another healthy splash of milk, plus some more seasonings), then added a diced onion and several thinly sliced cloves of garlic. I let the bread marinate, covered, in the refrigerator for several hours, then put it into a greased and floured loaf pan and baked it at 350 F in my toaster oven for an hour.

I sliced the bread pudding loaf down and served it with pork stew. The onion and the garlic that I included with the pudding definitely added a pleasurable flavor component to the meal—the Bread Pudding wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good as it was without them.

My wife made dinner tonight—sloppy joes—and it was tasty.

We served it on homemade sourdough bread, which is a bit unconventional, but it definitely made the meal tastier than it would have been on a run-of-the-mill hamburger bun. That’s not the conundrum.

The conundrum is, when it came time to serve the meal, Aurora gave me a little bit of sloppy joe mix between two slices of bread like a traditional sandwich and I looked at her like she had three heads, “That’s not how you’re supposed to eat sloppy joes,” I told her. “They’re supposed to be served open-faced and eaten with a knife and a fork.”

It was her turn to give me a funny look. “No way!” she protested. “It’s a sandwich and you’re supposed to eat it like one. Haven’t you ever seen the picture on the Manwich can? It’s a sandwich.”

Actually, no, I can’t recall the picture on the Manwich can because it’s never entered my shopping cart and I don’t pay attention to it, because who wants sloppy joes out of a can? But that’s a different topic altogether. Really, what I’d like to know, as an informal poll, is how many people eat their sloppy joes open-faced and how many pick them up and eat them like a traditional sandwich? Please leave a comment; I’ll tally up the results and post them in a week.

Dear Corduroy,

At Caribou Coffee this afternoon I noticed a tag next to their decaf coffee saying “Natural Decaf”. I asked about it and was told they use only water to decaffeinate their coffee. In the past we talked about how other companies use harsh chemicals like methylene chloride to remove the caffeine that hurt the flavor and could be harmful to the drinker. According to Caribou’s website their process preserves “nearly 100%” of the coffee’s flavor. Have you heard about this? Maybe it is time for a taste test.

–Sleepy in Pittsburgh

Sleepy–

Maybe you should switch to full-caff and it’ll help you wake up!

I have heard about the water-only decaffeination process (branded as the Swiss Water Process). Its proponents tout it as a way to remove the caffeine without removing the flavor; their case is summed up in a tutorial on the Swiss Water website. The basic process consists of soaking a batch of green (unroasted) beans in hot water, thereby dissolving the caffeine and the flavonoids (compounds responsible for the coffee flavor) out of the beans, discarding that batch of beans, and then using that same batch of water to soak more batches of beans. The caffeine is filtered from the water by means of a charcoal filter; the flavonoids stay in the water.

Because the subsequent batches of beans are soaked in flavonoid-saturated water, they retain coffee flavor while losing caffeine. The process works well (removing almost all of the caffeine and retaining the coffee’s unique flavor) so long as all batches of beans soaked in the water are the same type of bean. Because the flavor components are water soluble, and because the water can only absorb a certain concentration of these flavonoids, it’s easy to guarantee that the beans will leave the process with almost as much flavor as when they entered it, but not that the beans will taste the same. If a batch of Sumantra Mandheling beans is soaked in water that has been used for Kenya AA, Colombia Supremo, and Guatemala Antigua, the beans leave the process tasting like a blend of all four types of coffee because the flavonoids intermingle during the decaffeination process.  In general, though, you should be wary of the “Naturally Decaffeinated” label.  It can be misleading.

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On January first, I was surprised to check my email and find in it this message from James Gray, owner of Dozen Cupcakes in Squirrel Hill:

Jesse,

I read your blog on Coco’s. I’m so glad that you enjoyed their cupcakes and that they did so well on their opening! Dennis and Shea are very deserving people.

I also wanted to apologize for our delay in opening (yes, I am the owner of Dozen Cupcakes.) I am also sorry that we missed your sis’s birthday. We are officially open now and saw some staggering numbers this past weekend for our opening, too.

I’d certainly like to extend an offer to you and your sister to visit us and give us a try. On me of course! When you do come in, please introduce yourself to me.

Happy New Year,
James

Long story short, my wife, my sister, and I took him up on his generous offer just a few days later, and we were very pleased with what we found.

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Dining at the Sunnyledge Boutique Hotel

The Sunnyledge wants to make sure you know that they are an exclusive and upper-crusty establishment. The decor says it all: oak paneling, lined drapes, and crystal chandeliers. In case you can’t visit, though, they spell it out for you in their promotional brochure, “Boutique Hotels are recognized for their elegance and personalized attention. Sunnyledge offers modern luxury in its finest form.” Its services for guests include “twice-daily maid service” and its accommodations include an “open-air veranda [that] offers a spectacular view of ‘Millionaire’s Row’ while enjoying one of our chef’s specialties.” At least the hotel’s promotional staff knew enough not to name their chef specifically; following a sequence of personnel troubles, the current executive chef, Heather Buechel, has not yet finished culinary school and is serving in an interim capacity.

The fare relies heavily on salt for its flavor, to the extent that your mouth puckers when eating some of the selections.

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Not what I was aiming for, but pretty good for what they are

This summer, I was excited about canning. I had never canned anything before, but for a couple of years had let languish in my basement a pre-WW I era canner that my mother had cleared out of her basement and given to me. Finally, I decided to make it a goal to can some stuff for the winter.

I didn’t want to let my ambition to get ahead of my ability, though, so I opted for a couple of easy, high-acid projects: applesauce and pickles (especially when improperly canned, low-acid goods have a risk of botulism associated with them). I haven’t yet opened the applesauce (because I still have the overflow from my pre-canning project in the freezer that I’m trying to go through first), but on Christmas day, we tried a jar of my first pickles and I was pleasantly surprised—not because they were good (I expected that they would be), but because they were good despite turning out much differently than I expected.

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My sister just got back from a trip to Europe,and she brought me back some crisps (U.S. translation=potato chips) from the UK. They have the most delicious flavors over there, unique combinations that make the dill pickle variety now finally available in the U.S. seem tame. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve had uniquely flavoured British crisps, and I’m thrilled to have four kinds to sample: from Walker’s, we have Oven Roasted Chicken with Lemon & Thyme, Vintage Cheddar with Red Onion Chutney, and Steak & Onion; from McCoy’s, Flame Grilled Steak. Today, I sampled the two steak-flavoured options and found a big difference between the two brands.

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