BMI, Weight, and Me: Let Confusion Reign

Gina Kolata had a brief, interesting article in yesterday’s New York Times about the fact that, according to his BMI of 26.4, our vigorously healthy and virile President is overweight—putting him among the 65% of Americans who fall into this category. Your BMI, or Body Mass Index, is determined by a formula based on weight and height, nothing more. “Normal” is 18.5-24.9; “Overweight” is 25.0-29.9; and “Obese” is anything over 30. (You can calculate your BMI here, if you’re interested.) It doesn’t take into account any body measurements, or body fat percentages, or even body types, so a man who’s 5’10” and 200 pounds has a BMI of 28.7. That man is considered well on his way to obesity, even if he’s a muscular type with very little body fat. Most web sites, including the Centers for Disease Control’s own, will tell you that BMI is only one piece of information among several that indicate a healthy body weight. And yet it’s this one number that the National Institutes of Health use as the standard, the one number that creates all those alarming headlines about how fat we are as a nation.

When I was at my thinnest—when people were concerned that I was becoming anorexic—my BMI was 25.1: “Overweight.” I worked out A LOT. I was mostly muscle. I wore a size 10, and if I was lucky an 8. When I got married, it was 26.9: even more “overweight.” I wore a size 12, was quite fit, and felt great. Today, my BMI is an even 30: “OBESE.” Is this the body of an obese person?



My size 12 clothes mostly don’t fit, and I have a feeling if I were to cave and buy some new stuff I’d be looking at more like a 16. I feel fat, certainly, but saying I feel fat is a very different thing from being medically obese. Where, and how, do we draw that line?

The other number that used to get tossed around a lot (once the experts stopped relying on weight alone, that is) is Body Fat Percentage. For women, an “obese” percentage is over 32; “acceptable” is 24-31; “fit” is 21-24; and “athlete” is 14-20. At my leanest, with a BMI of 25.1—an overweight BMI—my body fat percentage was just over 15. I didn’t get my period for almost a year—as I discovered, a woman's body will only menstruate when it has enough fat to sustain a pregnancy. When I got married, the percentage was just over 18. I have no idea what it is right now—my trainer used to measure me regularly, and I had to give him up to save money—but I’d guess it’s somewhere around 22. Are you confused yet? I know I am.

Possibly the most unreliable number in all of this is pure weight. The absolute least I ever weighed was 152. I weighed that little for exactly two weeks in December of 1997. That’s barely within Weight Watcher’s goal range for my height—in order to become a Lifetime Member, which indicates I’d reached goal and maintained it for a certain period of time, I had to get a doctor’s note increasing my goal to a more reasonable number for my body type. Several years ago, when I applied for a job at WW—I’d become a bit of an evangelist, and thought working for the organization would help me toe the line indefinitely—I discovered that this outside-the-guidelines figure disqualified me from employment there. Period. Even though I’d reached goal and stayed there, it wasn’t within the Official Weight Watchers Weight Range for my height so it wasn’t good enough. I cried when I got off the phone with them.

The thing that bothers me most about all this is how brainwashed we’ve all become to believe any of these numbers, taken individually, actually mean something. According to Weight Watchers, I’m not good enough unless I weigh a specific amount. According to NIH, I’m obese right now. According to most high-end designers, when I was at my happiest—when I felt the best, when I was able to maintain my weight and my workout, when my blood pressure was low and my health was pristine—my clothing size made me just barely acceptable. When, exactly, is any number good enough?

Since writing the “Debbie” installment of The Three Faces of Me, I’ve been thinking about this a lot—when I was most content, and why, and why I’m not so content right now. A certain amount of it comes from our culture, to be sure—these days it’s no fun to go shopping, knowing I’d be squeezing into a size 14. Most of the clothes I want to wear wouldn’t fit, or even come in my size. Instead I’d be looking for comfy waistbands and sleeves that cover my upper arms—shopping like a fat woman. But when I think back to all those years where I accepted myself as a size 24, I didn’t mind shopping at all—I knew what looked good on me, and had fun once I was inside the large-size stores. Walking in the door was the only traumatic part, and I think that’s part of my discomfort now: For the last seven years, every time I passed a Lane Bryant I smiled to myself, knowing without a doubt that I’ll never have to shop there again. If I continue on the path I’m waddling along these days, that may not turn out to be true, and it terrifies me.

Continue reading

American Chop Suey

Iron-willed does not even begin to describe my mom. When I was six, she gave birth to my youngest brother, G, and fell into a post-partum depression from which it took nearly a decade to emerge. For the first few years, most days she was still in bed when we came home from school. But somehow, once we were there and wreaking the havoc three boys and a girl create, she’d pull herself out of bed and start making dinner. She always, always, baked cupcakes to send to school on our birthdays. Many Friday afternoons were spent baking challah for Shabbat. And she was often a chaperone on class trips. I can’t quite reconcile my memories of tiptoeing into her darkened bedroom with knowing how involved she remained in our lives. I can only chalk it up to Herculean strength of will.

As if it wasn’t difficult enough to be in the throes of an untreated depression—my dad’s insurance didn’t cover mental health care—we were also quite poor by local Westchester standards. Daddy didn’t make bad money, I don’t think—he was a chemist, and ran the lab for a local company—but there were four kids to feed and clothe, and doctor bills, and the facts that Mommy grew up with money and we lived in a wealthy community lent a certain Keeping Up with the Joneses urgency to the situation. As a family, we felt poor, all the time. We were evicted from one apartment while my mother was heavily pregnant with G, and the rent on the new place was almost always at least a month behind—my dad would catch up out of his yearly Christmas bonus, but by February we’d be behind again. Once we were all teenagers or beyond, my mom told us that the only reason we hadn’t been evicted from there as well was because the landlord appreciated how well-behaved we four were in public. Honorable poverty, perhaps. If he only knew what battles raged behind our apartment door, of both the sibling variety and the more terrifying parental ones…

Six nights a week, Mommy put dinner on the table—on Thursdays, payday, Daddy would pick up pizza from Sal’s, but the rest of the time was home cooking. We’d eat at 5:30, when Daddy came home, so he could be on time to his second job selling televisions at Korvette’s. I cannot imagine how she did this—I have a hard enough time cooking for me and S four or five nights a week, and money for food isn’t an issue here. How did she nightly feed six people (with massive amounts of food, no less, since we’d almost all want seconds every night), on a tight budget with kosher meat, which cost nearly double at the time? Why wasn’t she pulling her hair out from the stress of satisfying her children’s picky appetites? Somehow, she fed us all, and well. Mostly it was a question of using inexpensive ingredients, fleshed out with a little meat. Saturday nights were for hot dogs or spaghetti—and sometimes combined, in a bizarrely delicious dish involving sautéed sliced hot dogs and onions and jarred sauce. Perhaps once a week it was frozen food, like fish sticks. Wonderful homemade macaroni and cheese, using a recipe from her Oster blender handbook. Hamburgers. Salami and eggs. Friday nights, Shabbat, were mostly chicken or a roast—if I remember correctly, that was the only night of the week when we regularly had a piece of meat as the main course. Even things like chicken cutlets were beyond our budget’s reach for weeknights.

One of our favorite weeknight dinners was American Chop Suey. It’s not even remotely Chinese, made as it is with elbow macaroni, ground beef, tomato sauce, and Worcestershire—the name is a mystery to me. My mom can’t remember anymore where she got the recipe, and for years I assumed it was just some clipping from a random women’s magazine. But when S and I were on our New England honeymoon, we saw it on the menus of several home-style restaurants. It turns out it’s a local dish, and since my mom’s originally from outside Boston that makes sense. I couldn’t bring myself to try it up there—the idea of eating a dish from my money-haunted childhood in a restaurant was too contrary for me—but when we got home I asked my mom for her recipe. I’ve made it several times since, substituting ground turkey for the beef, and boy does it bring back memories. It’s a great, fast supper, filling and cozy and satisfying. The Worcestershire adds a mellow richness to it, taking the acidic tang off the tomato sauce. And best of all, the recipe makes plenty of leftovers.

American Chop Suey

Olive oil
1 ½ lbs ground meat [growing up it was beef, but I use a combo of ground turkey breast and “regular” ground turkey]
½ lb (2 c.) uncooked elbow macaroni
½ c minced onion
½ c chopped pepper or celery [if I have them, I use both red peppers & celery; my mom usually made it with green peppers & celery]
2 8-oz cans tomato sauce
1 c water
1 t salt
¼ t pepper
1-1 ½ T Worcestershire sauce



(make sure your pan is large enough—I made a one-and-a-half recipe and you can see the results!)

In a large sauté pan, heat a glug or two of olive oil [if you’re using ground beef you probably don’t need the oil]. Brown the meat and remove. Wipe out the pan, and add a little more oil. When it’s heated, sauté the macaroni and the vegetables until the onion is soft. Return the browned meat to the pan and add remaining ingredients. Cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes.

Continue reading

Caramel Apple Pastis: Pretty, But Not Practical

I don’t know about you, but I suck at pie crust. In fact, I pretty much gave up on it after being dumped by a boyfriend who was soooo into pie, at the time I half-believed we broke up over my obvious crustal deficiencies. So when I saw this recipe in the November Gourmet, I tore it out. It’s made with phyllo! After the spanakopita experience a few weeks ago I was eager to try it again. I’ve never made a caramel before, so there was an exciting new twist, too. And most importantly, Thanksgiving was around the corner—so I could make it for my family and not have to deal with S’s dislike of cooked fruit…

On Wednesday morning I woke up really early, and when I finally gave up on falling back to sleep I started peeling apples. The recipe calls for Gala but the farmer’s market supply of that particular variety was terrible, so I substituted something else—winesap, maybe? (Wish I could remember now, cuz it might explain the problems I had with the finished product…) Once the peeling-coring-chunking-tossing-with-lemon-juice-and-cinnamon part was done, it was time to make the caramel. I’ve always been a little afraid of caramels—in all my reading about them it seems like there are a million little things that can go wrong. The directions here—cook butter with honey and sugar in a skillet, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon—were so simple it almost scared me. I figured they’d assumed a certain level of proficiency and left out the important “don’t do X or Y will happen” warnings. But as it turns out, it really was that easy, even if I wasn’t thrilled with the way it tasted, ultimately (more on that later). It foamed and deepened the way they said it would:



The only tricky part was adding the apples—I had a bit of trouble getting them all stirred in, and if I had cooked them the full ten minutes of the recipe I think it would’ve become applesaucey. Instead I drained them after about seven minutes. Here’s how they looked after being drained and tossed with toasted almonds:



Then it was back to the caramel. Reducing it took quite a bit longer than the recipe said it would—closer to fifteen minutes than the 5-10 stated—but it did look beautiful in the end:



Here’s where the recipe could’ve been written better—it wasn’t clear that the caramel wouldn’t be used in the assembly of the actual dish, so I left it in the pan on the stove. By the time I was done putting the pastis together, it had cooled enough to harden and I had to reheat it just to put it into a storage container.

Next came the fun part—playing with phyllo. It really is very easy, if you’ve got enough counter space to maneuver in (in addition to space to lay out the sheet you’re working on, you have to keep the remaining sheets flat, underneath plastic wrap and a wet kitchen towel). And the best part: I got to use my new stainless steel cake turntable! It was quite useful, in fact, since you have to lay each sheet in a different spot from the one before it, in order to have enough overhang around the whole diameter. Here’s what it looked like when all the phyllo was laid in:



And right before it went into the oven:



The cooking time was pretty accurate—it said 30-40 minutes at 400, then another 15 at 425. Mine took 30 at 400 & 13 at 425—it would’ve burned if I’d left it longer. Here it is right out of the oven:



I was a little bit afraid when the time came to take off the springform part, but it didn’t hurt a bit. My pastis was freakin’ gorgeous! I was so proud. A friend came over not long after I set it out to cool and she was just salivating. I beamed like a mama. It was really hard not to just cut into it immediately.



Throughout the day, I kept popping back into the kitchen to visit my masterpiece and revel in its beauty. But by mid-afternoon, I started to notice it was…sinking. One side of it definitely seemed to be collapsing in on itself. I called S in for a second opinion, but we weren’t really sure what it meant. By dinnertime Wednesday we both had to admit there was something funky going on—the sides were almost moist-feeling, and drooping over the edge of the cake pan’s bottom. I was dying to taste it. And then I realized that there were only going to be five of us at Thanksgiving the next day, two of whom are diabetic—I could cut the pastis and only bring half to my parents’.

Two minutes later S and I were drizzling caramel sauce over our slices of pastis (God love him, even though S doesn’t care for cooked fruit, when I make something he’ll always try it). It tasted delicious, simple and nicely sweet and elegant, though the caramel tasted more like honey with a little apple juice mixed in—it was entirely too sweet; the pastis didn’t need it. The toasted almonds were a wonderful crunchy counterpoint, and the top layer of phyllo was flaky and light. The bottom, though, was definitely on its way to being too soggy.

On Thanksgiving morning, it was clear the sogginess had become a real problem. The top of the pastis was starting to go limp. By dinnertime there was no crunch left at all, and the bottom layer was almost disintegrating in wetness. At this point I was grateful that the only victims were my parents and youngest brother—they loved me enough to be forgiving of a less-than-successful effort. In fact, my mother is the type who refuses to acknowledge that a child of hers hasn’t succeeded. She insisted it was wonderful, perfect, even though it wasn’t.

I won’t swear I’ll never make this again since the first day it really did taste great, but it would have to be when I knew I’d be serving it within a few hours. And since that could only happen when I have a bunch of people coming over for dinner or something, when I’d be busily making other things to serve that night, it hardly seems likely. File this one under “Pretty, But Not Practical.”

Hey, did you vote yet? The Pumpkin Bread Pudding is waaaay in the lead, but polls are open until Friday...

Continue reading

A Blatant Ad* for Chowhound's ChowNews

Trying to figure out what to get for your food-obsessed Uncle Leo? Words to Eat By has the answer!

Many of you, I'm sure, are familiar with Chowhound. Whenever I'm stumped for a good place for dinner in the theater district, or the best burger in town, or honest takes on the hottest new restaurants, this is where I go. It's run by really smart, really hungry people, and you can (almost) always find what you're looking for. Heck, when I needed a kosher butcher recommendation for the first dinner w/my parents and my then-future in-laws, Chowhound saved my ass. But as much as I love the message boards, I have a heck of a time keeping up with them--the pages load slowly, and you have to click on each posting individually just to read a thread. Luckily, the geniuses who run Chowhound offer a way to make sure I'm not missing anything: ChowNews. It's a weekly e-newsletter that sums up all the best tidbits of the last week, and it's really, really helpful. Not only does it summarize restaurant discussions, it also includes food and cooking-specific tips. Oh, and did I mention that it's incredibly cheap? Only $15 for six months of weekly emails!

I've been a subscriber for years now, and I absofreakinlutely love it. Today's edition includes summaries on Jacques Torres's new chocolate-store-cum-cafe-cum-factory (thumbs way up on the hot chocolate & chocolate chip cookies, thumbs down on the coffee and service in general); early reports on Patricia Yeo's new gig at Sapa (definitely mixed, though it's still too soon to be sure); and a discussion of Holiday Spice Pepsi (ho-hum, they say. But who knew such a thing even existed???). It also included a plea for help in spreading the word about ChowNews--apparently the subscriber level is disappointing, and as they put it, "We need to increase our readership to make this worth doing."

OK, have I sold you yet? Surely you know somebody who'd appreciate such a wonderful, thoughtful, unusual gift... What are you waiting for? Get off my damn site already and order it! Oops, that was a bit harder a sell than I meant to give. Apologies. Please, do Uncle Leo (and Chowhound) a favor and purchase a subscription or two. Thank you, and have a nice day.

I'll be posting notes on the Caramel Apple Pastis I made for Thanksgiving a little later on...


* I have absolutely no financial interest here; I just think ChowNews is fantastic and I'd hate to see it go away because not enough people know about it.

Continue reading

My First Macy's Thanksgiving Parade

S and I were lucky enough to be invited to view the parade from a friend's third-floor apartment on Central Park West. I've lived in NY all my life--grew up in the suburbs, and in the city for 15+ years--and I've never actually seen this shit live before. It's pretty mind-blowing when the giant balloons go right by the window...





S and I have been Spongebob fans since the early thirties. Have you seen the film yet? Tons o'fun.



I don't even know who this is, really, but the sky was so beautiful behind him (it?)...



Every fat girl's nightmare...a bazillion cheerleaders.



Kermit is freakin' HUGE, man.







These last two I took for my nieces:





Now we're off to my parents' in Westchester for a small Thanksgiving--just five of us, but I'm quite certain they've cooked for at least eleven. Happy turkey, all.

Continue reading

Vote in the REAL Election: Nutmeg, Cardamom, or Allspice?

Mmm, warm and toasty...The next edition of Sugar High Fridays has been announced--it's being hosted by the lovely Zarah Maria at Food & Thoughts. The theme: Spices. Participating cooks are to use Nutmeg, Cardamom, or Allspice (or any combination thereof) to make something sweet and delicious, then blog about it on Friday, December 10. I thumbed through all my recipe clippings, and then all my cookbooks, and I can't decide what to make. I've narrowed it down to four finalists, but I'm eager to try any and all of them.

This is where you come in. That's right, I'm leaving the decision to you! Vote for the recipe you'd like to see me experiment with, and whichever gets the most votes by December 3rd, well that's what I'll make. Here are the finalists:

NUTMEG
Cinnamon Puffs: This is really a muffin, apparently--I'm not really sure why it's called a "puff." It's from The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion, and the description includes words like "simple," "classic," and "understated elegance." There's nutmeg in the batter, and a cinnamon sugar topping.

CARDAMOM
Dried Cherry and Raisin Rice Pudding: I clipped this from a magazine years ago and have yet to make it. Picture a creamy bowl of rice pudding studded with golden raisins and dried cherries, perfumed with ground cardamom.

ALLSPICE
Hermit Bars: one of my all-time favorite bar cookies, chock-full of chewy, spicy goodness. I grew up eating the Freihoffer's version, but I've never actually made them myself.

WILD CARD (combination of one or more spices)
Pumpkin Bread Pudding: This makes my mouth water just thinking about it--pumpkin and challah bread, maple syrup and pecans, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and nutmeg. Mmmmm.

So there you have it: your candidates. Vote early, and vote often! In the comments section, if you please...

And here's a tease for Friday (I think I'll be taking tomorrow off):



I baked this this morning, to bring to my parents' for Thanksgiving. I'll write a full post once we eat it!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Continue reading

Grandpa’s Kitchen-Sink Tuna Salad

I had a difficult relationship with my grandfather. He died when I was a senior in high school, so some of it may have been simple adolescent drama. But when I look at my mom’s relationship with him, and my grandmother’s, something vaguely misogynistic emerges.

Grandpa was a large man, imposing, with beefy arms, a mostly-bald head, and big dark-rimmed glasses. In the forties and fifties he was a butcher in Roxbury, a black neighborhood in Boston, and after that he had a route selling coffee systems to offices. He and Nana raised my mother in Newton, an upper-middle class Jewish suburb. They were quite well off—my mom got a convertible for her sixteenth birthday, and her own charge cards at Filene’s and Jordan Marsh. In the years that followed they were constantly bailing my parents out of financial emergencies, and always with some sort of strings attached—often it was just the moral superiority they felt from having the money to do it. A lot of my parents’ arguments in the seventies and eighties involved my mother holding up Grandpa as a paragon of responsibility. He made sure his family was taken care of! He doted on her and my grandmother—they got anything they wanted! He did all the cooking, and paid for a cleaning lady! She’d conveniently forget the part where he knocked out her teeth one day when she was a kid, after she tried to defend her mother against him. And the fact that my parents had left Boston and moved to New York just to get away from them.

It wasn’t until well after my grandparents’ deaths that my mother learned the truth about Grandpa’s work: He was a numbers-runner for the Boston mob. He (and my grandmother) stood behind the counter of their butcher shop taking money from people who could scarcely afford it, and years later his “route” involved collecting money from other racketeers. Romantic-sounding, but that fact pulled the rug out from under my mom. Though it did explain the giant wad of bills we kids would clamor to count for him when we visited.

I seemed to hold some special interest for Grandpa. My three brothers, being boys, were given crisp five-dollar bills for good behavior. I don’t recall getting much in the way of cash—my treat was being taken to fine restaurants, so he could teach me how to Be a Lady (a none-too-subtle slap at my parents, since the implication was that they couldn’t teach me themselves). I would’ve preferred the five-dollar bills, but it was from him that I learned to put my napkin in my lap, to keep my elbows off the table, to smile and say thank you. At the same time, though, he could be abominably cruel to me, complaining about my weight or refusing to acknowledge that I was as smart or as capable as my brothers.

The summer I was twelve, my parents let me and my next-younger brother A travel unaccompanied on the bus up to Boston. We were to stay with my grandparents for two weeks. I felt like such a grown-up! It was to be quite an adventure. A and I ended up pretty miserable—my grandparents’ old-fashioned ideas of what was “normal” for pre-pubescent kids (no noise, early bedtimes, strict discipline) were difficult to adapt to, and when I got strep throat about half-way through the visit, my parents’ hurried drive up to get us felt like nothing so much as a rescue. But if there’s one good thing I remember from that trip, and many others, it was Grandpa’s bizarrely delicious tuna salad.

It was never the same twice. Besides tuna, I’m not sure it had any set ingredients. But it was ambrosial and mysterious and unpredictable, and I loved it. Grandpa would go into the cupboards and pull canned vegetables and condiments and spices and toss them all in. Sometimes corn niblets, sometimes baby white potatoes, sometimes Veg-all. Caraway seeds. Carrots. Green onion. Pickle relish. Lettuce. Maybe some mustard. Very little mayo, if he used any at all—I’m pretty sure it was mostly held together by the juices of the various ingredients. To be clear: this is eat-with-a-fork tuna salad, a Jewish Yankee’s Nicoise. This does not get put on white bread. It gets eaten out of a bowl, with napkin placed firmly in lap. The other day I had a yen for tuna with caraway seeds, so I rummaged through my fridge (how food tastes have changed: there is not a single canned vegetable in my home) and threw a whole bunch of things together. Here’s what went in:

Grandpa’s Kitchen-Sink Tuna Salad

1 can tuna
Lolla Rossa, red Boston, and romaine lettuce, torn
1 carrot, halved lengthwise and sliced
1 scallion, chopped
Dad’s Piccalilli relish [bought at a farmer’s market in Maine this summer]
Leftover couscous
4 Alfonso olives, pitted and roughly chopped
6 Pappadew peppers, quartered
½ cucumber, quartered lengthwise, seeded, and sliced
A sprinkling of caraway seeds
Dijon mustard/lemon juice/extra virgin olive oil, whisked together with
Fleur de sel
Freshly ground black pepper

Throw everything in a big bowl, toss, and eat!

Continue reading

My Heart's Desire, and Killer Chocolate Layer Cake

For months I've been coveting a turntable cake plate, for ease of decorating. Not that I'm the world's best cake-decorator, but just the idea of putting the cake on the plate part and being able to turn it with the flick of a wrist, instead of maneuvering around and trying to reach the back of the cake without smooshing the already-smoothed front... Well, I feel like I'd be a better cake-decorator if I had the proper tools. I've got the offset spatulas and they sure do help, but a turntable is just so, so...professional.

It surprised me how challenging it was to find the right one. I looked in the Chef's Catalog, Williams-Sonoma, Bed Bath & Beyond, even professional baking-supply stores in NYC. No dice. I had two real criteria:

• Practicality: this seems obvious, but it had to have an actual turntable. I saw loads of attractive pedestal cake plates that, stupidly, didn't turn for decorating.
• Style: on the other hand, there were lots of turntables made of ugly white plastic or some other back-of-the-house material. I didn't want to spend all that time icing the perfect cake, only to risk messing it up by moving it to a suitably presentable platter, you know?

And then, last week it happened. I was cruising around the Crate & Barrel outlet site, taking a peek for some early holiday shopping, when I saw this. It's gorgeous, no? And half-price! The only thing it doesn't have is a cover, but the lid from my Rubbermaid cake container fits exactly. I ordered it, and it just came! Isn't it gorgeous?

I do have a problem, though--I've gained so much weight recently that after yesterday's IMBB I swore off baking for a while. So here I am with this work of art just begging to lose its cake-bearing virginity, and I've tied my own hands. Well, my birthday's coming in late December, so if I don't feel too silly baking my own cake maybe that'll give me an excuse. Here's my favorite birthday cake recipe, which I found on Better Baking's web site a long time ago and (of course) modified slightly. It's moist and chocolatey and exactly what I picture when I think "birthday cake":

Killer Chocolate Layer Cake

Cake:
1 cup sugar
1 cup Splenda (or a second cup of sugar)
1 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup vegetable oil
6 large egg whites
2 t. pure vanilla
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 t. salt
1-1/2 t. baking soda
1-1/2 t. baking powder
1/8 t. cinnamon
1 cup dutch cocoa, measured then sifted
1-1/2 cups warm, flat cola (or substitute warm mild coffee)

Icing:
1/2 cup chocolate chips, melted and cooled
2 T. shortening
3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 t. pure vanilla
3/4 cups dutch cocoa, measured then sifted
1/2 t. cinnamon
1-3/4 cups confectioner's sugar, measured then sifted
1/2 cup water, cola, or 1% milk

Preheat oven to 350 and set rack in center. Lightly grease 2 9-inch layer pans and line them with parchment paper circles.

In a large bowl, blend sugar, butter, and oil by hand. Add eggs, and vanilla. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and cocoa. Fold dry ingredients into wet and mix, drizzling in cola as mixture blends. This is a thin batter.

Divide batter between cake pans and place on middle rack. Bake for 35-40 minutes, rearranging after 20 minutes. When done, cakes will spring back when lightly touched. Cool in pans on rack for a few minutes, then turn out onto rack to cool completely before icing.

Make the icing: Using a hand-held or stand mixer, cream melted chocolate, shortening, butter, and vanilla with cocoa, cinnamon, and 1 cup of confectioner's sugar. Add remaining confectioner's sugar and whip on high speed, adding a bit of your chosen liquid to get a light, fluffy consistency. If not using right away, re-whip before using. Add additional warm liquid a tablespoon at a time to get correct consistency.

Decorating: Put a dollop of icing on the cake plate to keep the cake from sliding. Place first layer on top. Ice the top with about 1/2 inch of frosting. Place second layer. Brush off crumbs from top and sides, and apply a thin layer of icing all around to "set" the cake. Let that dry for 5-10 minutes, then apply a thicker, more lavish layer all around--sides first, then the top.

An idea I've been dying to try with this recipe is to slice each layer in half horizontally with dental floss, and put seedless raspberry jam between those "extra" layers. Would make a more elegant cake, I think. Not that there's anything wrong with the casual chocolatey richness of the basic recipe...

Continue reading

My First IMBB: In Which I Try to Replicate the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies in the Entire World

Oh. My. God. I am so excited for this. When Jennifer at Domestic Goddess announced that cookies would be the theme for IMBB #10—the first one since the birth of Words to Eat By—I did a little happy dance around my office. If someone—some mean, evil, nasty person—were to tell me I could only cook one kind of food for the rest of my life, I’d choose cookies. Heck, if I could only eat one kind of food I’d still pick cookies. The variety is endless, the process is incredibly satisfying, and the cookie itself is perhaps the perfect food: portable, chewy/crispy/crumbly, and packed with sweet flavors. In my personal cookie universe one type rules supreme, and that one is Chocolate Chip, no nuts. And there is no chocolate chip cookie in the entire world better than the one made by New York City’s City Bakery. Substantial but not overwhelming, gorgeously golden brown, crispy around the edges and just barely baked in the center, with large chunks of bittersweet chocolate and an almost toffee-like cookie base…sigh. At certain points in my life, I’ve believed that these cookies are better than sex. Seriously, after one particularly pathetic breakup, there were days when I ate two of these beauties and nothing else. Talk about self-medicating…

So, anyway. For IMBB, I didn’t immediately think “chocolate chip”—it seemed too easy, too basic. I wanted a challenge, a chance to show off a little. But a few days after the theme was announced, I read the Amateur Gourmet’s Cookies for the Wounded Democrat’s Soul. There was an intriguing recipe for choc-chippers—made intriguing by just one factor: the recipe called for cold butter. Normally you have to plan ahead for such things, pull the butter from the fridge, and let it soften on the counter while you daydream about how delicious they’re going to taste once you finally get to bake them. (I’ve never had success softening in the microwave—some of it always melts.) Cold butter meant spontaneity! With this recipe, I could decide to bake some cookies and thirty minutes later actually be eating one. I printed out the recipe for later use, not thinking in terms of IMBB.

A day or two later, I felt the urge to try it. My only tweaks to the recipe were to use dark brown sugar instead of light—I prefer the deeper flavor—add some dried cherries, and change some of the directions. The results were very good indeed—and the dough surprised me with a caramelly, toffee-y flavor reminiscent of my beloved City Bakery’s. They were a little too crisp, though. CB’s are the perfect combination of chewy center and crunchy edge, and these were crispy practically the whole way through. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; it’s just not my idea of perfect. That’s when I decided to tinker with this recipe for IMBB, in a quest for City Bakery quintessence. A few days later I baked Round Two, reducing the white sugar and upping the brown sugar an equivalent amount. Oh, my. These were very, very close. The only thing I didn’t like about them was a certain greasiness. I did a little research, thumbing through my cookie cookbooks until I found the answer in Nick Malgieri’s Cookies Unlimited: If you overbeat the butter initially, it introduces too much air to the dough. The cookies puff up in the oven and deflate, resulting in greasiness. And the very first step in this recipe is to cream that cold butter for two minutes. I had walked away while the Kitchenaid was going, and probably let it go closer to five. Armed with this knowledge, I tried again, making absolutely sure the paddle didn’t turn one time more than was necessary. Since the recipe was already so close to my ultimate, I stopped at CB first and bought a cookie for a side-by-side taste-test.




For the test, I cut up the CB cookie and two of my own—one that had been baked for 12 minutes, and one for 13. It wasn’t a blind taste-test, since we didn’t cover our eyes and you could tell just by looking which one was CB’s… It was a true golden yellowy color, whereas mine were much browner. (The photos were taken with different lighting situations so the variation isn't quite that drastic, but it is noticeable.) Perhaps they use light brown sugar? An extra egg yolk? You could tell by tasting, too. The CB was thicker, chewier, more tender and yet more substantial all around, with a richness that mine didn’t even come close to matching. The butter and the sugar were distinct flavors, but melded together perfectly. What the hell do they put in those cookies? Mine spread out a lot more than theirs. Do they refrigerate the dough? How do they do that? It’s killing me. Seriously, anyone who has ANY idea how to make cookies come out like City Bakery’s, pleeeeeease tell me. I will send you money. Seriously.

The funny part is, my cookies tasted fabulous—they’re probably the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made. Definitely a success as far as the recipe itself goes. S preferred the 13-minute bake, while I preferred the 12. (And the slight greasiness is still there, but less so.) The biggest difference is that with CB’s, you eat the one giant cookie and think That Was So Perfect I Can Eat No More, whereas with mine you think That Was So Good I’ll Just Have Another. So even though my Cook’s Illustrated-esque quest to replicate cookie nirvana didn’t quite work out, I’m still proud of my sweet little experiment.

Here’s the final recipe, which isn’t terribly different from how it started out:

A Pretty Damn Good Chocolate Chip Cookie, Even if It Isn’t City Bakery-Caliber
[shamelessly ripped off from the Amateur Gourmet and Sherry Yard’s The Secrets of Baking]

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ t. baking soda
½ t. salt
¼ pound (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces
½ cup sugar
¾ cup tightly packed dark brown sugar
1 ½ t. pure vanilla extract
1 large egg, at room temperature
7 oz bittersweet chocolate, cut into 1/2 inch chunks (I chopped up two 3 ½-oz bars of Valhrona Noir 56% for the final round, but ½ a bag of supermarket chocolate chunks tasted great in each of the first two rounds)
Optional addition: ½ cup dried cherries, halved if they’re large

1) Preheat oven to 350. Adjust racks to lower and upper thirds of the oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpats.

2) Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.

3) Using a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or a hand mixer, cream the butter on medium speed until pale yellow, about 2 minutes [don’t do what I did and walk away!]. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the paddle. Add the sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. Cream on medium speed until it is smooth and lump free, about 2 minutes. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl and the paddle.

4) Add the egg and beat on low speed for 15 seconds, or until fully incorporated. Do not overbeat. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl and the paddle.

5) On low speed, add the flour mixture. Beat until just incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the chocolate chunks (and cherries, if using), and mix until they are just incorporated. If using a hand mixer, use a wooden spoon to stir them in.



6) Spoon the dough using a cookie scooper 2 inches apart onto the prepared baking sheets. (makes about 22 3-inch round cookies)



7) Bake for 11-13 minutes or until golden brown around the edges, swapping placement and turning the sheets front to back halfway through the baking.

8) Remove from the oven and carefully slide the parchment or Silpats directly onto a work surface. Wait at least 5 minutes before serving or 20 minutes before storing in an airtight container for up to 3 days at room temperature.



[Good luck keeping them around that long!]

Continue reading

Who Wants Some Hot Oatmeal Pancakes?

It's bleary out today, cold and grey and forbidding. Nothing better to do on such a morning than hunker down over a warm stack of hearty, healthy, cozy pancakes. What's that you say? You're pulling out the Aunt Jemima box? Noooo! Step away from the cardboard. There's nothing wrong with good old Auntie J, lord knows until very recently S and I enjoyed her flapjacks very much. But why make pancakes premixed by a machine when you can have a ready-to-go mix assembled by your own loving hands? Yes, folks, that's right. I'm talking 'bout making your own pancake mix. It's the easiest thing since sliced bread! The recipe I'm loving lately comes from The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion, and it's a good one.

The basic idea is you spend a little time just once to make the mix, then keep it around--it'll hold for up to two weeks at room temp, or indefinitely in the fridge or freezer--and when you're hankering for some pancakey goodness you just put 1 cup of mix, 1 cup of buttermilk, and 1 egg in a bowl. I don't keep buttermilk around, so instead I added dried buttermilk powder to the dry mix and use water for the liquid. I also use 2 egg whites instead of 1 whole egg, just to save the bit of fat and cholesterol. Honestly, though, S and I like these so much I usually do a one-and-a-half recipe each time: 1.5 cups of mix, 1.5 cups of water, and three egg whites.


Starting with whole oats for extra healthy oomph, they cook up light and hearty--but be careful to cook them slowly since I've found that the oats make them take longer to cook through than a regular pancake would. The edges will get too brown before the insides are done unless you use a low flame. My other handy-dandy tip: use a set of the pancake rings I raved about here. They make the pancakes cook more evenly and look so purdy! Serve with real maple syrup, none of that Mrs. Butterworth crap.

This recipe makes 10 cups of dry mix. Here you go:

Oatmeal Pancake Mix

3 1/2 cups old-fashioned or rolled oats
5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3 T sugar
3 T baking powder
1 T salt
1 T baking soda
1 cup vegetable oil

Grind the oats in a food processor until they are chopped fine but not a powder. Put the flour, oats, and all other dry ingredients into a mixer with a paddle. Mix on slow speed, drizzling the vegetable oil into the bowl slowly while the mixer is running. When all the oil has been added, stop the mixer and squeeze a clump of mix in your hand. If it stays together, it's just right. If it is still crumbly, add another tablespoon of oil at a time until the consistency is correct. Store in an airtight container for up to two weeks at room temperature, or indefinitely in refrigerator or freezer.

To make the batter, whisk together 1 cup of mix, 1 cup of buttermilk [or water if you've added powdered buttermilk to the dry mix], and 1 egg [or 2 egg whites]. Don't worry if it seems thin at first: the oats will soak up the liquid and the mix will thicken a bit as it stands. Let stand for at least 5-10 minutes before cooking.

[It's still fairly thin when it's ready to go. Here's what it looks like:]



Heat a griddle over medium-low heat and lightly grease it [I use two nonstick frying pans with cooking spray]. Drop the batter onto it by heaping tablespoons [I use a small ladle] to make a 3-inch diameter pancake. When bubbles come to the surface and don't break and the top looks almost dry, turn the pancake over to finish cooking. Keep the cooked pancakes in your oven set on "warm" while you make the rest.

Continue reading

The Three Faces of Me: Debbie

So you’ve met Fat Debbie:



and Hot Debbie:



It’s time to introduce plain ol’, garden variety, what-you-see-is-what-you-get Debbie:



That photo was taken just a few days ago. I’m a little heavier than I’d like to be these days—I’ve gained twenty pounds since my wedding six months ago.



There are several reasons for that, including an all-too-brief pregnancy with two weeks of forced bedrest culminating in a miscarriage, but honestly the biggest reason is simple complacency. I feel safe with S, and secure that he loves me even with a few (twenty) extra pounds, so it’s far too easy to say “I’ll go to the gym tomorrow,” or “yes, I would like another cookie, Baby.” I seem to have forgotten why I lost all the weight—not so I could find a man, but so I can feel good about myself and revel in all the things the human body is capable of doing, things I couldn’t do when I was fat. I went skiing for the first time in my life when I was thirty. Rollerblading. Running. Tennis. Hell, I’d get a thrill from finishing a step class. But it’s been nearly two years since I’ve done any of those things.

So many of my “tricks” from when I was losing weight have fallen by the wayside, too, especially now that I’m no longer living alone. As recently as a year ago, I’d have plain steamed vegetables and a frozen veggie burger for dinner once or twice a week. Now I cook real meals, or we order in if we don’t go out, every night of the week. It’s still healthy food, but there’s much more of it. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t eating an awful lot of sugar—just look at how much I talk about baking in these very pages. I’ve made four batches of cookies in the last two weeks, plus a banana-chocolate-pecan bread. My sisters-in-law both tell me not to worry about the weight gain, that this is what happens when you’re happy and you get married, but frankly I’m terrified. Very, very happy with the state of things in my life in general, but terrified that six months from now I’ll have packed on another twenty.

I always thought my problems with food came from being lonely and unhappy—who knew it was possible to overeat with joy as well?



The strangest part in all this for me is how much more difficult it is to write about this period in my life. I’ve been struggling with this post for days, and I don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Perhaps it’s because it’s happening right now, and without distance I’m just not capable of insight. Or perhaps I’m afraid of coming off like a whiny woman obsessed with her weight when you only came here to read about food. Clearly I need to think about this a little more.

In the meantime, though, I need to sign off and hit the gym while I’m feeling the urge.

Continue reading

Stocking Up at Chelsea Market

Yesterday I had to run an errand to the Meatpacking District, and to me that means only one thing: a detour to the Chelsea Market. Almost ten years ago, some foodie genius converted the old Nabisco factory (birthplace of the Oreo!) into a nearly one-stop gourmet food/supplies source. Spoking off a central corridor, there's a fabulous produce stand; a fishmongers, a dairy, and a butcher; Amy's Bread (oh I adore their parmesan twists); Fat Witch brownies, which some people don't like but I happen to love for their nearly fudge-like consistency and bite-size minis; a great kitchen-supplies store; a huge wine shop; several prepared-foods shops... the list goes on. My only complaint is that there's just one of each type of vendor--I desperately wish NYC had a giant central market like so many other great cities of the world, where you could wander from stall to stall, seeing who's got the best-looking tangerines that day. One of the great highlights of my trip to Australia a few years ago was the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne, and I dream about having something similar here.

But yesterday I wasn't shopping for fresh foods, since I wasn't going straight home afterwards. I browsed a little, enjoying all the aromas and colors, but always with one destination in mind: Buon Italia.

Buon Italia makes me happy. Out front is a little stand selling prepared foods and espresso, with a couple of cafe tables. Everything looks wonderful and authentic, though in all this time I've never actually sampled any of it. I'm much more interested in what's inside. There, you'll find roughly arranged rows of imported Italian groceries, still in their cartons, with refrigerator cases full of cheeses and meats, and freezers with imported raviolis and other filled pastas. Right at the entrance are dozens of differents oils--olive, walnut, grapeseed--from different makers, in varying sizes. After that come vinegars, and here's where I made the day's most exciting discovery.

You may recall my paean to Gianni Calogiuri's fig balsamic vinegar a few weeks ago. Well, not only did Buon Italia carry the fig, now labeled Vincotto Sweet Vinegar Condiment (marketing?), they also had a variety of other flavors: hot pepper, lemon, carob, raspberry, and plain. I was tempted to buy all of them, but the prices ranged from $9-$14 per bottle (some were larger than others). I knew we loved the fig so I grabbed a big ol' bottle, but I couldn't see myself dropping $100 on the others, which I'd never tasted. I added just a bottle of the plain and moved on.

The rest of that row held tunas and stuffed peperoncinos and the like. My heart skipped a beat when I saw a familiar label--I thought I'd found my beloved Peperonicino Piccante Paste, but alas it was something else from the same maker. (Can't remember what, exactly, but it wasn't anything that piqued my interest.)

Next up was a row of sweets-related items: packaged Italian desserts, assorted honeys, chocolate for baking--here's where I picked up the Callebaut bittersweet hunk in the picture, and I know, I know, it's not Italian but the price was still good, and finally, jams and other jarred confections. Agrimontana makes some mighty fine jam, I must say. In the past I've had their strawberry and their cherry, and I've used their sweetened vanilla chestnut cream in a recipe or two. This time, the sour cherry caught my fancy. Into the basket it went.

At the end of the row was a basket on the floor, an improvised endcap of sorts, and in it was a thrilling surprise: trial-sized bottles of the Calogiuri vincotto! Unfortunately many of them were a little sad-looking with broken seals on the bottle caps, so the choices were limited, but I found a carob and a plain, and put back the larger bottle of plain. When I got home last night I tasted them, and I must say I'm glad I was able to test-drive. The carob is wonderful, rich and thick and sweet, not particularly chocolate-like, more just a deep, dark flavor with a vinegary tang. I could see that being great on a piece of parmigiano reggiano, or even added to a chocolate cake batter as a mystery ingredient. The plain vincotto, though, puzzled me. It just tasted like old grapes, flat and not particularly interesting. Next time I go I'll pick up a bigger bottle of carob, and leave the plain behind.

Jutting off the end of the sweets aisle, filling the long part of the L-shaped room, were olives and nuts and grains. The olives were prepacked into half-pound deli containers, so I skipped them. I prefer to scoop my own, you know? The nuts and grains, though, were fabulous--dozens of different nuts, vacuum-packed for freshness, and dried beans, and a wonderful assortment of flours (including chestnut, several kinds of semolina, rice flour, and a whole bunch more). Here I added a bag of French lentils--let's see what they do to that Lentil & Brown Rice Soup--and a packet of sliced blanched almonds, for a Thanksgiving dessert I want to try. After that came the pastas, a generous assortment, though not overwhelming, of different shapes and sizes. My basket was already heavy and lord knows we didn't need any pasta, so I browsed but didn't buy.

At the register was a display that caught my eye, the last addition to my basket: individually wrapped marrons glaces from Agrimontana. I haven't had a lot of candied chestnuts in my life, but I did spend one memorable Christmas in Venice, eating them by the dozen. I couldn't resist. Here's what it looked like when I unwrapped it:



Kind of looks like a Dunkin Donuts Munchkin, doesn't it? Well, it tasted just about the polar opposite. I ate it seconds after taking that photo. It was wonderful, sweet but not cloying, almost creamy inside, gently nutty. Sigh. Thank heavens I only bought one.

Continue reading

Chewy Cocoa Fudge Cookies

OK, so I didn't end up cooking last night. But those flowers did earn something wonderful for S: his favorite cookies. Crrrazy good and shockingly easy to throw together, these are from an old Cooking Light recipe so they're actually kinda sorta pretty healthy, and as usual I've made a modification or two. They bake up shiny and almost black (though I suspect the color is determined by what kind of cocoa you use--these days I'm a fan of double-dutch dark cocoa from the King Arthur Flour people--just the smell when I open the canister makes me swoon). Quite chewy with crispy edges and a deep, rich, cocoa flavor, these cookies are pretty irresistible. I don't even like milk, but such decadent-tasting treats were just made to go with something white and cold. Vanilla ice cream, anyone?

To be honest, I can't tell you how well they hold, since S and I always seem to finish them within a day of my baking them! Depending on my mood, sometimes I'll add chopped dried cherries and/or pecans or chocolate chips. Yesterday I was feeling chocolatey (something to do with the aphrodisiacal qualities, perhaps?).

The recipe also doubles quite well--a dangerous proposition for us, since we'll gobble up a double recipe almost as fast as a single batch!

Here's the recipe:

Chewy Cocoa Fudge Cookies

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 t. baking soda
1/8 t. salt
5 T. butter
7 T. unsweetened cocoa
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup plain nonfat yogurt
1-1/2 t. vanilla
cooking spray
1/2 to 3/4 cup of any of the following (mix and match!): chopped dried cherries, chocolate chips, chopped toasted pecans or walnuts

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine flour, soda, and salt; set aside. Melt butter (I do it in the microwave, but you can use a saucepan over low heat). Remove from heat and stir in cocoa powder and sugars (mixture will resemble coarse sand). Add yogurt and vanilla, stirring to combine. Add flour mixture, stirring until moist. If you're using any of the add-ins, mix them in now. Drop by level tablespoons 2 inches apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray (I use silpats).



Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until almost set. Cool on pans 2-3 minutes or until firm. Remove from pans; cool on wire racks.



Yield: 28-32 cookies, in my experience.

Continue reading

Nothing to Do with Food, Really

The doorbell just rang. It was these:



Are they not insanely beautiful? They're from S. Today is our six-month wedding anniversary, but that's just a coincidence. S produces documentaries, and lately he's been working insane hours. The flowers are because I've been doing all the cooking and cleaning (well, whatever cleaning is getting done--it's not exactly my forte) and assisting on shoots and cheerleading when things get messed up. The reason for all the insanity: a handful of docs about The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Remember that film? Based on the novel by Ernest Gaines, it's a TV movie from the early 70s, starring Cicely Tyson as a 110-year-old woman who lived from slavery all the way to the civil rights era. It's a wonderful film, and a seminal one. Many say its success paved the way for Roots. The company that owns the rights is putting out a special edition DVD in January, and they hired S to produce all the extras. Problem is, they gave him about three weeks less time than he really needed to get it all done. But S is a bit of a magician that way--no, that makes it sound too easy. He's a freakin' dynamo is what he is. We're talking 20-hour days here, for weeks. I'm in awe of his stamina, his creative ability even when nearly brain-dead, and his dedication.

Last week I helped on a shoot. He was scheduled to interview Cicely Tyson, a professor of African-American studies, and the hugely influential and revered blues, folk, and gospel singer Odetta. I took my responsibilities seriously, and baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies the day before. (Hello? Craft Services? I was so excited to post here about Cicely Tyson's response to my cookies...) At the last minute--literally, after 7 the night before the shoot--CT canceled. Strep throat. The star of the film canceled. I would've been flipping out a bit, but S remained calm, juggled some schedules, and just kept moving. In the end he interviewed the professor and Odetta. She had a small role in the film, and S charmed her completely. He'd done his research, he asked intelligent, incisive questions, and he treated her with the utmost respect. At the end of the shoot, Odetta complimented him on his interview style. Oh, and the best part? The producers of the film had sent flowers for CT, and without missing a beat S tore off the card and presented them to Odetta. She loved them, as did I--in fact, I'm pretty sure they're the inspiration for today's delivery since it's the same florist.

Watching my husband work made me so proud.

Now, I don't mean to imply that I've been a perfectly happy housewifey-type woman these past few weeks. There have been times when my fuse was almost as short as S's. I do not enjoy doing all that cleaning--part of my joy in cooking is knowing that someone else will do the dishes. But when I see how hard S is working, and know that my own freelance workload is flexible enough for me to handle a little more at home, I shut up and wash the damn dishes. And now, I have these lovely flowers to show for it. Since they arrived I can't seem to get any of my own work done--I keep stopping to look at them again.

Tonight I may make something special, but I can't think of what and it's already after 2. I've got a mess of small eggplants, some broccoli, and way too much leftover spanakopita. Any suggestions?

In case you're interested, these are some of the DVDs my husband has worked on. (Note: he doesn't get any royalties or anything from this, so please don't feel I'm trying to sell you anything. It's just that, until I met S, it never occurred to me that there was so much work involved in these things and his work is just so gooooood...)

Martin Scorsese Collection (After Hours/Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore/Goodfellas/Mean Streets/Who's That Knocking At My Door?)

The Last Waltz

Men in Black II (Widescreen Special Edition)

Hedwig and the Angry Inch - New Line Platinum Series

The Howling (Special Edition)

Continue reading

Cereality, or: Why I'm No Visionary

I once worked with a visionary. His name was David Roth, and he was Associate Publisher of Fodor’s Travel Publications. I was VP of advertising and promotion for a division of Random House, and Fodor’s fell under my purview. I loved working with David—he had huge energy and passion; he was always willing to try new things, always interested in finding an unexpected way to sell more travel guides. Plus we were both into food—before coming to books, he’d published a magazine dedicated to culinary travel. David’s boss, however, did not enjoy working with him. Those same qualities that I found exciting and challenging, she found squeaky-wheelish and irritating. She just wanted things done, and done a certain way. David did not last long at Fodor’s.

After he left, David told me he planned to go into the food business, for real. He confided in me his dream: a place where people could go to eat cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. A place where the toppings were legion, the cereals were brand-name, and the atmosphere was grown-up yet playful. A place called Cereality. To be honest, I thought this idea was awful. I just couldn’t see anyone feeling the need to buy a bowl of cold cereal (the plan included the hot stuff, too, but the cold was definitely the bigger part of the equation). I mean, how hard is it to dump some in a bowl and pour on a little milk, maybe slice a banana? Yes, occasionally one might hanker for a bowl and buy it ready-made, but a business like this would require frequent, repeat customers. I wished David a hearty good luck and silently snickered.

Fast forward a few years. David has moved to Colorado and actually gotten things going. He’s madly making plans, making deals, doing market research and consulting with experts. He’s making Cereality happen. Just over a year ago the first kiosk-type branch opened on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, and by all accounts it’s a huge success, serving custom-mixed bowls of cold and hot cereal with more than thirty different toppings--everything from chopped dried apricots to Reese’s Pieces, cereal-based baked treats, and some sort of cereal smoothie. They even have specialty milk. Servers wear pajamas. It’s all very cute, and very smart.

They’re talking franchise already. A pretty good friend of mine, another Random House escapee, is working closely with David, ramping things up. I still don’t know what to make of Cereality as a viable business—yes, when I was in college, I ate a lot of cereal. And in my single-woman days, a heaping bowl of cheerios made a fine dinner every so often. But in interviews, David is quoted as aiming for Starbucks’ ubiquity. Do people rea