When you wish upon a star...

So I am going to finish up my San Diego trip now - this has went on too long. Between my home life and the tremendous amount of hours I have been putting in at work, I just haven't had time to record everything in the detail I want to do it in. I am sure you guys are so done with my "Vacation Slideshow" by now anyway.

I just wanted to finish up by showing you some pictures of the great stuff I got to see.

First of all, here is the thing I would love to have most. It is from Sideshow Collectibles. All I can say is that The Tick rocks.



Since I really don't have $150 to buy the limited edition figure, I thought I would take a page out of Lisa's book and ask folks to send me the money to buy it. I mean its working for her. Why shouldn't I jump on the bandwagon?

UPDATE: My friend Eric said he would buy the figure, but only it I would take the Tick to Amsterdam. He said The Tick is a little too tightly wound and could use a nice week long vacation. So he is spotting me $150 for the figure and tossing in starter money of $100 to buy me a plane ticket to Amsterdam. He said he would pay me an additional $100 if I took a picture of The Tick "enjoying" himself with one of the city's famed sex workers. I've got my seed money - are there any other readers out there who is interested in helping me achieve my dream? Any generous soul who donates will be thanked here in the blog and I will personally send you print outs of all the photos of The Tick and myself enjoying the pleasures of The Netherlands' most famous city.

While I wait for you folks to "support" me, here are the last of my Comic-con pictures...

My hubby posing with his cousin Jabba.

Tony - these are not the droids you are looking for...Now put them back!


I nearly geeked out when I saw the Night Owl's ship. I can hardly wait until Watchmen comes out!!!

Shop smart!

Ahhhhhhhhhhh... Baby Fett

And for everyone who thought that Comic-con was about comics, or movies, or pop culture...
well you can draw your own conclusions...


"Jason - I've heard you've been a naughty boy..."

I love electrons!

My street before the real damage. We lost nine trees on this street alone.

The rumors are false. I did not run away and join the circus.

I just got power back Saturday evening. It was a long long week. I had just stocked up on groceries and wham! Goodbye four dozen eggs. Goodbye motley collection of condiments who had taken over my fridge. I think maybe it was a blessing in disguise - I got to scrub out every inch of my ancient refrigerator with bleach. At least that is what I am telling myself.

Actually, the eggs did not go bad. I boiled them on my grill. My neighbors thought I was nuts - until I used up all the mayo in the fridge and made a HUGE batch of deviled eggs. I think they were gone in about two minutes flat. Tony was sad because he only got three eggs worth.

I also put my collection of cast iron skillets to work on the coals and browned off some ground beef. I was going to try making chili but it got dark - boy was it dark. I could see the stars without any light pollution.

Hard Boiled Eggs!!

My big freezer had been packed full and when I finally opened it yesterday, a lot of things were thawed out, but still nice and cold. I am cooking every thing off that I can.

Part of my bounty was shared with Eric, my hubby's best friend. I cooked off three pounds of Thurn's bacon for breakfast yesterday. Yum. And Eric called me a bacon snob. Hell yes. If loving Thurn's bacon is wrong, then I don't wanna be right.

Now that I have lots of freezer room, I am looking into 'Once a Month Cooking or OAMC, or something close to that. More like "make some stuff ahead so I have something to eat when I am too busy to cook" or MSSASIHSTEWIATBTC. Hmmm... That is a bit much. Kind of defeats the whole acronym purpose. Lets see... Too Busy To Cook... Yeah. T.B.T.C. I don't think it will catch on, but hey, ya never know.

A couple items I am looking at are from Cook's Country, owned by Cook's Illustrated. I read a while back over on Tigers and Strawberries about the problems with reproducing recipes from the publishing group. Well that and Barbara has personal issues with how Cook's Illustrated treats non-traditional foods, such Indian and Thai. I am surprised she doesn't have an ax to grind with other venerable institutions such as Better Homes and Gardens or Redbook as well. I guess having grown up in the era of Home Ec for every gal, I just don't get as worked up about stuff like dumbing down exotic cuisines for American consumption. I think of it as cooking with training wheels. Personally, I use Cook's Illustrated like any other resource, pick and choose what I like and leave the rest. And yes Barbara, Chris Kimball has quite an ego, but no worse than any other famous persona I've encountered. You get use to heads that large when you meet showbiz folks from time to time.

So as for plumbing the depths for ideas, I am looking at the freezer lasagna, the freezer enchiladas and the frozen pot pies from the Cook's Country. I also have a lot of other things like Cincinnati Chili (which I've made for years), spaghetti sauce and beef stew. I've been over the OAMC books plus the sites and most of the recipes leave me kinda cold. Anyone out there have other resources they can suggest?

So that's pretty much it. The next week is going to be hell at work. I don't anticipate having much free time, but if I get a few minutes, I'll make another post. If not, I'll surface eventually. I always do.

Day Three: Swag with a Smile

Yes, I know it's been well over a month since Comic-Con and you are probably all tired at looking at my vacation photos by now. Too Bad!!

Saturday was the big day at Comic-con. The single day passes for Saturday get sold out before full ride tickets do. It was a crush of humanity. I had opted to volunteer at 11 am so that I could get there early and grab some more swag (like I needed more crap!) I went to the Warner Brothers booth first. I had missed out on these huge swag bags the booth had been distributing since Wednesday night. I knew that I needed to grab at least one so that I could carry around all the crap I was going to collect.

Unlike the day before at the Fox booth, the Warner Bros. crew had the whole distribution down to a fine science. Once I made it to the booth, I was through the line in less than five minutes. I then wandered around the Dealer Hall and picked up stuff like posters from the upcoming Spirit movie.

I am a huge Spirit fan and I so want this movie to be cool, but I just have a bad feeling... Not to bring down Frank Miller, the man who resurrected the Dark Knight, the man who made you want to be a Spartan and come home on your shield, but I swear the artwork reminds me more of Sterenko than Eisner. We'll see.

Some of the steampunk folks from the convention

Annie had decided to get into a little cosplay for Saturday. Annie and I are huge fans of the Steampunk movement. I am not sure why - it probably has something to do with reading 20,000 Leagues Under Sea too many times and watching First Men In the Moon multiple times when I was a kid.

Here she is in her partial costume. She has boots, but they are not broken in yet and she opted not to wear them. To be truely steampunk, she needs to obtain some rocking goggles, some bits of neo-victorian mechanical apparatus and a watch. We are working on that. In the mean time, I think she looks very nice. (Being her mater and all...)

Around 9:30 am, I was hanging out with Annie at the WETA booth ogling the awesomeness that is their wares when I discovered that I had not pocketed my credit cards and cash when I changed clothes that morning. PANIC!

I looked at the time and decided I could make it to the hotel and back in time to meet my volunteering deadline. I was wrong. I missed my chance to go to the professional suite again by 15 minutes. Instead I was able to greet folks just coming in the door. Easy work. You just handed out bags of scheduling information and welcomed folks for 3 hours. My cheeks hurt after smiling for that long.

While I was making my dentist proud, my daughter and Tate had gone off to see Howard Chaykin. Annie said she was amazed at how few people were there to see him speak. Afterward she talked to him, telling Howard how she had read all her dad's American Flag comics and he complimented her on her "bosom". Yes - he actually said "bosom".

No, she did not get to buy this. I think it's illegal to tempt men into sinful thoughts if you are under 18.

Speaking of bosoms, I have to say that if you have one, you do get great swag. Annie's shirt popped a button and it allowed her to display a more than average amount of cleavage. (She was lucky I did not have a safety pin!) Her Saturday swag included, but was not limited to: a 4 gig USB drive (shockproof and waterproof), a role-playing guide ($50 retail value), goodie cards for City of Villains, t-shirts, autographs and lots of invitations to after hours parties.

Where was my hubby all this time you ask? Why wasn't he keeping our daughter buttoned up and lady like? 'Cuz he was doing magic. There is a strong magic community in San Diego and Tony went to hang out with J.C. Wagner who performs at a bar on Coronado Island. I was kinda sad I did not get to hang out as well. JC does some amazing stuff.

I had planned on attending the Masquerade - if you love costumes, this is the event you wait on. I went to look for the end of the line, when I found the beginning of the line at about 5 pm. I asked the lady sitting in pole position one how long she had been waiting. "Since 7am," said she. "Screw this!" said I and went looking for Tate and Annie instead. I called Tate on his cell. My journey to find him took me past all the poor souls who were sitting in line to see the Masquerade. It almost wrapped around half the convention center. And this was at 5pm. The damn event didn't start until 8pm. The convention even made an overflow room with a live video feed for people who couldn't fit in the ballroom. The ball room seats almost 4,500 people. You get the idea.

Tate and I grabbed Annie and headed back to the hotel. 6 pm and we were pooped. Tony was waiting and I made him take us to dinner. We found this tiny little Mexican restaurant that said "Mexican Food" over the door, ate some mediocre food, had a few margaritas and went back to the hotel. Jet lag was really getting to all of us by then and we turned in.

Just one more day!! Well actually one more day of Comic-con and two more of vacation... I will try to be brief...I promise.

Day Two: Swag Fever hits!

So the next day - I was rested and ready. Annie and I had decided to volunteer early, so we got down to the convention center at a rather early hour.

My assignment this time was to man the professional suite, which provided a much needed quiet space for the guests who were presenting programming at the convention. The lady who ran this room plus the con suite (being held at a local hotel) had been doing so for over a decade. My job was to make sure things were tidy and that folks who had the wrong kinda badges didn't come in and bother folks (ie press and fans). Sharing my duties were a couple of guys from Jersey - I suggested they check out In and Out Burger before they left the coast.

Annie managed to make it to the Joss Whedon panels.
She is totally stoked about DollHouse, his latest TV series

I had wanted to see Joss Whedon talk about his past and upcoming project, but by the time I got out, the room was totally filled. I later learned that the staff did not clear out the rooms between panels. Hence, even if you had been waiting in line for hours to see Josh, you may not make it in the door unless the folks camped out inside the room left.

So I said screw it and went to the dealers hall. I have a feeling lots of other people said that too. It was then that I developed Swag Fever. (What is Swag you ask? Swag is all the cool free stuff that is being passed out by the various vendors. Mostly it is promotional items pimping out upcoming movies or tv shows, comic books or artists. The main rule is that you didn't have to pay for it!) I had picked up a few posters the previous day, but they had become damaged on the way back to the hotel.

The Fox booth was passing out these poster tubes with a carrying strap. But wait! The tubes were going like hot cakes. The next time they were getting passed out was a 1pm. So I got in the (at present) very short line at 12:30. It was here that I met Byron. (If you wonder why I remember his name, it because he was the only guy to give me a business card!) Byron runs a small website called Row M. He was there on a press pass - which I immediately began to covet. (Press passes let you bypass all the long lines!) Byron and I passed the time talking about stuff - Star Wars, collectibles, you know - geek stuff. Then the crowd started to build. The Fox staff has a guy come up about 5 minutes before the tubes were going to be passed out and started pushing people around to form a line. (You will find this is a reoccurring theme with some booths: lack of planning when it comes to crowd management.) The guy pushed me out of line and Byron yelled at him and pulled me back onto the right side of the rope. Thanks Byron!!

We were watching the beleaguered Fox staff getting the tubes ready for distribution when a lady on the outskirts of the crowd starts yelling at Byron, "I got the last one!!". The last what? Turns out Intel had hooked up with the new Star Trek movie and was having a contest. There were scratch off cards with different "staff positions" from the Enterprise printed on them. If you collected all eight positions, you got a cool laptop bag. The catch? To turn them in, you had to have eight people, one to hold each card. Byron had been working with two other people since earlier in the convention and now had all eight cards. Byron generously offered to let me partake of his swag bounty by giving me a card. I was to meet him at the Star Trek/Intel booth after we got our tubes.

The Fox staff started passing out the tubes and the crowd surged forward. If you have never been part of a huge mass of bodies before, it can be frightening the way you are just swept along by the pressure. I am a large gal so can hold my own, but a smaller person - there is always the chance you would be overwhelmed and lose your footing. We spewed out of the end of the line and swirled away from the main press of human bodies. I lost Byron in the crowd.

I started towards the Intel booth - the flow of bodies was against me. I only had to go over two rows, but it must have taken me 5 minutes to get there. And when I did arrive, there was Byron and his two compatriots, waiting. We still needed four more people, so we grabbed folks out of the passing press of bodies - a kid, some other geek who had a hand full of cards, and two gals who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. We turned in our cards and received our swag. I thanked Byron again, and promised to get him the Hasbro ticket that Annie had left in the room. (To even get into the line for the Hasbro collectibles shop, you had to have a ticket, which they passed out at random intervals. Annie had scored one, but not Byron. And he really had to get his toys.)

My Swag Bag!!

I then wandered around the dealer hall for a little while longer, then went back to the hotel with Annie and Tate. We had wanted to see the Robot Chicken and Venture Brothers panels, but just couldn't get in. The whole wait in line for hours thing was kinda getting us down. I suggested we try this restaurant, Doa Son, I had seen suggested online. It specialized in Asian noodle dishes.

Now normally I would not be so bold in a strange city, but we had rented a GPS unit along with the rental car. (It was affectionately known as "The Bitch" - as in "Shut the F*** Up, Bitch!" because of it's constant talking.) So we follow the Bitch's instructions to the restaurant only to find - there is no parking. This is one of the problems we encountered a lot. We would want to hit these small out of the way restaurants and could not park. So we kinda said screw it. I popped in and ordered take out while Tony drove around the block again and again and again. Tony was greatly amused.



Sorry there are no pictures of the food. By the time we got back to the hotel, we were all so hungry we fell on the food like a pack of wolves. The noodles were really good. The broth was clearly homemade loaded with lots of veggies, meat and noodles. Tate got so much food that he couldn't finish it all, so he said "Screw the noodles! It the broth that make a good noodle soup." and downed the rest of the liquid nectar.

We then passed out to get ready for Saturday - the big day!

Still here!

Hey folks!

Just dropping a note to let you know that I still exist and have not given up on the blog. My work schedule has become insane the last three weeks, working 50+ hours the past week. My paychecks look great, but it's grueling.

The lack of free time in my schedule has forced me to drop out of the Daring Bakers group. I am very sad to have to quit. I was unable to particiapte this summer because of my vacation, and now because of my job. I hope that I get to rejoin the group

My cooking has gone to basic survival level - making a large bunch of food on my days off and eating leftovers the rest of the week. I did treat myself to a Bahn Mi and an iced coffee from Mi Mi - or should I say Mi Li Cafe. Our favorite little Vietnamese place was forced to change their name by the Polaris area restaurant MiMi's Cafe. Of course my chances of going to the Polaris Mimi's Cafe has just dropped to about nil. Bully!

Dosa Corner was featured in the Dispatch today. A great place to eat. It's right next to my work and I have eaten there quite a bit - and I am mostly meat-a-terian. So If you like home-made Southern Indian food - Dosa Corner is the place for you.

A last little something to keep you amused - 100 things you should eat. I did pretty good except for the following items: 99,85,71, 68, 65 (Cognac but no cigar), 64, 59, 55,50, 42,39, 38, 37, 36 (Does Durian flavored items count? No, I didn't think so.), 33, 29, 25,21,17, 12 and 8. Not too shabby and I can fix a few of them really soon. And yes - I really have eaten roadkill.

Here is hoping that my life will calm down a bit. I hope to make it to the Meet-up group at the Cafe Shish Kebab next Wednesday. If you like grilled lamb - then you have to attend.

'Til next time!

Comic-Con Adventure Part Three: Lesson I learned my first day

So, after sitting through a panel discussing the impact of Doc Savage on the development of comic heroes such as Superman and Batman hosted by Anthony Tollin and Michael Uslan (yes, I love pulp fiction too!), I headed down to the volunteer booth.

Annie waiting on her volunteer assignment

Here is where I got my first real lesson about Comic-con: it's all about waiting. Waiting to get your assignment at the volunteer booth, waiting to get into the panel you want to see, waiting to buy the collectible toy you must have, waiting to get on the trolley, etc.

The second thing I learn is there are just too damn many people to manage efficiently. My first assignment was to line wrangle. I stood in front of a door for three hours and made sure no one in the really, really long line blocked access to the fire exit. The folks in this line were waiting to buy limited edition toys from Hasbro. So to pass the time, I struck up a conversation with a guy in line -asking about what he collects, what he was excited to see... and it turns out he is originally from Cincinnati. Very Cool. Chat a little bit more about collectibles - and I mention I had really wanted a Iron Man Mighty Mugg, but that I doubted I would be able to stand in line for the three and a half hours(!!!!!!!!) it was going to take. So this great guy (whose name I forget and I am really sorry!) offers to get it for me and to call me on his cell when he is finished. He says he is standing in line for the GI Joe Collectables so one more figure wouldn't matter.

This is where I learned the third thing about Comic-con. It is filled with great people. About 2 hours later, I get a call on my cell. I was now the proud owner of an Iron Man Might Mugg. So my mystery friend formerly from Cincinnati -thank you thank you thank you. You made my day.

After line wrangling, I bought lunch. This brought me to lesson number four: bring a sack lunch. A hot dog and a can of Coke cost me $6.00.

I then decided that I wanted to go see another panel - this one on Science in Science Fiction, host by Dr. Kevin Grazier (former rocket scientist turned science advisor), Jaime Paglia (writer and producer of Eureka) and Phil Plait (badastronomy.com ). And guess what? I got to wait in line almost an hour. It was worth it. It was a great panel.

I staggered through the dealers hall one more time and headed back to the hotel. The amount of walking involved had been too much for the hubby with his bad knees, so I opted to spend some time with him at the hotel pool, then out to dinner. Of course this meant we missed some of the stuff who should have been standing in line for - and possibly some really cool parties but it was nice spending quality time together.

We went to this place called Santana's for burritos. While it was a local fast food chain, it was still better than most of the Mexican food here in Columbus. We had huge burritos and a variety of fresh made salsas - kinda like what Chipolte would like to be.



Tony got a California Burrito. It had everything a normal burrito had plus fried potatoes. Topped with their tomatilla based green salsa - it was great.


I had the Carne Assada burrito. Really nice... I also got some sides, like chips and guacamole plus some beans - don't bother. Stick with the burritos.



By the time we got back to the hotel, Tate and Annie were back. They had eaten some tacos from a small joint around the corner. Good but nothing to right home about.

The whole group then tumbled into bed. The last lesson I learned: Take along really good walking shoes. My dogs were barking when I finally passed out in the hotel room.

Adventures at Comic-Con Part Deux

So - we get off the airplane in Phoenix about midnight, drive through to San Diego in a rented minivan and show up at registration for the Convention at the buttcrack of dawn.

We pull into our chosen hotel, Old Town Inn, which is located about five miles North of the convention center. Having researched the heck out of the whole shebang before we left Columbus, we chose this hotel for two reasons

1) We could get a room. The hotel rooms downtown were sold out in about two days via the booking service that the convention uses to manage room rental.
2) It was close to the Old Town Transit Station, which provided access to a special light rail route that would take us right to the convention center from our hotel. (Hey Columbus!!! Pay attention here!!! A ten minute ride to a major convention from an outlying hotel!!!)

Oh and one more reason - this hotel get a lot of good reviews online.

So we pull in after 10 hours of travel with little or no sleep, looking and feeling like the winners we are and stagger into the hotel lobby. The hotel staff is great. Of course our rooms won't be ready until 3pm that day, but they might be able to get us in as early as 11am, and yes - we can use their restroom and park our rental car in their lot while we stagger over to the light rail station. Nice nice people.

We then go hit Denny's for breakfast. Not because we really want to, but because we could figure out how to get in and out of their parking lot. Let's just say the little grey cells were running very slow by that point for all involved. One nasty breakfast later - we head down to the convention center.

Annie and I had both volunteered. Annie - cuz she is a cheapskate who was paying her own way (Yes, she had to earn the money for the plane ticket and her part of the hotel room. If you need a baby sitter in the Clintonville area, she is starting to save up for next summer's vacation already!)

Why did I volunteer? Because volunteering lets you do two things. The first is see how the whole convention works from the inside and help out the poor beleaguered souls who give up their time to organize and run the convention. The second? So I could keep tabs on the offspring. (Yeah, I'm such a mom.)

Tony and Tate bought registrations. It's $75 for the entire weekend. That is Thursday-Saturday with a Wednesday night preview. As far as convention costs go, that isn't too bad. Volunteer registration is fairly well organized. We get through, sign up for our assignments, then wander around inside the convention center and look at the mass of humanity pressing against the lobby doors waiting to get in. Tony and Tate join the throng from the outside, queueing up to get their prepaid registrations.

Did I mention there are no on-site registration sales? Too bad if you snoozed. Amazingly enough, Tony says the line went very quickly. They had about 100 people processing entrants in a large hall, then folks were herded into a waiting area for the convention to open.

At 9 am, the doors opened and people rushed into convention center and immediately flooded the Dealer's Hall. The Swag Rush has started. It's like freaking 1849, but for collectibles instead of gold.

(What is Swag you ask? Swag is all the cool freebies that are given out over the course of the convention - it can be anything from posters, to books, to action figures. Some items become very sought after - like the huge swag bags from Warner Brothers, which you need to have to have to carry all your other swag. I ended up with over six swag bags filled with stuff. I'll go more into this later.)

OK - here is how big and crowded the Dealer Hall was. My first panel wasn't until 10am, so I decided to walk the length of the hall. According to my calculations, the hall was almost 900 feet long. It was crowded. It took me 20 minutes to walk from one end to the other. Without stopping to geek out. It was just that crowded.

I had lost Annie by this point. And Tate and Tony. We all had things we wanted to see before we headed back to the hotel, plus I was scheduled to volunteer at noon. Ah - foolish, foolish me. I had -maybe - 3 hours sleep. This was going to go great.

So I leave you here until the next installment, intrepid reader. You'll learn more about volunteering, swag monkeys and San Diego.

The Adventures of a Fat Chick at Comic-con

Deep down inside me is a comic book geek. The affliction started when I was a kid reading my dad's old Sad Sack comics from WW2 and the "funny papers" in the Dispatch. From there my habit slowly increased culminating in a $50/month pull at the local comic shop while I was in high school. Once I got to college, I was too broke to buy comics anymore. When Tony and I were dating I would read his stash containing series like American Flagg and Badger.

Eventually we moved onto graphic novels like The Watchmen and V for Vendetta. Those names are household items now, but back then, only us proud geeks knew how good they were.

Annie has turned into a comic book geek too. She dug out our old comic collections early on and tore through them. Now she borrows graphic novels from the library and spends her hard earned babysitting money on titles like Y, the last man and Serenity.

Last January, Annie came to us and said " I am tired of always going on 'working vacations'. I get stuck in the hotel doing nothing for hours on end. For my graduation present, I want to attend Comic-con in San Diego. I know I don't graduate until next year, but I would like to go this year. They have Howard Chaykin and Kevin Smith !"

After looking over last year's schedule, we decided that it looked like a blast. So yes - we went to Comic-con, the biggest Geekfest in America.

Eric, our usual traveling companion, passed for this trip. He is heading to Burning Man this summer. Ah, to be a fly on the wall for that adventure. However, his roommate and our friend Tate, hearing of our pilgrimage, decided that he too must make the trek.

Tate Enjoying himself at Comic-con

So the four of us headed off to the promised land. If you really want to get to know your friends, I recommend taking long trips with them. You will know who your real friends are after being packed into plane for 4 hours, driving through the desert in the wee hours of the morning and then bunking in a really small room with them for six days. If you are still friends after the end of those six days - the relationship can take almost anything.

Tate, bless his heart, is a planner. He made sure we had water as we drove through the desert. He thoughtfully brought earplugs and a sleeping mask so as to blind himself to the various noises our family is reported to make while sleeping. He was easygoing when it came to the schedule and even seemed to enjoy our adventures as "swag monkeys". The only strike against him was some of his nocturnal poses - usually involving creative yoga-like positions I don't he could have achieved in a waking state. A lesser person would have taken pictures, but I resisted. I am sure our other friends will be disappointed.

Now that you have the cast - next the play!

Ok folks - sorry I haven't been posting lately, but we have been out of town for the last two weeks.

Where did the clan go you ask?

COMIC-CON!!!!!!!

Yup - we actually took a vacation that was not work related. Our inner geeks were fulfilled.

I have been trying to write all the great things I got to see and do in San Diego, but it is gonna take some time. With 125,000 people crammed into one convention center - well you can kinda guess at the bedlam that ensued.

So I will be back soon...promise....

I went to see the Dark Knight with the hubby and offspring last night at Studio 35 for the12:01 am showing.

Oh.
My.
Gawd.

Amazing!
Fantastic!
I am going to see it at least twice more!!

And I am really glad to have seen it a Studio 35.

The place was packed. Eric, Vicki and crew spent a lot of time getting everything ready - including repainting the lobby with blackboard paint. They put out a couple huge containers of sidewalk chalk and let folks decorate the theater to their hearts content.

Support your local theater boys and girls!

Studio 35 will be showing The Dark Knight for at least two more weeks.

Book Review:The Sweet Melissa Baking Book

Before our most recent warm spell, I got into baking frenzie. Not only did I accomplish the May Daring Baker's Challenge, but I decided to explore a new book called The Sweet Melissa Baking Book by Melissa Murphy.

I will confess that I was sent this book by Penguin Books for review. But those of you who are my regular readers know that getting something for free does not mean I will give it a favorable review. My last foray into book reviews was not a pleasant experience, so once bitten, twice shy I say.

One of the things that gave me hope for this book from the beginning was the picture on the front cover. I believe the recipe is of the Fallen Chocolate Soufflé Cake. It looks like something I could serve at home. It's not perfect looking - it's no Ace of Cakes creation but it looks like something you would make for a family gathering were all the old hen aunts would criticize the way the cake was all "cracked up" then cluck at you for the recipe once they had tasted it. Them's the kinda recipes I like.

And it's the kind of recipes that Melissa likes too. In her forward, Melissa stated she wanted to use her training to infuse home style baked goods with a French pastry flair - thereby "making every one's favorite desserts better than they've had them before". An admirable cause in the advancement of baking if you ask me. Nothing like burning down the house. And thankfully, she decided to spill the beans so that people like me - out in the heart of the Midwest - could learn make her recipes.

Just to give you a little bit of background, Melissa started her bakery Sweet Melissa Patisserie ten years ago. It was the culmination of her culinary training that started at her mother's knee. She received her formal training at the French Culinary Institute then went out into the big wide world and worked her way up to owning her own store. Personally I am a little jealous of those who live within driving distance of her locations Brooklyn.

Her bakeries are all full service offering everything from those highly decorated fondant covered creations that set the standard for special occasion cakes these days to the homey desserts featured in this book. Some of those recipes include Toasted Almond Lemon Bars, Double Dark Chocolate Cherry cookies, and Caramel Apple Turnovers.

So why should you buy this book? You already have a million cookbooks - and they have recipes for things like Toasted Almond Lemon Bars, Double Dark Chocolate Cherry cookies, and Caramel Apple Turnovers. Yeah me too. I can't help myself. I love buying cookbooks. However, I have set some pretty high standards because otherwise I would be pushed out of house and home by my book collection. So how do I judge whether a book will be added to my collection? I am glad you asked!

First - It is long on food porn and short on text? There are a lot of cookbooks that rely on how pretty their food looks to sell copies. You know the ones I am talking about - Big color picture on the left page, two paragraph recipe on the right. I am not saying that these books are bad, but I like detailed instructions with my recipes. As a baker I am a little above the "hold my hand through every step" level, but if it is something I never baked before I like to have visual and tactile cues included to help guide my judgment. Examples would be to bake cookies until they are "golden around the edges" or "stir constantly over medium heat until the mixture just begins to thicken".

Second - Ingredients. Am I going to have to take out a second mortgage to purchase the items to make the recipes out of this book? Yeah 25 year old Basalmic may be freaking fantastic over fresh ripe melon and prosciutto. It may be freaking organismic. But my checkbook will never get to find out, as I refuse to spend that much on one ingredient. So what it comes down to is - do I already have the ingredients? If not, are they readily available and easy on the pocketbook?

Third - Difficulty level. Even though I am a member of Daring Bakers, I will admit that I am not the world's most accomplished cook when it comes to certain things - I can't make a good meringue (much to my great shame). I would say I am a intermediate cook - maybe just about ready to go into advanced stuff if I had the time to focus. So when I pick up a book, I look for things that I can either a) whip up with out any problems or b) are just enough of a challenge to advance my culinary skills without overwhelming me.

Fourth -Recipes. Well that is the whole reason huh? I've picked up cookbooks and didn't see anything that got my juices going. Too exotic :"Nope - nope - just can't see myself making anchovy and lemon biscotti." or too overdone: "Do I really need another recipe for Fettucini Alfredo?" I kinda think of most cookbooks as being like a wedding: Something old, something new, something borrowed and something that will make the salivary glands moisten up. (Hey, blue food is scary!) Also, are the recipes well written. Can I read them over and get a pretty good idea of what the whole procedure is? Are the ingredients listed clearly? Are there instructions on how to store the finished product and do they tell me how long this thing is gonna last (if it makes it that far)? If it is a "healthy" book, does it give me a nutrition breakdown?

Lastly - who wrote the book? Yeah it can be important. I am not a fame snob - just because you are famous doesn't mean that you can write a cookbook or more likely have one written for you under your supervision (Like a certain celeb chef who initials are RR). So does this person have the chops to write a book? How many years experience does the person have in the kitchen? Did she have formal training? Is he an experienced writer and/or have good editors? (A good publishing house can go a long way to making what could have been a mediocre book into a good one - an experienced editor is worth their weight in dark chocolate.) One of my favorite cookie books is by Richard Sax. (Most folks aren't familiar with his work. Sadly, Richard passed away back in 1995.) It looks like a tiny little toss away paperback book. The cover is really kitzy, it has no pictures of the food but the moment I read the recipes, I knew this guy had chops. I still make recipes from that book twenty years after I first purchased it. Quality will show itself when you read enough crap.

So - enough of my soap box - on to the main event.

So how did The Sweet Melissa Baking Book measure up under my critical eye?

Pretty darned good actually. (Yeah I know you were all waiting for me to trash it - HA!)

Criteria number one: Food porn - There is some. Just a slim section of full color pages. I like it best when you have a centerfold. A little "cheesecake" goes a long way.

Criteria number two: Ingredients - Nothing here that is too exotic, nothing you would have to order from the Internet if you lived in the wilds of rural Ohio. True, there are some things you would have to lay out some $$$ for such good chocolate or fresh raspberries (unless you have a line on that kinda thing), but nothing that will make you take out a second mortgage on the house.

Criteria number three: Difficulty - This book would be accessible from an intermediate beginner on up. I say "intermediate beginner" (is that an oxymoron?) because if you don't know what creaming, sifting and folding is - you need a book with some training wheels on it before you get to this book. Would this book challenge an advanced cook or professional? Most likely not.

Criteria number four: Recipes - The mixture of recipes is good. It fulfills all the requirements for a good marriage - old (ginger snaps and butterscotch pudding), new (Bee Stings), borrowed (black bottom brownies) and mouthwatering (ummm - almost everything is the book made my mouth water...)

Criteria number five: Author - Until I got this book, I had never heard of The Sweet Melissa Patisserie. I had never heard of Melissa Murphy. While she has never published a book before, I do like the fact that she is a working pro and that the recipes are from her personal collection. It means the recipes were tested on real people before she published them; and that she has been in business ten years tells me she understand what people like. The way the book is written has a quiet confidence without tooting too much horn. The whole product is very welcoming and accessible.

Verdict: If you like to bake and need some solid recipes to add to your repertoire, then this is a book you need add to your collection. I know there are several other items that I want to make when autumn rolls around - and once the folks at work tasted my trial recipe, they wanted to borrow the book too. The Sweet Melissa Baking Book is definitely a keeper.

So all the being said: what the hell did I make out of the book you ask? (That was a long way to go for just a recipe and a crappy picture of some food wasn't it?)

Sweet Potato Bread with Cinnamon-Rum-Orange Glaze

I picked this recipe for several reasons:

1. This recipe seemed to be tailor made for my pantry - except for the canned sweet potatoes. I like my sweet potatoes fresh and oven roasted. (And yes - I did have rum in my pantry. I always have rum in my pantry!)
2. I have a real soft spot for home-style baked goods. This is one of those cakes that would show up at a ladies' bible study or something like that.
3. If the author is to be believed, the fact this is a staff favorite was a good sign that it would be a winner.
4. And last - it seemed really quick. I need quick at this point in my life. I don't have the time to make multiple layered pastries with homemade icings and glazes on a regular basis - and I am betting most people don't either. I figured that this recipe is one that would get used again and again. (I was right too - the hubby has been begging me to make it again.)

The cake turned out rich, moist and flavorful. The glaze gave it a little bit of a crunchy surface. It was easy to make and it didn't last long enough for me to find out of it would get stale. So here ya go - I hope you give it a try.

SWEET POTATO BREAD WITH CINNAMON-RUM-ORANGE GLAZE

Every Friday Jessie, one of my top bakers at Sweet Melissa’s, makes quick breads and loaf cakes for those customers getting ready to go out of town for the weekend. They stop in on their way out to the Hamptons on Long Island or the Jersey Shore and pick up a stash of Sweet Melissa's treats to nibble on. I love the thought of my cakes and cookies in their beautiful kitchens with ocean views.

This quick bread has "home sweet home" written all over it. One of the many things I like about this recipe, which is based on a recipe by my all-time favorite pastry chef, Andrea Lekberg, is that it is so inexpensive to make and is one of the best things you'll ever eat.

The staff at Sweet Melissa's goes crazy for sweet potato bread. We make an extra one just for slicing so we can all get our fill (which is very good for morale!).

Makes one Bundt pan

FOR THE BREAD

Two 15-ounce cans sweet potatoes, drained

2 cups sugar

2/3 cup vegetable or canola oil

2 large eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

2/3 cup pecans, coarsely chopped

FOR THE CINNAMON-RUM-ORANGE GLAZE

1/4 cup fresh orange juice

1/4 cup rum

1/2 cup sugar

2 cinnamon sticks

BEFORE YOU START

Position a rack in the center of your oven. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a 10-cup Bundt pan.

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on low speed, mash the sweet potatoes until smooth (this will make about 2 cups). Add the sugar and oil and mix to combine. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each ad­dition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt. Add the flour mixture into the sweet potato mixture in three batches, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Do not over mix. Stir in the pecans.

3. Pour the batter into the prepared Bundt pan. Spin the pan to level the batter. Bake for about 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack to cool for 20 minutes before inverting onto the rack for glazing.

4. For the glaze: Combine the orange juice, rum, sugar, and cinnamon sticks in a small nonreactive saucepan. Bring to a simmer over low heat and reduce by half. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool slightly before glazing.

5. Using a pastry brush, brush the glaze generously over the still-warm bread. Wait for 10 minutes and glaze again.

Serve at room temperature. Sweet potato bread keeps well wrapped in plastic wrap at room temperature for up to 3 days. For longer storage, freeze wrapped in plastic wrap and then in aluminum foil for up to 3 weeks. Defrost still wrapped at room temperature.

The foregoing is excerpted from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book by Melissa Murphy. All rights reserved. Copyright © Melissa Murphy, 2008.

A tale of chicken - smoked chicken

My Weber kettle finally died. It has sat outside under the eaves of my house most of the time - seeing as I lack a garage or shed in which to house items such as a grill. I think that makes it's 10 year lifespan all the more impressive. Of course, a grill like that just couldn't go gentle into that good night - no, it went out with drama befitting our household.

I wanted to try butterflied grilled chicken. I love grilled chicken, but it has always been problematic - cooked over direct heat as suggested in most recipes leaves you with chicken jerkee. Yuk. So after seeing America's Test Kitchen and reading Mark Bittman's recipe for simple grilled chicken, I decided that yes! I could cook on my kettle using indirect heat! I also decided it should be smoked. Cuz having smoked cold chicken in the fridge is like having money in the bank. yummmmmmmmmm chicken sandwiches..... yummmmmmmmmmmm arugala salad topped with radishes, green onions and smoked chicken.

So I go to the store and buy me some hickory wood chips and charcoal, and a nice plump "natural" chicken (I would hate to have an unnatural chicken - would it have tenticles or something?).

I also stopped by the garden and picked up some radishes and arugala. (Yes - I did finally get my garden in, but it is not as ambitious as in past years. More on that later - this is the grill's story.)

I fired up the coals in the chimney, prepped the chicken, started the rice pilaf - everything's going good....

I stepped out, lifted the chimney, started pouring the glowing coals into the grill and the leg farthest away from me gave way and tilted the grill up against the brick wall of the house... I jumped about 10 feet away. I didn't think I could do that - being old and fat like I am - but hot coals have always been excellent motivators.

So - the conundrum - do I tip the hot coals out? Do I try to prop the leg back up? A holler to the kinfolk brought them out of the house and it was decided by committee that we would try to get the leg back under the grill and then be really really careful. Behold the power of grilled chicken. It makes idiots out of the best of us.

So using lots of oven mitts and more than a little caution, we got the leg propped back up where it belonged. Ms. Chicken went onto the grill - and we just held our breath. It worked. Yeah! The whole technique worked great. The smoke gave the skin a dark mahogany color, the chicken was just ever so slightly kissed by the hickory - and it was really moist. All over. I wished I could say I took a photo of it, but it didn't last that long. The wings didn't even make it off the grill - Tony went out and "liberated" them to see if they were "finished".

I finished off the meal with "fried corn". I had a couple ears of corn left from earlier in the week, plus two pablano peppers. I roasted the peppers over the hot side grill while the chicken cooked. The corn - well I was going to grill it, but all things considered I thought better of that. So I cut the kernels off the cob, fried a little bit of onion in some oil, raised the heat to high, added the corn stirring quickly to develop a brown crust. I pulled it off the heat, added the now diced roasted pablano peppers and a little bit of cumin butter, salt and pepper. (Yeah I cheated with the cumin butter - I melted a little butter in the still hot pan and stirred some ground cumin into it. The heat took the raw edge off the spice.)

Even as I am mourning my loss, I am excited because I get to BUY A NEW GRILL!!!! Wheeeeeee!!!!! I like plain charcoal grills - never really been into gas. The less complicated a tool is the less likely to have problems with it. I ended up buying a 22.5 one touch silver Weber Kettle - the big brother of my previous grill. The best thing about the larger cooking surface? Now I can cook TWO chickens at once. Which we did.

Yummmmmmmmmmm........chicken.......

A side note for those of you who are in the search for cheap kitchenware - Linen and Things up at Polaris is going out of business and right now all their kitchen stuff is 20%.

Vacation - ah how I love vacations....

The family and I just returned from Las Vegas where we lounged by the pool, won some cash and explored the city's food offerings. Some of our friends were able to come with us as well - George, Tate and Moose. Tate and Moose were no strangers to Vegas - they rented a car and proceeded to travel all over the city playing slots and blackjack. Moose in particular had a yen for single deck black jack - had I say, because after an hour at a table in the 4 Queens, he had no love from the single deck and came away much poorer. Fortunately, he enjoyed more luck over at Binion's.

So what did Annie, George and I do the whole time Tate and Moose were gambling? Buying stupid crap for the folks back home. Plus eating of course. Vegas does have a lot of high end eating joints, but sometimes walking on the cheap side has its benefits too.

The first item of note is the staple of the American fast food - the hamburger. A good hamburger is a wonder and a joy. Greasy fried meat topped with lettuce and tomato on a soft roll - ah yes - heaven for the tired traveler.

Two places I would recommend for burgers in Vegas. The first is from a chain- In and Out Burger. I had never been to one before. Moose insisted that I try one. His theory is the more people making your food in the kitchen - the better the food would be. And that is how it worked out. Take your average McDonald's, they have what - maybe 6 - 7 people working the floor during rush. They pre-cook burgers and hold them until needed. It means that they can use less people to serve the same amount of food. In and Out Burger - big difference. We went to the big store off of Flamingo at about 8pm Vegas time. The place was packed. However, thanks to their stripped down menu (burgers, fries, soda and shakes) the ordering goes like this.

"I would like a double double, fries and a chocolate shake."
"Onions?"
"Yes please"

That easy. And reasonably priced as well, so even if the blackjack table ate your cash, you can still afford to get a great burger. Next I watched the kitchen make our food - nothing is made until you order it. That means the burgers are put on the grill when your ticket comes up. That means to fries are cooked right then. And to make sure this happens, I counted about a dozen folks back in the kitchen making the food. 12 cooks. Amazing. The food came pretty darned fast for being as busy as they were - and I really enjoyed everything.

My hubby was so jealous that he didn't get to go we had to make a special trip to pick him up a bag. I was almost tempted to stop by Jack in the Box to snag an empty bag and fill it up with the In and Out Burgers. Just the screw with him mostly - as he claims that Jack in the Box is run by Beelzebub himself. However, I was too tired to really mess with his head and he was able to enjoy his food in peace.

(The one thing I will mention is that tomatoes were banned in Vegas at the time we were there - a salmonella outbreak had been traced to them. Another reason to grow your own folks!)

The second burger of note was at the snack bar at Binion's. The reason I specifically state the snack bar just off the main gambling hall is that the burger there is only $5.50 each as opposed to $7.50 in the restaurants. Same burger - fancier venue. The whole idea of the snack bar is to get your feed on ASAP and then back to the gaming tables. I like to believe that Benny Binion thought of that - being as hardcore about gambling as he was.

Binion's grinds all their meat fresh everyday - or so proclaims the signs strewn about the casino floor. The burger is then fried on a griddle 'til it is well done, served on a roll with all the fixin's with a spoonful of pretty good potato salad - ie it tasted like potatoes and not preservatives. I would equate the type of berger to those served at Steak and Shake. No rare meat to be had - but still I thought it was a great meal while I was wandering through downtown.

While we were Downtown, we had to try one of the more famous cheap eats - the Golden Gate's Shrimp Cocktail. When I first went to Vegas - this was way before they made the downtown area "family friendly" - the cocktails were only $.99 each. But inflation hits even Vegas, so the cocktail is now $1.99 each - still a great deal. And if you are really desperate to save that extra buck, just join the slot club and you can get the treat at it's pre-inflation price of $.99. Here is the cocktail in all it's glory!

The evil inside a deep fried twinkie!

The last thing we did before we left Freemont Street for the El Cortez (another old school casino downtown) was to walk over Mermaids - a slots only place with a snack bar. For us, their claim to fame is the deep fried Twinkies and Oreos. Yeah - we decided that we had to have them. Man - it was enough to cause me to slip into a diabetic coma and yet, it had a strange quality that makes me still crave them even now. I opted for the Twinkies as did Moose and George, while Tate went for the Oreos. Annie, being more sensible than rest of the group just watched us with the same fascination that one watches the freak show at the circus.

So while I was out running around with the gang, the hubby - who has a rule that he never bets on anything that can't talk - put some money down on the Lakers/Celtics game. Later that night, we were about $400 richer thanks to the fact the Lakers didn't make the spread. Very nice.

That meant that we got to play with our "mad cash". We splurged by going to the Mac King show at Harrah's - I love Mac. I've seen his show quite a few times and I still have a lot of fun every time I go. At $25 a head, it is still a great deal compared to some of the big night time shows that charge $75 - $125 per ticket.

The last thing we ate before leaving Vegas was Thai. We ended up at a little Thai place just down the way from the hotel. How did we discover it you ask? There in lies a tale...It was our last morning in Vegas. None of us really wanted to eat the breakfast buffet at the hotel one more time - but what to eat? Tate, Moose and George wanted Thai - something hot and spicy to wake them up and motivate them to the airport.

Ok- that was the easy part...now the hard part - where do we eat Thai? It was decided that we had seen some Thai places just down the road from the hotel earlier in the week and that we should try one of them. So as we drove up and down Sahara Ave., we started to dicker over where we should go. Moose, who was driving, said "We are stopping here." and pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall.



Located next to a shop that sold assless chaps was an establishment that simply said "Thai Restaurant". We were in Vegas - why not gamble?!

Well folks we hit the jackpot. Some of the best Thai food any of us had ever had. The lunch deal went like this - they had a bunch of dishes on the steam table. All were nice and fresh as they had just opened. You could get 2 different dishes plus rice for $6 or 3 different dishes plus rice for $8.

I had a hot and sour soup with lots of greens and pork (it lived up to its name), a stir-fried ground chicken dish kinda like the stuff I make at home with pork (only theirs was much better) and a fishball and bamboo shoot dish (very mild). The other guys ended up getting dishes like hot beef coconut curry, a pork dish with eggplant which was wickedly hot and good - I can't even remember it all. On top of that we ended up ordering Thai coffee and tea. With tip, all six of us ate for about $70.


The "Thai Restaurant" is the reason I have a love/hate relationship with eating out in other cities. The reason I love it is pretty obvious - who doesn't love eating out a great restaurants? The hate part - I get cravings for the food I can't get here in Columbus. So far this year, I've added top notch Carolina Que to my list and now this really great Thai place on Sahara Blvd in Vegas. Next time I go to Vegas, I am definitely going to have to hit a jackpot so that I can retire and spend my life traveling to all my favorite places to eat!