FoodGeex

This morning I stumbled on a recipe video for something called dagangjeong, a korean crunchy chicken leg that looks absolutely delicious. Rather than toss it up on Pinterest, I thought I would save it here instead and then finish watching the video with you.  It's also a great test of the new embed feature from Facebook.  

To find the original video and the recipe follow the link here.  

Update:  The embed feature from Facebook did not work in the slightest.  I did some digging and found the video on Youtube on Maanchi's channel, which is embedded below. It is my guess that the Facebook post is actually just scraping Maanchi's video. Either way, it's time to talk chicken. Enjoy!

I came home from Winter break with a ton of Ruby Red grapefruit.  These little beauties came off my mother-in-law's tree down in Florida, and for a couple weeks I had a wonderfully tangy breakfast treat.  All the while I intended to make pie, but before that I had to made a curd, and this is something I've never done before.  So I researched a couple of recipes and settled on Martha Stewart's version, as it had an extra step of reducing the juice which I thought was a nice touch.  The following is not my recipe, as I've never made this before, but rather my experience making it.  If it turns out I will have a lovely jar or two of this concoction to use in pies.  If not, I will at least have a story to share.

Protip (or rather newbie tip): timing is everything on this recipe.  I made the mistake of starting a load of dishes before I started cooking, and boy was that a goof.  I ended up with a ton of used equipment, and no dishwasher to clean it with.  Next tip: make sure you prepare all your mis en place and equipment before you begin the process, and that includes having your sieve over the bowl in the ice bath all ready to go.  I am not such a good planner, so I had to do a lot of scrambling to pull out items I had forgotten, and I ended up sieving three times instead of one because of poor planning.  It would also help to have your final container, the one going in the fridge, prepped before you even start whisking.

The final product came out looser than I would have wanted.  It won't exactly set up for a pie, and this was my original plan.  So changing course, I'm using it in mini pies (vanilla wafers, curd, and whipped cream) which works out nicely as a little treat after lunch or dinner.  This still leaves me with a ton of curd to try in other recipes, which should be fun research.

Last month, almost to the day, Paula Deen was sacked.  Everyone's favorite Southern cook turned out to have a darker side, and this time it wasn't attached to the calorie count of her food.  Mama Deen, it seems, is a racist, and her treatment of her restaurant staff over the last two decades has been continually laced with racial slurs and demeaning business practices.

Strangely enough, the story broke in the National Enquirer, which I have to believe is the first time that I know of the Enquirer breaking actual news.  Food Network responded quickly by ending Deen's contract, pulling all her shows from the air and her merchandise from their online store.  Now if you want to get any of her recipes you have to go directly to her website, which I will not link here.

A few days a story ran in the New York Times about the woman behind the woman, Chef Dora Charles, who spoke about the harsh treatment, low wages, and racial slurs that pervaded her relationship with the Queen of Butter. I call her Chef because she was the woman who ran Deen's kitchens, even though she was only making $10.00 an hour, even after Deen joined the Food Network.  That information alone is pretty suspect.

I love to cook, but I don't have the best tools to do so.  For years I've wanted to get a Dutch Oven, ever since I watched the Chuck Wagon Cook-off. A few days ago, my husband piled the family into the car and took us on a small road trip to the Le Creuset outlet in Carlsbad, CA.  

It was a lovely trip, and although it took a while including stops to feed and change the baby, the result you can see above.  We have a new member of our family, and her name is Belle Verte.  For anyone who's had the opportunity to work with enameled cast iron, you'll know how evenly she cooks, and browning meats is a dream.  The best part is of course the cleanup, which is easier than even my nonstick cookware.  

While my husband isn't the one to send flowers or buy jewelry, he does think about my domestic desires, and I couldn't be happier with this gift.  It's not cheap, but going to the outlet allowed us to get 35% off.  Just a note for those interested in getting their own Le Creuset piece:  The discounts do not stack.  If you find an item you like that is full price, you can use your AAA card to get 15% off at the outlet.  Personally I wasn't too set on a color which allowed me to get the best deal.  If you're a little flexible you can get a lovely piece for quite a bit off.  I imagine there are even better deals during Black Friday.  Not that I am suggesting that you wait that long, because I for one am glad I got mine and have already used it a half dozen times.  

Being nine months pregnant gives you some interesting food cravings.  This afternoon I was struck by the irresistible desire to eat some caramel corn.  Unfortunately I am also on limited funds and hiding from the heat so I had a couple choices:  Ignore the craving, or make my own.  The fact that I never have seemed of little consequence in the face of the Craving Monster, and so I did some quick online research, checked the pantry for supplies, and dove right in.

This recipe is a combination of a couple that I found online, with some modifications of my own.  The only thing I would change would be the ratio of popcorn to caramel; I seemed to have been pretty light with the popcorn, so the resulting product came out a little over coated.  Beyond that though, I feel like this was a great success, especially now that the Craving Monster has been appeased.  

Last night I spent the better part of my time making some red velvet cake balls for a pot luck at Art's work.  The chocolate was too hard in the first batch and seized up, and so the resulting product was lumpy, bumpy, but I assume still delicious.  I tell you this because when I attempt to claim the amazing masterpiece below you will understand exactly how ludicrous an idea it actually is.

Vera over at Baking Obsession must love her son a lot.  I mean a LOT.  Because when he requested a Skyrim-themed birthday cake, not only did she deliver, she delivered one of the most beautiful cakes I've ever seen.  She created Alduin the World Eater out of molding chocolate, fondant, and gum paste, and I swear, if you look at it from the right angle, the cake actually moves.  

Modeling her design off of the statue that came with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Collector's Edition (photos off the internet mind you, not the actual statue) Vera started by making the base stone out of four 13 x 8 sheet cakes.  I am curious on that size because my pans are all 13 x 9, so maybe there's a store out there that sells strangely shaped cake pans.  Soaking the shaped cake in strawberry syrup she bound them together with bittersweet strawberry ganache.  I've only made chocolate ganache, but I assume the technique is similar.  The cherry on the cake (pardon me, I had to) is the fact that she used actual Swarovsky crystals for the eyes.  

Last night I dreamt of crepes.  Now when I talk about crepes I don't mean these floppy, white things most people know.  No, I mean the crisp, brown delicacies made by the street vendors of Paris.  

I first encountered street crepes when I was in college in the Spring of 1999.  I spent a semester in Paris, France, and there was a crepe vendor right down the street from where our classes were held.  Almost every day I would order a Nutella and banana crepe, and he made sure to buy a banana specifically for me.  

In my dream I was making the crepes myself.  Somehow I had learned to master the round griddle and the art of flipping those paper thin rounds.  I'm not even going to attempt it until I get myself the right equipment, but that doesn't mean I can't share my dream with you.  

I have this debate with myself often:  Exactly how much of an expert do you have to be to blog about a subject?  When I started my blogging career I was primarily a gamer, and had the opportunity to write a column about one particular gaming subject I new a little about, but I was far from being an expert.  I knew that it was blogging death to assume that I knew everything about said subject, when the gaming community was filled with experts and self-proclaimed experts.  Instead, I decided I would format my column as an exploration, a learning journey, and left the expert conversation to others.

Food seems, in many ways, this same sort of venue.  There are so many people who are experts -- professional chefs, food writers, people who lasted more than a semester in culinary school -- and so in a way I feel as if this conversation isn't worth having.  And yet I love food and want to explore and learn, and I do that best through communication.  Written communication is the easiest for me, and so I figured as a blogger, what would be better than combining my love of writing with my budding love of food.  

Again though, I am far from being an expert.  I have a lot of opinions, but mostly they are based on life experience, not training.  A couple of years ago I succumbed to temptation and enrolled in culinary school -- and boy did I enjoy myself. I found out that while was I really good at it, I had no intention of becoming a chef.  I'm a writer, and it's hard to justify a culinary school student loan debt just because I want to learn more about something.  

Most people know me as a gamer, but that's only one dimension of my life.  Sometimes I'm a wife, sometimes I'm a writer, and sometimes I'm a foodie.  The culinary arts have become an increasingly greater part of my life, to the point where I enrolled in culinary school.  I wasn't able to afford to stay in school, but my short time in the kitchen taught me that I truly love food as an art form.  

For me food is a passion, a creative outlet, and a way to express myself.  To that end I've decided it's time to start Food Geex, a celebration of all things culinary.  I have been holding onto this site for a while, waiting until Game Geex got its feet under it.  But I realized today that the journey with Food Geex is very different than our flagship site, and that it's okay to start a new community and a new conversation.

It is my intent to focus on all those aspects of the culinary world that really excite me: recipes, gourmet food trucks, restaurant reviews, and transforming traditional dishes into healthier ones.  I'm also completely addicted to culinary competition shows (Top Chef, Chopped, Iron Chef etc.) and I look forward to dishing (you see what I did there) on all my favorite shows.  

So let's start this journey together.  It's going to be delicious.