Au Revoir…For The Time Being

As you may or may not have noticed (you probably did), we over here at AYGFT have been slacking major on the old update front. We apologize.

I know. I know. Apologies are like apple: abundant. Well, we just got busy. Very, very busy. Mostly with work. A little with other blogs and projects. Either way, we just feel we should leave on some sort of hiatus.

We might be back. We might not. It really depends on how the rest of our lives work out. If it turns out we have nothing left to do with ourselves but update a blog about things we eat, then we’ll be back. If not, then not.

Regardless, it was fun while it lasted. Feel free to check out the past posts. Get some recipes. Absorb the youthful, optimistic vibe. Enjoy.

But never stop asking,

“Are You Gonna Finish That?

Because people really do leave some pretty good food on their plates.

Thank You.

Family Dinner #8 – Jambalaya and Cornbread

A couple weeks ago was our first family dinner in a very long time (I’m sure you’ve noticed), and although it was technically Colin’s turn, James volunteered to cook some kick-ass jambalaya and cornbread.

I can’t remember all of the ingredients, but the staples were certainly in there; shrimp, andouille , rice, celery, onions, etc… It was probably the best thing I’ve ever had at James’, and that’s saying a lot considering the fine things James has made in the past.

The cornbread was the perfect compliment to the spicy, wet jambalaya.

It was so good that I had three pieces (and, perhaps, after a couple drinks, 2 more pieces.)

What do your friends ever do for you? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Drew

Special Delivery: A Hawaiian Suprise.

So yesterday I was at a friends house when Colin called me.

“Hey dude. Where are you?” he asked.

“Aaron’s. What are you doing?” I replied

“I’m at your place scanning some photos. The mailman just dropped off a coconut for you.” he informed me

“What? A coconut?” I inquired.

“Yeah. It’s just a coconut with your name and address on it, with a shipping sticker stuck on the side.”

I was intrigued (who wouldn’t be? i usually only get bills and Newsweek in the mail). Knowing that a very good friend of mine, Anna, had just returned from a long trip to Hawaii, I figured she would be the first one I should interrogate about my mystery parcel.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Did you send me a coconut?” I politely demanded.

“Haha. Yeah. I did.” she lauged.

Long story short, it’s a coconut with my name and address written on it (with no return address) in what appears to be White Out. It also has a picture of a fish, a wave, a man on a raft, and crudely drawn maps of Hawaii and California, connected my a dotted line depicting  the coconuts long journey.

It also says COOK SOMETHING WITH IT on the side, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.

My friends rule, and Anna is a sweetheart. Here is a picture I took of her at her school:

What a cutie. Thanks kiddo.

Drew

PS. Does anyone else feel like listening to Coconut Records?

Love Thy Neighbor.

Why? Because she is always making me delicious food.

Her name is Hillary, and she’s a hell of a cook. She used to work at Bon Appétit magazine. Now she’s a childrens librarian. Long story short, she’s always bringing me really amazing food. This morning she woke me up with a phone call asking, “Hey. Are you home?“

“Ummm, yes.” I replied, trying to hide the fact that I was still  asleep at 11:30am.

“Come over. I have food for you.“

I was dressed and down the hall in 20 seconds flat. I opened the door to find her in a white dress, arms full of pastries, trying to slip some shoes on to her feet.

“Hey. I’m about to leave. That’s for you.” she said, nudging her head towards a mystery pastry sitting on a plate in her kitchen.

“What is it?” I asked. Not that I cared about the details of this free and surely delectable treat.

“Cinnamon. Butter. Pecans.“

With many thanks I was out the door. Half way down the hall I bit into this dense, flakey, sweet cylinder of love, cinnamon and pecans. Oh, how I do enjoy my neighbors.

A few nights ago she made James and I some pasta with anchovies and tomatoes.

And Ill bet every time you see your neighbors they are giving you shady looks from a crack in their doorway as the sour smell of stale cat urine leaks into the hall.

Yeah. Bummer for you.

Drew

Sweet Mother Of God…

Have you ever put something in your mouth that caused you to immediately cringe with pleasure? No? Bummer for you.

I was having breakfast at James’s house today, and he said he was making “cheese on toast”. Naturally, I assumed he meant some grated cheese on a thick slice of wheat. But oh no, what he really meant was “I’m making rosemary and olive oil toast with prosciutto and fresh pear wedges on top, covered with grated Dubliner cheese, baked in the oven until the cheese is perfectly melted, and then lathered in lingonberry jam. Oh, and by the way, it’s going to be so good that you will immediately cringe with pleasure upon tasting it.”

Go on. Compare your breakfast to mine and cry.

Drew

Beef Stock – Diversifying Your Tasty Portfolio

Did you lose all of your stock when the economy went down the toilet? No Problem! Just make more!

Beef stock can be used in making almost everything. It is commonly used as a base for soups and sauces, but I throw it in to tons of stuff. It is so full of flavor that it usually takes the place of salt and pepper in a lot of my dishes.

_____________

Ingredients

Beef Bones – 6 lbs

Carrots – 5 large

Onions – 2 large

Potatoes – 3 large

Celery – 3 stalks with leaves

Garlic – 1/2 head

Whole Peppercorns – 1/4 cup

The first thing I did was set my oven to 450 degrees. While it was warming up I cut up all of the veggies into 1 sq/in chunks and laid them onto two separate baking sheets (I have small baking sheets. If you can fit everything on one, go ahead).

Next I got out my 6 lbs of beef bones. I live in Koreatown, and across the street from a large Korean grocery store sells a lot of things I cant find at my local Ralphs, such as bags of bones. When I was walking to the store thinking about 6 lbs of bones, I imagined something much more impressive then what I ended up with. 6 lbs of bones, it turns out, is really only two baggies of what appears to be the knee joints.

I spread the bones out on top of the veggies.

By this time my oven was up to 450 and ready for use. Uncovered, I placed the baking sheets in the oven next to one another. They will be in there for 30 minutes, or until the bones are a nice golden brown.

With that stuff baking away, I went ahead and cut up all of that garlic into rough 1/4 inch pieces and threw it into my stock pot with a 1/4 cup of whole peppercorns.

After about 30 minutes, the veggies and bones were ready to come out of the oven. What had been this:

was magically transformed, by the powers of heat and time, into this:

At this point I took everything from the baking sheets and put it into my stock pot.

And then I filled the pot up with water until everything was covered in water.

The water was brought to a boil, and then down to a simmer. Then I covered the stock pot, turned out the lights, and left the room.

It was like making a baby, only at the end of the process you get to eat what you made, instead of having to pay for braces and college (unless your name is Jonathan Swift, because then you will eat what you made anyway).  You put all of these ingredients together, and you don’t know exactly how it will turn out in the end, but you know you’ll love it no matter what.

After 5 hours your apartment should smell sufficiently of deliciousness, and you will have eaten like 2-3 times since you started due to the hunger-inspiring fumes leaking from the kitchen.

I took my strainer and began scooping out all of the veggies and bones.

This is a lengthy and annoying step. After 5 hours soaking in boiling water, everything has turned into a stringy, mushy, structureless mess. But Sweet Christ, how it does smell good.

Yum. Just writing this post and looking at those pictures has left me dwelling more and more on the ever growing void in my gut where food should be. Let’s finish this up.

After straining everything out of your stock pot, it’s time to clear a large space in your refrigerator. Place your stock pot in here.

Then close the door and leave it over night.

In the morning, open the door and discover the great layer of solidified fat that now covers the surface of the stock.

Break this apart and remove it. I kept a lot of it in tupperware to cook with (it’s fantastic for greasing your pan). There will be a lot of little pieces floating around in the stock, so I ran my strainer through there a couple more times.

I split my stock between tupperware and ice cub trays. Whenever I’m cooking something that I think could use some stock, I just pop out a couple of cubes and throw them in the pan. Rice tastes really good with a couple of stock cubes.

It will last for months in tupperware in the freezer…I think.

Drew

Pineapple Pancake/ Whiskey Waffle Party

Let me tell you a story, friend. It’s the grand tale of The Greatest Party Ever Thrown.

Not really, but it was pretty sweet.

So, me being the born entertainer that I am, as well as a firm believer in the idea that people are happiest while eating, I, one day, got the idea to throw a Pineapple Pancake Party (because pancakes are a specialty of mine, and pineapple is something that i can put in pancakes that also begins with the letter P).

The first one I had was back in December, and it was pretty good. A few good friends came, I made them my special pancakes with big rings of fresh pineapple in them. They brought me booze. It was pretty win win.

Last Saturday night I hosted my second Pineapple Pancake Party but with one difference: Colin would be making Whiskey Waffles along side my pancakes.

Party Invitation

I knew this was going to be a big party. Colin and I sent out a staff-wide e-vite at the volunteer bicycle workshop where we work. That’s like 50 some odd people right there. On top of that we invited all of our other friends, which was another 10 people or so.

We knew we were going to need a lot of supplies. The last time I had this party I ran out of batter, so the last few people to show up got sandwiches (bummer).

I started off by buying 5 nice pineapples. Sometimes it’s hard to tell when a pineapple is ripe, but I find that if it smells like sweet pineapple on the outside, it’s going to be sweet pineapple on the inside.

I also bought two huge boxes of Bisquick. I grew up making pancakes with Bisquick, so that’s what I always buy. In addition to the pineapples, I also got a few large Fiji apples and some bananas, just in case someone didn’t want pineapple.

We made 3 bowls of batter. One pancake, one waffle, and one vegan (this is los angeles, so we kind of had to make the vegan).

Drew’s Pancake Batter

Bisquick – 2 cups

Milk – 1 cup

Eggs – 2

Cinnamon – 1 teaspoon

Vanilla Extract – 1 tablespoon

That’s the original recipe, which I tripled for the party.

Mix it all together. it should be a nice light beige with cinnamon speckles.

I had to make a second batch half way through.

Has anyone ever seen a pineapple tool in action? It’s pretty rad. It works like this:

Chop the top of the pineapple off, then stick the base of the tool on top of your pineapple and start turning like a cork screw.

As you get towards the bottom, perfect rings of pineapple will start sliding upwards along the post of the tool.

When you reach the bottom of the pineapple, give it another full turn for good measure, and then pull the handle like a mad man. And Viola.

A long ring of pineapple. All that is left over is the part that’s going to end up in the trash. I would have to say that this is by a wide margin my favorite specialized kitchen tool to use (up yours, mango splitter).

Ok. Party time. Colin had made his batter (which contains a little bit of olive oil, whereas the pancake batter does not). The vegan batter was made (which was just Bisquick and water. It turned out surprisingly well). And the guests were showing up.

We had everything in place when the orders started coming in. “Can I get a Vegan Waffle?” Shit yes! “Could I get a pancake with pineapples and bananas?” Absolutely.

Colin and I had a real rhythm going in there. Just the two of us, weaving around one another. Each of us 100% in the zone and completely aware of the others’ movements. We were like a well oiled machine.

Colin had 2 waffle irons and I had 3 cast iron skillets going on the range. We were sharing a bottle of olive oil, passing it back forth. We also had to play dishwasher as the dirty dishes started coming in. We started off with only 6 plates, though half way through our neighbor Hillary brought over a bunch of her dishes (thank god).

I was so busy that the pictures above are the only pictures I took of any pancakes the whole night. It’s tough to see, but I make my pancakes really thick, more like a cake than a flapjack. I like them that way.

There is only one rule at my Pineapple Pancake Parties.

Stay Out Of The Goddamn Kitchen

There was a lot of questions along the lines of “What can I do to help?”

All of which were replied to with “Just dont come in the kitchen. Thanks”

I often had to say “Hey, Patrick. How about having that conversation about 3 feet due south. Great.” or “Hey Gina, get the fuck out of my kitchen, you’re in the way.”

With all the maneuvering Colin and I were doing in there, zero pedestrian traffic was a must.

This party got big, fast. Although we invited over 50 people from work, we really only expected 5-10 to show up. Nobody person RSVP’d (though that was expected). But by my count we had 27 people, not including ourselves, all crammed in my tiny studio apartment. It was crazy.

And since most of our friends and coworkers are bicycle nerds (like us), my hall soon filled up with bicycles.

“Who needs whiskey in their mouth?”, Colin would yell, right before leaving the kitchen to pour Jim Beam straight from the bottle into peoples mouths.

Our guests really liked the waffles. They were a bigger hit than my pancakes. And the 10 pints of gourmet ice cream Colin brought home from his real job at an ice cream store put smiles on faces and tongues, too.

At about 11:45 things started to die down. Everyone was getting full. Half of our second batch of batter was gone. The whiskey bottle was running low. I guess I over shot my fruit supplies estimation by a lot because I had 4 out of 5 pineapples left over. Last time I ran out of my 2 pineapples pretty quick. People really went for the apples and bananas I offered this time.

I wonder why more people didn’t go bananas for the pineapples (come on. that’s funny).

So my final count (not accurate) was 38 total

21 Waffles

17 Pancakes

Not bad for one night. I would highly suggest that everyone who reads this immediately start planning their own pancake and waffle party. I mean, all the cool kids are doing it.

Though if you do, heed this warning. Not matter how tired, worn out, or drunk you may be, clean up your kitchen that night. Be aware (I’m sure you already are), that pancake batter turns to concrete when left out over night. Nobody wants to wake to the daunting task of cleaning this:

All in all it was a total success.

Drew

Amazing Cheese Alert! – Wensleydale W/ Apricots

Holy Cheese, everyone. I just got some cheese at Costco called Wensleydale With Apricots, and Cheesus Christ it’s amazing. This is maybe my favorite cheese of all time, and that’s really saying something. That’s like Hugh Hefner picking an all time favorite Bunny. This stuff is like crack to me.

It’s a very crumbly, grainy cheese. It hits your tongue and immediately melts into a very thick, very salty, sweet, gloriously grainy coating for your whole mouth. It’s like there’s a party in your mouth and everyone’s enjoying cheese.

Yum!

drew

Gin & Tonics, reviving the classics

Hello dear friends. This year I’ve fallen in love with cocktails. Sure, I still yourn for a can of Rainier from time to time, but ever since Elena started tending bar two years ago, a whiskey-coke, a mojito or a gin & tonic satisfies far more.

I’m certainly not alone.  Over the past several years, old fashioned cocktails have become far more popular all over the country. Many bartenders, sometimes called ‘Pre-Repeal Revivalists‘, will prepare their own bitters and simple syrups, and remain faithful to the minimalist recipes of the tried and true classics of our great-grandfathers’ generation.

If you’re in the mood to make yourself the best G&T you’ve ever tasted, try using the tonic water from Whole Foods. Their generic ‘365′ brand far surpasses the other garbage they give you at bars, which almost always has high fructose corn syrup in it.  Whole Foods’ uses cane sugar and it makes all the difference.

We tried an ‘on sale’ gin called New Amsterdam, which actually turned out to be delicious. Elena also likes using Avation Gin from Portland.

Oh, yeah! I almost forgot. For all your home bar needs, go to The Bar Keeper in Silverlake. They have the classiest, most extensive, modern/classic barware I’ve ever seen. Stop by next time you have breakfast at Millie’s.

Also, can we all use the term ‘highball‘ more? That needs to happen.

Love,

Colin

Family Dinner #7 – Grilled Cheese and Asparagus

Hey friends! This one almost got away from us. Our grilled cheese dinner actually happened before taco & margarita night, but I am lazy, so the post comes out now.  It was Elena’s turn to feed our growing group, and again with little preparation we needed something cheap and satisfying.

Let’s talk about cheese. Our favorite cheese has hands down got to be Dubliner by Kerrygold.

If you haven’t tried it, make it the next cheese you buy because it is extraordinary.  It’s a white cheddar (white is the  natural color of real cheddar cheese; the orange crap  is artificially colored with annatto) and combines a mature cheddar taste with an underlying sweetness that I think makes it so popular. Also it goes with everything. It can get a little pricey since it’s an import, but you can get slabs the size of masonry bricks for ten bucks at Costco, which puts it in our price range.

As for bread, we like bread from La Brea Bakery. It’s hearty artisan bread of good quality, and conveniently you can also get it at Costo. Good bread can get expensive, but two loaves are under five bucks, which is less than half price anywhere else you get it. Plus it freezes well.  For the grilled cheese, we chose a variety that has big ol’ cloves of garlic baked in, which I don’t think I need to tell you makes it taste way gooder.

Also in preparation for dinner, Elena scoured the Hollywood Farmer’s Market for some veggies to have with it, and decided on asparagus. I don’t know if it was the type of asparagus, or just how great my girl is at cooking, but each spear was delicate and slightly crispy from the grill and loaded with flavor.

We grilled the sandwiches on our beloved cast iron pans until they were crispy golden brown and the cheese was oozing out and caramelized.

For desert Elena cut the cores out of some apples and filled them with dried currants, cinnamon, brown sugar, nutmeg, and real maple syrup. Then they went in to oven, where everything fused into an amazingly mushy mess. We topped them with real whipped cream (it took us 15 minutes of passing around a whisk and a mixing bowl full of cream, taking turns whipping, to make).

Everybody got full and we got drank too much wine and too many gin and tonics.

Mission accomplished.

Love,

Colin