Monthly Archives: November 2008

Food from QVC and HSN

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Mrs. Prindable's candy apples

Mrs. Prindable's candy apples

Like other cooking-obsessed people, I’m easily lured by certain kinds of marketing.  When I’m home by myself and have a bite of lunch I sometimes sit in the living room and watch a little TV.  If the shopping channels happen to be hawking food-related stuff I’ll tune in.  Over the past couple of years I have been tempted to order a few things that looked good to me, namely David’s crumb cakes, Kim & Scott’s pretzels and Mrs. Prindable’s apples.  The crumb cakes have to do with my love of New York-style crumb cake, with its 3 to 1 topping-to-cake ratio, and my 1980’s obsession with David’s ice cream, which Steven and I would have at the David’s shop on Broadway near Astor Place.  The early to mid-80’s were the glory days of high-end retail cookies as well as my relationship with Steven.  He lived in the East Village and I in Astoria, and we spent our evenings after dinner walking around lower Manhattan, often stopping for a snack we could carry with us.  I don’t know why the stuffed pretzels appealed to me – maybe it’s another New York City thing.  Mrs. Prindable’s apples, however, always inspired lust in my heart when they were sliced by the host.  I told myself I would order some of them for the hell of it one day.  Fully aware that many things on TV look better than they are, that I would have to order in volume, and that the shipping and handling costs would be an outrage, I took the plunge.  First off, I purchased a 3 pound David’s crumb cake assortment from HSN for just under $30, including shipping, which included three squares each of regular, apple and triple chocolate in a festive box with tissue paper.  The shipment was prompt and everything arrived in one piece.  To make a long story short, the regular version was by far the best, the apple and chocolate being too sweet for me.  That’s not to say they were not also good, but it’s been three weeks now and we still have a couple cuts of apple and chocolate hanging around.  Next, I visited the QVC site and placed an order for 16 individual-size Mrs. Prindable’s “candy bar assortment” apples for $47, inclusive of shipping.  Granny Smith apples are dipped in an excellent soft caramel and then rolled in candy bar material.  They come individually wrapped and are shipped in a big box lined with foam.  All apples arrived in pristine condition, and I received 4 each of candy-coated milk chocolate (think M&Ms), dark chocolate coconut, white chocolate peanut butter cup and milk chocolate crunch (think Nestlé’s Crunch).  Unfortunately, all but the dark chocolate coconut are barely edible unless you are a 5 year-old, in my opinion, the candy coatings being sickeningly sweet.  Too bad, because the apples are great — nice and tart — and the soft caramel is good.  Maybe the knock-off candy bar coating is made from poor quality chocolate, who knows, but whatever it is, you have been warned.  The dark chocolate coconut is very good, though, and does not suffer from the above-mentioned issues.  Next time I may order the nut variety.  I mean, what can you do to a plain nut?  Also from QVC came a 16-piece set of mozzarella-stuffed pretzels from Kim & Scott’s for $47 , including shipping.  Oh, man, these are good.  You are dealing with a high-quality hand-rolled pretzel with nothing but good, solid, ingredients involved.  Then they add stuffing, which, in this case, is like a cross between mozzarella and cream cheese.  This would be my only gripe – that the mozzarella is processed.  However, this is minor, as these pretzels are fab.  They are packed individually in an attractive wrapper that shows the product to full potential.  The other bonus here is that they are heated directly in the wrapper, which makes them super-convenient.  Take my advice and avoid the microwave, though, for the best result.  These were so popular at my house that I was not able to find one in the freezer to photograph for the website a week after they came in.

A piece of David's apple coffee cake

A piece of David's apple coffee cake

Vik’s Chaat in Berkeley CA

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Menu board at Vik's Chaat Corner in Berkeley

Menu board at Vik's Chaat Corner in Berkeley

We wanted the antithesis of a turkey dinner today so we went to Vik’s Chaat Shop (726 Allston Way, Berkeley) for some spicy grub.  The weekend is the best time to go to Vik’s because they offer their full menu.  We shared four items:  1).  One kathi kabob.  This is an egg-covered paratha wrap with boneless chicken chunks, onions and cilantro and comes with mint chutney on the side.  Paratha is a relatively thick, flaky, buttery whole wheat flat bread.  2).  One lamb baida roti, a wrap made using a flour roti (another flat bread) and spiced ground lamb filling.  This is a very savory item and I highly recommend it!  3).  One masala dosa.  The dosa is a crepe made of ground rice and dal (lentils) that is often stuffed – in this case with spiced potatoes.  On the side you receive coconut chutney and sambar, a subtly-spicy warm lentil sauce.  This dosa is large and hangs over the plate it is served on.  4).  One bhatura cholle.  We always get this vegetarian item, basically a huge puri (puffed, fried bread made of fermented wheat) served with chick pea curry and Indian pickles,  which are pungent and hot.  The big puri is the bhatura and the chick pea curry is the cholle. 

bhatura cholle at vik's 11-28-08

Bhatura cholle at Vik's Chaat Corner

When you order an assortment to share you wind up with several breads to dip into various sauces and condiments.  For example, most of the dosa stuffing is in the middle so you can tear off plain pieces of the dosa on the ends and apply them to whatever looks good to you on other plates. 

Masala dosa at Vik's Chaat Corner

Masala dosa at Vik's Chaat Corner

I love this place, and it is an antidote to bland food.  Update on 12/5/08:  Steve had off so we went back for lunch and had four different things:   keema samosa, pastry-wrapped minced lamb and peas with mint chutney; bhel puri, a cold dish of puffed rice mixed with potatoes, onions, cilantro and various chutnies, including tamarind, so it’s on the sweet side; uttappam, a thick rice pancake topped with tomatoes, onions and cilantro that comes flat like a pizza with sauces on the side, and lunch special B, which today was chicken do-pyaza.  The lunch specials come with a small serving of the main dish, chapatti (flat whole wheat bread), papadam (thin, crisp, chick pea flour bread), some kind of dal (lentil sauce), rice, raita (cold yogurt sauce) and pickle.  Lunch specials work well when you share because one provides three dipping options for crepes or bread.  The star of the meal was the samosa.  Oh, man, so savory with a deep, rich flavor!  Vik’s has the best samosa I ever ate – and that goes for the vegetarian ones, too, which are stuffed with spiced potatoes.  They manage to get real complexity in their dishes, and each is distinctive.  The potato stuffing in the masala dosa, for example,  is different from the one in the samosa.  The bhel puri was fine, but there was too much of it for two people given its sweetness and our use of it as a condiment.  The uttappam has an interesting texture and the toppings wind up being cooked into it, so you get it dry and can use it to dip into sauce. 

Bhel puri at Vik's Chaat Corner

Bhel puri at Vik's Chaat Corner

 The average cost of an item at Vik’s is in the neighborhood of $5.50, so it’s a great place for a cheap meal, but one thing to be aware of is that almost everything has some heat to it.  This would not be a good place to take people who cannot tolerate a slow, steady, pleasant burn as they eat.  The people who work in this huge industrial space a nice, and service is quick, but they get busy during lunch.  When we arrived today at 11:00 a.m., there was already a line and they had not yet rolled up their metal door.

Keema samosa at Vik's Chaat Corner

Keema samosa at Vik's Chaat Corner

Thanksgiving 2008!

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Thanksgiving at Chez Akitachow in 2008

Thanksgiving at Chez Akitachow in 2008

Thanksgiving Day!  Prepared the usual suspects and had one of Matt’s friends, Chris, over, which made it a nice time.  Matt has a great group of friends – all bright, creative and inquisitive individuals.  We have fun spending time with them because it’s nice to get fresh perspectives on the same old nonsense. 

Thanksgiving turkey in 2008

The meal was topped off by a castle-shaped 7up cake with lemon glaze and a sprinkling of blue sugar. 

Castle pound cake for dinner

Berry and Steve spent some quality time resting on the futon in a tryptophan haze later in the day.  (Yes, I know this tryptophan thing is made much of, when it’s most likely alcohol or blood sugar swings due to the consumption of so many carbs knocking you out). 

Steve and Berry resting after a Thanksgiving meal

Let me add a final bit about the holiday table:  One thing I always do instead of ironing my cloth napkins (to be honest with you I don’t iron anything) is some sort of decorative fold.  If you have a good quality napkin and fold it flat as soon as it comes out of the dryer and then store it flat you’re in good shape to do this.  Use 15-inch napkins, at the smallest.  Old British cookbooks are good sources of information here since napkin folding was immensely popular in Victorian England and through at least the 1930s.  The origin of napkin folding, or napery, is argued.  Some say it actually started in Victorian England  due to the worship of all things ‘Oriental,” which, in the case of napery, sees its antecedent in origami.  Others say it is hundreds of years older than that.  I prefer to use the old folds, like the cockscomb, just for the hell of it.  The Mrs. Beeton’s series of cooking guides has a number of outrageous folds and there is information on the Web if you can’t find them in hard copy.

Top Chef – ho hum

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I hate to have nonsense here, but…..Matt was watching a recent episode of the Bravo reality television show Top Chef last night, and one of the hosts, Padma Lakshmi, in an amateur move, spit out a bite of a dish served up by one of the contestants into her napkin.  She must be at that point where she really believes she’s qualified.  This show is little more than meaningless entertainment (look at the judging and how it’s edited), and would have more legitimacy if all the judges had the skills and experience needed to criticize professional-level cooking.

Fromager des Clarines

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a hunk of fromage des clarines

Wedges of Fromage des Clarines

We all took it easy today, laying around in one form or another.  Matthew went into San Francisco for his Dignity service and we ate leftover pulled pork on rolls with roasted red pepper strips and sweet pickles for dinner. 

This might be a good time to report on a new, quite decent cheese that Costco is now carrying:  Fromager des Clarines.  Like brie on mild steroids – and a steal at about $15 for 10 ounces – this is a soft cow’s milk cheese from the French region of Franche-Comté.  It’s made by Jean Perrin of Vacherin Mont D’or fame, the raw milk taste explosion that is illegal here because of the dumb-asses who make these kinds of decision.  Think about it.  There is so much absolute crap sold in the US that passes for food — products that are science experiments, like Cool Whip, and cake frostings with no butter, for example — yet they are worried about raw milk cheeses from European companies whose practices most US outfits can only dream of.  Give me a break.  Anyway, Fromager des Clarines, which is milder than Vacherin Mont D’or, needs to be eaten very ripe, with the center like custard. 

I saw a whole array of ripeness represented in the Costco stock, from white and firm to yellow and collapsed – with and without mold on the rind, I might add.  I chose one that was off-white but starting to sink down; normally I get one that’s more far-gone, but I was dealing with guests who might not appreciate it that way.  You should choose one that is more questionable looking – more yellow and concave – and smells strong.  Don’t be afraid to open up 20 wooden boxes to get the perfect specimen!  Eat at room temperature.  Let me say this again:  Eat at room temperature.  If you serve this cold you might as well go buy cheap brie.  When warm and ripe, the texture is very smooth and creamy, and the buttery flavor a little acidic with musty tones and other funkiness that is the hallmark of a good cheese.  While the impact of this cheese on the palate is more limited than real Vacherin Mont D’or (meaning the original made with raw milk and not the versions produced for the American market, which are made with pasteurized milk), it is full-flavored with a great mouthfeel.  Serve with crusty bread – and spoons, if really ripe.  I kid you not.  You can even heat this in the oven; just follow the instructions on the box.

A box of fromage des clarines french cheese