Candy Season

the candy harvest has come in!

clockwise from top: Raspberry Joys, Hot Tamales, Spicy Apple Ginger Chews, Apples Zots, Sen-Sen, Black Jack Gum, Original Turkish Delight, stack of Peanut Chews (original dark).

ok, not the biggest take, but this is just the stuff i brought into share at work!  there are a -lot- more peanut chews at home, and a variety of flavored dark chocolates i’m keeping for me and my love-interest to snack on while we watch horror movies and cuddle.  (it’s fall!).  i’m lucky i decided on veganism before i went shopping because i could have gone totally broke on candy.

inspired by Steve Almond’s Candyfreak, i found myself looking for Necco Wafers at Economy Candy, the only place i was certain i could find them.  Almond notes in his book that Neccos, first manufactured in 1847, “were a staple of the Union soldiers who fought in the Civil War.”  being ridiculous, i got excited about this because -i’ve- eaten and enjoyed neccos myself, and i felt a historical connection. i was also interested that the candy has a ‘clove’ flavor, an unusual (and occasionally maligned) flavor for candy, but something i actually like.

unfortunately, i discovered necco wafers have gelatin, which means that even vegetarian me wouldn’t have eaten them.  So i turned my sites on other old-timey or unusual candies.  And the peanut chews which are probably the most widely available vegan candy.

Original Turkish Delight:

this was a surprise, because every recipe for turkish delight i’ve ever seen involved gelatin, and i’ve never seen such a thing in a store before.  i have in fact only had it once before, and my memory of it is completely free of what-it-tasted-like and totally full of how-awkward-i-was.  they had turkish delight with nuts and stuff in it, but i thought i’d go for the plain.  that’s just how i operate.

cubes of coagulated sugar and cornstarch, covered in powdered sugar.  and yes, it was Delicious!  it actually tastes -exactly- like marshmallows.  -exactly-.

Peanut Chews:

peanut chews are good times.  the peanut to chocolate ratio skews extremely towards the peanut.  and they are, so far as vegan chocolate bars go, pretty widely available.

Black Jack Gum:

i only bought this for the nostalgia factor.  i didn’t even eat any.  licorice-flavored black gum.  but remember Twin Peaks?  remember when you didn’t know what was going to happen and you were looking for clues and some hint and/or another led your mom to believe the secret was in Black Jack gum so she bought a bunch and you ate it and were all, ‘ew, mom.’  so there’s the nostalgia factor.

Joyva Raspberry Joys:

these are fruit jells enrobed in chocolate.  a lot of people hate them.  you also see them as ‘jelly rings’ in some of the stores around greenpoint (if not everywhere).  i’m a fan myself and locavore bonus – they’re made in brooklyn.  yay!

Hot Tamales

i got these for a specific spicy cinnamon candy lover here at the bkk.  basically cinnamon mike and ikes.

Spicy Apple Ginger Chews

most mysteriously, the Spicy Apple version of Ginger Chews was actually a bit less spicy than the usual plain version.  Ginger Chews, if you’ve never had them, are a pleasantly warm spicy gingery candy that sticks to your teeth like crazy.  But you can’t stop eating them anyway.   the company that makes them is called Ginger People, and the packaging features, what else, anthropomorphic ginger roots, occasionally partaking in a little canabalistic Ginger Chew eating.

Zots

they fizz!  it takes a minute or so, but once the outer hard candy is compromised, a fizzy fun time starts.  they are a bit sour, but not Warheads or anything.  i found them a little disconcerting the first time, but my disconcertment has now turned to love.

Sen-Sen

Sen-Sen is really the reason i wrote this post.  more of a (n unintentional) gag toy than a food really, Sen-Sen is “perfume for your mouth”.  almost literally.  this bizarre ‘candy’ was created in the 1890’s as a breath freshener, with licorice as the main ingredient.  mint was apparently not considered, but the product really took off anyway.

i found the effect of eating what looks tiny black paint chips is not at all unlike spraying inedible perfume directly into your mouth.  i can understand, i suppose, a world in which the idea of ‘perfume for your mouth’ would mean something that made you feel like you had perfume in your mouth.  and a world where this made you think your breath was ‘fresh’. i mean, this is a world where, according to Wikipedia, cleaning your teeth involved tooth powders made “with chalk, pulverized brick, or salt as ingredients”.  pulverized brick does not sound refreshing. but what i don’t totally get is this product continuing to exist over 100 years later, and being sold as a candy!  but that said, one person i had try Sen-Sen, intending it to upset him, totally liked it.  but he also likes lavendar flavored candy, so is clearly a weirdo.

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so there you go.  my candy rundown.  have a Happy Halloween!

 

Community Service Announcement

Did you know that you can buy some awesome pie making supplies with us? We have some pretty great pie dishes, and they will keep you from being arrested as you attempt to go get yourself some pie.

 

On Being a Cookoff judge. It’s not easy.

I’ve judged quite a few cookoffs in the past few years. Casseroles, Cupcakes, Pie (twice!), the Bodega Challenge, Chili. All have been fun, inspiring, difficult and often hell the next day on the gastro-intestinal system. I mean our bodies aren’t used to eating that kind of variety of one food all at once!

The long road ahead at the 2009 Enid's Apple pie cookoff

It may look easy to watch us judges up there tasting all the food, as the crowd drools in anticipation of being set free to eat the rest. It’s really hard. There were 53 pies entered last Saturday at the annual Enid’s Apple Pie contest. 53! That’s a LOT of pie. And truth be told, some of them were not very good. A few were downright inedible. 6 of us judges had to whittle down 53 pies (!) to find 3 winners. I certainly didn’t taste all of them, but probably tasted 20 of them. Even at only one bite of each, that’s a lot of pie for one sitting, and this was not a competitive eating event.

It’s always delicious, every cookoff has had its standouts, and to those people I say congratulations. I’ve helped some people, like Theo Peck, who won last year’s Casserole cookoff get into a whole world of cookoffs (he now plans his own and has an up and coming pate business) Others, like last year’s winner Sam Rio, came to the other side of the table this year to judge at Enid’s.

Some pointers for aspiring cookoff entrants:

1. Test your recipe first. If you’ve never made this pie before, make one a few days before and see if you like it. At the very least make a small one too that you can taste before you bring yours to the event. A previous cookoff winner came up to me at the Apple Pie contest and confessed that she didn’t think her pie was good enough to win so she left it at home (this shows restraint, and also saved me from having to eat another bite of pie).

2. Make sure your food is cooked all the way through. This may seem obvious with how temperature crazy the USDA is about cooked meat, but at the pie contest the judges agreed unanimously that the most common problem with the pies was that they weren’t fully cooked, and undercooked crust is gross.

3. Signage is nice. I think it’s nice to know what’s in the dish. I’m not allergic to anything (but someone in the crowd might be) but more than that it can be a real surprise to take a bite of what you think is an apple pie and it actually a sausage pie (with apples).

4. Don’t ask why unless you really want to know. By the end of a cookoff the judges are in a food (and possibly alcohol) induced state of mania, and much like taking sodium-pentathol, will answer your questions about why your pie didn’t win with their true opinions. Don’t berate the judges. Sometimes its a fine line that makes the #1 pie win over #2. Some people hate cilantro. Some tastes just aren’t good. If you can take the criticism then ask away, but give us a break and have a good time. That’s the point!

5. Have fun! If it’s stressing you out to make the food and get to the cookoff, then relax and don’t do it. It’s not worth it, nobody’s bleeding, and nobody is getting a giant check with zeros too numerous to count at the end.It’s not worth the stress.

 

Last Minute Sale THIS WEEKEND

Holy Moly. It’s cold.

We bring you our first last minute HOLY FUCK IT’S COLD SOUP SALE!

Le Creuset 6 Qt Stock Pots $40
Soup Bowls $5

 

Knife Care

A lot of fun kitchen toys come through the doors at The Brooklyn Kitchen. I drool over a lot of them, be it practical or novel. And yet, I have come to realize that no matter how much new gear I insist I ‘need‘ there is one activity that more or less brings me back to earth: knife sharpening. It is a craft that I am still very much learning and learning to appreciate. When a nice knife (that has been noticeably well taken care of) comes to The Brooklyn Kitchen in need of some TLC, I take great pleasure in buffing it back into shape. It reminds me that a sharp knife, in fact, is all you really need in a kitchen.  Sharpening a good knife gives me satisfaction not (just) because it takes a fraction of the time to repair over a poorly made knife but because the tool will return to a good home- giving the owner months more of seamless hacking, slicing and dicing. Handling a beautifully made knife reminds me that proper craftsmanship is not easy and not cheap. There is something about holding a beautiful knife in your hands that makes you a little less likely to toss it into the bottom of your sink amidst a pile of dirty dishes.

Recently, I got to put my sharpening skills to some serious use on a set of cutlery that has certainly seen better days. The chef’s knife pictured below had been used to defrost a freezer- as in hack away at the icicles which had formed around the freezer door. The new tip came out a little flared, which might have been remedied had I taken off more material and created a more subtle slope but I was afraid of just that, taking off too much steel. It was successful nonetheless and afterward, I was inspired to make a lil’ list of FAQ about knife care.

Knife Maintenance
You only need to remember 4 things:
Wash, Dry, Steel, Put Away!

Washing
Keep your knives clean. Just do it. Even stainless steel can get gross if not kept clean. Don’t toss it into the bottom of your sink. Not only can it scratch up other tools (or get scratched itself) but it’s always the last thing you think you will grab when you reach into a bottomless tub of sudsy dishes. Ouchie!

Dry
Self explanatory. If you don’t have time to dry your knives (which I am guilty of), lay them flat on a thick dishtowel to air dry. I actually use one of these.

Steel
All straight edge knives need to be maintained regularly. And the fact is, it is easy to learn and will add years onto the life of your knife. There are two methods of keeping your knife’s edge: sharpening and honing. Sharpening, which can be done on a mechanical grinder or a whetstone, actually removes material from your knife whereby the edge is ground back. It is this method that is done the least often- about twice a year depending how often you cook. This is also the way one would remove dings, nicks and chips. Honing can be done every time you cook. Your knife is built more like a saw, with very teeny tiny teeth. You might notice that prepping food is easier if you hold your knife at an angle and use a gentle sawing motion (much like the angle on a guillotine- sorry for the gross reference) rather than a blunt chop (which will most likely squish your tomato). Over time the teeth of your knife will bend and curl over. Running your knife along a steel will realign the blade and keep it feeling pretty new.

Put Away
For all the same reasons you wouldn’t leave your knives in the sink, resist the temptation to leave your naked knives in a drawer. You don’t need a knife block. Although we do carry a really cool one. Options can range from wall mounted knife magnets to knife rolls or, in a pinch, a simple sleeve will do.

-lila

 

Spooky Cooking Ideas…

I’ll admit it, I’m a sucker for Halloween. As soon as the weather starts cooling down & pumpkins start appearing around the neighborhood, I get stupidly giddy – like 8 year old girl getting a pony, giddy. So today was an especially great day, because I got to put together a Halloween display filled with bats, witches, zombies, and pumpkins (oh my)! Here’s just a small selection of my favorite Halloween cooking products & gadgets to get your seasonal juices flowing…

1) Set of 20 Vintage Inspired Cocktail Napkins

2) Zombie Brain Mold

3) Bat Cookie Cutter

All the above example photos are pulled from the Flickr Group Halloween Food – which is seriously a blast to browse through. Make sure to check it out for more fun ideas & be don’t forget to post your own photos of how you’re celebrating the season with food!

 

Crush ‘em if you got ‘em

Picked up this nice old Grape Crusher over the weekend. Made by the Savoy Press co. of Philadelphia, PA.

I figure it’s 1920’s or so. nice wood and cast iron, (rollers are aluminum) construction. let’s get crushing!