Foodieland

Natalie Dee and 'Toothpaste for Dinner' are brilliant.

Figa..Day 5.

I'm going to follow the lead of Kate, from The Blueberry Files and preface this all by saying that it is NOT a review of the barely week old Figa. But, I'll take you damn close to want to calling it one. Chef Farrington has waited a very long time to cook for diners in Portland in this space and we've been building our own excitement as the opening finally came. It's not a review, it's more of a build up over two years of jonesing to try her food. This post is an expression of pure glee. It also helped that I was joined by Adam and Dawn of Appetite Portland for my first venture in--this was their second time in the restaurants opening week.

Having never looked in the window, while many waited with baited breath for their doors to open, I was in absolute love with the design and layout of the space. It reminded me, much like Bresca, of a gem you would luck up finding in Brooklyn or Greenich Village in New York. It was open and cozy and I felt a bit like I was walking into someone's home that happened to have an amazingly professional kitchen. Honestly, I couldn't stop talking about how much I loved this space instantly. It also helped to see a familiar face as the hostess and Sasha's knowledge of the menu guided us to a nice opening trio of Wild Boar Randang, Shrimp Patia w/Corn Blini and Bharta.

And they were all fantastic. The depth of flavor in the Randang might actually rival my love of Boda's telling of it and--pardon my language-- but Figa's is some pretty fucking spectacular Rendang. It was fall apart tender, sweet and, thankfully, comes in a larger portion than what we had gotten as our "Spoon" sized starter--which all of the spoons are much larger portions than we expected and which we did note actually does not come with a spoon at all. Ponder that one.

The Bharta was nice, slightly sweet and smokey, but was definitely overshadowed by the much enjoyed Shrimp Patia. Poppy little nuggets of Maine shrimp in a gorgeously light flavored tomato sauce atop a corn blini. Bliss. Thumbs up all around for the starters and for the in-house baked breads that were served to help mop up the saucy goodness on our plates (Thank you again, Kate, for the tip).

Our main dishes, which consisted of both "Fork" and "Knife" portions were also greatly enjoyed. Sev crusted Scallops w/a Jicama Pear slaw--small sized--and Grilled Prawns on Grilled Corn Salsa were my choices for an entree while Adam went for the Cumin and Fennel Spiced Duck with Mashed Potatoes and Dawn ordered the Chicken Tandori, Couscous and Figa Chutney. The entrees were good but it felt like they had a hard act to follow in the starters. Again, for me, the shrimp presented were fantastically done. This time the seasoning and presentation were much more stripped down and just as wonderful. I loved the simplicity of the dish and it was a great pairing to have along side of the crunchy and perfectly cooked panko crusted scallops. And Dawn didn't miss a beat in telling me that I would love the jicama that accompanied it. These dishes were such a nice contrast to the heartiness on display in our appetizers and could definitely become a personal favorite. I also enjoyed nibbles of Dawn's couscous and chicken and Adam's duck--which was probably the only thing I didn't much care for but that has more to do with my underwhelming enjoyment of duck than anything else.

An errand to Bar Lola, to retrieve Adams wayward jacket he had left behind on his last visit, cut our evening a bit short at Figa. Though, I will guarantee that my next visit will definitely include the tempting trio of creme brulees that were seen on the dessert menu.

My hats off to wonderful execution by the front and back of the house. And the warmest of wishes to Chef Farrington for finally being able to open her doors. The wait, though I'm sure it didn't feel like it for her, has been worth it.

Happy Samhain

The pumpkin carving was a bust. But, at least there was candy.

Carving

Tomorrow night one of these:


will be met by this


I truly love this time of year.

Edible Stats

Maybe it's the fact that my father is a retired bookie, the fact that I was always ahead a year in Math or the fact that it plays into my slight touch of OCD, but I love numbers and statistical breakdowns. Needless to say, when Blogger released their stats feature for the blogs I became obsessed with it. In fact, because I'm such a geek, I wanted to share those stats with you.

• Pageviews, all time history(since May 2010-present): 7,345 with over 1/3 coming in the past month.
• My post on Momofuku's 'Crack Pie' is the top viewed with 342 page views
• Portlandfoodcoma.com, Bon Appetit and Portlandfoodmap.com have brought in 841 hits, and are my top 3 sources of traffic. But, Portlandfoodmap.com is the number one referring site to this one(thank you, A!).
• I'm big with the 'U' countries as the US, UK and Ukraine are my top three countries of visitors and those visitors, by more than 15%, are PC's.
• Apparently, 11 people have found this site by looking up 'Ediable Obsessions' and can't spell. 21 people spelled it right and found their way here.
• One person, truly the inspiration for this post, found this site by searching for 'Edible Pumpkin Lube.'

Happy Halloween, indeed.
And..speaking of




My imperfect Storm Trooper pumpkin of 2010.

Better Nation

One great thing about having a partner that is studying Library Sciences is the fact that they find some really cool websites, especially the archival ones. The picture above is from the Library of Congress' American Memory site and was printed around 1942.

Farmers Market

Pumpkin Apple Fritters with Creme Anglaise

Pumpkin Fritters**

17.6 oz pumpkin - weigh after it has been peeled (even butternut will do)
4.2oz flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
vegetable oil for frying
cinnamon sugar for dusting

Cut the pumpkin into chunks and cook in water until very soft. Drain and allow to cool. Place all the ingredients, including the pumpkin into a blender and blend.

Heat the oil in a saucepan and when the oil is hot, drop spoonfuls of the batter into the oil.

When golden brown on both sides, take out of the oil and drain. Dust with cinnamon sugar and serve with the Creme Anglaise.

**I added cubed ginger gold and honey crisp apples to the batter--about 4 small, total--and I believe that's where I made the mistake. They apples were cut too big for the fritter to maintain a true shape and were just sloppy looking and not cohesive.

For the crème anglaise:

• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch or potato starch
• 1-3/4 cups milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla—or for chocolate crème anglaise, 3 ounces of semisweet chocolate melted in the milk and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract stirred into the finished sauce

Preparation

1. In a 3-quart mixing bowl, gradually beat the sugar into the egg yolks and continue beating for 2 to 3 minutes until the mixture is pale yellow and forms a ribbon.
2. Beat in the starch.
3. While beating the yolk mixture, very gradually pour on the boiling milk in a thin stream of droplets, so that the yolks are slowly warmed.
4. Pour the mixture into a heavy-bottomed enameled or stainless steal saucepan and set over moderate heat, stirring slowly and continuously with a wooden spatula or spoon. Reach all over the bottom and sides of the pan, until the sauce thickens just enough to coat the spoon with a light, creamy layer.
5. Do not let the custard come anywhere near a simmer. It should be a maximum of 170 degrees on a candy thermometer.
6. Then beat the sauce off heat for a minute or two to cool it. Strain it through a fine sieve, and beat in the vanilla.
7. To serve hot: Keep the sauce over warm but not hot water. If you wish, beat in 1 to 2 tablespoon of unsalted butter just before serving.
8. To serve cold: Set the saucepan in a pan of cold water, and stir frequently until cool. Then cover and chill.

Not a 100% win for me. My sister made the same thing last fall when I was home and I couldn't stop eating them. This time, they were a bit of a fail with the creme anglaise a bit too thin and the fritters overly greasy and freakish looking from the adding of the apples. I'll probably make another attempt at these soon, though they'll definitely be sans apples.

Good Fortunes

The Season of the Gourd

The Missus has made a bit of fun of me this past week because we currently have 8 pumpkins/gourds and hardly anywhere to put them. It started innocently enough with a 30-plus pound Fairy Tale Pumpkin squash purchased at Whole Foods for only $8(a STEAL compared to the $40+ I spent on two pumpkins from the farmers market last year). Yesterday I purchased #8, a white pumpkin, from the farmers market for only $4.50 and, as of now, that's the only one I have any sort of carving plan for.
But, because I'm in love with someone with a very biting sense of humor, she sent me the following to mock me further:

IT'S DECORATIVE
GOURD SEASON, MOTHERFUCKERS.
BY COLIN NISSAN

- - - -

I don't know about you, but I can't wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal. I'm about to head up to the attic right now to find that wicker fucker, dust it off, and jam it with an insanely ornate assortment of shellacked vegetables. When my guests come over it's gonna be like, BLAMMO! Check out my shellacked decorative vegetables, assholes. Guess what season it is—fucking fall. There's a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash.

I may even throw some multi-colored leaves into the mix, all haphazard like a crisp October breeze just blew through and fucked that shit up. Then I'm going to get to work on making a beautiful fucking gourd necklace for myself. People are going to be like, "Aren't those gourds straining your neck?" And I'm just going to thread another gourd onto my necklace without breaking their gaze and quietly reply, "It's fall, fuckfaces. You're either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you're not."

Carving orange pumpkins sounds like a pretty fitting way to ring in the season. You know what else does? Performing an all-gourd reenactment of an episode of Diff'rent Strokes—specifically the one when Arnold and Dudley experience a disturbing brush with sexual molestation. Well, this shit just got real, didn't it? Felonies and gourds have one very important commonality: they're both extremely fucking real. Sorry if that's upsetting, but I'm not doing you any favors by shielding you from this anymore.

The next thing I'm going to do is carve one of the longer gourds into a perfect replica of the Mayflower as a shout-out to our Pilgrim forefathers. Then I'm going to do lines of blow off its hull with a hooker. Why? Because it's not summer, it's not winter, and it's not spring. Grab a calendar and pull your fucking heads out of your asses; it's fall, fuckers.

Have you ever been in an Italian deli with salamis hanging from their ceiling? Well then you're going to fucking love my house. Just look where you're walking or you'll get KO'd by the gauntlet of misshapen, zucchini-descendant bastards swinging from above. And when you do, you're going to hear a very loud, very stereotypical Italian laugh coming from me. Consider yourself warned.

For now, all I plan to do is to throw on a flannel shirt, some tattered overalls, and a floppy fucking hat and stand in the middle of a cornfield for a few days. The first crow that tries to land on me is going to get his avian ass bitch-slapped all the way back to summer.

Welcome to autumn, fuckheads!

Giving In

I did the other night. Sunday, to be exact. I'll preface this all by saying that the Missus and I eat pretty well, not healthy but better than we did when we first met each other. Which is, honestly, to say that we eat less highly processed prepackaged crap. We still eat a lot of junk food--pizza is the essential go to when I'm too tired to cook--but at least we try to minimize how horrific the ingredient list is. Though I am saying this while a 40oz bag of Halloween candy sits on our living room table.
With that, I bring you back to the other night and a craving so bad I woke the next morning, still jonesing for it. Not unusual for me, really, except that this craving was for a Little Debbie Swiss Cake Roll.



Fine, not really unusual for a person with my smoking hobby. But, to be honest, I haven't had one in over a decade but there I was sitting on the couch--in a smokey state--trying to convince the Missus to run down to Irving to buy me one. Yet, with all of my pestering and attempts at cuteness, I was left with none.

The next day, sober and still craving one, I found myself shopping the dubious 'food' aisle at Rite Aid and purchased what I assumed was the Hostess version of it, 'Funny Bones.' Apparently, I wasn't smart enough to read the label because 'Funny Bones' bare absolutely no resemblance to Little Debbie or her Swiss Cake Rolls--I should have been looking for 'Ho-Ho's' I was later told. I also thought, at the time, that it would be fun to just go for broke and make this an all out tasting of childhood junk food so I picked up some creme filled cupcakes and a pack of Twinkies.


And, man, did I think I was a fucking genius. I did. So much so, that I got giddy about it and started texting the Missus about my Little Debbie craving victory. But, sadly, the victory was short lived when the tasting finally started and reality set in.

Let's start with the worst of the bunch:

With the cupcake mania finally behind us I think it's nice to revisit originals and that little curly q icing on top of the chocolate frosting screams original childhood treat for me. But, I'm not the eight year old I was when these were packed into my He-Man lunch box.


The tag line for this treat is, "You get a big delight in every bite." Sure, you do. You also get a mouth full of partially hydrogenated vegetable and/or animal shortening and lots of high fructose corn syrup. That would be your addictive cream filled center that hooked us as children. As an adult, I can only compare the mouth feel of it--and that of all three snacks--to lube. The 'cake' itself, for all of the added ingredients to make it moist, tasted like week old cake at best and the chocolate frosting resembled nothing I know of chocolate.

But, thankfully, it wasn't all that bad. Next there was a pack of:

There's a scene in "No Reservations: Cleveland" where Anthony Bourdain, Harvey Peckar and Michael Ruhlman visit the world's largest bookstore, Zubal Books, which happens to be an abandoned Twinkie factory. They open up one of the pipes in the store, still full of an unknown vintage of corn syrup, so a few of them could sample the liquid. Bourdain declares: "It's Twinkie-licious," and although it's been nearly two decades since I've had one, I know exactly what he means. There is something about the cloyingly sweet center, one that was more forgiving than that of the cupcakes, that one only relates to eating a Twinkie.

For me, this was probably the one that I wanted to be better tasting than I knew it would be. Thankfully, it was finished in a few bites because after the first, just like the cupcakes, my mouth was instantly coated in sugary film.

The most palatable was the mistake of the group:

The Missus and I part ways on our opinion of this snack. While she thought it was the worst of the three I thought there was more moisture to the cake and less of that lube feel to the filling. Perhaps it was because it had been cut with actual peanuts somewhere in it's making and not some artificial peanut flavor, but whatever the reason, it wasn't too bad. The chocolate coating, again, was a bit of a disappointment and was the driest aspect of the snack. It was actually so dry that the coating started to flake off as I cut into to put it onto plates.


We each have that point in our lives when we realize we've gotten older. We wake up one morning to find new wrinkles, shiny gray hairs and aches in our bones we were unaware of just the day before. I had one of those moments when we were done forcing down our snacks. And, honestly, it made me a little sad to be a grown up.