January 29, 2005
More fun with gelatin products
These and other molded wonders can be found on The Gallery of Regrettable Food website.
The site provides a photo archive of the hard to find dishes that you heard about, but would never really want to taste. The captions on the website are the best part. The delectable creations above are described by the site respectively as, " a cold, firm cadaver," with peas; "a breast implant from the 1939 World's Fair;" and "ingenious gear made out of pesto, capable of floating on a cushion of air and moving itself around the table like a hovercraft."
Feeling nostalgic for inedible, but gloriously inventive dishes created by bored housewives? This site offers recipes so you can acurately recreate these dinosaurs.
Posted by Cakehead at 04:43 PM | Comments (0)
Combining the best of the food world: Cakes & Cafeterias
Seeking a cake chef to sculpt you a cake resembling your high school, government-subsidized cafeteria lunch? You must commission the lady at Moist & Tasty! to make your cake.
**Warning to prudes and people who cast their last ballot for president based on "family values." These cakes are racy!
Posted by Cakehead at 01:31 AM | Comments (1)
January 27, 2005
Jello lovelies
Scott Christensen plays with his food and creates sculptures that will make you wish that the New York restaurant scene would bring back the molded salad.
Posted by Cakehead at 11:53 PM | Comments (1)
Meal Plan for a New America: Infiltrating the enemy
Now's not the time to flee for Canada. Our country needs us. If we continue to segegrate ourselves by party, there is no potential to take our nation back from the bible thumpers who have hijacked the political debate. Don't sit around sulking while the Republicans have all the fun. Why not join them as they celebrate the election of Jesus Christ-endorsed president? There are celebretory baked-bean suppers, church-sponsored pancake breakfasts to attend.
Eat good food as you earn their trust. Then, making sure to allow enough time before election 2008 to sway them to our side of the aisle, unleash the debates.
** Warning: Since it is unlikely that Jesus will make an appearance to turn your grape juice into wine, arrive at the church-sponsored meals prepared. Flasks of wine or scotch are recommended and necessary if you are going to do your good work without becoming overwrought with irritation.
Here are some of our favorite faith-based eateries:
Montgomery, Alabama: The prices at this religious kitchen can't be beat - at $4/adult.
Minneapolis, Minnesota: We recommend sneaking into this one, so as to avoid contributing your hard-earned income to the Republican agenda
Ocala, Florida: A cheap spot to eat a good Baptist supper & make sure Jeb's state doesn't go red again.
Savannah, Ohio: This state should have been ours. Eat at the Lion's Club pancake breakfast and stop them. Enjoy the music!
Posted by Cakehead at 04:18 PM | Comments (1)
January 25, 2005
Crafts that look good enough to eat
Hungry for a mid-winter crafts project? Kee Kee presents both raw ingredients and prepared meals -- all created with needles and yarn.
Posted by Cakehead at 02:27 AM | Comments (1)
January 24, 2005
Sushi that even the red states can appreciate
It's the deep secret you keep buried down deep, too embarrassed to share with co-workers and friend:
You have family members who are Republicans. You love them very much, but know your own ideologies will be questioned if your left-leaning boss finds out that your family's blood runs red, not blue. To protect yourself you name-call. You insulted your NRA card-carrying cousin. You tell your anti-choice mother-in-law exactly what you think of her. But now it's time to show them that liberals love family too. It's time to show your grandfather, who doesn't think civil rights should be extended to our gay friends, that you love him, despite his despicable beliefs.
Before we can win the social war, we must win the culinary battles. We all know that the way to the Republican's heart is through their stomach (see statistics on the ratio of food consumed by Republicans compared to amounts consumed by Democrats). If we can convince our Republican family members that the solution to world peace is through sampling the foods of the world, we, as liberals will be that much closer to helping our red-state brothers and sisters understand the views held by the rest of the world of the United States. By helping our loved ones to develop an interest in the foods of the world, they may actually come to understand that the people of the world, in fact, do NOT hate freedom.
The challenge lies in helping your family to develop their lazy, sloppy joe-eating palates. Take sushi for example. How many of you have an aunt who fake-wretches at the mention of raw fish? Now, there is a solution to ease them into sampling this exotic food. That's right. Twinkie sushi. By calling the twinkies sushi and providing them with the highly-processed foodstuff they know best, we are one-step closer world diplomacy. When they ask, you can laugh and tell them, "there's no raw fish in this sushi."
TWO WEEKS LATER.....It worked for me. I mailed out a round of twinkie sushi care-packs to those I was hoping to convert (Twinkies have a shelf life to infinity and will never expire, making them a great gift to ship book-rate). Having eaten my gift, two cousins have already admitted that they made a terrific mistake in voting for George Bush in 2004.
Other exotic twinkie recipes include Twinkie Kebobs and Twinkie Tacos
And for the relatives who don't like twinkies, there's always Sushi Adornment
Posted by Cakehead at 02:31 AM | Comments (1)
January 21, 2005
Curry Comfort
As a freelancer, my spells of unemployment are a chance to catch up on my hobbies and to make the Bush administration look bad by contributing to the rising unemployment rate.
When I'm not sending out resumes or getting lost in the cyberspace job search, I can be found wandering through grocery stores filled with enigmatic ingredients, spending my unemployment check on foods to sooth my slacking soul. Whether it's dried scallops and mushrooms at an Asian market in Flushing, Queens or discovering obscure spices in an Indian grocery store, I delight in hunting down unfamiliar foods to take back the lab. The rules of the game: At least one ingredient must be beautiful enough to sit alone on a museum pedestal as edible art. A cookbook may not be cracked until the dish is complete. The meal created must taste good.
But my most recent stint of unemployment has prevented me from playing my favorite game.
Knocked down by a nasty cold, the game's rules had to be modified. Rather than wandering to the distant corners of New York City's boroughs, I must instead dig deep in my kitchen cupboards. The new rule: Use at least three spices that have been neglected for the past year.
Filled with self-pity for having to squander my "vacation" in my diseased state, I decided to test the healing power of chicken soup. Despite being the carnivore that I am, I have a huge deficit in the meat preparation department. I allow others to prepare my meat. However, in the interest in self-healing, I decided it was time to master the art of chicken soup preparation. Having never made it, a consultation with mom was necessary. In addition to getting a thorough tutelage in the art of the making poultry soup, I received the appropriate pity that a girl, forced to make her own medicinal potion needed.
Since I'm probably the only person on the planet who doesn't know how to cook chicken soup, the details of the process can be glossed over. You know how to make it. Boil a whole chicken in four quarts of water for a while. Add salt. Add carrots, onions cut the way you like. Later, after the stock has matured on the burner, peel the tender meat off the bone, returning the edible parts to the pot. Now, for the secret ingredients: spicy curry, the color of burnt sienna, the bag, turned dusty from neglect, out of reach on a top cupboard shelf. I dug out a little jar of lemon rind I had dried in an attempt to create homemade gourmet gifts, but which I never got around to distributing. In my sick state, I cheated the rules for my third ingredient. I snuck fresh grated ginger into the mix (after adding some long-neglected powdered ginger that I never use, always favoring the fresh stuff when I cook). The soup bubbled away for a couple of hours. I added a handful of fresh chopped cilantro. Voila!
After two bowls I was feeling much better. The next day I was healed. Let the real games begin!
Posted by Cakehead at 12:42 AM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2005
Isn't gluttony a sin? chronicles of an all-you-can eat excursion gone bad
At first I thought I had entered heaven. They don't call me cakehead for nothing. Within seconds after I had walked into the Smorgasbord complex -- a sprawling pre-fab warehouse surrounded by farmland and hillsides and filled with hundreds of stainless steel buffet islands on the inside -- the double-decker cart of cake wedges seemed to suck me in. Perfect slices sat glistening under the neon - chocolate, pumpkin cheesecake with a frosting-bag squirted flower, white cake cubes saturated with red - whether the flavor is strawberry, cherry or raspberry I do not know.
From a distance the supply seemed infinite. So I cannot explain the intense sense of urgency I felt to rush to the entree buffet lines. The goal: Eat dinner quick in the interest of expediting the dessert course. But as is the case with all temptation, by the time rational thinking resumes, the deed has been done. Consequences must be suffered.
The problem with all-you-can-eat spots, or I should say, one of the many problems with all-you-can-eat spots is, inevitably one is driven by the desire to get her money's worth. I really like to eat. I regret that this premier entry will not be an opportunity for me to rave about the latest delectable that I've discovered and am craving and wishing I could stuff in my face. Instead, I will write about abstinence. Not the sort of abstinence in which the Bushes would hope you would engage. No. I'm talking about seeing the cherry pie or the clam strips piled high or the hush puppies looking all buttery and nice and saying, no. I will not fill my plate for the third time with the intention of continuing on to that pumpkin cheesecake I've been eyeing since I've entered.
Unfortunately, my decision to preach abstinence is based on personal experience of committing that lesser acknowledged sin of gluttony. Sure it's not as bad as coveting thy neighbor's husband. But gluttony leads to committing other deadly sins: sloth, greed, anger. So like all self-righteous believers, I say to you, if you engage in the gluttonous act of multiple trips to the buffet, know you will suffer the fiery heart burn of hell and it is likely when the Raputure comes, you too will end up far from God's kingdom.
So, if you want to eat the cakes that Jesus will serve you in heaven, repent now and abstain from those nasty buffets.
If that's not motivation enough consider this: according to The Picture Book of Devils, Demons and Witchcraft, by Ernst and Johanna Lehneras, as punishment for your gluttony, you will be forced to eat rats, toads, and snakes in hell.
Posted by Cakehead at 02:16 AM | Comments (12)
