April 10, 2008
Sweden: More than just a Swedish Chef
Between the cute accents, the art shows, the music, and the cheap stylish furniture, the Swedes seem to be one-upping the world both at being adorable and cutting edge. But the real reason we love the Swedes is their appreciation of all things food. Just this week you can check out The Ice Cream Show at LOYAL gallery, head to IKEA for a new couch and indulge in Swedish meatballs or just chill out listening to Jens Lekman sing about "Sipping on the Sweet Nectar" which is not "The Opposite of Hallelujah."
But then there's the actual food of the country and those wonderful chefs who prepare it.
My friends, the non-muppet models of Swedish chefs presented me with a recipe solution to a conundrum I confront every summer. Wild rose bushes line the northern beach where I take my icy summer dips when the air is more humid than I like. As I tromp down to the chilly water I always take a moment to admire the plump rose hips, swollen with vitamin C and begging to be plucked and eaten. The temptation always leads to disappointment since the seeds get in the way of appreciating the condensed flavor. Well, those Swedes make a sweet traditional soupy sauce made with rose hips called Nyponsoppa. Nyponsoppa is delicious if served hot over a big bowl of vanilla ice cream. But be careful. Rumor has it the soup is an aphrodisiac. We're not sure if it's the sauce or those cute Swedes who are responsible for giving the libido a little shove. [thanks, Were Rabbits]
Recipe for Nyponsoppa
Ingredients:
400 g fresh rose hips
1 whole fresh lemon
3/4 l water
c. 1/2 dl sugar
1 tbsp. potato flour
4 dehusked (shucked) almonds
vanilla ice cream
Directions:
1. Cut the flower and stalk off the rose hips, and rinse them under the tap.
2. Boil the rose hips in the water for c. 20 minutes, with the zest of the lemon.
3. Strain the soup to separate the boiled-out rose hips and lemon zest. Throw away everything but the liquid part.
4. Add sugar to taste, and bring the soup to a boil. Thicken it with potato flour, according to preference.
5. Chop the almonds into slices, lengthwise.
6. Squeeze the juice from the lemon.
7. Serve piping hot over ice cream with almonds sprinkled on top.
Posted by Cakehead at 03:28 AM | Comments (2)
November 01, 2007
Ultimate Deal for Food Blogger
Food blogger, Julie Powell's book, Julie/Julia is being made into a movie.
Meryl Streep is going to star in "Julie/Julia," the feature based on Julie Powell's memoir "Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen."
Posted by Cakehead at 02:42 PM | Comments (0)
October 09, 2007
Activity: fabulous new documentary to premiere on Friday
Cancel your plans for next Friday night and go to see King Corn. It's a wonderful new documentary opening October 12th at Cinema Village in New York. We would even go if one of the filmmaker wasn't the brother of our favorite brother-in-law!
King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from.
The Boston Globe says, "King Corn is an enormously entertaining moral, socio-economic odyssey (and statistical bonanza) through the American food industry."
Posted by Cakehead at 10:13 PM | Comments (0)
October 02, 2007
Let's pretend we're in Antarctica so we don't have to go Outback tonight
Let's not go Outback tonight. We'd rather pretend we're in Antarctica.
Today we were contemplating a trip to Antarctica -- curious about the dining options and about whether the world contains a foodie-free zone. Serenading our fantasy was the Of Montreal song about pretending to be in Antarctica, "Wraith Pinned to the Mist (and other games)." We were excited to get started on our travel research, but first we needed dinner. What they say about grocery shopping holds true for planning a trip that involves food: Don't do it on an empty stomach.
Since Monday is TV dinner night, we turned on the tube as we scarfed down spicy burritos. Ironically, the airwaves greeted us with Of Montreal belting out "Let's go Outback tonight" to the tune of "Wraith Pinned to the Mist." I hope that they made a ton of money on this sell out. This song is going to be stuck in our heads for a long time. If Of Montreal endorses Outback's steaks, does that mean we can dine on them in Antarctica?
Posted by Cakehead at 04:25 AM | Comments (0)
September 24, 2007
Cupcake Wars
Make Cupcakes Not War teeshirts from Johnny Cupcakes Clothing
We always love when the The Week In Review section of the Sunday Times clears a little space for cupcake coverage. Who knew the tiny cakes could cause such a stir.
The confection is so powerfully embedded in the national consciousness -- and palate --that its future is quite possibly the only cause to unite Texas Republicans and at least some left-wing foodies behind a singular mission: keep the cupcake safe from harm."I think the wholesale banning of parents' bringing cupcakes as a legal issue is over the top," said Rachel Kramer Bussel, a former sex columnist for The Village Voice who founded the Web site "Cupcakes Take the Cake" three years ago.
The Texas Legislature agreed, in spirit, when it passed the "Safe Cupcake Amendment," in 2005, in response to new federal child nutrition guidelines and lobbying from parents outraged by the schoolroom siege on cupcakes. [by SARAH KERSHAW, NYTimes.com]
If we were allowed to eat more cupcakes in our youth we probably wouldn't crave them as often as we do. Then again, we also wouldn't have created a weblog devoted to cakeheads.
Posted by Cakehead at 07:06 PM | Comments (0)
August 30, 2007
Food as Landcape
As the tallest, gangliest girl in my class, one of my fantasies as an 8-year old was to shrink myself down to the height of a celery stick. I imagined going on elaborate adventures through the refrigerator (ignoring practicalities like the resulting suffocation) and eating my way through the chocolate streams and soft serve mountains in Dairy Queen sundaes. As with all my escapist dreams, food was featured at the center of the story.
Too bad I'm not a miniature figurine like the one in the photograph. Then I could explore the fascinating landscapes of food. A display of more figures on food be found at Fresh99.com.
[thanks, digg.com]
Posted by Cakehead at 04:15 AM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2007
Body of Christ attacked by a serial killer?
We always thought that eating the body of Christ had cannablistic leanings. But Thai art student, Kittiwat Unarrom, takes the body as bread metaphor one step further. He bakes bread into edible body parts.
Along with edible human heads crafted from dough, chocolate, raisins and cashews, Kittiwat makes human arms, feet, and chicken and pig parts. He uses anatomy books and his vivid memories of visiting a forensics museum to create the human parts.
If he were in the Bible Belt instead of Bangkok, he might be accused of being a serial Christ killer.
[from AP]
Posted by Cakehead at 05:52 PM | Comments (0)
April 11, 2007
Rachel Ray as an Art Form
Video artist, Naomi Leibowitz, shows us that the one way to appreciate Rachel Ray and all her enthusiasm is to watch her oohs and ahhs from 30 different episodes of $40 A Day compacted into one short piece of video art.
[via Gawker]
Posted by Cakehead at 03:33 AM | Comments (0)
September 08, 2006
Hilarious new book teaches sinners like us how Evangelical Christians eat, think and plan for the Rapture
A new book by Robert Lanham, author of The Hipster Handbook, is now in bookstores. It's called The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right and is a must for sinners and Christians alike who want to laugh while they learn how people who speak in tongues have come to influence government policy. You can buy the book here.
The book also provides fantastic tips about which megachurches offer the best dining options!
We can personally vouch for the hamburgers at the permanent barbeque stand at Rick Warren's Saddleback church in California. However, when we asked about vegetarian options for our companion, they looked at us as if they expected us to take out our anti-War picket signs and start protest against "freedom".
And the "Quivers" are a refreshing beverage to wash down the meat. For those not familiar with a quiver it's "a unique frozen beverage hand made fresh daily with real fruit and contain no fat, cholesterol, or dairy. From the eye opening colors, to the mouth watering flavors and the smooth velvety texture, Quivers serves energy and fun in a product that is guilt free and unique in every aspect." Despite the promises, we felt guilty for giving the Christians our money. The way the money is spent on abstience only program is enough to make any non-believer quiver with fear.
Posted by Cakehead at 05:22 PM | Comments (0)
June 29, 2006
A Girl's Best Friend
Last night at Jeff Bechtel's art opening at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in Chelsea we met someone who has as much appreciation for meat as we have. Bad Shannon has been designing jewelry that features a girl's true best friend. Who needs diamonds when we can have little steak chop, sausage and drumstick charms on a bracelet?
Earlier this month Shannon Sberna took part in a group show at Third Space Gallery in St. John, New Brunswick where she transformed her 3-D charms to the flat surfaces of bathroom walls. Check out her meat wallpaper:
Posted by Cakehead at 02:49 PM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2006
Launch of new Food Magazine: Edible Brooklyn
We stumbled upon the new Edible Brooklyn quarterly magaine as we were strolling the streets of Williamsburg, hunting for dining spots that are too new to be listed on FreeWilliamsburg.com, Time Out New York, New York Magazine. Instead we found a publication that is doing what we at cakehead originally set out to do: "celebrate the borough's diverse food and delicious culture." Luckily they're doing it for us, since we seem to keep getting sidetracked by politics, religion and other distractions in the greater world as we are noshing on delicious things that we find in Brooklyn. Thanks to the folks at Edible for providing Brooklyn with it's own slow foods-style publication!
Here's what they say about themselves:
Edible Brooklyn is a new quarterly magazine that celebrates the borough's diverse food and delicious culture. Brimming with engaging stories and enticing photography, Edible Brooklyn defines and honors Brooklyn cuisine, advocates for preserving food traditions, savoring food experiences, and pulling back the curtain on where Brooklyn's food comes from and how it gets here. From old-timers swilling egg creams to hipsters demanding fair trade coffee to young moms lugging grass-fed milk from the farmers markets, Brooklynites know food and demand the best. Read all about it in Edible Brooklyn.
Posted by Cakehead at 02:15 PM | Comments (1)
February 09, 2006
It takes a Jell-O Village
Jell-O City Hall, San Francisco
Liz Hickok’s work in Jell-O can be seen at the Triptych Gallery in Berekely, California.
Click the image to see the Jell-O version of a San Francisco earthquake:
[via Laughing Squid]
Posted by Cakehead at 05:02 PM | Comments (0)
July 12, 2005
Meals of Convenience and the Inconveniently Timed Times
Nina Katchadourian's "The Genealogy of the Supermarket
We were excited when we first saw Amanda Hesser's latest "The Way We Eat" column in last week's New York Times Magazine. Not only did the column give a history lesson on one of our favorite topics - convenience foods- but it also pointed readers to an art exhibit in the Sara Meltzer Gallery in Chelsea. It's an installation by Nina Katchadourian that maps out the very important relationships between some of our favorite supermarket celebrities.
[From The New York Times Magazine]:
In Nina Katchadourian's world, the Jolly Green Giant is married to the Indian maiden on Land O' Lakes butter and Little Debbie is sister to the Charmin baby. Mr. Clean and the Brawny Man are now partners and have adopted the Gerber Baby. Katchadourian recently offered these revelations in ''The Genealogy of the Supermarket,'' her 30-foot-wide wall installation displaying an imaginative family tree of American grocery-store icons.
From what we could make out from the image printed in the Times, the family tree explained a lot. We couldn't wait to take a cakehead fieldtrip to get further dirt on these icons we love so much. Sadly, the out of office excursion was thwarted when we did a little investigating.
It turns out the show closed two weeks before Hesser's article ran. Of course, we at cakehead should have done a better job keeping our eyes on all activities related to cakes. And I know it's not Hesser's job to be responsible for our cakeheading social diary. But the Times is a news organization. In other words, they should have run Hesser's column when it still had some relevancy, i.e. when the exhibit was still open for viewing. We should have learned our lesson long ago. The Times should not be relied on for anything related to the world of emerging trends in the arts and culture landscape. But you'll be fine if you just stick to Hesser's recipe for Service Cake With Victory Icing. Cakehead promised to do a better job letting you know how to eat your cake and view it too.
For West-Coasters, there will be a chance to view Nina Katchadourian's work in 2006. "The Genealogy of the Supermarket and Other New Works" will be on display at the Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA. Check their website for exact exhibition dates.
Posted by Cakehead at 08:45 PM | Comments (1)
June 21, 2005
Award for cutest deviled eggs goes to....
Is it Russian's version of Kawaii -- cute culture? These little devils remind me of my childhood days when I would glue googly eyes to the flowers in my mother's garden and would then hide in the bushes and quietly weep when she began to cut the stocks for a bouquet. How could you eat these cuties? [From Russian Food.com]
Hare Devils
Cute hares from hard-boiled eggs complement palatable “lawns” made from fresh vegetables, cold meats or fish.Peel an egg and cut off a thin slice longwise from one side. Make the “ears” from that slice, cutting out a V-shaped piece. Make a cut in the egg top to put the ears in. Draw the eyes with tomato paste and the whiskers – with mustard and make a tail with mayonnaise.
Posted by Cakehead at 07:47 PM | Comments (0)
June 19, 2005
Summer Reading
Check out Judith Moore's new book: Fat Girl [From Book Slut]
At one point, over a cheeseburger, a man she’s dating says she is “too fat to fuck” and she never eats a cheeseburger again. She is fat because she is starved of love and eats and eats and eats to fill that void, sometimes even breaking into the homes of acquaintances to eat their food and dream of how it would feel if those people loved her.
Food for Moore is life and love itself and this is clear from the steamy, almost erotic prose she uses to describe food and eating:"My mouth is dangerous… My mouth wants to bite down on rough bread and hot rare peppered steak and steamed broccoli sprayed with lemon juice. My mouth wants potatoes sluiced with gravy and Cobb salad and club sandwiches and ridged potato chips and loathsome onion dip… Caramel macadamia crunch [ice cream] might as well be the A-bomb, I am so scared of salty nuts and unctuously sweet caramel… of the frozen cream that melts along my tongue and walls of my cheeks."
Posted by Cakehead at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)
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)
