Momofuku Milk Bar – Compost Cookies

Compost cookie dough waiting to be baked. I swapped light brown sugar for dark brown sugar. Swapped butterscotch chocolate chips for peanut butter cups. Used Grandma Utz potato chips, and Snyder’s pretzel sticks.

Kitchen Resolutions – 6 months

Make my own sriracha. I’d love to expand outside of the chilies they’ve listed for a variety of flavors.
I attempted this. I think the peppers I used were too old as even after long cooking they were too fibrous and ended up yielding a very chunky sauce. Even after straining I did not get the desired texture. However, the key is aging it slightly to increase the heat.

Add 5 classic Chinese recipes to my repertoire. Most of my cooking is some sort of weird fusion-y blend, and stir-frying is a little too straightforward.
I made Hainanese chicken rice. I didn’t take any pictures. My favorite part was how long this recipe lasted. Between the chicken itself and the stock I made after adding some additional chicken parts this yielded about two weeks worth of food.

Transition away from some of my non-stick cookware into stainless steel.
I purchased an eight-piece Tramontina 18/10 stainless steel set. I’m still adjusting to the differences between this and non-stick. But I love the added browning I am getting on my meats. If you want to get a good deal, you can bid on a set from eBay for less than it sells for from Walmart. (I got mine for around $105.) Many of the sellers who are selling new sets are actually selling FOR Walmart. My shipment came from Walmart. Cook’s Illustrated and others have rated this brand as on part with All Clad for a third of the price. Costco also sell a set of two saute pans for $20.

Make at least one recipe from every cookbook I own that I haven’t used. Amongst them crazy recipes from The French Laundry cookbook, the Alinea cookbook, and Jacques Pepin techniques. Also notable in the collection: Jose Andres’ Made in Spain, Richard Sandoval’s Modern Mexican Flavors, a few years worth of Saveur issues, and (sigh) Rachael Ray’s 30 minute meals get-togethers cookbook.
My first loaf of bread came from the olive bread recipe in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. My biggest issue with this recipe is that it requires a food processor. My frustration stems from the fact that I don’t own a ton of kitchen equipment and no one seems to account for that situation. I ended up going to my sister’s house to use hers. All in all, the friend I made the bread for loved it. But it would have benefitted from a pizza stone to cook it on though I imagine I could have substituted a cast iron pan.

Make more soups.
Lots of chicken stock from my Hainanese chicken experiments. I have also made pho twice in the last four months. The fascinating part of the pho was that it remains nearly flavorless until I add the fish sauce. So I am curious what impact other fish sauces will have on the flavor.

Happy Songs

I’m waiting for my iPod to charge, so I figured I’d write a happy song post as a foil to the sad song post. I’m starting to make this list and realizing happy bands make happy songs and lots of them. =D

1. The Pixies – Here Comes Your Man: As if it weren’t enough in 500 Days of Summer… this song screams sunshine.
2. The Cure – Just Like Heaven: A lot of The Cure songs are absolutely infectious with their high-speed sliding barre I-IV-V chord progressions and fast rhythms. This song takes the cake, especially with a particularly joyous cover on mandolin and guitar. The guy is off-his-seat happy. 
3. Hoots and Hellmouth – The Good I Know You Know: Good ol’ joyful country rock with a whole pile of affirmations and positivity.
4. Jukebox the Ghost – Hold it In: JtG is another band where it’s hard to pick the happiest song of the bunch. Super happy pop. On the surface just lyrically cute, has double claps (because double claps make any song better), but shows some complexity with quick time signature changes.
5. Bellman Barker – In their Defense: A D.C. band with a lot of great little Beatles harmonies, and sunshine-y jangly guitar. They’ve moved on stylistically, but their old stuff really shines for being different and uncynical.
6. The Specials – Hey Little Rich Girl: Old-school ska. It doesn’t really get better or more fun than this. It is impossible to not dance to this song.
7. Jack Johnson – Banana Pancakes: Every one of his songs makes me think of nice weather. I just like the idea of banana pancakes.
8. Yuki Hsu and Yoo Seung Jun – Can’t Wait: A song about the anticipation and euphoria of seeing your love again. Really cheesy pop (synth harpsichord!) with a Korean guy rapping in English and cloying female Chinese singer. I like to put this song on repeat sometimes and sing along. This song always reminds me of my freshman year of college when it was very popular. (Also at 1:24 in the video is she playing with a tampon?) 
9. Usher – Yeah: Club anthem, yeah. But I can’t think of many songs that can get people revved up for dancing or in general. I don’t know if Jock Jams still exists, but this is the perfect candidate.
10. Sam Roberts – Them Kids: Great Canadian artist. Another highly danceable song, and was in fact my cousin’s first dance at her wedding. It is a rally call against cynicism to some degree. Watch out you non-dancing hipsters. 

9500 Liberty

Just a quick note to anyone in the DC area. My buddy Chris is a producer on the documentary 9500 Liberty. They’ll be doing a screening at 7:30PM on Thursday, October 1 at E Street Cinema. Get tix here.

Using Twitter to “be human”

I’ve always been a huge fan of LL Bean. My family has bought clothes, shoes, jackets, and bags from them for many years. In particular, I’ve always been a huge fan of the backpacks. My sister bought one in the 80′s, and I think it’s still floating around with my dad. The last backpack that I bought was probably 10 years ago, and LL Bean’s stuff comes with a lifetime guarantee.

I suppose in what can be considered a moment of not really wanting to have to pay for more stuff right now a.k.a. greed, I wanted to get a new one for free that didn’t have a crumbly liner. And I wanted to take advantage of the lifetime guarantee. So I hit up the store in Columbia. Well, when I asked the cashier she asked me how long I’d had the bag. Then she laughed at me, and said that she’d never heard of the guarantee and the store would go out of business if that were the case. Of course it was a little shaming, and I do own the Beaners some money. But I think her dismissive behavior and clear lack of knowledge of one of the central tenets of the store was pretty bad, and made me fairly indignant.

And well like anyone who has something to complain about, I decided to head to the internets. So I posted a comment on Twitter about how I was a little displeased. Apparently, LL Bean is one of the companies that chooses to monitor Twitter for comments about their company. So I received a message from their chief marketing officer telling me that the guarantee does still apply if I’m not satisfied.

Well, as Groundswell puts it, the company/CMO took advantage of the opportunity of using Twitter “to be human,” and now I feel less disgruntled and more pleased with my experience. It is a reminder that if you’re a retailer just how important it is to instill the company’s core customer service tenets. An example of that would be Nordstrom, where customer service is key. When my friend worked there, she drove to someone’s house to deliver something someone had ordered. And even though Nordstrom is not as pricey as Bloomingdale’s or Neiman Marcus, their customer service is what has me returning, rather than dealing with the snooty cows at either of those department stores. And perhaps that should be applied across every company, not just retailers.