I'm heading off to historic Little Rock, Arkansas, to shoot a series of videos for a new corporate client. I leave today, and will return Thursday. I can't give any details at this time, but you will see the fruits (not a hint) of my labor on this blog at some point. As usual, you can follow along with my adventure on Twitter. By the way, I do have some new video recipes already filmed, which I'll post as soon as I can finish the editing. Stay tuned!
This chocolate egg cream video was inspired by our recent trip to New York City, where my wife Michele and I enjoyed them on several occasions. As I watched the expression on her face while she sipped this unique treat, I knew I had to film a quick how-to as soon as we returned.
There are all sorts of arguments about the origins of this drink (when it comes to sports and food, New Yorkers do seem to enjoy a good debate), but most chocolate soda fountain drink historians think this was invented somewhere in Brooklyn, in the 1920's.
I've been featuring some videos lately from my fellow creators on Hungry Nation, and today I'm happy to continue that by introducing Gregory Ng: The Frozen Food Master, from Freezerburns.com.
I'm going to be filming a bunch of holiday-themed videos for a special feature on YouTube, and I'd love to know what kinds of things you'd like to see! I've done some fairly standard turkey, gravy, and stuffing video recipes, as well as a bunch of side dishes that work nicely around the holidays, like glazed sweet potatoes, but maybe you'd like to see something a little more exotic? Please leave a comment and let me know. Thanks!
Led by friends (and total kick-ass bloggers), Brooke (right) from Food Woolf, Linda (left) from Salty Seattle, and Greg from Sippity Sup, the panel focused on a long list of trite words that we food bloggers are no longer allowed to use – or as Brooke put it, were "Verboten!" There's regular forbidden, and then there's German forbidden.
After just the right amount of snacking, we moved upstairs to the Grand Hall. The food was done by one of San Francisco's top caterers, Paula LeDuc, and for a crowd this large, I thought the meal was executed very well.
The first course was a roasted golden beet tart with feta, wild arugula, and puree of basil. I've never been a big beets guy, but nevertheless enjoyed this very much. The satisfying tart was impossibly light, almost weightless. The diced red beets alongside provided an excellent textural and visual foil.
Next came my favorite course of the evening, a perfectly seared diver scallops with braised fennel, fried fennel fronds, and a verjus beurre blanc. Knowing how hard it is to serve scallops with such a perfect consistency, even for a small party, I was beyond impressed. I believe I described the texture as how pinching God's cheeks would feel. I really don't know what that means either, but at least I didn’t say "tender."
The main course, rack of lamb loin with pinot noir sauce and butternut squash puree, was expertly prepared also, but suffered from the bad luck of having to follow the scallops. The meat, infused with rosemary and garlic, was flavorful and retained an appropriate level of hydration (man, I would have loved to use "moist" right there). The local wild mushroom ragout alongside was spot on, and the butternut squash puree was butternut squash puree.
Above and beyond the [whatever another awesome word that means delicious] food and wine, I was lucky enough to get several great tastes of home-brewed beer smuggled in by my favorite beer blogger (which I can't confirm or deny was Jesse from Beer and Nosh).
The dessert course featured a "Tarta de Almendras" – a buttery almond cake with oranges, figs, and sherry sabayon. The plate was topped with what I initially though was a "shredded wheat crisp" (thanks a lot, too much wine), but what turned out to be a tangle of caramelized parmesan.
It was an enjoyable evening of great food, wine, and conversation, made even more so when I won a $100 prize for having one of the weekend's best tweets. During the The Write Taste session we were told to use the Twitter hashtag #fbzwrite for our tweets describing bites at the Grand Tasting, after which the five best would be chosen. Here's my winning entry:
It only happens once every couple years or so, but sometimes I’ll think of the name of a recipe before I actually have the recipe. This summery, hot wheels pasta is one such dish. Not sure how “hot wheels” popped into my brain, but pop it did, and the next thing I knew I was at the market buying a box of rotelle. 
