Filed under: Places to Eat | Tags: bellingham, dessert, ice cream, Pacific Northwest, Washington
I think Mallard’s ice cream in Bellingham, WA makes my top three all time favorite ice cream joints. It even beats Jeni’s in Columbus, OH. Last time I was here I ate a very memorable cardamom ice cream. I was disappointed to not see it on the flavor list this time, but that allowed me to branch outside my indian spices and try basil. It was sweeter than I expected, but it was perfect. I will have dreams about this ice cream. The chocolate earl grey wasn’t bad either. But, oh man, the basil.
Lowell went home to Michigan and came back with 8 quarts of Michigan strawberries. We had to act fast. He made his preferred “drop biscuits” while I made the incomparable, flaky, southern variety.
I have found this biscuit recipe from Salt & Fat to be superb. They were the perfect accompaniment to lots and lots of berries and whipped cream.
Behold “the perfect bite.”
Photo by my awesome new roommate, check her out: http://jenniferray.net/
So I’ve moved to Chicago. After two years on the road, I have a new apartment, a new neighborhood, a new city, a new home. This warrants a party. But I only know two people in Chicago. So I decided to host a friends-of-friends party. I collected email addresses of my friends’ Chicago based friends and sent out an invite. Instead of worrying about what would happen with a roomful of strangers at my house, I focused on the food. I made some of my favorite party staples (eggplant caviar, curried couscous). I wanted to make something to go with the mounds of leftover lemon curd (see recipe here) sitting in my fridge, something simple that would compliment its sweet/tartness. And I wanted it to be stunningly delicious. Lowell suggested graham crackers. I wanted cupcakes. So we made graham cracker muffin/cupcakes. And the party was a success.
Graham cracker muffin/cupcakes
2 1/2 c Graham Cracker crumbs
2 t baking powder
1 c whole milk
1 egg
2 T honey (you might even try leaving this out. I had honey flavored grahams, and they were plenty sweet)
lemon curd (recipe here)
-Preheat your oven to 400. Line your muffin tin with muffin liners.
-In a mixing bowl, mix graham cracker crumbs with the baking powder. Stir in milk, egg, and honey until just moistened. Spoon batter into muffin cups. (I didn’t think these would rise much, but they do, so leave a little room!)
-bake for 15 minutes or so, until a tootpick comes out clean. Cool.
-Add a small smear of lemon curd (much less than you would with frosting, this stuff is potent!)
So what does it mean for a travel food blog when I’m not traveling constantly? I don’t know yet. We shall see.
I often find it difficult to cook in someone else’s kitchen. I don’t know what tools and ingredients are available or where to find them. This is stressful on occasions where I really don’t want to screw up, and I usually opt for extremely simple. But, as I am visiting my best friend in Baku for her birthday, I needed to make her a surprise supertreat. Since Olga had resisted the impulse to glean figs from every front yard in Georgia, I was determined to attempt this fig cheesecake, which soon became an all day adventure. I found most ingredients in the supermarket, with two exceptions: ricotta and figs. (They might have ricotta in the supermarket in Baku, but again, I’m completely unable to read the labels). I ended up making fresh ricotta (see last post), which was the first success. I then wandered through the colorful and tempting rows of fruit at the Bazaar to buy a large box of figs, communicating with the vendor in hand gestures, which was the second.
I had no tart shell, so I bought some almonds from the dried fruit and nut store and crushed them with an empty vodka bottle (no rolling pin) until I got tired. Then I mixed the almond dust/crumbs with a minced ginger cookie and some butter and pressed the mixture into the bottom of the pan and baked just slightly. I then followed the recipe, using all of the ricotta that the 4 cups of milk yielded. I had to bake it quite long to get the filling to brown. Next time I’ll wait longer to add the figs. While it wasn’t the best cheesecake I’ve ever made, it was a small triumph. I’m looking forward to having my own kitchen and my own city very, very soon!
Chaela led the way on a recent cakemaking experiment for a friend’s birthday, and it was a great success, worthy of many more experiments. She used this recipe for the moist vanilla cake, but she added fresh orange juice to thin the yogurt a bit and give a slight citrus flavor to the cake. We then made this incredible dark chocolate frosting, and topped with bright orange, edible Nasturtiums!!!
One of my strong visceral memories from childhood is this homemade black cherry ice cream I ate at my babysitter’s house. I knew that there was something more special about this ice cream than even the delicious Breyer’s mint chocolate chip my dad brought home. I’ve longed for an ice cream maker for so long. Sometimes I go here and drool over the flavors that people are concocting. Recently, I escaped Chicago to kayak, swim, campfire, and catch fireflies in Michigan-a simple summer weekend that culminated in Julia’s grandmother’s recipe for vanilla ice cream. Topped with Michigan strawberries, it was simply divine.
Being in Dayton we heard wind of Jeni’s Ice Cream in Columbus. And then everyone we spoke to seemed to remember hearing about amazing ice cream in Ohio. We surveyed the website intensely, which revealed flavors such as Goat Cheese with Roasted Red Cherries, Mango Lassi (Intense mango flavor with musky undertones; curiously rich and savory with cream and yogurt on the finish), and Wildberry Lavender (Complex. Intense lavender with hints of exotic spices and lots of brambly berry flavors). So naturally, we drove there after work. It only took an hour.
We forfeited dinner and ended up dining on Meyer Lemon, Wildberry Lavender, Queen City Cayenne, Pistachio & Honey, Dark Chocolate, and Thai Chili ice creams. Eliza suggested a new food rating system for this travel blog: how far are you willing to detour for special food items? Jeni’s is definitely worthy of a two hour detour.
The tour continued with ice cream at Sweet Action, where the flavor of the month was compost. I, however, am a traditionalist, so I stuck with garam masala.
I told you Sara bakes. For our Pensacola cook-whatever-leftovers-remain-in-the-fridge meal she googled, “one egg desserts” and came up with the most amazing cupcakes. She paired the not-too-sweet cakes with very sweet sugar frosting with a squirt of sour lemon. mmm. I also had the pleasure of meeting Sara’s mom, Mary, who taught her everything she knows. Mary once met Julia Child who told her to “follow the cooking gleam.”
Filed under: Places to Eat, Travel | Tags: bakery, breakfast, coffee, cuban, dessert, Miami
