(Some of) The Best of 2010!

I've been lazy in writing about my favorite dining experiences of the past year, something I usually spend a good bit of time sorting through but have had little time to which to devote as of late. I had a lot of good eats in 2010, including the usual suspects - the Helmands and Sotto Sopras and Minatos and Joong Kaks of the land (all excellent again in 2010). Below I bring you ten of my favorites that haven't wound up on this list before. It doesn't mean they weren't any good until now. They often just get lost in the shuffle, though there are some newbies that I just did not know about until last year. One thing I noticed: many more of my favorites than ever before were of the cart or mobile van variety, or had mobile components to them. It's the new thing, and I hope it sticks around.

Ahem. In no particular order...

The Haute Dog Carte (hot dogs - Mount Washington) - If the burning desire for a 1/2 pound Angus Dog with various tomato jams and Dijon mustards or a juicy Maharlika dog from the Philippines ($5 each) don't make you come back for more, Daniel's friendly banter (and willingness to stand out in the freakin' cold half an hour after he was planning to close up for the day) will.

The Curry Shack (Caribbean - Waverly, Remington) - I do not know why I haven't mentioned them before, because every trip - I mean every single trip - that I make to Waverly's Farmers' Market (open year round) begins with a beeline to the Curry Shack, where I usually get a luscious $2 West Indian Pie. Recently I just missed their Bison Pie, because it sold out. Stop by South Mountain Creamery's booth if you can, for real cream-line milk.

Harris Teeter (supermarket - Columbia, Fulton and various locations below the Mason-Dixon Line) - I know, I know, a big corporate supermarket that isn't even a local company makes it on this list. No, before I picked up work in Columbia this year I had no idea who or what a "Harris Teeter" was. Now this Charlotte-based supermarket chain has three Maryland locations, with a fourth one in Locust Point (their first Baltimore City location) in limbo. What I like the most: their free samples of cheese, bread and jams, and their petit fours (12 for $5) and dessert sliders.

City Café (American - Mount Vernon) - I did not realize that they hadn't made it onto my Best Of list before. My opinion of City Café in the past was that they were a bit overpriced, but had okay food. Their 1/2 priced burgers were worth a trip on Monday nights, but in general the place wasn't anything special. Boy, have they become somethin' special. Chef Chad Gauss hasn't exactly made cheaper food, but he's certainly made it worth the price. Some of my favorites: the crab-topped fried green tomatoes, the Lollipop Lamb appetizer (had that with Eric & Alan on New Year's Eve, among many other things), and "Usual Suspects" - a crab cake and small filet mignon ($28 - a very rare splurge for me, unless it's the rare occasion like Christmas Eve when it was half priced). And yes, the burger.

Marie Louise Bistro (American - Mount Vernon) - The first time I ate here I was, well, less than impressed. This is another restaurant that has really gotten much better. When I don't just stop in for one of their many desserts (note: the chocolate creme brulée is good, but it isn't exactly creme brulée), I get their macaroni & cheese or their burger, juicy and served on a wonderfully soft bun that, like the rolls used by the Haute Dog Carte, is almost as worth eating as the meat inside it!

Sláinte Pub (Irish, pub fair - Fells Point) - As long as someone isn't blaring that goddamned vuvuzela in my ear again, I'm happy drinking a Guinness ($6 when not Happy Hour but only $4 on Mondays) and eating a hamburger ($9) or a shepherd's pie ($8 on Wednesdays) while watching an English Premier League match while waiting around another 3 1/2 years for the next World Cup. If Sláinte is standing-room only, go next door to Kooper's for a Donnybrook Stout or a Dogfish Head 60 Minute Pale Ale, and a somewhat similar menu to its Irish neighbor.

Iced Gems Creations (cupcakes - Reisterstown and various locations around town) - The Vanilla Vanilla, Chocolate Chocolate and English Rose cupcakes damn near changed my life. Okay no they didn't, but they were still good. If you can't get to the Reisterstown location, do what I do: find their cupcake truck, like I usually do outside Towson's Farmer's Market on Thursdays (in season), and get a cupcake ($2.50) and a taste of chef Christine Richardson's English charm.

Log Cabin Chocolates (chocolates - Fallston) - When I first started working in Harford County, I stopped by on the way home for some beautiful buttercreams at $7.50 for half a pound. My post about them is here.

Grilled Cheese & Company (American - Catonsville) - Why haven't more people thought about a grilled cheese restaurant before? If you don't want an original grilled cheese ($5), opt for the filling Fresco ($7) with mozzarella, pesto and roasted red bell peppers. Next time I must try their dessert grilled cheese, the Sweetest Thing ($7.50) with brie, mascarpone and raspberry preserves. Note: you will need to go to the gym after eating here.

Kumari (Nepalese, Indian - Mount Vernon) - In retrospect, I am surprised at how often I have stopped here over the past year. I shouldn't be, because their typical vegetarian and non-vegetarian Nepalese combos (about $14) always satisfy me to the point where I have to get a doggie bag.

Also worth noting:

Vito's (pizza - Cedarcroft) - I don't know if New Yorkers will consider it authentic pizza, but I like their large slices ($3 to $5 depending on which you get) enough to make them into two meals. Plus it's convenient to home.

Zhong Shan Restaurant (Chinese, dim sum - Downtown) - I got there too late for their dim sum, but perhaps too early to see a crowd. The crispy breaded pork that I got the one time I went there was not too bready and did what so much Chinese-American food I have brought home does not do so well: stood up well to a re-heating in the microwave. Yes, you will need to take some home.

Graul's (supermarket - Ruxton among other locations) - Another popular local market that Mr. Clueless here did not know about until earlier this year, when one of our Men's Chorus members ordered a big box of cupcakes for our recent concert. I admit: I stop in all the time for their free samples, and then figure out what to buy after that.

The Hippo (gay/lesbian, bar) and Brewer's Art Pub (American, bar - both in Mount Vernon) - Good for a Dogfish or a Resurrection Ale on tap. The Hippo is also great fun for Friday and Saturday night karaoke.

Memorable eats out of town:

Los Angeles - The Bool BBQ truck and its bulgogi tacos are some of the cheapest and best things I have eaten off of a truck.

New Orleans - Mr. B's Bistro in the French Quarter is a must for its barbequed shrimp, which is not what anyone outside of Louisiana would think of as "barbequed".

Rehoboth Beach - If you can't stop in the Dogfish Head Brewpub for a burger or a tour (get a $5 shot of their peanut butter vodka - it is so worth it), perhaps you should stop by the Finbar Irish Pub, which the locals love. The Blue Moon and Double L are two of my favorite gay bars in town.

Washington, DC area - The Bangkok 54 Restaurant in Arlington is the perfect place to stop before seeing your favorite comedian at the Arlington Draft House next door. Oh and look - another Harris Teeter!

Well THIS puts my mind at ease...

But are there real eggs in it?

Taken at a Wawa gas station in Bel Air

Snacking State-by-State Mashup 1: Nopal and Cedar-Roasted Catfish Stir-Fry

One problem I have found with this Snacking State-by-State series I am doing is the plethora of leftovers. While some do store or freeze well (catfish AND sockeye salmon in the freezer), I only have so much room in my freezer, fridge and pantry. I mean, let's face it: that jar of nopal cactus is going to sit in my fridge for quite some time. I'll probably have it when I get to my New Mexico post sometime in early 2012.

So it behooves me to do something creative with these disparate ingredients. Inspired by the otherwise irritating show Chopped, I will take a bunch of ingredients that I have leftover from my first four State-by-State posts, and put them together in a recipe. Sort of a state by state mashup, minus the douchebag hotshot contestants. Or douchebag arrogant judges.

The first one seems best suited to a stir-fry.

The mash-up recipe: Nopal and Cedar-Roasted Catfish Stir-Fry

Serves 2 as a main or 4 as an appetizer


Ingredients (state flag indicates State-by-State post where ingredient was featured. Ingredients with no flag were not specially found for any one post):

1 catfish fillet

1/2 cup nopal cactus, minced

1/2 cup long grain white rice per person, cooked

meat from one ham hock (optional: skin & fat from ham hock)

1 tablespoon parsley-lemon compound butter

1 poblano chile, roasted, skinned and minced

1 cedar plank, seasoned

1 flour tortilla, cut into strips and fried until crisp (optional)

1 small onion, sliced
1 - 2 cloves garlic, smashed
1 Roma tomato, diced
1 small handful parsley, chopped
3 tablespoons olive or peanut oil

Prepare the cedar plank for baking in the oven, and lightly smear the compound butter on the catfish.

Like so.

Bake for 5 to 7 minutes at 350 degrees, taking care not to cook through (you will finish cooking it later). Remove and cut the catfish fillet bite-sized into pieces, and set aside.

This is not catfish.

Heat oil in wok or saute pan, then add the following in succession:


1) optional fat & skin from ham hock for 30 seconds. Then remove it if you use it.


2) onion and garlic for 30 seconds


3) meat from ham hock for 1 minute


4) nopales, tomato and poblano chile for 1 minute


5) catfish for three minutes or until cooked through

Serve with rice. As an optional garnish, add flour tortilla strips and parsley.


I found this stir fry to be a little on the goopy side, specifically due to the nopal. Again, the nopal flavor was more muted than I remembered from the last time I ate it, but it was a bit more distinct this time than in the recent egg dish I made when I looked at Arizona cooking. What I found with the catfish was the same with the salmon: the cedar flavor was extremely subtle, but still there, even though I only roasted the catfish for 7 minutes, and then stir-fried it with so many different ingredients. The one disappointing thing about this dish, for me, was that the cedar-flavored catfish didn't really blend in with the vegetables, or viceversa. They both fight for attention. I don't consider the dish a failure per se. Everything tasted good and at least the catfish had a very nice texture, if not the nopal (but that's more the fault of the ingredient). I probably wouldn't make this again, but if nothing else, it was a good way to use up some ingredients. Now the ham hocks, nopal and poblano chiles are all used up!

Microbrews taste - HORRIBLE!?

If you're a friend of the people who make Coors, of course you're going to bash beers that are actually, you know, tasty. The Atlantic's Uri Friedman points out why Coors family friend-slash-nimrod Rick Ball thinks that microbrews are icky: they are supposed to quench your thirst, not be sipped and savored like a wine. He continues:

A good beer cannot be sickly sweet, and it also can't be overwhelmingly bitter. That's what I have against a lot of microbrews. You can't gulp them down all at once. Frankly, I think microbrewed ales have been promoted and become popular mainly because they are easier to make. Ale yeasts also are more finicky--they don't digest all of the sugars, so they leave all these sugary notes hanging around in the final product. The flavor of an ale tends to be very complicated, while a lager is cleaner and more dry. It's easy to get bedazzled by the spectacle of a busy, full flavor. There's a lot going on. But there is greater virtue in simplicity. You can make a mediocre ale and no one will notice; with a lager, there is nowhere to hide. [Ball, as quoted in Friedman]

It's that second sentence that gets me. You can't gulp them down all at once? If I wanted to do that I'd get a shot of tequila, or a glass of water if I'm really thirsty. There is no reason why I have to quench my thirst with something that tastes like pee.

Freezer Potpourri

In the latest edition of "What can John find in his freezer for dinner?" I yanked out a few interesting looking bags that I had placed in there a few months before - and threw out one that was clearly from Thanksgiving 2009 - and set myself to fixin' dinner.

Before: bags of frozen meatloaf, rosemary potatoes, and some as-yet unidentified tomato-ish substance.

After: rosemary potatoes with meatloaf topped with (freshly identified) tomato jam, and sprinkled with black lava sea salt.

It tasted pretty good. In fact, this particular meatloaf seemed to have a better texture after I froze and reheated it. I have enough of everything for at least one more serving of the whole thing, too.

Snacking State-by-State: Arkansas II - Everything's Better as Gravy

Hoppin' John may be traditionally Southern, and it may be traditionally African-American. But I was still hung up on finding something you could only find in Arkansas.

Snacking State-by-State: Arkansas

Official Name: State of Arkansas
State Nicknames: The Natural State; The Land of Opportunity
Admission to the US: June 15, 1836 (#25)
Capital: Little Rock (largest city)
Other Important Cities: Fort Smith (2nd largest), Fayetteville (3rd largest), Springdale (4th largest)
Region: South; West South Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Corn Bread & BBQ
Bordered by: Louisiana (south); Texas (southwest); Oklahoma (west); Missouri (north); Tennessee, Mississippi & the Mississippi River (east)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: rice (grain); South Arkansas Vine Ripe Pink Tomato (fruit/vegetable); Dutch oven (cooking vessel)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: many of the typical Southern classics (corn bread, hush puppies, catfish, sweet tea, barbeque, fried pies, fried chicken, Hoppin' John), chocolate gravy (Ozarks), Cajun/Creole (crawfish)

John Egerton helps me out here, in his mammoth compendium Southern Food, a book not of recipes but about the cuisine and its history. One uniquely Arkansan recipe he finds: something called Chocolate Gravy, found specifically in the Ozarks:

[F]or sheer originality, nothing can match chocolate gravy, a breakfast meal of long standing in the Arkansas Ozarks. Made in a saucepan with butter, flour, sugar, cocoa, and milk, it is customarily poured over hot biscuits. A 1976 recipe collection of the United Methodist Church women of Conway, Arkansas, resurrects this remarkable dish, the origin of which is lost in history. [Egerton, p. 189]

I couldn't get a hold of this cookbook, and Egerton doesn't provide any recipes here, so I went online. I found a very useful recipe on Saveur.com's website. Indeed, many commenters on the webpage for Chocolate Gravy, almost all of whom were Southerners, had never even heard of Chocolate Gravy, though some had (most with ties to Arkansas). One recent commenter suggests the recipe is of Cherokee origin. It's a shame that so few people know about this because it's a quick and simple thing to whip up and serve on biscuits, cake or ice cream.

The recipe: Chocolate Gravy


As with most gravies that don't come in a packet, Chocolate gravy is made with a fat, a liquid and flour for thickening. Only instead of chicken or turkey drippings and broth, it's butter and milk, with a few things. Most of these ingredients will be around your kitchen:

* milk (I had some)
* flour (again, not difficult to find in my pantry)
* powdered cocoa (I was actually out. It only costs $2.50 to $3)
* butter (had it)
* sugar (had it)
* vanilla (had it - not all recipes call for this)

Just make a gravy from this stuff: melt the butter while you whisk the dry ingredients together. Add the dry stuff to the butter, stir, and add the milk. Stir until thick and smooth.


I was worried about it not thickening at all. Instead, I think it got a little thicker than it was supposed to. I have seen gravies that are almost pudding-like, but I know they aren't supposed to be that way. That's what mine turned out to be - like a pudding.

Like two hundred - and forty dollars - worth o' puddin'. Awww yeah.

It was a runny, gravy-like pudding, but like a pudding nonetheless. That doesn't matter because it was still absolutely delicious and easy to whip up. You can pour this on cake or cupcakes as a last-minute ganache (don't expect it to harden), or on ice cream as an alternative to chocolate syrup.


The first State of the New Year is done, fittingly with Hoppin' John. And again, let's hope it brings the good luck it promises. The folks in California certainly need it after the last few years of recession and the recent megafloods. California is also the next stop on my road trip, and having lived there for several years, I have a specific insight into California's food. If you think Arkansas was tough to pin down...

Sources:

Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. "Southern Cuisine: Arkansas Southern Cuisine & Free Southern Recipes". Arkansas.com (http://www.arkansas.com), 2010.

Egerton, John. Southern Food: At Home, On the Road, In History. First edition. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1987.

Lundy, Ronni. Butter Beans to Blackberries: Recipes from the Southern Garden. North Point Press, New York, 1999.

Raskin, Hanna. "Southern Museum Pays Homage to 'Arkansas Cuisine'". Slash/Food (http://www.slashfood.com), posted July 21, 2009.

Shelf Medearis, Angela. The New African-American Cookbook. Lake Isle Press, New York, 2008.

Saveur. "Chocolate Gravy". Saveur.com (http://www.saveur.com). Originally printed in Saveur Issue #126, January 2010.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Arkansas" page and the Food Timeline State Foods webpage link to "Arkansas".

Snacking State-by-State: Arkansas I - Hoppy New Year

What to say about the cuisine of Arkansas? Like so many others from the nation to the South to even Arkansas itself, I am finding it extremely difficult to pin down. Hanna Raskin of Slash/Food quotes Chris Smith, director of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, who sums up Arkansas food best:

"Arkansas is one of those states where the Northwest is different than the Southeast, and the Northeast is different than the Southwest," Smith says. "I don't think it has as much fried food as Louisiana, and I don't think it's as Mexican as Texas." [Raskin]

With that, I face the daunting task of finding some of the food of Arkansas.

Snacking State-by-State: Arkansas

Official Name: State of Arkansas
State Nicknames: The Natural State; The Land of Opportunity
Admission to the US: June 15, 1836 (#25)
Capital: Little Rock (largest city)
Other Important Cities: Fort Smith (2nd largest), Fayetteville (3rd largest), Springdale (4th largest)
Region: South; West South Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Corn Bread & BBQ
Bordered by: Louisiana (south); Texas (southwest); Oklahoma (west); Missouri (north); Tennessee, Mississippi & the Mississippi River (east)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: rice (grain); South Arkansas Vine Ripe Pink Tomato (fruit/vegetable); Dutch oven (cooking vessel)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: many of the typical Southern classics (corn bread, hush puppies, catfish, sweet tea, barbeque, fried pies, fried chicken, Hoppin' John), chocolate gravy (Ozarks), Cajun/Creole (crawfish)

I say with some exasperation that this state has been somewhat difficult for me to explore. The reason I say that is because it is absolutely so difficult to pin down any one or two recipes that exemplify "Arkansas". It's "typical Southern food". It's dry rub brisket 'cue and wet pork 'cue. It's Cajun. It's Ozark. It's becoming more and more international, with Thai and Latino and other flavors. It's pretty much goddamn everything, isn't it? And so it is very strange (or perhaps very fitting) that, with such culinary diversity even the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans felt it needed to have an exhibit in 2009 about Arkansan food because so few people - even Southerners - are not aware of the true diversity of the cuisine that is "Arkansas" cuisine (note: had I known about this place I would've gone out of my way to see this museum in November when I was in NOLA for the AAA meetings).

It is not, I might add, all Sonic and McDonald's (thank you, President Clinton).

Even Arkansas.com's "Southern cuisine" webpage offers very little that is specific to Arkansas. So they just reiterate Arkansas' culinary diversity:

Just about every type of cuisine is available in The Natural State. The state's Southern heritage, not to mention its agricultural background, influences much of what can be found here. But not everything is fried. Healthy alternatives are readily available, many made from locally grown produce. Nouvelle cuisine has a home here as well, as does continental, Cajun, vegetarian and various ethnic choices. [Arkansas.org]

The Dutch oven is also an important part of Arkansas' pioneer past, so much so that it is the official State Cooking Vessel. Since so much about Arkansas food is so difficult to pin down, I figured I would at least narrow down my recipe choices to those that can be fixed in a Dutch oven.

Or at least something like a Dutch oven

This made things a little bit easier. The next step was to find a typically Arkansan, or at least typically Southern, dish that can be prepared this way.

My friend Jim, who is Californian by birth but Arkansan by heritage, was not much help here (thanks, Jim). But one tradition he carries on every New Year is the ritual of making a heaping helping of Hoppin' John. This dish is a mixture of black-eyed peas, rice and some sort of pork usually ham hocks and/or bacon. In her cookbook The New African-American Kitchen, Angela Shelf Medearis - the "Kitchen Diva" - notes that Hoppin' John comes from East Africa:

Black-eyed peas [and with it, Hoppin' John] were transported from Africa to the West Indies and then into the Carolinas before the 1700's... Some say the dish got its name from the word bahatta-kachang, meaning peas with cooked rice, which is of East African origin. Others say the name comes from the tradition of having the children of the family hop around the table on New Year's Day before eating the dish. [Shelf Medearis, p. 130; emphasis mine]

It is a uniquely Southern dish, though I did ask my mother if she had ever heard of it. She said it sounded familiar (after all, Maryland's foodways are somewhat rooted in the South, even if less so today than in the past - but that discussion is for another post). I can't say I grew up eating this at all (like I said: somewhat rooted in the South). We usually just ate the snacks and finger food we made for the previous night's festivities.

According to Jim and more academic sources, eating a bowl of Hoppin' John on new Year's will bring you good luck. I need some luck, and many Arkansans will have eaten this on New Year's. With that and the addition of the rice (Arkansas' chief agricultural export), it just seems like an obvious dish to make.

The recipe: Hoppin' John

The basic outline for Hoppin' John is deceptively simple: black eyed peas and rice mixed, usually mixed with some sort of meat and often some sort of vegetable. But in reality, there is no one way to prepare Hoppin' John. Some recipes call for soaking dried black-eyed peas overnight, others call for cooking them straight up, still others demand only fresh ones. Some suggest you prepare the rice first, others require you to add the rice uncooked. Some call for sausage, others bacon, still others ham hocks. I tried two recipes. The first turned out particularly bland and mushy - a mess of Damned black-eyed peas staring up at me in some twisted Southern version of Dante's Inferno in a Dutch oven. The second, from Kentucky native Ronni Lundy's Butter Beans to Blackberries: Recipes from the Southern Garden, turned out much, much better.


The ingredients are, by and large, very cheap:

* black eyed peas (a 1 lb bag will run your a grand total of - here it comes - $1)
* long grain white rice (rice: the main export of Arkansas! You can also find a 1 lb bag of this for $1 - $2)
* ham hocks (I got two lbs for about $1.50 per lb at Giant)
* various vegetables: jalapeño, red bell pepper and Roma tomato (I grew the chile myself, while the rest came to about $1 each - the bell pepper and tomato are not in Lundy's recipe, but do show up sometimes in Hoppin' John. I just wanted to add them.)
* onion (bought at the farmers' market several weeks ago at $3 for a small boxful)
* bacon grease or vegetable oil (I had both lying around. To get bacon grease, you need bacon. 6 to 7 slices will net you a little over 1/4 cup)
* water (lots of it. You're set if you paid your water bill)

Again, there are many ways to prepare this dish. Lundy recommends soaking 2 cups of black-eyed peas overnight in enough water that 2 inches worth come above it. I only soaked them for an hour, and was pleased with the results.

The rest takes a while, but is not that difficult. Put the peas in your Dutch oven-like cooking vessel with a ham hock. I also put my jalapeño and onion in with it. Bring it all to a boil, and keep them at a low boil for 90 minutes.

Startin' to hop

Next, as Lundy instructs, put enough water in the Dutch oven to have about 3 cups of liquid (I lost enough of my liquid that I had to add more during the initial boiling). Throw in 2 cups of uncooked rice, cover and simmer without removing the lid for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and let it steam for another 10 minutes.

Here's where I should have used the onion: Lundy says you should saute it in a tablespoon of bacon grease or vegetable oil (but use the bacon grease if you have it). Here I also put my chopped up bell pepper in the skillet.


Saute until the onion is soft while the rice is steaming, and then add to the Hoppin' John.

And there you have it.

As I said before, my first outing with Hoppin' John was, well, not good. This was much better. Yes, for my tastes, it needs a little dash of salt, and the tomato and peppers are a welcome addition. But I think the Hoppin' John really means to showcase the black-eyed pea and its flavor. It really goes well with some collard greens - I made some with yet another ham hock - and cornbread - in this case, a corn stick made, yes, with bacon grease. In all, this is good, cheap and hearty food, and may become a new tradition in my kitchen every New Year's. Or at least around New Year's. The only thing I have to watch out for is this: I burned just a bit of it. So next year it's going in my slow cooker, in which I have yet to burn anything.

Again, eat it with cornbread and greens if you have 'em.

Sources:

Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. "Southern Cuisine: Arkansas Southern Cuisine & Free Southern Recipes". Arkansas.com (http://www.arkansas.com), 2010.

Egerton, John. Southern Food: At Home, On the Road, In History. First edition. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1987.

Lundy, Ronni. Butter Beans to Blackberries: Recipes from the Southern Garden. North Point Press, New York, 1999.

Raskin, Hanna. "Southern Museum Pays Homage to 'Arkansas Cuisine'". Slash/Food (http://www.slashfood.com), posted July 21, 2009.

Shelf Medearis, Angela. The New African-American Cookbook. Lake Isle Press, New York, 2008.

Saveur. "Chocolate Gravy". Saveur.com (http://www.saveur.com). Originally printed in Saveur Issue #126, January 2010.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Arkansas" page and the Food Timeline State Foods webpage link to "Arkansas".

Stick a fork in this year, it's done

I hope next year is better than this one. It hasn't been the greatest year. Still no full-time work - though I did find a lot more part-time work than I did have, so things have been much better for me than they could've been.

A few things that were pretty good about this year, which I probably will forget since it's been a relatively rough one:

1. The City Paper really likes me. I mean, it really likes me. Which is good, since I really like them too!

2. I managed to make Ethiopian food that would never be eaten in Ethiopia - not by Muslims, not by Jews, and not by Christians. It's because of all the bacon.

3. I got to reconnect with many long-disconnected friends this year - online, over Christmas and in New Orleans.

4. Okay, so we didn't win the World Cup. We didn't even make it to the Round of 8. But at least Spain won for the first time. That and the New Orleans Saints and San Francisco Giants won the Super Bowl and World Series for the first time.

5. My family and friends are still here.

6. Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone and Prop 8 is Unconstitutional!

7. I've branched out into new pursuits (sports and horticulture, for example) and flourished in others (singing, for example). The New Year is likely to be filled with more Broadway, soccer and community gardening than I ever thought it would be this time last year.

8. I went to my first-ever television show taping (It's Academic in high school doesn't count) - Web Soup in LA. Chris Hardwick is a gentleman and a nerd scholar.

9. We finally have a Sonic in town (although the opening was less climactic than I had expected).

10. And finally, this didn't happen last week:

Picture is from the Snowpocalypse that happened in Baltimore this time last year.

Here's to a much better and more prosperous 2011 for all of us, y'all!

That's some pretty strange-lookin' kiwi...

Maybe somebody should let the folks at Towson Super Fresh in on the big secret...


...that this isn't kiwi.

On the third day of Kwanzaa my true love gave to me

Kathy beat me to it, and found a higher quality version - AND we get to see Aunt Sandy EAT her abomination creation, too! Me, I opted for the rougher one that I've linked to, oh, maybe six or seven times in the past four years. This television event should not be hidden. It should be broadcast from the mountaintops. It is quintessential Sandra Lee. Well, that and this:

Once again, the infamous "Angel Food Harvest Cake". Bonus: try to catch a glimpse of the "Hanukkah" "Cake" sitting on the side.