Salt City Girl

Raves and rants about the Salty City's food, film and alcohol.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Life: Column writing and other musings

This semester I did a directed study in column writing for The Forum.

The latest column will catch you up on what I've been thinking about the last few weeks.

Writing this column helped me make the decision to go to Taiwan in July. I'm applying for my passport today and hopefully will have it in my hands by the first of June. Just in time for the final deadline on my application.

I plan to continue writing from Taiwan and all my adventures there. Hopefully, lots of cool food stories will come out of the change in country. (I'm weirdlly excited to try chicken feet.)

In the meantime, I'm focusing on enjoying the time I have left at Westminster because it's been such a wonderful experience for me. (Could I sound more like a brochure? Ew!) Starting off with an awesome belated St. Patty's day party this weekend.

I'm testing out potatoe skins (my own recipe) and sidecars.

I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for reading!

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Friday, March 12, 2010

Alcohol: Stirred, not shaken

The Martini

1 part dry vermouth
4 parts vodka
Kalamata olives
Toothpicks
Olive juice

Pour the vermouth and vodka into a chilled martini glass. Add one kalamata olive pierced with a toothpick. Stir. Add olive juice to make it dirty.

After spending the day at the Salt Flats and in Wendover, Manfriend and I picked up some vermouth and vodka for $27 at the Desert Discount Liquor Store in West Wendover. I've been led to believe that alcohol is cheaper outside the Great State of Utah, but that belief has been amended to only some alcohol is cheaper in Nevada-vodka isn't one of them, vermouth is.

We decided to try out our cocktail mixing talents and put together a classic martini since the cognac for a sidecar was more than I wanted to spend.

By the second martini, I decided I like mine best extra dry and extra dirty. Manfriend wouldn't even drink a dirty martini after smelling it so apparently olive juice isn't for everyone. The mixture of booze with booze took me down fast so in the future I'll definitely be a one martini woman.

But it sure was delicious.

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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Food: The most diverse cookie. Ever.

I decided to try out an old family recipe. I like to call these cookies "Uncle Richard's cookies." But after some googling, I realized these powdered sugar cookies are also called Ukrainian, Mexican and German wedding cookies. Since these cookies are butter rolled in powdered sugar so I'll just call them delicious.

Powdered Sugar Cookies
1 C. soft butter
3/4 C. powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. lemon liqueur
2 C. flour
1/2 C. chopped pecans
1 lemon, zested
1-2 C. powdered sugar for rolling

Cream the butter and gradually add powdered sugar. I used a whisk because I don't have a mixer, but I think a rubber spatula would work better.

Next add the vanilla and lemon liqueur, cream well.

Now, gradually add in the flour, nuts and zest from one lemon. At this point, I switched to mixing with my hands. I used closer to 1 and 3/4 cups of flour than the 2 cups called for, so add the flour slowly and stop when the dough is smooth and crumbly.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Shape the dough into 1" to 1 and 1/2" balls. I made mine a little bigger--maybe 2" in diameter.

Place the cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake the cookies at 300 degrees for 35 minutes. The bottoms will be light brown, but the tops will still be white. My cookies took closer to 30 minutes and because I sprayed some water into the stove to create steam the cookies came out a little darker brown in color.

Take the cookies out of the oven. Put one to two cups powdered sugar in a large shallow dish. (I used a pie pan.)

Now roll the cookies in the powdered sugar and place on a serving platter. Let cool.

Enjoy your sugar and butter love! I know I did.

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Monday, March 8, 2010

Food Review: The Paris Restaurant

I went to the "zinc bar and grill" with CBC, The Sister and The Dad.

For meeting family for the first time-ness, it was a great place to be. The restaurant is pricey for me, but it still felt comfortable. The vibe is definitely that of a family-owned French cafe.

The food was delicious. The bread was amazing. It's served with a special butter that is somehow creamier and sweeter than most butters.

Next we moved on to the appetizers, I had pomme frites and the winter soup special. The pomme frites were served sans fry sauce, but otherwise delicious. I imagine if you asked for mayonnaise the friendly wait staff would be happy to bring it to you.

The winter soup was awesome! It had delicious pine nuts, butter squash and other yummy bits in it. It was warm and comforting. Everything you expect from a soup on a cold winter night.

For my entree I had the linguine with mussels. For some reason, The Paris Restaurant has a menu that is heavily Italian. However the main course was just as impressive as everything else I sampled. The seafood tasted fresh and the pasta was cooked to the perfect al dente. I enjoyed the sauce as well although it was a little thin for what I think of as traditional Italian food. I wonder if that makes it more French?

Through all of this we had a wonderful white wine, The Dad chose. It was nice, bright and crisp. I'm not a big fan of the whites, but it was definitely one of the best five whites I've ever had. It made a great complement to the seafood as well.

For desseret I had a wonderful fruit tart. It was much bigger than I expected, but it was so good I stuffed the whole thing down. I was worried my button might pop open I ate so much. But the tart was worth it.

The Paris has wonderful coffee and it's served in a full French press so prepare yourself for several cups of coffee at once.

My one complaint about the evening is the service. The wait staff was extremely helpful and friendly. But the unshaven waiters and busboys banging into tables in the cramped space left an unprofessional and untrained vibe behind them.

I would definitely go back to The Paris for the food, but I would be prepared for some spilling and inappropriate remarks from the wait staff.

In the end, we had a great dinner and everyone went home stuffed with delicious food.

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Friday, March 5, 2010

Life: I love a good fight

I love it when Manfriend and I have a fight.

That sounds terrible, right? We're a couple and I'm happy when we fight? What's wrong with me?

Well, nothing really. What I love about fights is how we fight. It doesn't actually feel like a fight; it seems like a disagreement that is settled civilly by adults.

For example, we were hanging out with the incomparable Ava and she has a gimp foot so walking is difficult. CBC and I took her home and he parked the car out in the street. So I said, "What? You can't park in the driveway so she doesn't have to walk as far? Come on, Chris."

I could tell CBC was upset. I tried to make it better by saying I was sorry and that I wasn't trying to be bossy. I just didn't want Ava to walk anymore than she has to with a hurt foot, I explained.

After Ava got out of the car, CBC said, "I know you're not trying to be controlling, but sometimes the way you say something...you're just snarky." I think snarky was a nice substitute word for bitchy.

Then I said, "You know what? You're right. I should've said that more politely. I'm sorry. I'll work on that."

The end!

Isn't that awesome? That was the whole friggin' thing. My ex-boyfriend and I used to scream at each other for an hour and get nowhere.

In less than five minutes now boyfriend and I resolved the whole thing.

By the way, it's really hard for me to not say the first mean thing in my head and make it nicer, but I'm trying. *Promise*

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Thursday, March 4, 2010

Food: Bread baking, maybe?

Over spring break, I felt ambitious so I decided to make some bread.

My first experiement was with Julia Child's French bread recipe. It did not go well.

I love The Art of French Cooking mostly because it was a thoughtful and generous gift from CBC a.k.a Manfriend. However 1960s recipe writing really wasn't focused on how the recipe was used. For example, I had to flip three pages to see what step I was on in the recipe and how the dough should be kneaded.

In the end the bread came out hard, dense and burnt. The final loaf of the three I made came out the best, but I wasn't very proud of my baking efforts. It took a good seven hours for me to make the bread and it was a frustrating failure.

A few days later, I decided to take on an easier recipe. I used Emeril's Basic Italian Bread recipe. This time the process took about half as long and came out about twice as good. Perhaps I just needed less time to lose my patience. The bread was much tastier and althought still dense, I'll take Manfriend's suggestion and be careful to not let it overrise next time.


I'm really enjoying the baking this week, but I definitely need to be more committed to staying at home when I bake. Next up: Powdered Sugar Cookies.

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