Currently Coveting: Edition Numero Uno

Things that impress and inspire, excite a desire.

So, as I promised (myself), here's the first edition of things I'm currently obsessed with.

Heather Moore Jewelry:

This was a Guilt Groupe/Momma J find. If I could afford the $500 - $2,000 price point, I would totally rock one or more of these charms.

Robicelli's Cupcakes:
I'm clearly so obsessed, that I follow them on Twitter.

The freakin cutest local cupcake shop, based out of Brooklyn. Matt and Allison Robicelli bake bad-ass cupcakes with local ingredients in small batches, then deliver them to storefronts throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan. Pictured above: "The Duckwalk"- Vanilla cake with blueberry port-mascarpone buttercream, homemade blueberry port jam, and fresh blueberries. The blueberry port jam in the center was my favorite part. Trekking around the LES in 95 degree weather to find it was my least. (But totally worth it.)

Other flavors I'm hoping to try (if I ever manage to get to the right spot at the right time):

“The Bluth” (which, let's face it, I would probably try just for the name alone. I mean, can I hang out with these people? I think we should be friends ...) - chocolate banana cake studded with chocolate chips and walnuts, with chocolate buttercream, ganache and roasted walnuts

“The Yvonne” - 2003 Late harvest reisling cake and buttercream topped with blueberry-thai basil compote (What? I wish I could tell you that I've come up with something half as interesting in the kitchen as blueberry-thai basil compote on top of a cupcake)

“The Maltz”(why, hello bacon, fancy meeting you here) - chocolate bourbon cake and buttercream with candied bacon

“Bea Arthur” (again with the toungue and cheek - ♥) - Black coffee infused chocolate cake with cheesecake buttercream and espresso ganache

“The Red, White and Blue” (4th of July special - yum) -  vanilla cake filled with wildberry jam, mascarpone buttercream and fresh berries

And since we mentioned bacon already ... :

Bakon Vodka - "a clean refreshing potato vodka with delicious savory bacon flavor"

Anecdotally, Momma J wanted to order this for her co-worker's birthday, as he's obsessed with the current all-things-bacon-craze (see BBCC). Since they don't sell it in the great state of Texas, I ventured over to Astor Wines & Spirits to purchase some for her. Once securely wrapped in approximately 5 lbs. of bubble wrap, I shipped it to Austin (illegally, of course) for their bacony-consumption.

Next up, buy some for myself and host a bloody mary brunch party, complete with a bar of bloody mary mixin's and copious amounts of bacon. If I'm really gonna go for it, maybe I'll try and candy my own bacon as a garnish. Updates to come, if this actually happens ...

And there you have it folks - 3 things that I'm currently coveting. Aside from leaving this flourescently-lit office for some sunshine and long weekend's worth of 4th of July celebration, that is. Hope you all have a great extended weekend!

Listicles

I'm a lists kind of girl. Which is funny, because I'm not the most organized person you'll ever meet. Which is even funnier because I may also qualify as one of the most responsible people you'll ever meet.

That is to say, when it comes to duties and obligations involving others, I'm responsible. (e.g. clean communal kitchen: check. clean room: fail)

The point is, I have lists floating around eeeverywhere. On random scraps of paper in my desk drawers at work, stashed in various drawers/notebookes/nooks and crannies around my room at home. Sometimes I'm able to keep tabs on the same list for a while before it disappears and another begins in its stead. Sometimes being the operative word.

One such example is my and the LP's restaurant/bar/going out list. Simply known as THE LIST. You know how it is - you can never remember that one place you wanted to go whenever people are actually asking you where you want to go ... which is where the trusty iPhone comes in:

I give you, THE LIST.

Items are added to the list as we pass by them on the street, or read about them online, in a magazine or in the paper.  

While this works well for the most part, I've recently realized that there are a number of other gems I stumble across on a regular basis while wandering the Internets that are promptly forgotten (after they're recorded on a random piece of paper, of course).

Sure, most of these get forwarded to Momma J (i.e. the time I told her about the rock martinis at Il Matto -she was so intrigued, that she decided to use rocks from her garden to emulate these cocktails [since I told her I refuse to steal rocks from Il Matto to bring to Texas]. The Momma J specialty edition will be called "TX Tea with a Hint of BDW Pee." Get excited.)

Other "gems" I'd like to make a better effort to remember/share generally include but are not limited to:

• recipes I'd like to try (if I had a fatter wallet* and a larger kitchen)
• books I'd like to read (if I had more time)
• blogs I'd like to visit regularly (when and if I can remember them)
• songs I'd like to download (if only I had working wireless at home)
• clothes/shoes/accessories/miscellaneous Gilt Groupe items I'd like to buy*
• shows I'd like see* (musical, comedy, Broadway or otherwise)
• events I'd like to go to (if I had the time and if I could convince others to tag along)
• etc.

*as you'll see, the 'fatter wallet' clause factors in quite often where the plausibility of my lists is involved

So ... here's my proposition to you, blog err, myself. Once a week, I'll take a moment to roundup all of the things that I'm currently coveting. And I'll share them. Maybe in a list. Maybe not.

But, one day when my wallet beats its bought with anorexia (or I guess it's closer to bulimia - whatever goes in, just comes straight back out - but I digress) I'll have all of these things in one spot instead of scattered throughout oblivion.

As Smaddy says, let's do this.

(Come check back on Fridays if you're interested in the latest things I (usually) want but can't have ... Maybe we can commiserate!)

Dinner Party 1C Style.

Tonight is calzones and Gossip Girl Season 1 (or XOXO as one of the Rooms calls it) at Apt. 1C.

While the calzones are long gone, the XOXO is just about to start. First, I wanted to take a moment to memorialize our delicious, hard work. Betcha can't guess which calzones belong to the girls, and which to the boys.

(And yes, the boys are as excited for the Gossip Girl portion of the evening as we are. Err... maybe that's just all the beer and Old Crow talking...)

Drunk Brunch

For me, brunch is a verb unique to NYC. I can't actually recall a time in Austin when I called up my lady friends and said, "Let's brunch."

Which is actually quite a shame, as brunching is one of my favorite weekend activities. Without it, my weekends would - surprisingly - be less productive.

Brunch is dragging my hung-over (read: still drunk) ass out of bed when all I really want to do is sleep in 'til 3. Brunch is catching up with friends. And, brunch is just plain delicious.

Even though we have our go-to places (ahem... Cafe Orlin), we've decided to make more of an effort to branch out lately. I feel like the possibilities are endless - we could choose a different restaurant every weekend until the end of time with no overlap.

And this past Saturday (after marathon nights of drinking on Thursday and Friday) a gaggle of us girls met for noon-time brunch at Primehouse.

I believe I've mentioned the drastic lengths Momma J once took to ensure that my New York family enjoy a bit of BBQ during my first trip up here - a testament to the fact that we Texans take our meat seriously.

So needless to say, I was excited for some steak & eggs action at Primehouse, and couldn't pass on the Surf and Turf Hash when I spied it on the menu: braised short rib, shrimp, poached eggs and pommerey mustard hollandaise sauce atop a pile of hashbrowns.

Sounded like a good choice to me.

Wrong.

There was only one itty-bitty, puny, baby-sized piece of short rib hidden in the entire dish. As there were 10 of us sprawled out in the middle of the restaurant -and 6 of us threw down cards - I (graciously, IMO) waited until we had paid and were leaving the restaurant to play disgruntled diner.

My friend L-Squared volunteered her moral support while I went to confront the waiter.

Me: I don't mean to be obnoxious, but I just wanted to let you know that I ordered the Surf and Turf Hash, and there wasn't really any turf with my surf.

Waiter: Huh?

Me: There was only one itty-bitty, baby piece of turf in my "Surf" AND "Turf" Hash.

Waiter: Uh... [lengthy and confused pause]... which one is the turf?

Really? Really waiter at a renowned STEAKHOUSE? You don't know the difference in definition between SURF and TURF?

Me: Uh... the beef? You know, like land vs. sea...?

Waiter: Oh. Right. Thanks for letting me know - I mean, it's not my fault, but I guess I could... like, tell the chefs or something so I don't get this same complaint again later.  

Really? Really waiter at an "upscale" restaurant? You think I thought you were back there in the kitchen neglecting my steak addiction? And you're not going to offer to comp anything - that is, if I ever even decide to bestow my patronage upon you again in the future? Not even a free cocktail on the house?

Nope, apparently not.
It pains me to say this, but Primehouse: Fail.

In the end though, even if the location lets us down from time to time, the actual act of brunching never will. Cocktails + Friends will always = Success.

Ladies: can't wait 'til next weekend!

Christmas Chef-tacular

One of my first food memories is baking glitter cookies with my great grandmother in her kitchen. My cousins and I used to stage sleepovers at her house and baking inevitably worked its way into our agenda.

Grandmother Lang would measure out the dry ingredients for the cookies and let us pour them into the mixing bowl. We'd fight over who got to crack the eggs. She usually ended up fishing stray pieces of shell out of the batter regardless of which sous-chef won egg honors.

She had a kitchen table that folded away into the wall like a Murphy bed. The leg hung down just within reach of our little hands - we used to hit it against the wall like a door-knocker, re-creating the scene in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy arrives in the Emerald City while we waited for the cookies to come out of the oven.

Once the door to the Emerald Palace had turned back into a kitchen table, we'd spread Grandmother Lang's assortment of sprinkles across its surface while (I'm sure) she braced herself for the mess that would soon ensue.

Twenty-something years later Grandmother Lang is gone, but her recipes are still with us. We made her rolls for Thanksgiving dinner and one of my aunts brought glitter cookies for Christmas (even though we tease her for being the worst cook in the family - someday, I will describe "cake balls" and everyone will understand why).

My grandmother (Grandmother Lang's daughter) is also a great cook. The trait was passed down to Momma J and one of her brothers, and in turn, on to me and Lil'Bro.

This year for Christmas, Grandmother bought everyone a cookbook. This is nothing new - someone inevitably gets a cookbook every year- it was just the first time cookbooks were the featured present. I give her points for trying, but I think Grandmother might be loosing it just a bit...

The first few selections were perfectly typical. Lil'Bro got Bobby Flay's Bold American Food (one of his faves, along with Tyler Florence). He's already planning to make barbecued ribs with peanut-chipotle sauce for NewYears:

My uncle got Hubert Keller's Burger Bar. He's lucky he kept a watchful eye on it, otherwise it may have ended up in someone else's pile:

Then I unwrapped...  The Official Southern Ladies' Guide to Being a "Perfect Mother":

A few gems for your entertainment:

You know you're a Southern Mother if:
You took the initiative to help pick your daughter's husband, silver pattern, honeymoon destination, and even the flowers in the table decorations - at her birth.

You keep a discrete stash of sedatives for use during important events if needed.
Your Granny's idea of "going green" is with creme de menthe.

At some point in her life, every Southern female experiences the shock and awe of recognition: I have turned into. . .her. I AM MY MOTHER.
[so true. it's already happened to me.]

I mean, I get the joke - I live in New York, she wanted me to have a Southern cookbook. But... really? Forget Hubert and Bobby - clearly, I was gifted the winner.
 
Until Momma J opened her cookbook:

Morbid? But funeral food is also a big Southern thing, I guess...

Surprisingly, the biggest hit was a cookbook devoted entirely to bread, which Momma J had bought with the intention of giving to someone as a gift, but couldn't part with:

My uncle entertained us all by reading excerpts aloud, our favorite being Jim Lahey on the beginnings of his bread-baking career:

I baked bread for the first time to impress a girl. I was in college... Bread's sculptural quality attracted me. I don't think anybody else I knew then, crazy as they were, would imagine that thrusting a loaf at his girlfriend was the most romantic idea in the world.

The juxtaposition of "thrust" and "loaf" was enough to reduce us to inappropriate comments and laughter for a good half hour. (I love my family...)

Whether this fine selection of cookbooks was given in earnest or meant in humor, I can't say. All I know is, they definitely made for another successful family Christmas.