The best damn thing ever.

I recommend you cook this immediately and eat it. I have made it 5 or 6 times in the past two weeks. Recipe: Roasted leeks in broth of yumminess.
Serves 2 for 1st plate (Makes extra broth for making soup with later)

Take one carton of chicken stock. Put it in a pot. Add three coarsely chopped cloves of garlic and a few herbs. A twig or two of rosemary and oregano would be nice. Throw in a healthy splash of two of olive oil for good measure. Set on medium high so it will get a nice rolling boil.

Add three or four leeks ( depends on how hungry you are!) that have the top dark part removed as well as the roots. Don't forget to wash them!

Let them boil in the broth for 5 minutes or so, til they just become a bit tender.
While your doing that set your oven at 350 to preheat. Now comes the roasting!

Carefully cut the leeks in half with out burning yourself. Add them to a pan that's a few inches deep, cut side up. Add 3 or 4 ladles full of the broth and cover the leeks with 3/4 of a stick of melted butter. Salt and pepper as desired. Roast for 35-45 minutes depending upon the reliablity of you oven (mine sucks).

When they look golden brown on top they are done. Carefully transfer the leeks to a bowl. Add the broth that they cooked with in the oven as well as a bit more from the leftover broth on the stove top. But you want them resting in the broth, not swimming in it. Anyway, it's really simple if you just do it and avoid all my commentary. Garnish with some of those oregano or rosemary twigs I talked about before, or just eat it cuz it's good.

Peace. Go eat.

Origens 99,9% and whatever else I feel like.

Before we do anything else I need to talk to you. I've got one thing to tell you and that's: Cacaolat. It's Catalan Yoohoo. That's right, and it's even better than the original. This is me at Park Guell drinking it and giving a thumbs up. If anyone representing Cacaolat is reading this I would like you to be my sponsor. Here's the deal: I will drink Cacaolat like all the time. In return you give me all the free Cacaolat I want. Deal? Good. Now on with our post.






Hola. It's been a while. My bad. Spain is crazy, and I'm crazy busy. I missed my flight to Mallorca today, but I intend on making the best of it and posting about some food experiences in Barcelona. I don't know if anyone who reads this blog will get a chance to visit Barcelona, but just in case this can give you an idea of restaurants to check out. Also, I'll probably throw some recipes on here you can try out.

First, I will start out with my lunch today at Origens 99,9%. In case you are wondering why there's a comma instead of a period it is because that's how they roll in Spain. France too I think. Well, prolly a lot of places.
First off, the menu is sweet it's actually a magazine it talks about where the recipes come from (they are all traditional Catalan recipes, but with a slight modern touch). It gives recipes for a lot of the food. And also it talks about the people who grow the food and how and where and such. They have a great wine list as well. On the inside they sell a lot of the products they cook with at the restaurant.



Now on to the food that was had. The meal was good, but there were a few problems. My food was not as hot as it could have been and Kayla's cauliflower was wayyy to salty. The stuff that was good though, would make me give it a second try. Not everyone can always be perfect. And the waitstaff were nice (for Spainards, that is). O yeah, they have an English menu!

This is a stew of rabbit with pears and turnips and these little purple berry looking things that I don't really know what they were. Here's what Origens saysabout it: "Rabbit with pears and turnips. The turnips from Talltendre in Cerdanya, Capmany in Alt Empordà and the ones from
Banyoles are the most appreciated in Catalonia. To prepare this dish they used pears
for cooking, winter pears, although you can make it with Blanquilla pear or the one
from Puigcerdà."

Next we have the Cannelloni. They say, " The origin of the pasta is still uncertain. It seems that it comes from the Orient and still the argument continues if it has been the Italians or the Arabs who have introduced it in Europe. In Catalonia the canneloni is a festive dish, typical for San Esteban day. It used tobe prepared with roasted left over of chicken or from the meat broth of Christmas." Kayla said ummmmm... This one was a cheesy creamy winner.


This was my spinach and pine nut pastry thingie. It was flaky and good. Not to doughy. If it had been a little warmer it would have been perfect.

The Cauliflower I spoke of before. Too salty, but the other flavors where quite nice. Origens says, "Cauliflower with hazlenuts. Cauliflower boiled and sauteéed with bacon, garlic, hazelnuts and hot pepper. It is a custom in Catalonia to sauté the vegetables once they are boiled. It has
anti-cancerous properties, and a high content of potassium and vitamin C."



This place is worth a visit. I think that the problems we had were not routine, and it was still a good meal despite them. The URL for the restaurant is Origens. Click on one of the locations, then "ver la carte", the click on the picture at the right. This will show you the menu, and you can get some authentic Catalan and tapas recipes to wow your friends with. Anyway, I've got some other restaurants to post soon. And most importantly I have some recipes of my to post on here check it out soon. Peace.

Marche

I know some of you are thinking: wait a minute, isn't Will in Spain? How can he be posting about a restaurant in Nashville. Well, to those people I say: What is Will? And who is Spain?. Anyway on to the good stuff. This is my favorite non-fancy-shmancy restaurant in Nashville. It's extremely cheap for the quality of the food you get, the wait staff are all relaxed and very friendly, but most importantly the food is fantastic and creative. One can not afford to eat at Cafe Margot (the first restaurant by Chef Margot) all the time, but this is a nice alternative to the pricier dinner spot that you can enjoy every Sunday morning for brunch. Or every single day for brunch. You may have to quit your job to be able to go everyday, but it will be worth it at least until you run out of money and can't go there anymore. But now I'm rambling.

It is located in East Nashville in the 5 points district. Here is the website: Marche, so you can check out the address and such.

They have some excellent cocktails there. For instance this is a Bloody Mary that uses Sake instead of Vodka. It sounds weird I know, but it works. Also, the have a blood orange mimosa that's great. Cocktails are $6. For those to prudish to drink at breakfast they have and array of coffee drinks and fantastic hot chocolate.


This is a little appetizer thingie that I got at Marche. It is currant toast with cambert cheese, pears, and a honey balsamic sauce. WOW! Only 4$. Next, we have the crepe of the day. This one has fontina cheese and bruscola(sp?), a cured beef, and...something else. It comes with an herb cream sauce. I got a side of bacon, too.

They have a crepe and quiche of the day, and it's different most everyday. I think crepes are 6 and quiche is 7$.

This is really cool. It is two eggs poached in a tomato sauce. Yes, poached in tomato sauce. Badass I know. It is served on top of some cheesy grits.



Another thing not to be missed is the French toast made out of croissants. It's yum. Alas, I have no picture of the yum, but trust me it's there.

Now I must leave you. I have more of Spain to eat.

And drink.

And party in.

And I really need to learn Spanish.

And I'm going to Paris next weekend.

AH!!!!! I'm going to Paris next weekend. Let me know if you guys want to come with.

Ciao!

Spanish Stuff

This isn't so much a blog entry as it is a place for me to show off some cool food pictures. Enjoy!

Spain and Food

Well, sorry I haven't been able to update this since I have been here. I've been having computer problems, and it has made getting on here difficult. The computer at my house has a Belgian keyboard, which is unpleasant to type with. Anyway, back to food. Food here is fan-freakin'-tastic! I bought saffron for 2 Euro and truffles for 2 euro! 2 frakin' Euro. I haven't been out to eat much since I have been here, but I have had some wonderful things. The ham here is excellent and I have been just getting some bagette and throwing ham of that on with cheese and veggies and such. I made paella with some friends and some sangria. I will post recipes for those two things on here sometime tomorrow. Well, actually I'll just tell you how we made sangria now, paella later though.

Sangria

2 bottles red wine. Dry is good. Rioja is good for it. I can be cheap wine too, which is why Sangria is nice. Throw in 12 oz. of orange soda. Fanta works fine. 1/2 of a cup of brandy. 1/4 cup sugar. You can change up the fruit but we added 2 lemons, 1 orange, and 1 apple. There you go. It's something that can be altered and changed infinitely. If you find some good additions, please post them here.

Yesterday I had some Catalan ( the name of this region of Spain) food out in this town that makes tons of Cava (Spanish champagne)! We went to two vineyards (more on Cava sometime later) and to a nice little restaurant there. We had some kind of Catalan pasta with clams and scallops. You cover it in aoli and it rocks! Also we had a chicken that appeared to be roasted in a mixture of pineapple, garlic, mushrooms, and I'm not quite sure what else... You'll just have to take my word for it. Anyway, I'm about to explore Chinese food in Barcelona so I must go my loyal readers. I promise to bring you lots of pitcures and recipes as soon as I work out my technical difficulties (soon I hope...).

Adios!

-William

Pesto

It seems that some of you are buying pesto at the grocery store. That is a bunch of crap, and I don't want to see anymore of it. With my help, and the tiniest amount of effort on your part, we can stop this packaged pesto hold that Classico and those other pasta sauce losers have over America. Maybe I'm being a little harsh, but when you make this yourself you will see that it's necessary. Also, it's 1:30 in the morning, and I feel like the world should exist in extremes. Therefore, I am extremely excited about homemade pesto, and I am determined to thwart the plans of more pedestrian pestos. ( I think the sleepier I am the more I am amused by alliteration, but this is not an alliteration blog. It is a food blog. But I digest.) ( Okay I realize that was a bad pun, but I could not help it. Now I really have digressed.)

It begins here. What is all the crap in the picture you may ask? Pesto, my friend. This is pesto. You can of course click on the picture to enlarge if you'd like to check it out up close. We have parmigiano reggiano cheese, pine nuts, olive oil, garlic, and...BASIL (!!). That's it. Don't you feel lazy for buying the packaged store bought kind. Well, I shall continue to guilt trip you until I'm sure you understand.




Speaking of basil. Look at what I got.

I know I've been extolling the joys of K&S World Market since I started this blog, but this time it's actually important. This basil was excellent, and it was super fresh all the way through. The crazy thing though is the price tag. You know those little packages at Krogers? This could fill at least 6 of those. Those things cost 2 bucks a piece, or $12 altogether. This basil however was $2.37 for the whole huge package! This was a steal. Anyway, so now that you know what's in Pesto, and where to get the stuff ( If you aren't familiar with Pine Nuts look for them around other Mediterranean ingredients in the grocery.) we shall proceed with how to make it.


Get a food processor. If you don't have one, then steal one. Just don't steal my food processor. Put in 2 cups of loosely packed basil leaves, 4 garlic cloves, 1/3 cup of pine nuts, and 3/4 cup of grated parmigiano reggiano. Turn on the food processor. Add 2/3 cup of olive oil while processing. You want it to be saucy, but have some substance, i.e. if you put some on a spoon and turn the spoon upside down it shouldn't all drip off. Rather if you were to hold it that way for a minute or so it would slide off.


Put it in a jar or Tupperware. It will stay good (I think.) for up to weeks.



Of course it's best to just go ahead and throw it on some al dente pasta right then and get to eatin'.

Well, there you go. You have the tools. Go forth and make pesto!

-William

P.S. If you want to get crazy throw a handle full of sun dried tomatoes in with the mix. Add a bit more olive oil to compensate.

Trencherman- my new favorite word

I like this word very much. Check out the link to see it's meaning.

http://www.alphadictionary.com/goodword/word/trencherman

-W

Fried Chicken

So it's taken me a minute to finish my dumpling story, but that doesn't mean we can't talk food! Please leave me some comments on chicken. The fried variety of course. I dare say there is no other kind worth eating!

Tell me your favorite Nashville spot for fried chicken. Why does it rock? How much does it cost? How would I acquire this magical fried chicken?

If you think your own recipe rules all the other chicken joints this town has to offer feel free to post the recipe. I don't want to hear about how it's some family recipe. If it's that good cough it up, and myself and any other fried chicken lovers will test it to see how it stacks up.

Come on. We are the South. We are fried chicken.

1...2...3 ...GO!

Dumpling Cookoff Spectacular

Contender #1 Assi Brand
Contender #2 Wang Brand
Contender #3 Wei Chuan Brand

Contender #4 William Brand


Welcome to the Great Dumpling Cookoff Spectacular 2K7. We have 4 contenders. Each unique little doughy container will be examined, and one will win the coveted prize. What is the prize you may ask? Good question...

Moving on. Our esteemed panel of judges consists of myself, two of my roommates(Laura and Sasha), and my brother James aka Otis.

The three bagged dumplings all came from K&S World Market. It's on Charlotte Pike right by Krogers. If you haven't been there you must go! Just to give you an idea of the bizarre wonderful things that await you, they have LIVE EEL! That's right it's alive, and it's eel. Badass I know. Anyway, we have a vegetable dumpling, black mushroom, veggie, and pork dumpling, a shrimp dumpling, and a William dumpling (pork, shrimp, and veggie).

There are so many kinds of dumplings out there, but I feel like Asian cultures are the most dumpling friendly. The frozen dumplings I used in the cookoff would be considered more like traditional Japanesse Gyoza dumplings than the ones I made. Mine are influenced more by Chinese dumplings. If you notice the skins on my dumplings are quite thick compared to the pictures of the others. They also provide more of a doughy flavour of their own instead of merely existing to keep all the filling inside.

This is the base recipe I used to make my dumplings: Dumplings

I adapted ithe recipe a bit, particularly the sauce. I used chili and garlic paste instead of chili oil. I also didn't have any "Chinese Black Vinegar" cuz who the hell has Chinese black vinegar? Anyway you can substitute rice vinegar easily. In fact you can add a bit more than the recipe calls for. It's good to have some tanginess in the sauce. It offsets the wonderful, but over powering if not careful, greasiness of the dumplings. Throw in a little diced scallions for some color. A dash, but just a dash, of sesame oil adds some smokiness that I find meshs well with the sauce.

To cook the dumplings add around two table spoons of veggie oil to a 1o inch skillet. Brown the dumplings on the bottom. If you are using homemade like mine, not frozen, cook the other sides a bit. Just before the sides start to get brown pour in a third of a cup of water. This should be enough water to cover the dumplings half way. Put a top on it, so the dumplings steam. Leave it covered for about 8 minutes or until the water is mostly gone. Brown a bit more, and EAT!!!

All my little notes are not intended to make things more difficult, but merely to elaborate if you have a question the original recipe doesn't answer.

By the way, "pleating" sucks. It's hard. As long as the dumpling is fully sealed you'll be fine. Pleating takes work, aka lots of dumpling making. You should try it because it's funny to watch everyone not be able to do it properly. At some point in the dumpling formation process Sasha decided to just make them into ravioli instead. Not as pretty but tasty none the less.

Now, on to the judges reaction.

The ranking was as follows:

Sasha:
1. William Dumpling
2. Assi and Wei Chuan tie (veggie and pork and mushroom)
3. Wang (shrimp)

James:
1. William
2. Assi
3. Wei Chuan
4. Wang

the Cook:
1. William
2. Assi
3. Wei Chuan
4. Wang

Laura:
1. William and Assi tie (She said she liked mine the most, but I kept seeing her go for the extra veggie ones.)
2. Wei Chuan
3. Wang

Conclusion:
The Wang shrimp dumplings suck. They taste like an aquarium that has seen better days.

Wei Chuan were good. The mushroom taste was woodsy, but overpowered some of the lighter ingredients.

Assi were excellent. Nice dough. Not tough. Inside was scrumptious.

William dumplings were kick ass. The inside was the tastiest. The diced shrimp gave something satisfying to bite into instead of a sort of paste like the others. The skins imparted a lot of flavor of their own. Truth be told it's hard for fresh to lose to frozen. The cards were stacked in my favor from the beginning, but I'll still take the win. The Asians have more practice than I do anyway.

Note to the lazy: If you don't want to make the dough just by some wonton wrappers at Kroger. Stuff them full of tasty stuff. Close em' up. Fry and eat.

One last dinner note. It is important to polish off any good dumpling dinner with the apropriate desert. In this case, coffee ice cream wrapped in dumpling shells!!!!! They are so freakin' good. You must try them.



Well, until next time, where we will eat at a notable Nashville fried fish eatery (Sorry for the alliteration. It couldn't be helped.), may your bellies be full and be sure to bring me a doggie bag!

Welcome

Hello, welcome to jungle. Just kiding. This isn't the jungle. You are actually on the Internet. I'm sorry it took me pointing that out for you to realize it. Back to the story.

I'll spend most of my time on here posting about the food scene in Nashville, TN. If you're not familiar with the area you may say, "What food scene?". I don't respect that sort of negativity, and I won't tolerate it. We may not be New York City, but we also aren't paying 500 dollars for a plate of sushi. Life's about trade offs.

I will be traveling in Europe (mostly), Africa (some), and the Middle East (some I hope) starting from March 5th until June 2nd. Expect great things. I do. Also, I may post some non-food stuff from time to time. I can sometimes wander. Anyways, all in all expect me to deliver you honest opinionated commentary about what I'm eating, what I want to eat, and how I'm gonna eat it.

Since I just graduated I'm mostly broke. My 3 month traveling extravaganza isn't gonna help matters either. That being said, don't expect to see reviews of the newest chic restaurant. Ambiance is nice and all, but let's be honest. We are here for the food. I'll be covering more low key places, and fancy joints from time to time. Also, if I have an exceptionally good meal at the house, expect up to the minute coverage. I'll try to include recipes, pictures, and price ranges for whatever I'm eating if I can.

What's in store for this week. I'm not entirely sure, but you can expect a dumpling cook off. I'm going to K&S World Market tomorrow to acquire the finest in dumplings from around the world. Myself and my esteemed panel of judges (roommates) will let you know which crunchy, puffy, doughy package of goodness you should be reaching for when the dumpling craving strikes you. Don't lie. I know that's like twice a day.