He was doing two sandwiches on this show, the Greek Taco, which I have yet to try, and what he called a Chicago Steakhouse Sandwich. This sandwich turned out to be awesome. The first time I made it, I used his exact recipe, but did three things wrong, or weakly. First, I forgot the bleu cheese in the dressing, I used too little red pepper in the spinach (and I had thought I used a lot) and I did not get the garlic chips as crispy as I needed to.

The second time I made the recipe I used LOTS of red pepper, remembered the bleu cheese, but I used a nice grilled, lightly marinated tri-tip. This was less greasy, but still had great flavor and the sandwich was AWESOME. The only thing I would have done differently is maybe cooked up the spinach just a little closer to serving the sandwich, instead of 10 minutes before. It was just a bit too done. Should have done it closer to the serving time and also just a little less.

So, here is just a great sandwich recipe. Easy, quick and super tasty. Try it, you will not be disappointed. Kudo’s to the Sandwich King. And here is the link to his recipe, while below is almost exactly the same with just the recommendation of the tri-tip and a couple of small things like a much more generous amount of mustard.

CHICAGO STEAKHOUSE SANDWICH

To make the sandwich, layer meat, followed by spinach. Place garlic chips evenly about the sandwich and pour dressing on the sandwich. Eat and marvel at how tasty it is.

Finally, I encourage you to follow Jeff Mauro, Sandwich King on the Food Network. His show is great. Check your local listings for times.

Vinny Garcia is a hardcore Doctor Who fan as well as a talented cake designer, and you just know how those people are: gotta cross them streams, unite those worlds. No doubt it started with an undergrad in the sixties, baking John Pertwee-faced cookies to the sounds of the Merseybeat, and the next thing you know, this exists.

From BBCAmerica:

“I’ve seen Dalek cakes made here and there, but I just felt like nobody really captured the essence of the Dalek and the complexity of the design,” he explained. “Somebody went through a lot of trouble to design every nook and cranny of this thing, and you never see it. I thought, ‘Everyone always thinks the conical shape when they think Dalek,’ so I decided to go that extra mile to get to the difficulty level. And to be able to make this Dalek in the way that I wanted to make it, as cheesy as it sounds, it’s a dream come true.… Having made the Dalek, I naturally want to make Davros,” Garcia revealed. “I’d also like to make a three-foot tall cyberman or even The Doctor himself. I’d love to make a Tom Baker with a giant scarf and a little K-9, oh that would be so awesome.”

You can keep your molecular gastronomy, boys and girls. THAT is true food nerdism.

What the HEY-ELL?

One finds the strangest things, one does, when surfing the internet looking for virtual presents for other bloggers (don’t ask). One of those things is this: the confetti bedazzled winebottle fishnet thingummy, which really should be on Regretsy, except it appears also to be mass-produced, because I guess the masses want their booze to look more Kardashian.

When one puts “wine” together with “confetti” the above is not acceptable (unless, of course, one is gifting someone to celebrate her victory at America’s Next Top Ecdysiast). The following IS:

A handblown Italian wineglass. It’s just special enough to make an al fresco afternoon a little more exciting. And I like a fairly substantial glass for drinking wine outdoors. It just feels more medieval to me, as if Jonathan Rhys Meyers or Alan Rickman might show up on a horse and join me for a glass. And what is the point of being outside if they’re not going to, I ask? Rhetorically, of course: they wouldn’t show up without a proper invitation…now, do any of you have their emails?

Speaking of bad manners and bad ideas and wine, we present the following, tangentially-related video, one of a very amusing series on YouTube called My Drunk Kitchen. If you’ve watched every Sandra Lee show ever aired and are pining for something even more Out There, why, this girl has got you covered. Personally, I suspect that more than two bottles of bubbly were involved in the production of these “cookies,” and I’d like to know since when does YouTubing pay that much, but that is neither here nor there. Nor over there either.

So, here:

When your cooking project requires a spotter for safety reasons, maybe it’s time to order in.

Paula Deen and Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie at the royal wedding

Oh look, she brought a plus one. And you know, that’s what that hat needed: more butter!

By the way, my favorite ridiculous tea accessory (and there are a LOT from which to choose, including my mechanized sugar picker, which reminds me of the claw in that Pick A Toy machine at the Legion) is this delightfully pointless set of Royal Family Hot Tubber Teabags. Pun away!

That's some posse, Jamie

Oh Jamie. I don’t know how low your star has to fall for you to assume that presenting yourself as a fruit or vegetable has to be a step up, but it would appear that yours? Is somewhat below even that. Admit it: if you saw yourself in the produce section, you’d pass yourself up for being a sad, flaccid fruit.

Chef-Owner Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Blogger Heather Watson

Actually, as you can see there were no hogs involved in the Winedown event at Market, the Vancouver outpost of the Jean-Georges empire (unless you count the people who tried to scarf more than their share of the truffle pizza). It’s a strange fact but a fact nonetheless that now that I’ve got a blog with “food” right there in the name (scroll up and confirm for me that I’m not just hallucinating this, okay?) I get dozens of invitations to cocktail events and none at all to foodie events.

Fortunately for my liver, Market changed my luck with their invitation to the Winedown event, at which actual food was served. It still counts, even if the invitation came through the bartender, right?

There were cocktails served, too, and very tasty they were although I have to say the Palaciosour was something I’d order again whereas the Basablanca comes across as just a too-tart, much more labour-intense Tom Collins.If the lemons in yours were sharper than the lemons in the test batch as mine were, you were hooped unless you wanted to go back and ask them to splash in some simple syrup or something, which is a bit like sending your food back to get some ketchup on it. I know it’s heresy, but sometimes making drinks in a pitcher and sampling the pitcher before pouring is more likely to result in consistent quality. At a posh event, people want them made individually; the problem is, there’s no time to test them this way. One must strike a balance between practicality and pizazz.

The Palaciosour was a nice sour (and not too) but the float of rich, hemoglobinesque red wine completely made the drink. The interplay between the bitters, the citrus, the refined whisky and the wine added an almost electric dimensionality to the experience that made it something special. It also looks pretty wicked, as the Rioja remains floating instead of mixing in with the rest of the drink.

UPDATE: added the decimals into the recipes. Darn proofreading!

Basablanca

.75 oz Telmo Rodriguez !Basa” Rueda.

.5 oz Victoria Gin.

.5 oz St.Germain.

.25 oz Fresh Lemon Juice.

2 dashes Fee Brothers West indian Orange Bitters

combine ingredients and shake with ice

double strain into a coupe

*garnish with zested lemon peel

Palaciosour

.5 oz Alvaro Palacios !La Vendimia” Rioja.

1.5 oz Centennial Rye Whisky

.75 oz Fresh Lemon Juice.

.25 oz Fresh Lime Juice.

.75 oz Sugar Syrup.

2 dashes Fee Brother Plum Bitters

2 dashes Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate Bitters

combine Rye, citrus juice, sugar and bitters and shake with ice

double strain into an old fashioned glass

top with ice

float wine on drink surface

*garnish with brandied cherry on rim

And, didn’t I say something about food? The food was (as should be the case at one of Jean-Georges’ places) marvelous. Truffles don’t really float my boat, and thank GOD I finally found something expensive that I don’t actually adore, but the first item out of the kitchen was truffle pizza, and it had me reconsidering my truffle position. The truffle gave the cheese pizza an edge, a savory interest that wasn’t as overwhelming as truffles can be.

I remain, however, deeply skeptical of their celebrated truffle burger. I am a devoutly orthodox burgerologist.

For the second item, let me put this as simply as I can: the scallop sashimi with warm crispy rice and chipotle emulsion may just be the nicest thing I’ve ever had in my mouth, including my ex.

The Steelhead salmon sashimi with green chili, crushed pistachios, and mint (whatever happened to giving foods names instead of entire recipes?) was equally marvelous. It’s not easy to do foods that retain their individual component flavours while working together perfectly, and while this sounds strong, it was in fact subtle and perfectly-balanced.

The raw tuna with wasabi cream cheese and pickled ginger pizza was fresh and, again, well-balanced, but it made me wonder why some foods were sashimis and some were just pedestrian old “raw.” I suspect the salmon and scallops slept with the chef. The dish was radical, but very successful.

Rice cracker crusted tuna with a citrus-sriracha emulsion was my second-favorite of the night, even though I am allergic to the word “emulsion” outside of physics class. I’m a big fan of contrasting, bold flavours, and so was pretty much in heaven all night.

It was a good reminder that there is more to wine cocktails than sangria (or that lame excuse for white sangria that’s really just cheap white zin watered down with some orange slices in it, and Yaletown, I AM LOOKING AT YOU) and that less-alcoholic cocktails pair better with food, particularly after the second round.

This pose takes years of practice. For your liver.

Say what you will about the French in wartime, they have the BEST helicopters. In related news, CnH2n+1OH Yoga is how I’m working off all the cheese and alcohol I’ve been consuming since getting my liver refreshed.

In tangentially-related news, The Brooklyn Kitchen and The Meat Hook have the most awesome roundup of cooking workshops on the interwebs. Don’t delay: sign up today!

April Classes!

Midwestern Molded Salads April 7   $65 Knife 202: Knife Throwing April 8   $100 Methamphetamines: Home Production April 11   $250 and 25% Molotov Cocktails April 12   $75 Party like it’s 2004: Naked Lady Sushi! April 12   $80 Pigeon a La Plancha April 13   $75 DIY MRE’s: Using Modernist Techniques for End of Days April 14   $75 Glass Blowing: Making your own Canning Jars April 18   $40 Neanderthal Diet with the Meat Hook: All Raw, Half Rotten April 19   $75 Brooklyn Business Plan: It’s ALL in the Name April 20   $150 How to Serve Man April 21   $40 Home Alloys: from Bronze to Steel April 21   $50 Manifold: Make the Most of your Commute April 25   $150 Rat Trapping, Slaughter and Butchering April 26   $80 (rat included)

Only in New York, kids. Only in New York! (via NegevRockCity)

Hunky Italian chef Gino D’Acampo is a big man, and a total hambone. When he loses a bet, he doesn’t shrivel up, he antes up. Here he goes Jamie Oliver one better by becoming a truly Naked Chef, and never mind the risks to life, limb, and little buddy.

From TheDailyWhat:

Long story short, Italian chef Gino D’Acampo made a promise to viewers of ITV’s This Morning that, should the show win a National Television Award, he would return to cook sans clothes. Well, they won, and he did.

That takes sfere, and, as you can see, Gino is a man who knows where to draw the line, who’s not as likely to run something up the flagpole and see who salutes as he is to carry his cowl where the sun don’t shine. Of the three of them on-camera (and the vast, multitudinous horde swarming around off-camera) only one person keeps his cool when the heat is on and the dial is turned up to 12. He barely cracks a smile even as his boneheaded cohosts pull boner after boner during this simple segment on preparing gammon and mushy peas.

Yes, Gino D’Acampo is the obvious weiner.

We've found the problem: Chef Boyardee isn't in the kitchen tonight

It’s your own fault for booking on a Monday, rube!

In related news, Chef Boyardee was a real chef, and he never would have gone near PG-13 crap like Zoodles!

On the bright side, nobody can accuse Bourdain of being a passively detached parent.

via BlackBook

Bonus Bourdain:

“If you’re looking for elitism and hypocrisy and silliness, you need only look to food. Which is ready for a parody and backlash. I make a good living at it. But really it’s also just a part of a natural process, don’t you think? It was inevitable for this happen.”

Indeed it was, and high time. We’ve got to get in there before the industry entirely descends to unconscious self-parody. Although from time to time it appears we may be too late.

Am I the only one fatigued by all of this stuff? The only diner out there exhausted by the fastidiousness applied to $38 pappardelle and $3 frozen pop on a stick alike? The only one who feels bludgeoned by people swinging their expertise like so much boneless, air-dried Italian lomo? Incidentally, did you know Las Vegas chef Michael Mina poaches only fish in ocean water flown in from Fiji? Well, I know!

I know because I am part of the problem. Not a huge part; I only occasionally write about food. But I do openly wonder why more burger joints don’t make their own brioche buns and ketchup.

Incidentally, very few people who’ve worked at “burger joints” have such questions.