Valentine's day gifts: the Good and the Ugly

Being in college isn't easy.



It's difficult to find a place to bake.


I am fortunate to have a kitchen nearby, because the unequipped room that holds only an oven doesn't quite cut it when you're trying to mix up a little somethin somethin for your valentine.

That little somethin? Cut outs! They cut it!

Unoriginal? Yes.
But cute? Of Course.


Now I'll be honest: cut out heart cookies proliferate around Valentine's Day, and aren't all that exciting or attractive because like so many things, we've all been there and done that.
I believe, though, that everything can be great if done well and with a twist, even if it's not a brand new idea.



Here are two recipes for cut outs that break from the norm.

The first is a simple shortbread dough, the second an oatmeal dough. Both are different from the usual sugar cookie. AND, both are homemade. BINGO!
Frost them with homemade frosting. It tastes good. It's an arm workout. It's made of sugar and butter and vanilla and milk and that's all. Here's the recipe.

I think a little bit of muscle and oddity is enough to make creating something for your lover/loved worthwhile this Valentine's day.


There are lots of bad gifts you could give (or you could go the route of no gift), but consider this simple testament to your affection.
Cookies say lots of nice things: "I love you no matter what size you are!" "I made this for you because I love you." "These were cheaper than jewelery!" etc.


Valentine's day isn't cheesy, it's wonderful!

-Lillie

Sit down, Pillsbury!

My grandma's cutouts are always my favorite Christmas cookie. So much so that she's begun calling them 'Lillie's cookies'; and this Christmas, though she was very sick, she traveled all the way to Michigan just to deliver them to me. A little much, but I can't say I didn't eat...all of them.

She makes cutouts not with sugar cookie dough, but with shortbread dough. It makes for a flakier, butterier cookie, which contrasts well with the smoothness of the frosting.
They probably translate well to Valentine's day cookies, too.


Shortbread Cutouts

3/4 c. butter
1/4 c. sugar (both granulated and powdered work well here. Let me get back to you about differences?)
2 c. flour

Cream butter and sugar. Add flour. Refrigerate. Roll out to 1/4-inch thick, cut out. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or just until set, at 350 degrees.
Let cool, and frost with:


Frosting

I don't have the specifics here, but this is whatchu need:

-butter: cold, but not very cold. A stick will do for a batch of cookies.
-powdered sugar: more than you would think - just have about 2 cups on hand if you're making a bunch of frosting.
-vanilla: key. Just a little drop'll do ya.
-milk: only really necessary for spreadability, here. Smooths things out nicely, but not crucial. Add only the teensiest bit. It gets out of hand quickly.

and this is whatchu do:

-mix butter and p. sugar. Do this by smoothing butter into sugar (vice versa?); use a spoon and press the butter against the side of the bowl you're working with. It takes a minute to start mixing, but you'll see results and be happy. Once they're smoothly mixed, taste it. Does it taste buttery still? Add more sugar. With the right taste, add a bit of vanilla, and milk if you wanna.
Badabing Badaboom!
Refrigerate this stuff. Let it come almost to room temp before you frost anything, though.



Add a little pink food coloring to the frosting, and frost these puppies, my personal favorite Valentine's day cook-cooks:


Oatmeal Cutouts

2/3 c. shortening
3/4 c. sugar
1 egg
1 T milk (I used water when I made them at the dorm. it worked. Mom? Is this okay?)
1 t. vanilla
1 3/4 c. flour
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
3/4 c. oats

Cream shortening and sugar. Blend in egg, milk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients to the mixture. Stir in oats. Chill several hours.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out to about 1/4 inch, and cut out (hearts, preferably). Bake for 10 minutes, or until just golden on the edges. Let cool, then frost.
Makes 3 dizzle.


-Lillie

Mission: Lox - The Roundup

Sorry, dedicated plate lickers, Ming and Ting have been working a lot! since their smoked fish adventure and have not made time to report back. So here it is. The final, non-authoritative word on lox is in.

First off, I've eaten enough lox that I'm not sure, at this juncture, whether it will be appetizing to me again ever. Will this be a pattern in these research missions, that they will ruin my desire to eat these foods again? Is that irony? Do any of you know how to define irony? I do, in fact, think my relationship with lox will have a future. Today at the sto' (the colloquial term among us hip white people for Whole Foods) I examined a whole gutted rainbow trout for several minutes before I decided that eating only that for dinner would make my apartment and my person smell bad, and that I had no ideas for what to pair it with. After that I left and then I ate some frozen vegetables for dinner. Sweatshops don't pay well.

I digress. What was I talking about? Lox! Barney Greengrass! So I hop off the ol' 1 train and work my way through the labyrinth of Maclaren strollers and these people that is the the Upper West Side, all the while Karen Oh orgasmically screams into my little pink ears that I "look like shit!" and that I wasn't invited. I was feeling real low. And then, like a beacon, I see this through my misty midwestern eyes. A real classic-looking place, right? A serious New York establishment. The kind of place where everything is so good, it doesn't even have to look good.

Now came the moment of truth. Could I ask the guy behind the counter to be my teacher? And of equal importance, would I have the proverbial huevos to ask him for some free samples? Would he beat or banish me if I made a mistake or asked a stupid question? My fantasies aside, the smoked fish man was a wonderfully helpful smoked fish man. I told him "I wanna know about lox" and he was more than happy to help me learn. He told me that their Eastern lox is the most popular. It's brined in water, sugar, salt, and some type of alcohol. Then it's cold-smoked. He told me that it's farm-raised. He offered samples and I took those samples. He also let me try a sample of the Gravlox, the only of their salty delicacies that is made in-house. The Gravlox is never smoked. It is cured, like the regular lox, except with the addition of a LOT of dill and white peppercorns. Awesome stuff.

Then I walked right down the street to Murray's Sturgeon Shop. This was where my most important discovery was made. The man behind the counter decided he couldn't answer broad prompts like "tell me about lox." I told him I didn't know anything about lox so I couldn't ask specific questions. He shrugged his shoulders and left the counter. Then another man came out. He didn't really speak any words to me, but his generosity and his silent pedagogy shone through nonetheless. Through this old-world oracle I learned the answer to my final lox question - who does it best?

The Scotties!!! Yes, Dr. William MacDougal and his feral countrymen know how to cure a fish. The difference? Smoke. "Scotch style" lox, as my maestro explained to me so succinctly in two words, has more smoke. It is cold-smoked for longer than the regular Eastern or Nova lox. That makes a lox that is just as silky in texture, but the saltiness is more in the background and the smoke comes to the front.

Some of you might be saying "NoNoNoah why don't you just go back to Michigan and eat some smoked fish with your backward yooper friends and leave the lox alone!" Well, noone's reading this, not many people know what yoopers are, and even fewer know of their affinity for smoked fish, so you probably aren't saying that. But either way, I am going to leave lox alone. I'm sick of it and this mission. I hope you learned something. Goodbye.

nobear.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy

Food On A Stick.



I am a sell-out.
I guess I knew it and thought I could hide it from all the refined bloggers out there judging me. But now that I'm seriously writing my third consecutive blog post about fried food, there's no way I can pretend to be above eating anything fried.


I think I probably started on my downward spiral this August when I arrived in the Twin Cities. Feeling uncertain about my new surroundings, unable to really call anywhere home yet, a trip to the fried-food heaven was compulsory and centering.
And sure enough, upon setting foot on The Minnesota State Fairgrounds, smelling the thousands of trays of fat boiling away in greasy little tents, and laying eyes upon wrappers and picked-clean sticks strewn about the paths, I knew Minnesota was somewhere I could fit in.

The Minnesota State Fair is famous for (among other things) frying everything on a stick. Everything. Though revolting at first and second consideration, all concerns melt (like the inside of a fried Milky Way) when you bite into one.
Similarly, ambivalence toward a large bucket of soft little cookies all to yourself becomes foreign as you doublefist them into your mouth as you walk in excitement toward The Miracle of Life.
My first and best experience with food on a stick was probably the good old-fashioned corn dog. But this summer I tried the fried oreo, against my better judgment, and to my supreme joy.


The coolest thing about the Minnesota State Fair is that creativity, especially with flavor combinations, is an art form and appreciated by all. You might not see a candy bar dipped in batter and dropped tenderly into boiling fat as art, but like other forms of food art, it just takes an open mind and appetite to get excited about.

The state fair originally was held to encourage farming in the state, and though the official website may argue otherwise, the fried food is the focus now, and the foremost reason I plan to return to Macalester in the fall.


Fried. Good.

-Lillie

French...fries ?

I am not a fried-food kind of person, really.

I am also not really into French people or things or food or anything really.

And yet, here I am, defying both of these statements.



Today I went to one of my (and everyone else at Macalester's) favorite hangouts, Coffee News Cafe, on Grand Avenue. With a patchy staff, unabashedly liberal clientele, proximity, and awesome food, Coffee News has reason to be what it is to Macalester students. But incredible (though deceptive?) cake display aside, their real masterpiece comes as a side: garlic french fries: homemade golden delicious, delicate fries, sprinkled with minced garlic and served next to your favorite sandwich (sliced turkey panini - pears! honey mascarpone! bacon!).

If you're like me, you probably think the "french" before the "fry" is just a stupid American invention. But you and I are wrong! French actually refers to the way the little buggers are prepared:

french, to
1. To cut a vegetable or meat lengthwise into very thin strips. Beans and potatoes are two vegetables that are commonly "frenched."
2. To cut the meat away from the end of a rib or chop, so that part of the bone is exposed.

Cool, right?
Interesting, though, because there are so many different shapes of French fries these days: shoestring, curly, thick-cut, waffle...
Not to mention the different flavors available. [Including Trader Joe's chipotle ranch - not recommended, my friends.]



Ignoring the ongoing debate of which fast food fries are superior, I put forth the idea that perhaps the best fries come not from a red or blue plasticized corporation, but from the earthy yellow, too on-beat to be off-beat Coffee News in little St. Paul, Minnesota.


-Lillie