Archive for January 14th, 2008

Follow-up: Cookie Delivery

Published by Hal on January 14, 2008 in observations of food and restaurant reviews. 0 Comments

Last month, I wrote about two start-ups in Bloomington where the fare is all dough, the whole dough, and nothing but the dough… Cookie dough, that is. Or, more precisely, just warm, ooey-gooey, perfect-when-dunked-in-milk cookies.

Over the weekend, my wife and I had the opportunity to drop in on Baked! (blog) with one of our friends. I’d like to be classy and say that we stopped in during the day, but the truth is we were coming from a party at around 11:00 Saturday night. I can say, however, that we were of the right state of mind (no, sober, I promise), so at least we had some class ;).

Anyway, I don’t think any of us had been there, and it was within walking distance from the party we left. We actually passed the other place (the chain, Insomnia), but didn’t go in because we wanted to check out the local place… It seemed Insomnia was a drag, though, because no one was there. Contrast that to Baked, where people filled the front half, enjoying cookies, fussball, and “Rock Band” on an Xbox 360.

Upon walking in, we went to the counter and stared at the menu, completely befuddled (in case you didn’t know, my wife and I are horrible at actually making decisions, and faced with choice, we’re like a deer in headlights). That’s when a guy, who I can only assume to be the proprietor, came over to help us out (I only presume this because if he wasn’t the proprietor, he was definitely the guy in charge).

I’m sure I probably put the poor guy off a bit, because he asked if we needed help with the menu, to which I said “Well, surely we just follow the directions on the menu board… If it’s more complicated than that, we’re in trouble!”–the menu said “Step 1: pick your dough; Step 2: pick your mix-ins.” He quickly recovered when we asked him what he recommended, and he had suggested for our three very different palates.

My wife ordered peanut butter dough with semi-sweet chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and pretzels.

Our friend ordered sugar dough with toffee bar and macadamia nuts. They split a pint of chocolate milk

I ordered chocolate dough with dark chocolate chips and macadamia nuts, with a carton of soy milk.

We waited a while for our cookies, while admiring the pizza-box art on the walls. The one that got me was from the linguistic department. I can’t even reproduce it here, because it used phonetic symbols, spelling out (phonetically) “Linguistic students love to get Baked!” At some point, our friend commented on our wait, to which I reminded everyone (including myself) that most cookie recipes cook for 12-ish minutes.

Sure enough, about 12 minutes after we placed our order, our cookies came out, in a pizza box, all warm and ooey-gooey, and perfect-when-dunked-in-milk. They were absolutely delicious, and would have been especially perfect had we enjoyed a few libations that night… The night was still young, and our new friend mentioned he would be at work until 5 in the a.m., so I’m sure some late-night-revelers indulged after hours. Regardless, it was pretty darn good cookie!

In total, our tab came to about $14 for 9 cookies, a pint of milk, and a little more than a cup of soy milk… I can make a mean cookie, too, especially since I know the economics of how this works and why he can make money doing this. But for the occasional indulgence this place was great. And, you can’t beat the atmosphere and the friendly people. This guy is a student, to boot, so more power to him! I hope he experiences success beyond success in this venture; I think this is his last semester in school, too, so best of luck as he finishes his last four months!

If you’re in the area, I’d recommend you check it out. If not, maybe you can order some cookies from his website. He says he’s shooting for orders of about $40, but if your story is a good one, he may cut you a break… Maybe telling him that you found his site through the blog of a stranger will get you that break–of course, it might be lame, thereby jacking up the minimum order :).

Recipes: Pico de Gallo

Published by Hal on January 14, 2008 in recipes. 0 Comments

So, I just ran a Google search for “pico de gallo” to make sure I spelled it correctly. The first hit was to the Wikipedia article, which states “Pico de gallo (Spanish for “rooster’s beak”)…” HOW COOL IS THAT? I don’t have any idea if it’s really true (this is Wikipedia, after all ;) ), but that sounds great so we’re gonna run with it.

Making “rooster’s beak” (heh heh) is ultra easy, and is so inexpensive, YOU’LL NEVER HAVE TO BUY SALSA, AGAIN! Of course, sometimes a recipe just want work until you have that liquid tomato stuff from the jar (or, I know you can make fresh salsa with the same consistency), but I, honestly, just prefer the fresh taste of pico. It’s also very rewarding to make it myself

Okay, so enough animation from me :) I made this to go on top of my chicken tacos, and have used for more than just the tacos (a subject for another post). Like I said, it’s so easy, it’s almost ridiculous. Five ingredients, a little chopping, and you’ve got condiment heaven on a plate:

Ingredients:

  • 4 Roma (plum) tomatoes
  • 1/2 white onion
  • 2 tablespoons (30 mL) of chopped cilantro
  • 1/2 to 1 fresh jalapeno pepper (optional)
  • Salt (and pepper) to test

Procedure:

Chop the tomatoes and onion into a 1/4 inch (.5 cm) dice and place into a bowl. Roughly chop the cilantro, and add it the tomatoes and onion. Finely dice the pepper and add it to the bowl. Be very careful as you handle the pepper, because the oils will stay on your hands and can cause some serious irritation. Stir the ingredients together, and add salt and pepper to taste. I’m pretty sure you’ll need to add salt, but how much is up to your taste; otherwise, the pico will be very bland. Salt will bring out the natural goodness of the tomatoes and allow them to release their juices.

I put “optional” next to the pepper because I know some folks don’t like their salsas spicy. My wife is not a big fan, so I did not put pepper in this batch. Honestly, a jalapeno is a relatively mild pepper, so even a little bit will be tolerable and will add layers of flavor. Additionally, I suggest Roma tomatoes because they hold their shape well, and they don’t usually taste gritty or unflavorful… even in the midwest… In the winter.

Funny story from when I was in college: my housemate was a pretty hardcore vegetarian and a good cook. He’d always be in our kitchen concocting something out of that weeks vegetable spoils from the grocery. One night, he was cooking with a lot jalapeno (or, it might have been a little bit of a stronger pepper), barehanded. I walked into the kitchen to see him and his then-girlfriend (now-wife) hanging out, with his hands in a bowl of milk. Turns out, he was suffering from some major irritation from the oils in the pepper. So, if you’re worried, use some rubber or latex gloves. Otherwise, if you start hurting, you can soak your hands in milk or a mixture of bleach and water. This should help ease the irritation.

And, finally, if you’ve made it this far ;)… Just a reminder that if you like what you see, please click one of the links in the post header to submit this post (or any other) to one of the social bookmarking sites. No good deed goes un-noticed :) Also, if you’re new, thanks for stopping by! Links to subscribe in the upper right corner of this page.

Seven Things You’ll Wish You Never Knew About Me

Published by Hal on January 14, 2008 in about me and off-topic. 1 Comment

A food post, later. For now, I’ll participate in this meme. Art Dinkin at Moment on Money tagged me to participate in this meme, and I’ll happily oblige. Some of you may know things about me because of our relationship outside of this blog. Others are probably curious about the man behind the curtain. So, here it goes: seven things you’ll wish you never knew about me…

The rules are these:

  • Link to the person(s) that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
  • Share 7 random and/or weird things about yourself.
  • Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

My things:

  1. I have a day job very different from what I write about on this blog: I’m a finance professional, though not of the same vein as Art. I’m a CPA, and I work in the tax department of a large school.
  2. I have a hobby that is very different from both my job and my blog: I sing. I’ve been involved in music for as long as I can remember, and I’ve been singing since 2002. I even had the opportunity this past fall to sing in a local choir for the Dalai Lama.
  3. I’m not fluent in any language (other than English, of course), but I pick them up very easily. I’ve taken French and German, and based on these two I can read a fair amount of Spanish and Latin.
  4. Despite this blog, I’ve (clearly, based on number 1) not been professionally trained as cooking. So, everything you read here is based on my own experiences and trails/errors.
  5. I once lost 90 pounds. Unfortunately, I’ve gained 70 of them back because I deal horribly with things I can’t control (see why number 1 is such a good fit!).
  6. I was an atypical college student: never changed my major once I started, graduated in  4 1/2 years, went right to grad school, and never looked back.
  7. I never cared about college sports when I was in school (even though the other 249,999 people who lived in my city were beyond fanatical). Interestingly enough, now that I work at a rival school, I’m all about it, and at work I’m becoming “that guy.” And, I don’t mind :)

Now, the tag…

  1. Stacie @ Buried the Lead
  2. Jaden @ Steamy Kitchen
  3. Trent @ Simple Dollar
  4. The Gastronomist @ … The Gastronomist!
  5. Andre @ Wine For Newbies
  6. Kevin @ The Breakfast Bowl (maybe it’ll get you posting again!)
  7. Robert @ Web Marketing How To

Wow, this exercise is making me realize that I need to expand my network so that the blogs I read know who I am.