1 day!

Recipe Wednesday is on hiatus this week. Roadsnacks is busy packing her suitcase.

2 days...

3 days...

4 days...

5 days...

Countdown to Maui snacks

6 days and counting...

Happy Holidays from Roadsnacks!

Happy Winter Solstice Holidays - party on and eat cake! Though maybe not these.

And no, these cakes are not my creations. I'm a former spelling bee kid and an unofficial member of the grammar police.

Photos from Cakewrecks.

Spam Musubi

It's finally hit the mainstream media.

Since the President-elect is a hapa guy from Hawaii, it's only a matter of time til this becomes a staple on the White House menu.

Also, the White House Executive Chef is Filipina, so this all fits together quite nicely. It's about time DC got a little more Asian flavor.






Coming soon: Iron Chef, battle spam?

















Spam Musubi

Musubi is the Japanese word for knot. Sort of. Spam musubi is kind of like nigiri sushi. Sort of.

To make your very own spam musubi, you will need:

- spam, sliced
- shoyu mixed with a little sugar (= teriyaki sauce)
- cooked Japanese rice (mix with furikake, if you'd like)
- nori

Put spam slices in a hot nonstick skillet and fry until brown. (No additional oil necessary.)

Turn off heat. Add shoyu & sugar. Toss around until the spam slices are coated with sauce.

Look at the above photos and assemble. Either way is fine.

Um - this does not mean I've developed a sudden liking for spam. I have this maybe once a year. Personally, I think this would be better with kielbasa.

All right. It's cold.

Temperature: 36

You non-Californians out there are probably scoffing at the temperature. 36 degrees? Bah!

If you are sitting seiza in a non-insulated practice studio with no heat, even you, weather-hardened east coast readers, would be cold. Just sayin'.

Time to bundle up and head to the studio...

Strawberry sorbet

No, it's not strawberry season. It's 35 degrees outside, for crying out loud. In California.

But if all you have is a bag of frozen TJ's strawberries, then this is not a bad alternative.

Strawberry sorbet
1 bag Trader Joe's frozen strawberries, thawed
1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar (depends on your taste)
pinch salt
1/2 cup water

Buzz it all together with your immersion blender and toss it into your ice cream machine.

I'm not saying it's cold...

... but that's snow in them thar hills.

Pecan Bars

From the Cook's Illustrated Baking Book, for which I did a whole bunch of recipes.

This recipe is my favorite.

Pecan Bars (fills one 9-inch square pan)

For the crust:

1 cup (5 oz) all-purpose flour

1/3 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup toasted pecans, chopped coarsely

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

For the filling:

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/3 cup light corn syrup

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1 tablespoon bourbon or dark rum (optional)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 large egg, lightly beaten

2 cups toasted pecans, chopped coarsely

For the crust: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9-inch square baking pan with foil and coat lightly with nonstick cooking spray.

Place flour, brown sugar, pecans, salt, and baking powder in food processor. Process mixture until it resembles coarse cornmeal, about five 1-second pulses. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles sand, about eight 1-second pulses. Pat mixture evenly into prepared pan and bake until crust is light brown and springs back when touched, about 20 minutes.

For the filling: While crust bakes, whisk together brown sugar, melted butter, corn syrup, bourbon, vanilla, salt, and egg in medium bowl until combined. Add pecans and stir to combine.

Bake until top is brown and cracks start to form across surface, 22 to 25 minutes. Cool on wire rack for 1 hour. Remove bars from pan, transfer to cutting board, and cut into bars.

See This Documentary

Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father
Sunday, 12/14
1:00pm PT (4:00pm ET)
MSNBC

It's been 14 hours since I saw this, and I cannot stop thinking about it. To say this is the most heartbreaking documentary I've ever seen doesn't do it justice.

What seems like a homemade tribute to a lost friend turns into a work of masterful, manipulative storytelling, which may seem overly melodramatic at times but works to devastating effect.

But I've said too much already - don't look up the website, don't google it. It's best to experience it through unbiased eyes. And with a large box of tissues.

2008 Stats & Superlatives

Best food selection:
Richmond Folk Festival





Most enthusiastic audience:
Richmond Folk Festival
185,000 of the nicest people you'll ever meet.





Most awesomely memorable meal:
Homemade Korean feast by the Yoon Family, Richmond









Most interesting take-out:
Pasties Plus (meat pies) in Grand Rapids that was next to a barbershop, Sweeney Todd-style. No kidding.




Most extreme weather:
Houghton, Michigan & Grand Rapids, Minnesota
Minus 21 degrees!






Best restaurant:
Monell's, Nashville














Reason I started running:
Monell's, Nashville
Hey, no regrets. I'd eat it all again.












Best green room snacks:
Manship Theater, Baton Rouge Everything generously provided by Whole Foods. And you know how much I love Whole Foods!



Worst food:
White Castle, Nashville
Nothing against Nashville - I'm sure all White Castles are equally nasty.








Most memorable snack:
Breakfast sandwich, Stone Mill Bakery, Fayetteville, Arkansas
I'll say it again - they grind their own flour.





The Hamilton Award for the Small Town That Exceeded Snacking Expectations: Fayetteville, Arkansas

Sick of turkey? Try this!

As promised last week, a recipe from Jon & Vinny's book. This, along with their very tasty eggplant recipe, is available on NPR.










Garlic-Braised Brothy Escarole
Serves 6

1 tablespoon olive oil
6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 large or 3 medium heads of escarole, leaves separated, washed, and sliced cross-wise into 1-inch-wide strips
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt*

Vinny: Escarole is an underused leafy green. It's sturdy enough to braise, and mild enough to please lots of people who don't get into more bitter braised greens. For a meal-in-one dish, add some cooked pasta and white beans.

Jon: My favorite way to eat this is in a bowl with a nice steak on the side. Be sure to dip pieces of the steak in the sauce to soak up all that garlicky goodness.

Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, stirring, about 1 minute. Stir in the escarole and cook until slightly wilted, about 1 minute.

Add 1 1/2 cups water*, bring to a simmer, and cook until the escarole is tender, 7 to 9 minutes. Add the butter and salt and, once the butter has melted, serve.

*You can replace the water with chicken broth, if you'd like. And I'd start with 1 teaspoon Kosher salt, and add more to taste. And that's KOSHER salt, people. You'll be sorry if you use that much iodized table salt.

Now all y'all, go buy this book.

Need more cookbooks? Of course you do! The New York Times has some nice suggestions. They like Jon & Vinny's book, too.

Hey. I thought this was a food blog.

Hello, loyal reader.

You are probably wondering when this thing turned into a running blog. I'm wondering that, myself...

Alas, I don't have as many interesting snacking adventures when we're home. But fear not! Coming soon will be a trip to Maui, the land of endless snacks! Seriously, I plan on eating my weight in kalua pork, mac salad, teri-everything - and then running it all off. I hope.

Until then, you'll have to make do with running stories and photos of my cat:

Turkey Trot & Turkey Feast

Silicon Valley Turkey Trot!











My official results -
Place: 1632 out of 2413
Age Group: 232 out of 393
Chip Time: 1:06:16
Pace: 10:40/M












Not to compare, but -
First place, women's elite 5K - 00:16:00

Yikes...

Since I'm a newbie, I haven't figured out how to pace myself during a race yet. I think I start out too fast, dodging all of the slowpokes at the start (sub-9 minute mile!), then pooping out halfway (12 minute mile). The course was a lot narrower and more crowded than the SV Marathon, so there was quite a bit of dodging required.

And at mile 5, the 10K course merged with the 5K walking course, at the narrowest part of the Guadalupe Trail. 7,000+ people on a trail that's 6 feet wide? Really?

Oh, well. We had a great time, anyway!
















Time to look for another race! Wharf-to-Wharf? Bay to Breakers? Who wants to sign up with me?

Hello?




Afterwards, a huge Thanksgiving throw-down at Stew & Trish's.

The brown sugar cinnamon ice cream turned out pretty well. I think I'll make it for obon.




















Mika, doing her best turkey impression:

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Ice Cream

I'm making this for tomorrow's Thanksgiving potluck:

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Ice Cream

Whisk together:
4 egg yolks
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch Kosher salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Add:
4 cups half-and-half

Heat to 180 degrees, strain, chill, & spin. Serve with pie.

Get This Book

I was the recipe tester for this book last year:
















NPR just named it one of the ten best cookbooks of 2008!

You may have seen Jon & Vinny on their Food Network show, Two Dudes Catering.


For those of you who are wondering what the heck a recipe tester does:

1) Chef decides to write a cookbook. He/she gives their recipes (previously written on grease-stained index cards, if anything) to the editor. And the recipes probably serve about 50 people each.

2) Editor takes the recipes, pares them down to a reasonable serving sizes, and gives the edited recipes to the tester (that's me).

3) Tester makes the recipes exactly as written, tastes them, and gives notes to the editor. If the recipe fails miserably on the first try (which hardly ever happens), it gets edited and tried again.


It can be tedious, but I think it's fun. Having worked at the most awesome & nit-pickiest test kitchen in the world, I find this sort of thing soothing.

Hm, I think I'll post one of their recipes. If you promise to buy the book, that is...

Northern Exposure

“I just want it to go in the history books.”
Mary Boudukofsky, Aleut American internee.


Am watching this documentary on PBS right now (narrated by President Bartlet). I didn't know anything about this...


Aleut Story
In 1942, as World War II invaded Alaska, Aleut Americans were taken from their homes and removed to abysmal government camps 1,500 miles away... An estimated 10 percent of the men, women and children sent to the camps would die there—a death rate comparable to that suffered by Americans in foreign prisoner of war camps. As the Aleuts prayed for deliverance, "friendly forces" looted their homes and churches in the Aleutian and Pribilof islands.

Those who survived would fight for their rights... In a historic action, Aleuts joined Japanese Americans in seeking wartime reparations from the federal government.

Really, am quite sad I didn't know about this. Did you? I know about the Japanese-American internment and reparations, of course. I heard Barney Frank speak about that a few years ago, and I saw the exhibit that was at Ellis Island (which included info on other ethnic groups that were interned along with the JAs), but I don't remember any mention of the Aleuts...