Goodly Eats

I love food. I think it's one of God's greatest gifts to us. Unfortunately, it's also a source of constant frustration for me. I won't lament my weight issues here, but suffice it to say that I have more than one Thanksgiving turkey worth of extra meat to lose, accumulated over a lifetime of relative inactivity and some poor food choices along the way. (I'm working on that.)

But the great thing about food is that you HAVE to eat. I guess that can also be a source of frustration, since it's easy to make bad choices when you're faced with eating at least three times a day. But I choose to look at it as a joy. I like food and I get to eat! Every day! How great is that?

Fortunately, I also like to cook, which is a big part of creating a healthy lifestyle and making good food choices. I'm all about eating real food whenever possible. So today I share with you a few food blogs that I intend to check out in more detail, including one that is dedicated to cupcakes. (A girl's gotta have a few sweets, right? And homemade cupcakes are way better than store bought logs of trans fat!) I'd like to list a few more food blogs here, but Bloglines is currently down for maintenance, so I can't see my list of feeds. (Get it? Food feeds!)

• Simply Recipes: Vast archive of recipes, tons of categories, and lovely food photography ~ a feast in itself!
• Smitten Kitchen: More tempting photography, interesting recipes, and some fun commentary
• Cupcake Bakeshope by Chokylit: Where else are you going to find a recipe for Adzuki Bean Paste Filled Chocolate Cupcakes with Matcha Green Tea Frosting? Seriously.

What are some of your fave food sites?

My First Tofu (2nd 1st)

[Stephanie over at Cool People I Know (whom I found via Jen Lemen) has tagged her readers to jump in on her meme and provide a list of five firsts. This is my second first. Read the others here.]

The first time I ate tofu I thought it was cheese. Until I tasted it. You know that feeling when you watch someone drinking a glass of cola or iced tea or orange juice and you take a sip of your water or milk or V8 and you're shocked and confused by the discordant taste sensation? My first tofu was like that, only much worse. The pale little cubes on the cafeteria line looked like cheese. And I love cheese. But this was a piece of plain, mushy tofu.

After that I thought I hated tofu. Two nights ago I had a really bad tofu stir-fry that reminded me how much I thought I hated it. But I know that tofu is a lot like vegetables: People think they hate them because they've never had them cooked well. My dad claims to hate all cooked vegetables beyond corn and potatoes. But last Christmas when I sauteed green beans with olive oil and toasted almonds, he decided to try a few. "These don't taste like green beans," he said. I said that he was probably comparing them to the canned variety he'd had in the past. "No," he said. "These don't taste at all like green beans."

For me, good tofu doesn't taste at all like tofu, which, let's face it, has a serious consistency issue and no flavor when it's by itself. But silken tofu adds an interesting consistency and slightly nutty flavor to fruit smoothies. In hot and sour soup, the tofu takes on the lovely tangy flavors of the broth. And I love a good stir-fried tofu when it's crispy outside and silky inside, like the Coconut Curry Vegetables or Vegetarian Ma Po Tofu from P. F. Chang's China Bistro.

My question to you: Tofu or not tofu?

Pink, Fluffy, and Hilarious

photo taken with Verizon Wireless cell phone

Behold the Six Penn Circus, a dessert comprised of childhood favorites, all grown up! The little dish to the right holds "cracker jacks" made fresh in the restaurant. In the foreground are four delicate cinnamon donut puffs, and two decadent "gobs" or "whoopie pies" made from dark chocolate mocha cake stuffed with a mascarpone-like filling. And the pièce de résistance: the giant pink wig of cotton candy!

James and I went to Six Penn Kitchens after the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's Pops concert of John Williams' music. (James is a big Star Wars and John Williams fan. The concert was enjoyable, but sadly not terribly impressive.)

But our experience at Six Penn was impressive. First of all, the whole place is non-smoking. So we could sit and have drinks and not reek afterwards. Imagine it: a bar that doesn't smell like a bar! After interesting appetizers such as fried cheese done three ways and "poblano stuffed with chorizo, goat cheese, picadillo, gordita; ranchero sauce," we read the description for the Six Penn Circus on the dessert menu. James wasn't sure that we should get it, but it had me at cotton candy. How could we pass that up?

I said to James, "You're going to tell people that this dessert was on the menu. They'll ask you how it was. And you'll have to tell them that you don't know because you didn't get it. And they will be SO DISAPPOINTED. There's no way we CANNOT get this dessert!"

I think he just wanted to hear me make an argument for it. He's a sucker for cotton candy.

I started laughing as soon as our waiter appeared with the plate and kept laughing for the rest of the night. (The laughing may or may not have been related to the bourbon martini/mojitos that the bartender tried out on me.) The amount of cotton candy balanced in that little dish was ridiculous and impressive. The table of people behind us stopped to chat on their way out, apparently relieved that someone had finally ordered The Circus, a dish they'd contemplated getting several times. How could they not?!

Bacon Bacon Bacon!

I love bacon. I don't eat it every day, but I think I could -- if I lost all self-control, which let's face it, is not hard to imagine. Especially when it comes to bacon. Bacon is probably the main reason I couldn't successfully become a vegetarian.

I like my bacon ~~extra crispy~~. This is a perfect example of how James and I are a / house / divided. But more on that in a later post. For now, here are two bacon-related products that both of us can agree on. (I found out about both of these from Dooce.com, an apparent kindred spirit in the bacon department.)

First, I give you BACON BANDAGES! These look a little undercooked for my taste, but where else am I going to find wearable bacon? (Okay, apparently, here.) Get your own box.

Wakey, wakey: eggs 'n bakey! Okay, no eggs here, but all we really want is the bacon anyway, right? Check out this bacon-cookin' alarm clock, resembling a cute little piggy, no less. Sadly, it doesn't appear to be for sale.

And while we're on the subject of meat related household goods, get a load of these plush, stuffed meat replicas from Sweet Meats (via MightyGoods).