Rejuvenate, Recharge and Verboten

I took Thanksgiving eve off from work to do whatever.  Initially a day of relaxation almost became a day of cookie baking frenzie.  Thrilled to spend the day with my niece baking cookies, I decided to do a test run on Sunday and discovered we might need more than one day for baking.  I went through my recipe book and I realized I haven't made any cookies other than Toll House chocolate chips and variations with oatmeal, cranberries or nuts.  I flipped through my Saveur magazines and they too, were limited with cookie recipes so I relied on the internet.

The list of cookies I chose included:
Rich Chocolate Rum Cookies (Gourmet, 9/1996)
World Peace/Korova Cookies (Paris Sweets - Great Desserts from the City's Best Pastry Shops, 2002)
Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate-Chunk Oatmeal Cookies with Pecans and Dried Cherries
Snickerdoodles (Saveur)
Vanillekipferl (Saveur, 12/2010)
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies (Saveur, 12/2012)
Peanut Butter Cookies (Saveur, 10/2012)

Then I forgot I needed to make a fruit salad, prep broccoli and I wanted to bake a cake (from scratch) for Thanksgiving.  For the next two days I shopped for the ingredients and gathered pans from a friend.  Since I created a potentially hectic cookie baking day, I decided to make some cookies doughs Tuesday night to limit the frenzie.  I researched the potential freezability of the doughs and that is how I picked some of the cookies, too.  My niece ended up going to a sleepover with friends Tuesday night, rescheduling our cookie date.  I was glad and disappointed at the same time.

Thanksgiving eve was again my day to relax.  I still made some doughs, rolled them into logs and froze them for our December date.  Did some charitable work, checked in online, rode the Schwinn to market for two dozen eggs and a Weyerbacher Verboten from The Fridge and then rode home and made a Hummingbird Cake (Saveur).

 I spent the evening closing The Fridge with Brad and some friends.  Earlier in the day the owners unfortunately told me the keg in waiting when the Verboten kicked was Duvel; Brad's favorite beer.  One Verboten after another led to three or four and Thanksgiving fuzziness.  Duvel was tapped that night but thankfully I was out of cash.  Hopefully we will return for Duvel before we head downtown on Black Friday evening for the Christmas tree lighting.  Happy Thanksgiving all.  

Burgers for Breakfast

What can I say?  Gearing up for winter by pulling out the air conditioners, doing some laundry, pulling weeds, raking leaves, maintaining the grills and the next thing I know, I want burgers for breakfast.  Gotta love the smell of a grill being fired up.

Fish & Chips

Sorry, I was too hungry and forgot to take pictures of our humble but fantastic dinner of Britain's famous meal. I think what makes fish & chips really good here and in Ireland is the fish and oil are fresh, and the batter is light but crisp.  It probably helps if you get the fish & chips from just a fish & chips shop, too. That is what they specialize in along with anything else fried.  Our restaurants at home don't even touch the flavors and freshness of what I have had so far in the UK.  Although the chips usually aren't fresh cut potatoes, for some reason they are just fine.  Everything gets wrapped up in paper and even with a bit of moisture, the batter on the fish holds up well.  The shop asked if we want it showered in salt & vinegar before it is all wrapped up and we say yes! with excitement.

We drove into Frimley as the Wednesday fish truck was not in the neighborhood.  Dale and I popped into the Railway Arms for half pints of Youngs Special Ale as we waited for our cod & chips order.  When we arrived for our takeaway in the steady rain, there were three other customers.  After our half pints in the slightly dodgy pub, the fish and chips shop was jammed with customers.  Other items they fry are real chicken nuggets, sausages, saveloy (a highly seasoned sausage common in English fry shops) and other fish like haddock, skate and roe.

I actually found the link for the fish & chips shop while writing this post.  Their description of why their food is so good was a guess on my part from devouring it last night.  Kims Plaice is exactly where we got our takeaway and the gentleman in the picture is who served us up with a smile and a laugh.  Brilliant!!

Surrey, England with the Bemis's

I have been in England since Thursday visiting the most fabulous couple in the world.  I have been playing house in Surrey County and it is really hard.  We are packing and cleaning for the upcoming move to another home in the County.  To gear up for the week, we relaxed at a few gastro pubs.  These pubs still have the feel of pubs but they also have sections that have the feel of fine dining.  This past weekend we had a quick dinner at the Horse & Groom in Guildford while Nathan was fencing.  Cory and I had pizzas and Dale ate the Chicken and Leek pie.  Local ingredients are big over here, too, so everything was made fresh and the pizzas were similar to our artisan pizzas in the states.  And it happens to be Cask Ale week ~ how convenient.  28 September to 7 October.  Our pints were Red Fox, Doombar & Bombardier. 

Saturday, with a full moon, we did the mountain bike pub ride (or race if Cory is leading).  We had dinner (fish & chips!!) and pints at the Rose and Thistle.  We rode to the Olde Wheatsheaf, Ye Olde White Hart, then the Embers Inn's Crab & Dragon.   All the beers I drank were traditional English cask red ales.  When Dale reports home from work, he will have to fill me in on the pints we had.  I know we had Young's Special Ale, Doombar and Nichols.

Okay, I need to get back to packing ~ maybe I will have to open a bottle as I am knackered and hoping for some cask ales later.

Music Fridays Downtown Lancaster

We rode the pub bikes downtown for music Friday.  Every third Friday of the month musicians fill businesses, restaurants and the streets of Lancaster with wonderful sounds.  The humidity of summer broke last week so the weather has been glorious with sunshine and breezes.  Pour on Prince posted on facebook they tapped one of our favorite beers, tripel karmeliet so Brad winds us through the streets of Lancaster to enjoy a short jaunt on the bikes.  We sat outside on the patio devouring duck fat fries drinking a tripel karmeliet.  An hour later, we rode two blocks to Carr's and there in the alley of Central Market was heaven; great food, drink and music.  Carr's developed a wonderful relationship with Sakura, a Japanese restaurant that has the best sushi in town and they had a portable sushi bar set up for the evening.  With a couple of Hennipens with three plates of sushi and music from two of the musicians from Vinegar Creek Constituency, we were set for a fabulous evening downtown.  They played some Dylan, Blue Grassy, Old Tyme music.  Life is good.

Checkers Bistro

Awesome; I have jury duty for three days!!  Got laptop and ESPN so I am set in the juror's lounge for  now.  Already ate all my granola bars by 10 a.m. so I had to buy a dry soft pretzel from the courthouse cafe.

Time to blog...  And dream about the fabulous meal I had Friday night at Checkers Bistro .  I am assuming David Payne was working in the kitchen as the cod was made to perfection with an Asian glaze. He made a cod melt in my mouth like Sea Bass.  The oyster mushrooms were tasty, asparagus crisp and the wide rice noodles rolled into chewy tubes that were made with the same Asian glaze that had a bit of a kick to it.  YUM!  And I almost forgot about my tomato almond bisque.  Amazing and these were the specials for the evening.  You can count on an excellent meal every time at Checkers Bistro.  Carr's Restaurant & Crush Wine Bar is the same way. You can never go wrong with what is on the menu or the specials.  The best two restaurants in Lancaster City.  Come on downtown and enjoy!!

Smith Island Cake

In May, I attempted to make a Smith Island Cake which has made Smith Island, Maryland, famous.  Saveur magazine has again afforded me with a wonderful recipe that I was able to mess up for the good (ended up add too much butter). It is an eight layer cake that I don't have the patience to slice the layers so when I read that I should bake the cakes in four pans at a time made perfect sense.  Brilliant!! I would have chopped the cake to shreds instead of slicing it.  I had so much fun and overloaded on a lot of sugar as I made the frosting, too.  All natural!  It did not look as professional with a "flat" top to the cake but it sure tasted really good even though I added an extra stick of butter in the batter (I am a space cadet with math).

FOR THE CAKE:

24 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted, plus more for pans

3 1/2 cups flour, plus more for pans

4 tsp. baking powder

1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt

2 1/4 cups sugar

2 cups milk

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

6 eggs

FOR THE ICING:

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped

2 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped

2 cups sugar

1 cup evaporated milk

6 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

2 tsp. vanilla extract