Category Archives: Foodie Kels

Thanksgiving to Friendsgiving

Posted on by

0

This year’s thanksgiving wasn’t really typical, but it sure was long. About half way through the almost week long celebration, my stomach just started hurting. Not upset, hurting, but more just hurting.  Like it was yelling at me, “No more!”.

Why, you ask?

Day One:
Actual thanksgiving. We started the festivities by FaceTiming the Bylsma/Shurtleff clan back east and even participating in the traditional shot or two of whiskey that comes along.  Thanksgiving with my family one of the things I miss most about being back east, so it was great to see their faces and to be in that kitchen, as confusing as it was, for just a little while.

Brad had to work so Steve, Sarah, Suzi and I went in to eat our feast with Brad at Fords. Ever been to a restaurant on Thanksgiving? It’s freaking weird. I was thinking about “The Christmas Story” scene the whole time when they are in the Chinese restaurant on Christmas. Although our food was absolutely Thanksgiving appropriate, it was stupid expensive. That, however, is an issue I’m not going to get started on… The food was delicious with good company and I’m really, really glad we could bring a little holiday cheer to Brad’s workday.

Day Two:
This was Black Friday. Feast at our apartment with Steve and Sarah. Espresso and Vanilla Bean rubbed rib roast, brussel sprouts, sweet potato spears, mashed potatoes, braised greens, cranberries… Amazing. And this is all after walking around Montana Ave on Black Friday and stopping in to R+D for appetizers and drinks. We had to all cook a feast together at least once while we were together. That’s just what the Mathews and the Toasts DO!

Day Three:
Ok, I worked Saturday, but I was training so I got a free meal. Ate way too much. Ugh. This was the first day my stomach started hurting…

Day Four:
Toasts get back from San Diego. I get out of work early. We make shredded chicken tacos. We all eat a disgusting number of burritos and of course, we have a bottle of wine or two.  Then we make “deconstructed apple pie” with pigs and crabs cut out of pie crust, a Jack Daniels Honey spiced sauce, and Jack Daniels whipped cream.  Um, AMAZING.  One of the best drunken desserts I have ever participated in.

Day Five:
I seriously couldn’t eat this day. The Toasts heated up leftovers before they left to drive back to San Fran, but I just ate a bite or two then had an orange. Stomach was painful this day.  Had to rest. Prepping for the next day’s feast.

Day Six:
Ok, picture this…

Three chefs, a turkey, a Guinness goose, lots of wine, thirteen friends, people in from Stockholm, three homemade pies, brûléed macaroni and cheese (That’s right, they took delicious Mac and cheese, added more cheese, then took out a torch and brûléed it. This really happened), Brad’s Brussel sprouts, my mom’s sweet potato banana casserole, and every other Thanksgiving side you could possibly imagine. “Friendsgiving”. Topped off with an impromptu piano serenade that just about made my night. It was swanky. It was fun.  And it was delicious.

Day Seven?
I feel disgusting. Full, happy, delicious, satisfied, jolly and disgusting.

I do not diet. I don’t really need to because I typically eat really healthy and I’m blessed with a good metabolism. Fruits, vegetables, yogurt, i love it. But after this past week of every type of fat and calorie and butter being pumped through my veins, I’m reminded of Padma from Top Chef. I read somewhere once that she enjoys every dish during the season, not caring about or counting the calories along the way, and then she goes on a crash diet as soon as filming stops to get her figure back.  No booze, no cheese, no junk.  Lots of exercise.

At this point I was considering fasting. I’d eaten enough food to feed a family for at least a month. Juice detox maybe? Too extreme? I’ll never get through it. I mean, I work in a restaurant. It’s not possible.

So I decided today that my compromise is that I will be eating super crazy healthy for the next week (or until I can’t stand it anymore). This meaning cutting out dairy and wheat as much as possible and sticking to lean meats, fruits, and veggies. And even in the twelve hours since I decided this, I’ve found it extremely hard. Especially with all of the leftovers we still have in the fridge. And a husband who loves ice cream and cookies…

Thanksgiving, why did you do this to me? Why did you last six days and four feasts?

It is not easy being a chefs wife. Not easy at all.

So now that it’s late and the salad I made for dinner obviously didn’t fill up my stretched stomach, I raided the pantry for healthy foods and found the goods to make myself a snack that I haven’t had in years.

Have you had ants on a log recently? Delicious!! And peanut butter and raisins are usually my go to snack on a piece of bread. On celery, they’re delicious and even more healthy. And I felt like I was four years old again.

I couldn’t quite tell, but I think even Gibson was jealous.

So I gave her a little bit of peanut butter. She’s too cute to resist.

We will see how long this lasts…

Make Your Own Grapefruit Bitters

Posted on by

1

The same night that I dragged Brad out to the paint store and we painted our dining room Shy Cherry, I was feeling ambitious.  In addition to wearing a ridiculous painting outfit, I felt like throwing together another infusion for my Mixology Monday collection. I had a few grapefruit lying around, so I decided to get back to what really got me started me on this infusion kick. Cocktail Bitters.

Cocktail Bitters are what bartenders call the salt and pepper of the cocktail world. You can make a Manhattan or an Old Fashioned without it, but it would be like eating a steak that hadn’t been seasoned at all. You can maybe tell it’s a good piece of steak, but there could be so much more flavor if the chef hadn’t skipped that one step. Bartenders, learn how to use your bitters!!

They were most popular in cocktails before Prohibition, when many different varieties were widely available. It was a main ingredient in the popular cocktail of the time, which was simply liquor, bitters, sugar and a very little amount of water.  Sounds pretty good, right?  But in the second half of the 20th century, fruitier and sweeter drinks became more popular and that white Angostura bottle behind most bars was rarely used.

Enter Sex and the City and the Cosmopolitan. See you later, Pink Gin.

Bitters were once considered medicinal, but are now well known as digestifs and a mixologists’ secret weapon. In the 1800s, they were often given to sailors to cure seasickness. Some of my other favorite uses for bitters?

Hiccups
Take a lemon wedge and cover it in sugar. Top with a few drops of bitters. Suck on that for a minute and your hiccups should disappear. Trust me, it works.

Hangovers
Bitters have long been known for easing nausea. Next time you’ve had a few too many the night before and your stomach isn’t feeling too hot the next morning, add a few drops of bitters to soda water. Works like a dream.

My infusion curiosity was sparked by an article in Food & Wine magazine a few months ago about how Bitters were making a comeback and how you could make them at home. The recipes they gave were incredible mixes of cherry root and herbs and spices I’d never heard of and have no idea where to find, but my interest was piqued.

While I was brainstorming Pumpkin Spice Rum and Peppercorn Vodka, I was also on a quest to find a great bitters recipe. Bitters were something that maybe even Brad could enjoy a splash of in his soda water, so it would be an experiment I could actually share with him…

Using a recipe found on Chow, Brad and I got cooking.

Grapefruit Bitters:

You will need
1 medium grapefruit
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup vodka
1 cup Campari
3/4 cup Sweet Vermouth

And an awesome Shy Cherry wall to take pictures against.  So. Much. Red.

Halve the grapefruit. Juice one half, keep the juice and throw away the rind. Coarsely chop the remaining half and save.

Combine sugar and water in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir until sugar dissolves, and let syrup simmer until it thickens slightly, about 2 minutes.


Add chopped grapefruit and cook until the grapefruit releases all its juice, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.

Combine cooled grapefruit syrup (including chopped fruit), saved grapefruit juice, Campari, vodka, and sweet vermouth in a large container with a tightfitting lid. Stir well, cover, and refrigerate at least 1 hour before using.

And always let the dog feel like she’s helping….

Now Brad most definitely can’t drink this because it’s about 99.9% alcohol, but I’ve been sampling it on my own.  Best part about bitters?  You don’t have to wait a month to try them.

I am impatient when it comes to my booze.

All weekend I have been making myself Sparkling Grapefruit Cocktails and I’m looking forward to trying out a few news recipes tonight over at Mixology Monday at R+D. I feel like bitters are this simple little hidden gem that so many bartenders don’t take advantage of.  I’ll give you the scoop on what worked and what flopped tomorrow along with a couple of delicious recipes!

Pop Up Restaurant Anyone?

Posted on by

4

Earlier this week I came across a post on Eater LA about a Pop-Up restaurant this weekend only on Abbot Kinney.  Two chefs, one from Joe’s Restaurant and one from Axe (pronounced Ah-shay), were taking over some place called Capri for the weekend and hosting a $65, eight course tasting menu.  I forwarded it on to Brad.  Sounded like our kinda thing.

I sort of forgot about it because Brad never read the article and basically just said, “Yeah, ok.  Sure.”  We both had off Friday.  We love Abbott Kinney.  We love new restaurants.  We would probably end up going.  Sure.

And then Wednesday, as we were cranking what was probably an illegal U-turn on Electric Avenue (yep, that’s a real street name and every time we drive on it I sing the song) trying to find parking for our favorite coffee shop Intelligentsia, a black SUV pulled up next to us and rolled down the window.

Kris Tominaga, who Brad knows from Joe’s Restaurant, leaned out of the car and handed Brad a flyer.  We were obviously blocking traffic in so many directions, so we just exchanged a quick hello and “of course we’ll be there” before waiving our apologies to other angry drivers, completing our illegal maneuver and parking.  But the flyer put two and two together.  Kris was the chef from Joe’s who was hosting this pop-up this weekend, Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.  One example of how sometimes illegal U-turns have beautiful endings.

We called and made a reservation while waiting in line at Intelligentsia (because there is ALWAYS a line – this is part of the Intelligentsia experience), and checked out the menu. And then I rubbed it in that I was one step ahead of Brad in something having to do with restaurants for once.  Boo-ya.

**Brad didn’t care.  He still knew both the chefs AND the guy who answered the phone to take the reservations, so he is still exponentially cooler than me.  And always will be.  Damn.**

 

So yesterday, Brad and I had a fantastic and crafty Brad and Kelly day off (I’ll update you on the crafty projects soon!), and after a two hour long Skype call with my parents, we headed over to Venice.

Directly across the street from one of the best restaurants in the WORLD (Tasting Kitchen) and one of the best restaurants in Los Angeles, if not the United States (Gjelina), Capri has never been successful.  I had never heard of it, but people tell me it was over priced and always empty.  Last night, as WISC, it was bustling, bright, and lively.

All white with white Christmas lights and brilliant, simply framed celebrity photographs lining the walls, it was a clean and classic atmosphere.  The brown craft paper laid on top of classic white table cloths was set with mismatched china (borrowing from their neighbors across the street?) and simple kitchen towels for napkins.  Mismatched chairs made it feel like a big family gathering where all the seating in the house was pulled together.

I love the feel of the ‘fancy mixed with simple’ trend going on now in restaurants.  Beautiful food served on amazing dishes in an environment that feels comfortable. People want the quality of fine dining food without the air of snobbery that can come along with it.  People want to feel like you are a chef inviting them into your house for a home cooked meal, not like they have to worry about which fork goes with which course.  This all goes double in Venice.

Also, I love white Christmas lights.  If Brad would let me, I’d have them up all around the house all year long.  When we have a restaurant, believe me I will sneak in Christmas lights some way.  Last night, I believe it was the Christmas lights that did me in.  I knew this place was going to be awesome.

I was right.  The menu was phenomenal.  The food was fantastic.  Our server was amazing and she told us the story behind every taste of wine and every dish she put in front of us.  The wine parings were out of this world and complemented both of the dishes each taste was meant for in big, bold and different ways.  Even the china was fun – we got the plate voted “Most Likely to Be Stolen By The End of the Weekend”.

Look at that ‘STACHE!!!

And then we made sure they saw that we gave it back.

For dessert, we had our second amazing biscuit of the day on Abbot Kinney (the first was a buttered quince paste biscuit for breakfast at Gjelina Take Away), and Brad said WISC’s beat out Gjelina’s hands down.  I ranked them neck and neck.  Buttery heaven.

As we drove back down Abbot Kinney on our way home last night, stuffed full and a little tipsy (just me), we passed the Otherroom and reminisced about my first birthday here in LA, just three days after we moved from NY to LA.  A friend of mine from college met us out at the Otherroom (her suggestion, I had no idea where to go), and we began our Abbot Kinney love affair with the Mick Jagger painting that was hanging right at the entrance.  That night we thought AK was a crazy little street with amazing window displays and such cool people.  Almost two years later (!!!), we are still finding new and amazing places on the street and still marveling at how cool all the people are.

WISC will only be around this weekend and will reopen to occupy the Capri space again for all of December.  I know for sure that Brad and I will be back as many times as we can afford to make sure that this new addition to AK sticks around into 2012.

Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing, thank you for the great time and for the delicious meal and best of luck to you!  We can’t wait to see you again in December!

The Pumpkin Pie Martini

Posted on by

3

Wondering how Mixology Monday went?

 

Well, it was delicious.  And I still have some Pumpkin Spice Rum left.  So come on by if you want one of these…

Pumpkin Pie Martini:

2 oz Pumpkin Spice Rum

1 1/2 oz Bailey’s Irish Cream

1/2 oz Domaine Canton Ginger Liqueur

Shake all ingredients over ice to chill.  Strain into martini glass.  Garnish with freshly grated nutmeg.  Yum.

 

I am also offering a Pumpkin Spice coffee if you’re chilly out here by the beach.  It will warm you up and put you in the holiday spirit!  If you’re making this at home, I would halve all of the above measurements and then fill with hot coffee.

A tip for coffee drinks.  Heat up the mug first with hot water for at least 30 seconds before pouring it out and mixing your drink.  It just helps keep the drink hot when adding the room temperature liquors.  Every degree counts on a wintery cold evening!

 

 

Deciding between Coffee Vodka and Peppercorn Vodka for next Monday…  Stay tuned!

The Crabby Mary

Posted on by

4

So this time last weekend, Suzi and I were already a few Bloody Marys deep and trying to figure out how to win $500.

Our GM at R+D, Steve, entered us in a competition for the “Best Bloody Mary in the West”.  It was a competition where any bartender on the Westside could come and compete with their finest Bloody Mary recipe.

This is all of the information we got:

Steve entered us Saturday night around 9PM.  The competition was at noon Sunday.  AND Suzi and I were closing the bar Saturday night.

Thank goodness Daylight Savings Time gave us an extra hour.

So Suzi and I left work about 12:30 Saturday night and went to my apartment to plan.  We Googled, we made lists, and we came up with some solid Bloody Mary ideas.  Then we went out to find a 24 hour grocery store.

Have you ever been to a grocery store at 1AM on a Saturday night/Sunday morning?  It is a really special place.  People are either super drunk and really wobbly or in their PJs and kind of crazy.  There is usually just one cash register open and the line is extremely entertaining.  There were keys ripping open guacamole containers and girls buying containers of icing with no cake mix to put it on.  There were cookie containers with maybe a cookie or two left (scratch that, that was Brad) and lots of frozen pizzas.  Poor cashier.

I’ll say it again.  Ralphs at 1AM is a very special place.

But we got home and got to work.  This is what my stove looked like around 2AM.

We were frying bacon, making Old Bay Shrimp, and I was hungry so I was making spaghetti (big surprise).

Our plan was to submit two entries.  Suzi would make a BLT Bloody Mary with Bacon infused vodka, a Mayo and Breadcrumb rim, and Charred Frisee garnish.

I was taking the Maryland approach.  A Crabby Mary that used as much crab as I could get into it.

So at 2AM we prepped.  We fried bacon.  We did a speedy bacon vodka infusion that had to sit overnight.  I made Old Bay Shrimp.  And we ate spaghetti.  Because that is all good to do at 2AM.

I went to sleep about 4AM.  At 7:30, I woke up and went to Whole Foods for some blue crab meat.  Suzi came back over around 9, and then we got to work fo realz.  On 3.5 hours of sleep.  Ugh.

We fried up more bacon and then I made some mini crab cakes for garnishes.  They were some of my finest work.  I’ll even say amazeballs, because they were, in fact, balls.  Appropriate.

So a little trial and error, a little scraping congealed bacon fat off of vodka, a few sample Bloody Marys drunk, and we were off to Salute Wine Bar on Main St in Santa Monica.

And then we got there….

The set up was like this.  Here is a table to put your stuff on.  Here are 150 plastic cups to serve 150 samples to the brunch guests from noon until 3pm.  Here is some ice.  Oh and here is a bottle of vodka.

150?

No shakers?  No utensils?

Wait… 150???

Yea, so I had twelve crab cakes.  TWELVE.  And I ate one of them that morning, of course.  (Quality control.  Anyone who has ever watched Top Chef knows this is super important…)  So I had ELEVEN crab cake garnishes for 150 samples.  And not to mention, Suzi and I had only two jars of V8 between the two of us.

I retreated into my head for a little bit.  Just stood there by our table looking around, trying to reassess.  Our competitors had bottles and bottles full of pre made mixes.  They had knives and spoons and cutting boards.  They had kimchi and quail egg garnishes made up for at least 100 people.  They had deli cups and spouts and fancy toothpicks…

But I’ve been a bartender for five years in some of the most under and over prepared bars I’ve ever seen.  And one of the first things I learned when I was training back at the college student infested Urban Flats in Winter Park, FL was “Make it Red.”

Ok, so this obviously applies here because if your Bloody Mary isn’t red, there is something seriously wrong.  But “Make it Red” really refers to just making it work and making it taste good.  When some tipsy college kid asked me for a “Twisted-Surfer-Whose-Hair-is-On-Fire” shot or something, you just smile and make it red.  Truth is, some bartender probably made that ridiculous concoction up somewhere and the kid has no freaking idea what’s in it.  So make it red, make it strong, and make it delicious.

***I made up the “Twisted-Surfer-Whose-Hair-is-On-Fire” shot.  But whatever is in it, now it is definitely red.***

Suzi and I consolidated.  We scratched the BLT because we definitely didn’t bring enough of the bacon infused vodka to last 150 samples.  (But Suz made one for Steve once he got there and it was DELISH.  Next year….)  We broke the crab cakes into 3 pieces each.  We garnished some with just the Old Bay shrimp.  I only added half of the amount of blue crab shaken into the Crabby Marys and added way more Old Bay.  We worked the one-eyed stuffed animal crab.  We worked our charm.  And I called our GM to bring us a shaker so I could actually function.

In reality, 150 was a gross over-exaggeration.  We probably only made about 80 samples, and only ran out of crab meat for the very last two.  People loved the crab cakes and I heard so many nostalgic stories about summers or childhoods spent in Maryland.  I reminisced with people about Annapolis and Ocean City.  We talked about the Ravens and the Orioles.  It made me homesick and happy, and it was well worth getting my $$ Sunday bar tending shift covered.

We came in second place behind a bartender from a bar right down the street who was absolutely more prepared than we were.  But we only lost by 3 votes, which I thought was a great victory.

The $500 Grand Prize would have been nice, but we spent the rest of the night drinking champagne, dancing, wearing funny hats, watching the sunset and hanging out with amazing new (and old) friends at a beautiful apartment right on Ocean Ave in Santa Monica.

And first is the worst, second is the best.  At least until next year…

I See a Red Room and I Want It Painted Shy Cherry

Posted on by

3

I think you know you love your apartment when you start painting.  That is when you know you’re gonna be sticking around for a bit.  Especially when you paint a room red.  That’s commitment.  Because, let’s face it, that’s never gonna get painted with enough coats to get it back to the boring white the rest of the apartment is.  When you move out you have some serious work ahead of you.

I guess I also know plenty of people who have painted their apartments because they DIDN’T love it.  You know, to try to make it a bit more livable.  Take my sister’s creepy senior year college house.  A little bright green paint and some sweet curtains made that room awesome.  And not creepy at all.  Nice work, Nicki.

But I have never painted a room.  Probably because, as mentioned before, Brad and I don’t tend to stay put very long.  Seven apartments in four years?  Four broken leases. (We found suitable replacements EVERY time.  We are still good tenants!)

We were apartment commitment-phobes.

But this apartment is different.  I really, really love it.  So yesterday I convinced Brad to go to the paint store with me and spend our night off together painting our dining room.

We showed up at the paint store knowing we wanted red.  And I insisted that we get a color with a food name.  That’s a reasonable request for a chef and a foodie painting their dining room, right?

The red genre turned out to be full of foods.  No problem here.

Chili peppers, crabs, tomatoes, lobsters, beets, raspberries, apples… A lot of foods are red.  We almost went “Rhubarb” until we found “Shy Cherry”.  Who can resist Shy Cherry?

For some reason we Googled “Shy Cherry” and found this cute little shy guy.  Shy Cherry was it.

So we found our perfect food paint color and then let the guy mix it up.  This is when I got a little silly.  Don’t give me ten minutes to do nothing in a paint store.  I’ve already gone through all the ridiculous paint names.  Now I’m gonna move on to the hardware part of the store.  Brushes, sponges, hats, sanders, and… painting suits.

I found a very affordable painting outfit to ensure that I would be paint free at the end of our adventure as well as look incredible glamorous the entire time.  And although Brad thought I was crazy, I knew looked great.

It was a bit hard to smile with those googles on.  Makes me feel for happy scientists.  It can’t be easy to be them.

Then, just for good measure, I tried out some dance moves.

Most absolutely dance worthy.  Best $8 I’ve ever spent.

Oh, we did a little bit of painting, too.  I even got fancy and paired my red paint with red wine.

Appropriate!

By the end of the night we had a dining room that is not shy at all.  With only a few little mistakes that need covering up.  And one trash bag full of red stained paper towels and floor coverings that only mildly made it look like we had just murdered someone in our apartment.

Oh, and because I love food and a girl’s gotta eat, Brad then made me the most amazing Shrimp and Grits EVER.  With a chorizo sauce and cilantro.  I make a mean Shrimp and Grits, and I will never make it again because now I know Brad’s is 658689680 times better than mine.  Truth.

My contribution was whisking the Cheddar Cheese into the Grits, drinking more red wine, and wearing my paint outfit most of the rest of the night.  I think I did a great job.  And our dining room looks incredible.  Thanks, Shy Cherry.

Happy Brad and Kelly day off!!