Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Happy St. Patricks!

Today is green day! Our boss graciously allowed us to wear green shirts today if we wished. So I sported my Irish heritage with a green shirt. I'm also going to try a new Irish recipe tonight for supper. Here it is if anyone else would like to try it.

Irish Boxty

1 cup grated raw potatoes
2/3 c. all purpose flour
2/3 c. leftover mashed potatoes
1 egg
1 tsp skim milk
salt and pepper to taste
2 1/2 TB olive oil

Heat the olive oil on the stove. Toss the grated potatoes with the flour. Wisk together the egg and skim milk; add mashed potatoes and then add to the potato flour mixture. Season to taste

Form patties about 2 inches in diameter and fry in olive oil on both sides; 3-4 minutes per side. Drain on a paper towel and serve warm.

I'll let you know how it is! Today is a beautiful day here as well! 70 degrees!!

Breakfast with Wolfgang

March 17
5:30 p.m.

Wolfgang Puck says a recession is, in fact, a great time to open a restaurant, because it requires that you be a great manager and provide great food and service (My colleague Mark Brandau points out that Anthony Bourdain more-or-less agrees).
Of course, it helps if you’re Wolfgang Puck and you get to pick and choose which of the offers for partnership that come in every day you accept.
One such offer he accepted was from the investors in the restaurant atop Dallas's Reunion Tower, who spent $20 million renovating the place, according to Puck, so he could open a restaurant. That restaurant, Five Sixty (named for its altitude), opened a couple of months ago.
Puck says they wanted him to open a steakhouse, but opening another steakhouse in Dallas seemed silly. Besides, Puck’s not going to sell steak that isn’t USDA Prime, and even though the price of Choice cuts are coming down, he said Prime prices are still insane, and now is not the time to open an uber-expensive restaurant.
Instead, Five Sixty is a riff on Puck’s Chinois on Main concept, with Shanghai lobster risotto and Sichuan peppercorn steak, a robata and sushi bar. The check average is around $60, which isn’t cheap, but it’s not steakhouse-expensive, either.
Puck was holding court at breakfast this morning, speaking of many things, ranging from his son’s college career (he’s a sophomore at my alma mater, Tufts, and just switched from the engineering school to the college of liberal arts, where he’s studying Russian literature and goodness knows what else) to the new bistro concept that he has opened in North Carolina (outside of Charlotte), and in Los Angeles (one downtown, another in Westlake Village), to the new 11-inch pizza line he is launching in supermarkets this month, replacing the nine-inch.
The bistro is fast-casual by day, full-on table service by night.
I learned other things about Wolfgang Puck, too:
• The first restaurant he remembers eating in when he arrived in the United States in 1973 was La Grenouille, in New York, immediately dispelling the myth then popular in France that there was no good food in the United States.
• The most successful concept in his restaurant empire is the cafe in the Denver Airport (at the United terminal), which grosses more than $4 million annually.
• Three years ago Puck realized that he didn’t like the music in his restaurants and wondered why he used the fish he liked and the cutlery he liked but let someone else handle the music. So now he picks the music himself, and it turns out that he is a very big fan of Pink Floyd.
• Puck consulted with American Airlines for awhile, but he could not convince them when making a Caesar salad not to use the outer leaves of the Romaine lettuce. This was a cause of consternation for him.
• Last night the Pucks had dinner at Corton. They said it was terrific.

Overcaffeinated with Wolfgang Puck

March 17, 5 p.m.

It’s St. Patrick's Day in New York, so many people are already drunk. Me, I'm overcaffeinated.
It’s hard to overcaffeinate me. I drink a lot of coffee, and usually the caffeine just tickles my dopamine receptors and goes on its way.
But one of the results of this lousy economy is that I have slashed my coffee budget and am making my own. I make delicious coffee — better than what I was buying, or at least more suited to my personal taste — but it’s strong, and I drank it with gusto on the subway this morning on my way to the Loews Regency hotel, where Wolfgang Puck was granting a 9:45 a.m. audience to journalists over breakfast at 540 Park restaurant.
People who know my habits will tell you that it is rare, indeed, for me to be seen in public at 9:45 a.m. If you need me to be somewhere early, I'll be there. I'll be there at 4 a.m. if necessary. Otherwise, I'd rather shake the morning cobwebs out of my head more gradually.
But if Wolfgang Puck's hanging out for breakfast, I’ll go ahead and hang out with him.
A lot of chefs stay at the Loews Regency. My colleague Paul Frumkin tells me that Mr. Puck has been staying there for decades, and I know I’ve met other chefs there, too, and no one can explain why it draws chefs. I asked Wolfgang Puck this morning, but he had nothing to say on the matter.
I think one such explanation might be the coffee, which is both rich and smooth, gently roasted to allow the subtle fruity qualities of the 100 percent Colombian coffee that they serve to come through.
So I drank a lot of it, and now I feel jangly in my nerve endings and really need a slice of pizza and a nap.
I also ate of the fruit plate set before me and had a miniature pain au chocolat and something like an almond croissant.
I learned a lot about Wolfgang Puck, but I think I’ll make a separate blog entry about that as a courtesy to visitors to this blog who might want to know about Herr Puck but could not care less about me. I respect that.
I will say that Puck and his wife, Gelila, drank several cappuccinos, but they sent one of them back, lecturing whoever on staff would listen that the milk was too hot. The Pucks managed to do that graciously, but with the confidence of people who knew how they wanted their milk steamed.
Gelila is from Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, and she roasts her own beans most mornings.
She said that the word “coffee” comes from Kaffa, an ancient kingdom in Ethiopia, which might be true. She also said that Ethiopians make coffee leaves into tea. First roasting them a bit and then steeping them in hot water for a few minutes.
I didn’t know that.

Restaurant week poll results

March 17

In my last poll, I asked a separate question for Food Writer's Diary readers who our restaurateurs than for those who aren’t. I asked restaurateurs if they participate in restaurant week, and non-restaurateurs if they go to restaurants specifically for restaurant week.
Just a few restaurateurs responded. Three said they participate, two said they don't, and one asked what restaurant week was.
In case that participant wasn't joking, Restaurant Week is a promotional event during which restaurants offer special menus at a discounted price in the hope that it will attract new customers. Take a look at Marly's comment for an assessment of the pros and cons of restaurant week.
Non-restaurateurs needed less convincing of its advantages, with seven out of the ten respondents saying they go to restaurants specifically for restaurant week.
I think I’m going to take a break from the polls for a little while, until I think of something clever to aks you about.

Banana Cocoa Chiffon Cake

17 maret 2009, selasa

Kemarin dibikininin shifon cake coklat ama temen, ternyata enak bangett...jadi pengen nyobain bikin sendiri..mmm..pagi pagi da nyiapin bahannya
Bahan
3 kuning telur
15 cc susu cair
50 cc minyak sayur
1 bh pisang
60 gr tepung trigu
20 gr cocoa bubuk

a - 4 bh putih tlur n 60 gr gula

Cara
- Lumatkan pisang dengan garpu hingga halus, sisihkan
- Masukkan susu sedikit demi sedikit ke kuning telur, aduk rata
- Masukkan minyak aduk rata, lalu masukkan pisang, aduk
- Masukkan tepung, aduk rata
- Buat krim kocok dari bahan a
1/3 bagian gula n putih telur, aduk dengan mixer, hingga putih mengembang, tambahkan sisa nya, aduk rata hingga mengembang seperti busa
- Campur krim kocok sedikit demi sedikit ke adonan tepung, aduk rata
- Oven 180 drajat, 32 menit, utk loyang ukuran 17 inchi

Flea Market...let's goooo

15 maret 2009, minggu

Nyempetin datang ke flea market, biasa dah cuci mata...hihi, liat liat apa yang bisa dibeli..
Kebanyakan pada jualan baju--kalo beruntung, bisa dapet baju baru but harga minim..hihi..
trus jual2 boneka ato mainan, ato perlengkapan dapur kayak piring2 mangkuk dll...bahkan mpe ada yang jualan helm, cd game, cd lagu ...tas tas...asesori, bahkan mpe tanaman bunga segala..

Mulai nya jam 9.30, tapi uda pada ngantri tuh..ternyata orang sini hobi juga belanja barang2 seken, tapi emang bener si, kadang2 dapet barang yang aneh, tapi harga nya juga ok..hhi, jadi kalo ada flea market, ini yang paling ditunggu2 dah..., sayang sebulan cuma sekali aja..aaahh

Mackerel



Mackerel is one of my favorite meals in Korea. I love it when they serve it at school so I tried my hand at cooking it at home. I used some apple vinegar ,garlic, soy sauce, water, brown sugar and chili. I then placed it in a pan with a lid. I put it on a low heat for 15-20 mins. You could garnish with some green onion. In my opinion this is a heavenly dish.


Pork Fillet with apple-mustard stuffing



Pork Fillet
Apple
Mustard powder
Parsley
Cinnamon
Salt and pepper
Cut open the fillet and stuff with sauteed apples, mustard powder,cinnamon,salt and pepper
Cover the apples in foil. Put in a pre heated oven 180 Celsius. Put in for 20 mins then remove the foil . Cook again for another 10 mins.

pekerja BSN

dah jd kebiasaan bebdk college sy, abis class, mkn.
mkn reramai d restoran2 berdktn d college.
pd 1 hari. sedang lepak beramai - ramai....
kwn sy, anna. melihat ke arah seorang kakak.
dgn muke x leh bla anna berckp...

anna ; akak tu kan. muka je cun weyh. tp. dr semlm aku tgk.
asyik pakai baju same je. baju colour oren tu jer.

kami ; akak yg tgh ambik lauk tu ke?
anna ; a'ah. akak tu la. cam x de baju lain agaknye.
kami ; pale otak ko anna! akak tu kerja BSN la weyh.
sah sah lah die pakai uniform. wakakakaka~~~