November Prompt Winner-Crystal A. Murray

Thanks, all of you who entered a recipe in our November Prompt Contest.
We had a random drawing and drew out Crystal A. Murray.We hope you'll stop back by in the months ahead and try again.

Congratulations, Crystal A. Murray, winner of the November Prompt Contest.

"Crystal writes articles, stories, poetry, song lyrics, & web content. She loves variety in her writing as it keeps writing fun for her. As president of her local Christian writer's group, Crystal loves to find prompts and exercises to encourage other writers to have fun in their writing as well. Crystal's still under-development writing page on Facebook can be found at http://www.facebook.com/TheLordismyEditor"

Here is her winning recipe!

Easy Cream-Cheesy Pie...

Easy-to-make desserts always get my vote, and these are super yummy and have lots of variations.

INGREDIENTS:
Graham Cracker Pie Crust
1 large box of flavored gelatin
1 8oz tub of whipped topping
1 and 1/2 block of cream cheese (can use fat free version as well)

DIRECTIONS:
Soften the cream cheese to make things easier to mix. Mix in the whipped topping (I like Cool Whip Extra Creamy, but it also works well with some of the diet versions of topping). Add about half of the flavored gelatin powder (more if you want a stronger flavor, less if you want more of the cream cheese flavor to come through) and mix until the gelatin is dissolved into the cream cheese & topping mix.

Note: If you really don't want any granules of sugar, you can dissolve the gelatin in a glass cup in the microwave with a little water. It makes kind of a thick syrup.

Note2: Use your favorite flavor for the gelatin. I have found lemon and cherry to make the best-tasting cheese pies. I have also had good results making this with sugar-free gelatin, but I've been avoiding the aspartame products lately, so I'll probably stick to the sweet until they come out with a stevia-flavored one.

Pour all ingredients into the pie crust and chill until ready to serve.

Optional: sprinkle some of the remaining gelatin powder over the top for a sort of sparkly look. You can even use stencils to make a greeting on top if you like.

ENJOY!

Grandma’s Stuffed Cabbage/Russian Style

There are a few things I will always remember about the holidays.  One is the way my mom went out of her way to celebrate two Christmas’s a year.  My grandparents were immigrants to this country of Russian ancestry.  They brought many customs with them.  At Christmas they would put straw under and on the eating table to remember Jesus’ lowly birth.  They had other specific ways to celebrate involving food. Since they lived in Pennsylvania and we didn’t get to be with them at Christmas, we celebrated regular Christmas on December 25th and Russian Christmas on January 7th.    

 On Russian Christmas Eve, Mom would set up and decorate a small tabletop tree.  We would have a special meal prepared with seven dishes, all of Russian background.  My favorite was the stuffed cabbage.

When my mom was a child, her mother, Lena, would rise early, cooking for a houseful of children. She would go to the slaughterhouse for fresh ground beef.  As Grandma mixed the ground beef and rice, Grandpa would sneak bites of the raw beef, certainly not recommended today. Grandma harvested cabbage from her garden across the road from the house.

Russia is actually the largest consumer of cabbage worldwide. Cabbage is used in many ways, ranging from eating raw and simple steaming to pickling, stewing, sauteing or braising. Pickling is one of the most popular ways of preserving cabbage, creating dishes such as sauerkraut.

 Cabbage is used extensively in Polish and Russian cuisine. It is one of the main food crops, and sauerkraut is a frequent dish, as well as being used to stuff other dishes such as golabki (stuffed cabbage) and pierogi (filled pasta). Other eastern European countries, such as Hungary and Romania, also have traditional dishes that feature cabbage as a main ingredient. In the United States, cabbage is used primarily for the production of coleslaw, followed by fresh market use and sauerkraut production. 

Holidays and food just go together, and make memories for a lifetime. Do you have a special dish passed on from grandparents or other relatives?

 My granddaughters, Ava and Sadie last Christmas

 

Stuffed Cabbage

2 ½ pounds lean ground beef

1 medium onion, diced

1 pound bacon, cut small

1 pound cooked rice

Salt, pepper, Nature Seasoning, to taste

 

Sauce

1 can tomato paste

1 can tomato sauce

2 tablespoons vinegar

 

Wash rice, cook ten minutes. Drain excess water, set aside. Fry bacon and  onion til golden brown. Drain excess oil.

Put rice in large mixing bowl. Mix in ground beef, bacon and onions and mix well; add seasonings. Set aside.

Cut cabbage, core out about two inches deep and place head of cabbage in boiling water to steam until leaves can be removed easily. Repeat until you remove all cabbage leaves that are big enough to roll. Line the bottom of a large pot with leaves you don’t use.

Scoop filling and place in leave, tucking in ends and rolling. Pack stuffed cabbage in pot, then fill with hot water until barely covered. Place a plate on top, weighted down to keep stuffed cabbage from floating. Cook on medium low for forty-five minutes, then pour sauce into pot and cook fifteen minutes more. Good served with hot sauce or ketchup.

 

Today’s writing prompt: Jakob lifted the forkful of ground beef, rice and cabbage toward his mouth when his cat, Ralphsky, lunged…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_christmas#Russia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabbage

http://everydayrussian.com/?p=313

 

Collard Greens with Lima Beans & Turkey

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. Some of you are out shopping today or trying to catch up on your NaNoWriMo. I’m not taking part in NaNoWriMo this year, since I'm hosting out of town company.

Here is one of my family’s favorite dishes. It’s another old-fashioned tummy-warming meal just in time to use up some of your leftover turkey (you can substitute smoked turkey or turkey polish sausage slices). The crushed red pepper is a southern necessity, but if you can’t stomach spicy dishes, you can leave it out. Serve with hot buttered corn bread. 

1 bag frozen baby lima beans

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 cups vertically sliced red onion

3 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth

1 cup diced turkey or smoked turkey breast

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)

3 garlic gloves, minced

1 bay leaf

8 cups sliced collard greens

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Heat oil in a dutch oven or large pan over medium-low heat. Add onion; saute 10 minutes. Add beans, broth, and the next 5 ingredients (turkey through bay leaf). Bring to a boil and let simmer for about an hour*, Stir in collards, vinegar, and tomatoes. Cover and simmer an additional hour. Stir in salt and pepper. Discard bay leaf. 

*At this point, you can choose to bake it in the oven at 375º. After an hour, add the other ingredients and return to the oven for an additional hour. 

This recipe is easily adaptable to a Crockpot. Place sauteed onions in your Crockpot, top with beans, broth and the next five ingredients. Then add the chopped collards and pour the vinegar and tomatoes on top. Cover and cook all day. Stir before serving.

Based on a recipe from Cooking Light, March 2000 and reprinted on myrecipes.com.

Don't forget this month's contest. Submit a story using one of our prompts or submit a favorite holiday recipe. You can copy and paste as a comment or use our contact page to enter. 

Mamaw Avon’s Pink Stuff

photo by Anna

Southerners love their “get-togethers,” especially if the holidays and food are involved. My husband Danny’s family is no exception. Though his mother, Mamaw Avon, now lives in her heavenly residence, her bright smile and recipes live on. Thanksgiving meant turkey, Christmas meant ham, and for both holidays, she made cherry fluff, or as we called it, pink stuff.

On Thanksgiving Day, we’d wake early to the smell of the turkey which had baked all night. “Dressing,” which is a southern-type of cornbread stuffing, was tasted and re-tasted to get the spices just right. Vegetables were cooked and the house filled quickly with family and friends bearing casseroles and cake plates brimming with delectable dishes. The pink stuff was mixed together and chilled before the start of our late afternoon celebration.

The large crowd would be quieted before we’d give thanks to God for His abundant goodness, then to the feasting. Most of us ate our pink stuff with the meal, but a few would save a bowlful for desert later. The left-overs brought us all together for several days thereafter and the fun would begin all over again.

Do your holidays have enjoyable food traditions or memories?

 

Pink Stuff

1 can cherry pie filling

1 small can crushed pineapple, drained

12 oz. Cool Whip

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 cup miniature marshmallows

½ cup pecans, finely chopped

 

Mix all ingredients in large bowl; mix well. Pour in decorative bowl and refrigerate for one hour.

 

Today’s writing prompt: Sandra emptied the pecans she’d chopped into the faded hand-painted bowl as a tear slipped down her cheek. Her mother’s bowl…

November Gift Card Give Away

It's time for our monthly give away! I can hear the groans now. Not another short story contest? I can't. I'm writing for NaNoWrMo and am 12,385 words behind! And Thanksgiving is a week away. Haven't you looked at the calendar?

Well, I'm with you! I'm a little behind with NaNo and haven't shopped for groceries either. So this month's $10 Amazon gift card contest will be different. Yes, you can still enter a 500 word or less story using a November prompt if you'd like. We love to read your stories!

However, keeping with the theme of food and recipes, we are giving you the opportunity to comment with a favorite holiday dish. That's right. Copy and paste your favorite recipe right on the comment part of the blog or use the contact page and you are automatically entered in this month's contest.

Make sure you've entered by midnight on November 25th and we'll announce the winner on December 1st. A story or a recipe. It's your choice!

Mom’s Twice Published Recipe-Chinese Pepper Steak

 An oft requested recipe in our family is Mom’s pepper steak. When we lived in Missouri, our neighbor invited us to eat one evening and served pepper steak. Mom copied the recipe and we’ve enjoyed it since then.

Years later, she sent the recipe to Southern Living magazine and they published it. I passed it on to a local magazine who also printed it in the recipe section of their magazine. 

What is the steak in pepper steak? Round steak. A round steak is a steak from the round primal cut of beef. Specifically, a round steak is the eye of round, bottom round, and top round still connected, with or without the "round" bone (femur), and may include the knuckle (sirloin tip), depending on how the round is separated from the loin.

 This is a lean cut and it is moderately tough. Lack of fat and marbling makes round dry out when cooked with dry-heat cooking methods like roasting or grilling. Round steak is commonly prepared with slow moist-heat methods including braising, to tenderize the meat and maintain moisture. The cut is often sliced thin, then dried or smoked at low temperature to make jerky.

Mom’s recipe calls for the steak to be cut in thin, short strips to keep it from becoming dry and tough.  I believe I’ll run to the market afterwhile and gather up the ingredients to make my family pepper steak and rice.

 

Chinese Pepper Steak

Yield: 4 servings

1 (1 ½ pound) round steak, cut into thin strips

2 tablespoons oil

Salt to taste

1 green pepper, cut into strips

1 onion, diced

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon cooking sherry

¼ or less teaspoon garlic powder

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

2 tablespoons cornstarch

3 tablespoons water

1 tomato, diced

Hot cooked rice

 

Quickly brown meat in hot oil; add salt, green pepper, onion, soy sauce, cooking sherry, garlic powder, and ginger. Cover and cook over low heat for ten minutes.

Combine cornstarch and water; stir until cornstarch is dissolved. Add this to meat mixture; cook, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened.

Add tomato; cover and simmer about ten minutes. Additional water may be added, if needed. Serve over rice.  Below is a different take on pepper steak...

 

Today’s writing prompt:  Ted unwrapped the brown paper parcel in front of him, wondering what his mother had purchased at the meat market. Round steak. Great. And with Linda…

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_steak

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper_steak

 

 

Chicken & Dimpled Dumplings

It’s the perfect time of year to serve this classic tummy-warming stew. This is a meal in itself, chock-full of veggies, meat and bread. It is partially adaptable to a crock pot. You can cook the chicken ahead and finish it when you get home. Or, you can bring home a rotisserie chicken from your grocery store and shorten your prep time to under an hour.

This is recipe is for my mother’s version of Chicken ‘n’ Dumplings. My grandmother used flat dumplings. Instead of using drop biscuits, she made regular biscuit dough, rolled it thin and cut it into strips. She dropped these strips into the bowling stew. When the strips were done, she served the stew. By the way, her recipe would have started with: Choose an aging hen that's no longer laying. These are best for stewing. Yikes! I'm going to the grocery...

For the Stew portion of the recipe:

Whole or cut up fryer

2, 32-ounce boxes Chicken Broth

1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage (or 1/2 teaspoon dry sage)

1 cup onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup chopped celery

1 cup sliced carrot

Optional: 1/4 cup frozen green peas

Dumplings

1-1/2 cup all purpose flour

1-1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup shortening or butter

1 cup milk

Optional seasonings: celery seed, pepper, dried sage (to taste)

Making the stew - Place whole fryer or cut up pieces in a Dutch oven or other large stewpot (or crock pot). Add one of the boxes of chicken broth, 1/2 cup of the onion, 1/2 cup celery, garlic, and sage. Bring to a boil, lower temperature to medium or medium low and simmer for approximately an hour or until chicken is tender and pulls away from the bone. (If using a crock pot, stew according to directions, low for 10 hours, medium or high for 5 hours.)

Remove cooked chicken from pot, set aside on a plate to cool completely. Add the other box of broth to the stew liquid, along with the remaining onion and celery, and the carrots. Return to a boil, lower to medium and simmer until vegetables are tender. (If you used a crock pot to cook the chicken, pour the liquid into a large pan to continue the recipe.)

In the meantime, remove cooled chicken meat from bones and skin. Cut meat into bite-sized chunks or strips and add back to the stew pot. Optional: add the frozen green peas at this point. TIP: Be sure you have enough liquid to cover all the solid ingredients completely, otherwise it will turn out dry, since the biscuits soak up some of the juice. 

Making the dumplings - Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Cut in shortening or butter. OR––I use cold butter and put the dry ingredients and the butter, cut in chunks, in a food processor. After processing until the butter is incorporated, I put this mixture in a small bowl and add milk all at once. Stir quickly (don’t over stir). If it seems too dry, add more milk. It should be very wet, but not soupy. Optional: If you like a spicier version of these dumplings, add pepper and/or celery seed to the dry ingredients.

When the vegetables are tender, bring the liquid in the stewpot to a full boil. Drop biscuit dough by spoonfuls into the boiling liquid. Distribute evenly. The dropped biscuits will rise and cover the top of the stew. Lower heat to medium once the biscuits have begun to rise. Stir gently, using an iced tea spoon or chopstick to reach between the dumplings and scrape the bottom of the pan (to mix loose dough into the stew -this will thicken the liquid). When the dumplings are no longer doughy, the stew is done. Serve in bowls. Makes enough for 6 servings, depending on the size of the serving. 

Southern Staple-Pinto Beans

The pinto bean is named for its mottled skin (compare pinto horse); hence it is a type of mottled bean. It is the most common bean in the United States and northwestern Mexico, and is most often eaten whole in broth or mashed and refried. Either whole or mashed, it is a common filling for burritos. The young pods may also be harvested and cooked as green pinto beans.

In the southeastern part of the United States, pinto beans were once a staple of the people, especially during the winter months. Some churches in rural areas still sponsor "pinto bean suppers" for social gatherings and fund raisers.

I recently attended a “bean” supper, the proceeds going for the care of a young cancer patient. Pinto beans and “northern” beans were served, along with cornbread, coleslaw, desert, and of course, sweet tea. A bake sale and auction of donated items completed an evening of support and hope.

You can do so much with a pot of cooked pinto beans: make refried beans for burritos, add them to a pot of homemade chili, or stir them into vegetable soup. Really, though, it’s hard to improve on the basic dish itself: a bowl of beans, seasoned either delicately or boldly—whatever your mood dictates.

Several years ago, I discovered a recipe for a pie using pinto beans. It tasted wonderful and I had a lot of fun getting people to “guess” what kind of pie it was. What ways have you eaten pinto beans?

 

Pinto Bean Pie

½ cups pinto beans, mashed

1 ½ cups sugar

2 eggs

½ cup coconut

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 stick margarine

1 unbaked pie shell

 

Mix eggs and sugar together first. Add melted margarine. Mix beans, coconut, and vanilla in with other ingredients. Put in unbaked pie shell and bake at 350 degrees until brown. Let cool and serve.

 

Today’s writing prompt: The charred black pot hung over the campfire, overflowing with pinto beans, chunks of bacon swimming in their midst. Blake glanced up when…

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinto_beans#Pinto_beans

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/08/beans_and_cornb/

The Radarange

Need to boil water? Melt butter, chocolate, or marshmallows? How about warm a snack? My second favorite kitchen appliance can do this and more, the microwave.

A microwave oven, often colloquially shortened to microwave, is a kitchen appliance that heats food by dielectric heating accomplished with radiation used to heat polarized molecules in food. Microwave ovens heat foods quickly and efficiently because excitation is fairly uniform in the outer 25–38 mm of a dense (high water content) food item; food is more evenly heated throughout (except in thick, dense objects) than generally occurs in other cooking techniques.

Dr. Percy Spencer invented the first microwave oven after World War II from radar technology developed during the war. Named the "Radarange", it was first sold in 1947. Raytheon later licensed its patents for a home-use microwave oven that was first introduced by Tappan in 1955, but these units were still too large and expensive for general home use. The countertop microwave oven was first introduced in 1967 by the Amana Corporation, which had been acquired in 1965 by Raytheon.

From what I’ve read, how a microwave actually works is difficult to explain and scientific. My untrained mind helped me to decide instead to give you several facts I found interesting about the microwave…

(1)    The heating effects of high power microwave beams were discovered by accident when Dr. Percy Spencer’s candy bar [a Mr. Goodbar] he had in his pocket melted.

(2)   The first commercially available microwave oven was almost 6 feet high and weighed 750 pounds. In 1947, it cost $5000, [$52,042 in today’s dollars.]

(3)   Current estimates hold that over 90% of American households own a microwave oven.

(4)   Microwave ovens heat food without getting hot themselves.

(5)   Closed containers, such as eggs, can explode when heated in a microwave oven due to the increased pressure from steam.

My own microwave is used to warm up all sorts of food, cook frozen meals, and melt certain foods. I also might heat a cup of water for hot tea or coffee. My crock pot for slow cooking and my microwave for those busy days keep this writer writing…

This week’s writing prompt: Belinda’s hand trembled as she set the chipped mug of water into the microwave. The word on the faded cup mocked her. Peace. A concept long forgotten when…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/microwave-ovens.htm

http://gadgets.softpedia.com/news/History-of-the-Microwave-Oven-042-01.html

This Writer’s Favorite Kitchen Appliance

 Let's leave Grandma's kitchen of the past and travel to my kitchen today. My personal two favorite kitchen appliances are my crock pot and the microwave. Also the dishwasher, but we'll save that story for another time. Today’s blog is about the Crock Pot or Slow Cooker. The Slow Cooker is a countertop electrical cooking appliance which maintains a low cooking temperature which allows for the unattended cooking of beans, stews, roasts, and other meals. The key word for the writer is unattended. You can write and cook at the same time, once the initial prep work is done.

A basic slow cooker consists of a lidded round or oval cooking pot made of glazed ceramic or porcelain, surrounded by a housing, usually metal, containing an electric heating element. The lid is often of glass seated in a groove in the pot edge; condensed vapor collects in the groove and provides a low-pressure seal to the atmosphere.

Raw food and a liquid (such as water, wine, or stock) are placed in the slow cooker. The cooker lid is put on and the cooker is switched on. Some cookers even automatically switch from cooking to warming after a fixed time or after the internal temperature of the food, as determined by a probe, reaches a specified value.

The heating element heats the contents to a steady temperature in the 79–93 °C (175–200 °F) range. The contents are enclosed by the crock and the lid, and attain an essentially constant temperature. The vapor that is produced at this temperature condenses on the lid and returns as liquid. Some water-soluble vitamins are leached into the liquid. The liquid transfers heat from the pot walls to its contents, and also distributes flavors. A lid is essential to prevent warm vapor from escaping, taking heat with it and cooling the contents.

Raw kidney beans, and to a lesser extent some other beans (such as broad/fava beans), contain the toxin phytohaemagglutinin, which is destroyed by boiling for at least ten minutes, but not by the lower temperatures of a slow cooker. Dry beans should be either boiled prior to slow cooking to avoid poisoning, or alternatively, leaving the beans to soak in water overnight, sprouting them, to neutralize the toxin and increase nutritional values. Even a few beans can be toxic, and beans can be as much as five times more toxic if cooked at 80 °C (175 °F) than if eaten raw, so adequate pre-boiling is vital. This risk can be avoided entirely by using canned cooked beans, adding them towards the end of the recipe's cooking time. This is great to remember if you use the slow cooker often.

If you talk about the history of slow cooker and their evolution, you must first go to the iron pot. A person used to hang an iron pot over fire for many hours in order to get the food cooked. The food was simmered in the iron pot and was even buried under coals to get the dish cooked. The iron pot, in its own way, was the first slow cooker.

In the early 1960s the West Bend Corporation developed an electric bean cooker they called the Bean Pot. It was a crockery bean pot that sat on a warming tray. The Naxon Utilities Corporation of Chicago came up with their own bean cooker which they called the Beanery. It was a self-contained unit that was a forerunner of the modern slow cooker. The Rival Company bought Naxon in 1970 and reintroduced it under the Crock-Pot name in 1971.

This began Rival's exploration into the world of slow cookers. The company found that many types of foods cooked wonderfully with this same method. Once this was discovered, twenty-five thousand cookers were brought out and sold to the public as the first official Crock-Pot during 1971.

In 1974, Rival introduced removable stoneware inserts. The brand now belongs to Sunbeam Products, a subsidiary of Jarden Corporation. Other brands of this appliance include Hamilton Beach, West Bend Housewares, GE, Magic Chef, and former American Electric Corporation.

Crock Pots today come in a variety of sizes, designs, colors, and complexity. You can buy a tiny cooker which plugs in to melt a pound of Velveeta for cheese dip to 7 qt. multi-setting crock pot which turns on and off by timer. You can even find a triple slow cooker server with three removable pots and separate controls. So chop your meat and veggies, add a little liquid, and presto, in eight to ten hours you have a meal…and hopefully a finished manuscript.

Join me in two weeks as we discover that other wonderful appliance, the microwave.

Today’s writing prompt: Janie stared at the particles of food which coated her once clean kitchen. Could a Crock Pot explode? She glanced at…

http://www.helium.com/items/1182660-history-of-the-slow-cooker

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-History-of-the-Slow-Cooker&id=3629284

http://www.slowcookercooking.com/slow-cooker-history/index.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_cooker

The World’s Luckiest Fishing Village

Labor Day weekend turned into a fun trip for my husband and me when friends invited us to join them at a rented condo in Florida. I have visited various cities along the Gulf Coast of Alabama and Florida, but this would be my first trip to Destin.

Destin, Florida. An 8.2 square mile island, known as the world’s luckiest fishing village, houses the largest and most elaborately equipped fishing fleet in the State of Florida.   Beaches teem with powder-soft sand, some of the whitest in the world, lapped by emerald-green ocean waters. Destin has twelve public beaches, and numerous attractions for tourists year round.

Several events take place throughout the year as well. For the month of October, the annual Destin Fishing Rodeo draws anglers to Destin each year since 1948.  Also in the month of October is the Destin Seafood Festival, where fresh seafood and local artists gather for one weekend every October.

In addition to an assortment of hotels and motels, many high-rise condominiums are located in Destin. The first condominiums in Destin were built in the 1970s, and construction continues today. Visitors play a large part in Destin's economy – the city's population of around 12,000 balloons to 40,000 during the tourist season.

While visiting, we ate at several wonderful restaurants, one being Dewey Destin’s at Crab Island.  Our group feasted on steamed crab legs, steamed shrimp, grilled grouper, and fried scallops. This laid-back place on the water is a must for seafood in Destin. We also shopped at the Silver Sands Factory Stores which boasts over 100 stores.

So if your character needs a vacation in Florida, think Destin. Fishing, shopping, beaches, and restaurants abound, so your hero or heroine will have plenty to do. Oh, and your villains too.

Today’s writing prompt:  Powdered sugar. Gwen sifted the soft sand through her fingers as her stomach growled. Why did everything remind her of food and her strict diet? The emerald green water which stretched to the horizon took her back to…

http://www.cityofdestin.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destin,_Florida

http://www.visitflorida.com/Destin

Food & Restaurant Critic versus Cookbook Author/ Prompt Contest Winner!

One of my favorite shows on the Food Network is Chopped, a reality-based cooking television series. Four chefs have short periods of time to create luscious meals from outrageous ingredients. Three judges from the world of food judge and critic their dishes on different criteria. Whoever doesn’t “cut” it is chopped or doesn’t advance to the next round. This sparked my interest in food critics.

Also, as the proud owner of a shelf full of books about cooking, I wonder how you would go about creating a best-selling cookbook. Who writes all the cookbooks we see at the local bookstore or on Amazon? Which would be the best career for the character in your next novel, cookbook author or critic?

The terms food critic, food writer, and restaurant critic can all be used to describe a writer who analyzes food or restaurants and then publishes the results of their findings. While these terms are not strictly synonymous they are often used interchangeably. Those who share their opinions via food columns in newspapers and magazines are known as food columnists.

Food critics and "restaurant critic" are synonyms, in practice. Both suggest a critical, evaluative stance that often involves some kind of rating system. The distinction, if any involves the range of possible investigation. "Food critic" has a more contemporary vibe, suggesting that restaurants, bakeries, food festivals, street vendors, and taco trucks are all fair game.

"Restaurant critic" is the more traditional title and can connote a more restricted sphere of operations — traditional restaurants, with perhaps those serving French cuisine being the exemplars. The internet has slowly become more important in forming opinions about restaurants. New generations of discussion forums and rating systems have become influential such as Mouthfuls, Yelp, and eGullet, as have some food criticism blogs like GrubGrade.  

For most of the past century, the most highly visible food critics have been those who have written for daily newspapers throughout the world and a few who have been restaurant reviewers for influential magazines, such as Gourmet in the United States. Television has become an outlet for many shows involving food or restaurant critics.

 A cookbook is a kitchen reference publication that typically contains a collection of recipes. Modern versions may also include colorful illustrations and advice on purchasing quality ingredients or making substitutions. Cookbooks can also cover a wide variety of topics, including cooking techniques for the home, recipes and commentary from famous chefs, institutional kitchen manuals, and cultural commentary. Anyone can write a cookbook, given they have recipes. How did the cookbook get its start?

The earliest cookbooks on record seem to be mainly lists of recipes for what would now be called haute cuisine, and were often written primarily to either provide a record of the author's favorite dishes or to train professional cooks for banquets and upper-class, private homes. The first recipe books to be compiled in Europe since Late Antiquity started to appear in the late thirteenth century. About a hundred are known to have survived, some fragmentary, from the age before printing.

 Cookbooks that serve as basic kitchen references (sometimes known as "kitchen bibles") began to appear in the early modern period. They provided not just recipes but overall instruction for both kitchen technique and household management. Such books were written primarily for housewives and occasionally domestic servants as opposed to professional cooks. Related to this class are instructional cookbooks, which combine recipes with in-depth, step-by-step recipes to teach beginning cooks basic concepts and techniques. In vernacular literature, people may collect traditional recipes in family cookbooks.

 Professional cookbooks are designed for the use of working chefs and culinary students and sometimes double as textbooks for culinary schools. Such books deal not only in recipes and techniques, but often service and kitchen workflow matters. Many such books deal in substantially larger quantities than home cookbooks, such as making sauces by the liter or preparing dishes for large numbers of people in a catering setting.  

Single-subject books, usually dealing with a specific ingredient, technique, or class of dishes, are quite common as well; with books on dishes like curries, pizza, and simplified ethnic food. Popular subjects for narrow-subject books on technique include grilling/barbecue, baking, outdoor cooking, and even recipe cloning.

Community cookbooks (also known as compiled, regional, charitable, and fund-raising cookbooks) are a unique genre of culinary literature. Community cookbooks focus on home cooking, often documenting regional, ethnic, family, and societal traditions, as well as local history.

Cookbooks can also document the food of a specific chef, cooking show chef, or restaurant. Many of these books, particularly those written by or for a well-established cook with a long-running TV show or popular restaurant, become part of extended series of books that can be released over the course of many years. Popular chef-authors throughout history include people such as Julia Child, James Beard, Nigella Lawson, Edouard de Pomiane, Jeff Smith, Emeril Lagasse, and Claudia Roden.  

So your character who needs an occupation can be either author or critic. Try a twist. How about a football player who writes a cookbook packed with his favorite pie recipes? Or a stay-at-home mother of triplets who is a blogging food critic of baby nutrition products? The food industry is evolving and your next novel can evolve with it.

CONGRATULATIONS BILL! YOU'VE WON THIS MONTH'S CONTEST! We loved the humorous story about cooks and lobsters. We will run the story on this Friday's blog. Please drop us another email and tell us where to send your gift card. Make sure and watch for next month's contest as we look at vacation spots...Where does the main character in your next novel need to vacation?

Today’s writing prompt: Josie reached into her great grandmother’s heavy plastic suitcase and wiped off the dusty book. Must be forty years old, she guessed, as she lifted it with care. The title read, “Cooking for…”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_critic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookbook
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopped_(TV_series)
http://www.foodnetwork.com/

Cupcake Creator versus Coffee Shop Owner

 

Cupcake creator or coffee shop owner or both? To me, these are careers that can include the best of two worlds, chocolate and hot tea. You couldn’t be a cupcake creator without chocolate somewhere and most coffee shops include hot tea on the menu. A raspberry-filled chocolate cupcake with a hot green tea latte with soy milk? Yum yum.

The origin of the cupcake can be traced back to 1796 in the cookbook, American Cookery by Amelia Simmons. The recipe called for “the cake to be baked in small cups.”  The earliest documentation of the term cupcake was in “Seventy-five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats” in 1828 in Eliza Leslie's Receipts cookbook.

Cupcakes have become more than a trend over the years; they've become an industry. Rachel Kramer Bussel, who has been blogging about cupcakes since 2004 at Cupcakes Take the Cake, said in 2010 that "in the last two years or so, cupcakes really exploded" with more cupcake-centric bakeries opening nationwide.

Cupcake Wars, a popular Food Network reality-based competition show, is currently in its sixth season. If you’ve ever considered being a cupcake creator or baker, this is the time.

Coffee shops or houses have been around even longer than cupcakes. A coffee house was reported open in Istanbul in 1555. During the seventeenth century, coffee appeared in Europe and triggered a flood of coffee houses. In the beginning, they were strictly for men and the site of political and social debate.

Coffee shops in the United States arose from the espresso- and pastry-centered Italian coffeehouses of the Italian American immigrant communities in the major U.S. cities. Coffee, music, and conversation were a mainstay in most coffee shops. Starting in 1967, Seattle became known for its thriving countercultural coffeehouse scene; the Starbucks chain later standardized and mainstreamed this espresso bar model.

Before 1990, true coffee houses were found only near colleges or artistic colonies. As with the cupcake, coffee houses are now a growing venue worthy of consideration for a career in ownership.

So we’re back to the question: Cupcake creator or coffee shop owner or both?

This week’s writing prompt: Celia stared at the bubbly froth covering her white chocolate caramel cappuccino and wondered why she ever…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupcake_Wars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupcake

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_shops

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbucks

Executive Chef versus Sous Chef

“You have developed an allergy to milk.” These simple words changed my life in ways I couldn’t imagine. I’d suspected this for a while, and the thoughts of eating and living healthy had crossed my mind, yet never stayed too long.

This diagnosis, along with other health issues, made me stop and take a look at food. Books, blogs, and the Food Network confirmed what God had been speaking to my heart for a while. Stop, look, listen. No, I’m not talking about crossing the street, but listening to the signals my body had been giving. Stop eating junk, look at labels, and listen to the experts.

Since this is where I’m at on my journey, I thought I’d take the next three career blogs and talk about the food industry. Let’s start with the most basic. A chef. I had no idea there were so many types of chefs: executive chef, sous chef, pastry chef, personal chef, grill chef, and fry chef to name a few. And then there are line cooks, kitchen-hands, and stewards. Today we’ll contrast the executive chef and the sous chef.

The Executive Chef is in charge of all things related to the kitchen, which usually includes menu creation, management of kitchen staff, ordering and purchasing of inventory, and plating design.   In French, the word chef means "chief." A head chef, also sometimes referred to as "chef de cuisine" or "executive chef," is in charge of the whole kitchen.

Every part of a foodservice operation, including menu planning, purchasing, hiring and staffing, is part of an executive chef's job description. That means he or she also has overall responsibility for all the food that comes out of the kitchen. You may have noticed one key job function missing from an executive chef's job description: cooking. That's right; he or she typically doesn't cook. The tools of his job are a desk, phone and clipboard; not a knife, whisk or sauté pan.

The Sous-Chef de Cuisine (under-chef of the kitchen) is the second in command and direct assistant of the Chef. This person may be responsible for scheduling and substituting when the Chef is off-duty and will also fill in for or assist the Chef de Partie (line cook) when needed.  The sous chef (pronounced "SOO chef," from the French word for under) is in charge of all the cooking. This person is responsible for inventory, cleanliness of the kitchen, organization and constant training of all employees. The "Sous-Chef" is responsible for taking commands from the Chef and following through with them. The "Sous-Chef" is responsible for line checks and rotation of all product. In some kitchens, sous chef's job is to directly supervise the entire kitchen staff, including the line cooks, prep cooks and dishwashers.

While his or her job is still mainly supervisory, the sous chef may also do some actual cooking, for instance, stepping in to replace one of the line cooks if necessary.

Even though their responsibilities differ, an executive chef and sous chef both need people and management skills. Formal training is a must in either career for advancement in more exclusive restaurants. Many chefs start as dishwashers, however, and gain experience as they work up the ranks. You will need to be dedicated, creative, and determined to succeed as either type of chef. You will need patience to deal with difficult staff and customers, and communication skills to ensure your staff feels like you consider them a part of your team.

My son, Jonathan

Writing prompt: A billow of French erupted from the kitchen area of The Blue Boiling Point Café. Lydia knew that meant one thing. Gérard, the executive chef, had…

http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/culinaryfundamentals/a/whatisachef.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chef

http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/sous_chef.htm

photo from Wikipedia Commons