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Fire, Cracker
If Peeps brûlée turn up on the menu at the Catholic Charities dinner next March, I will be ecstatic. It’s an extreme long shot but at least I planted the idea in the mind of Christopher Moore, executive chef for the Knoxville Convention Center.
Chef Moore was on stage at the Tennessee Food & Wine Festival, preparing beef brisket soft tacos. As emcee, I was making small talk and asking questions about the recipe. Our conversation turned to the tortillas, which the chef buys uncooked. We talked about ways to cook them, including over an open flame on a gas grill, which is the same way I toasted the Peeps brûlée. The chef said he wanted to try Peeps that way. A snippet of our conversation turned up on SMOMOtv on Saturday.
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The headliner at the festival was Royal Chef Darren McGrady, who told stories about Queen Elizabeth while preparing one of Prince William’s favorite tea cakes. The no-bake recipe calls for crumbled McVitie’s Classic Rich Tea Biscuits and melted chocolate. He used Ghirardelli. The chef said that we Americans could find the McVitie’s biscuits on Amazon.com. I mentioned that some local supermarkets have a British shelf. From my perspective, the broken tea biscuits looked vaguely familiar. I asked if we could substitute animal crackers for McVitie’s. He thought about it for a moment and, to my surprise, said yes. Animal crackers were probably a fairly close match.
S’meeps & S’mupcakes
A search for WordPress themes led me to an unusual Marshmallow Peeps recipe. I am still looking for a good fit for a new FBI Knoxville Citizens’ Academy Alumni Association website but I will take a moment to enjoy the sweet distraction.
A website called Tasty Kitchen caught my eye. I was drawn to the desserts section by their photo of Peep S’mores. The simple recipe calls for layers of graham cracker crumbs, M&Ms and Peeps. It would be a good way for me to use up some of my leftover Peeps.
I can imagine how Peep S’mores must taste. Another recipe on the site made me curious and interested in trying soon. As the name suggests, Salted Fudge Brownies combine salt and chocolate. From the photo, I assumed that coarse salt was sprinkled on top of the dark chocolate brownies. Instead, the recipe says to swirl the salt into the batter.
They have a recipe for Chunky S’mores Dipped Cupcakes that is unusual to me. Marshmallow frosting is piled high on graham-cracker cupcakes and then chilled to firm it up. The frosting is then dipped in melted chocolate to complete the trifecta.
Frank and Beans
Three of the dishes in the Anything Bush’s Beans category at Sevierville’s Bloomin’ Barbeque & Bluegrass on Friday were mind-boggling in their appearance. Last year I thought the carrot cake made with beans was impressive. This year, I saw a chocolate trifle, a chocolate cake and banana pudding that looked even better.
The trifle came to the table where I served as judge. The cake was at the table next to me. As the judging ended, there was some chatter in the room about a banana pudding that was so close to the real thing that nobody could taste the beans. Before the pudding reached the grazing table, one of the head judges asked the cook team for a clarification. The word came back that the pudding contained pureed cannellini beans.
The meat categories were judged by certified Kansas City Barbeque Society judges on Saturday. According to the Twitter feed for Nibble Me This, the Grand Champion of this year’s Bloomin’ Barbeque & Bluegrass was the hometown Smoky Mountain Smokers. The guy I interviewed last year, Mike Davis of Lotta Bull BBQ, won the Kingsford Points Chase, which will help him compete for the $25,000 grand prize to be awarded this Fall.
Capcakes
It’s graduation season in East Tennessee. To celebrate, one of our talented friends from All Saints Church made special cupcakes for her granddaughter’s graduation from Sacred Heart Cathedral School.
The chocolate cupcakes were topped with white icing and replicas of mortarboards. Each graduation hat was made from a Pinwheel cookie, an after-dinner mint, a licorice shoelace and an M&Ms Mini. My wife loved the icing, which tasted like a York Peppermint Pattie.
Egg Timer
To keep me from sneaking a peek at our Easter baskets, my wife draped them with an extra tablecloth. This came about around midnight, when we got home from the Easter Vigil. She would be leaving early in the morning to sing at two more Masses and hated to miss seeing my first reaction to the baskets. That’s when I suggested covering them the same way furniture was covered by drop-cloths in old vampire movies.
My wife knew I would be happy to see the See’s Scotchmallow Eggs, which she had ordered from their catalog. The Marshmallow Peeps dipped in dark chocolate were not a surprise because I had purchased them at Food City a few days earlier. The Peeps Freezer Pops were new to me. I put them in the freezer right away and will get to them eventually. I hope that the “marshmallow flavor” doesn’t taste like vanilla.
A Twitter joke from Russell Biven reminded me of an Easter spent with friends in California. Russell said he couldn’t wait to hide eggs this year so he could find the eggs from last year. One year at the annual egg hunt that we did with our friends Anja and Charlie and their family, I wrote the previous year on an egg. This year, I helped my wife by decorating one egg. Although instead of writing “2010″ on it, I just wrote “Last Year.”
Cuckoo for Coconuts
The problem with Girl Scout Cookies is that their season usually coincides with Lent. I choose to give up sweet treats because I crave them every day. It would require no effort for me to give up potato chips or any salty snack.
My sister and my niece were preparing to sell Girl Scout Cookies outside a store in their neighborhood last week while my wife and I were visiting. I resisted the urge to eat a Samoa but I did take a picture for further study. Last month, I bought some knock-off cookies at Dollar General and finished them on Mardi Gras. Now I can compare the photos side-by-side.
No Matter How You Slice It
No combination of full moons and vernal equinoxes can change the fact that my wife’s birthday always falls during Lent. Mid-March will always be within 40 days of Easter. As a result, her (and consequently my) Lenten sacrifice includes the caveat “except for birthday cake.”
Our daughter had a gift card from Whole Foods Market that inspired us to take a look in their bakery section. Everyone seemed pleased with my wife’s choice of a delicious chocolate torte, served with fresh strawberries.
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