Diamonds, Teets and Wattle

Oh my it has been a while since my last post. I know there is one fan out there (just one) who actually reached out to make sure I was still breathing. So "Ms. D" this one is dedicated to you...

I've been in this business of food styling for almost three years now. Every year I hear from veteran stylists that "(fill in any month of the year) is going to be a hard month". Last year March was a hard month for me. Udderly no work in the studios coupled with a lot of work at the mall. This year was no different. So far March has brought me one job. And it involved the cow pictured above. Which if you ask me was udderly worth it. How many people can say they've had an udderly farm like experience in their kitchen while working in The 55402? The job was for a new dairy based product. That's all I'm telling you. It also included my baking 20 pans of udderly delicious brownies (see previous obsession with brownies) and sorting through udderly hundreds of peanut butter cups (and they were not Reese's - which I was informed have a very distinct ridge. Much like a Ruffle and it's Ridges).  

As that was the only food styling work I did this month I made sure to meet up with our blog favorite, Baby Mama, for some lunchtime adventure in Downtown Minneapolis. After a 10 day, self imposed, stint at the mall playing dress up with the mannequins I was in some udder need of adult conversation and a good meal. Now most of our conversation revolved around middle aged surgeries, Baby Mama's baby (who is udderly adorable but being a total Regina George to Baby Mama when she gets home from a long day of work), and the cow above. At first we couldn't decided where to eat and I became udderly inept at using my smartphone to find us some Asian cuisine. We decided it was best to just leave the building and hope that a restaurant smacked us upside the head.  

We made it about 10 feet from the building.  

Thank God for Turkey To Go.

This food truck was free of lines (which I now know should make me udderly concerned) and fully stocked. Baby Mama shrieked a little and then I'm pretty sure she ran to the truck. With only one option - a turkey sandwich, I was a little overwhelmed. Baby Mama knew exactly what she wanted. Which involved making the poor sandwich architect create a boat of sauce for the purposes of dipping her sandwich. I of course fell for marketing and bought an M&M Chocolate Chip Cookie (it was good but not mine). I will say the sandwich was udderly delicious. One bite brought me back to my family's gypsy days of traveling the county fair circuit selling turkey drumsticks alongside the funnel cake and Hawaiian Ice stands. In truth I only remember doing that once or twice. I'm sure there is a photo of me in a sweatsuit tuxedo somewhere gnawin' on a bird leg the size of my head. The best part of being in the fair food dynasty was the soda fountain that was housed in our back porch during the off season. My former Diet Coke addiction (I am udderly DC free since December 27th!) started there. I'm sure of it.  

Anyway back to the food. Turkey To Go was really good (follow them here on Twitter if you do that sort of thing).  \The staff was beyond friendly despite the whole dipping boat shenanigans. And they were very quick to make sure we had everything we needed (sauce included).  

This was my first food truck experience in Minneapolis and I loved it. If you have any suggestions please leave a comment below! I would love to try as many as possible this Summer. Which really shouldn't be a problem as Summer has started in March. If the Mayans had a meteorologist what would they say... 

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Brownie + Cookie = LEAVE ME ALONE WHILE I'M EATING THIS

Today is my birthday. And though there has been a wonderful outpouring of support on The Book and via text I am choosing to hunker down and pretend it's 1998. Tonight's viewing pleasure will be Meet Joe Black (someday Brad and Gwyneth will reunite) partnered with some leftover chili (one friend said I couldn't have the whole box of Mac and Cheese as planned) and then a 4AM trip to the airport to drop that same friend off to start his Spring Break Excursion 2012. The only missing element is the original Pepsi One. The kind with aspartame. Not with that evil step sister, Splenda.  

This morning with my birthday in mind I was craving brownies and cookies. In a moment of pure Frankenstein genius I remembered a conversation I had earlier in the week with my friend Brooke. We both were waxing poetic our love of brownies and cookies. Knowing I had the makings of both of these delicacies I got to work. Above you will see the bounty of my kitchen labor. Layers of chewy, fudge-like brownie enrobing my favorite chocolate chip cookie. One row of the pan is somehow missing.  

The Brookie (brownie meets cookie) was my gift to myself. 

I'm going to sign off now. In a few hours Just Joni will be calling to regale in the storytelling of my birth this fine evening many years ago. And I need to squeeze in a few Brookies before then. Brookie will catch on. Trust me.  

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Brownies, Empty Promises and Heart Shaped Baking Pans

Happy Valentine's Day.

Though (now ex) Boyfriend is enjoying the sun halfway around the world (thinking only of me I am sure) I am at home baking for this most hallowed of Hallmark days. My birthday is coming and with that a new license. As I make my way on this winter day to the DMV I will be dropping off some Chocolate Fudge Cherry Brownies to friends downton. They are chained to their cubes and therefore should be fed healthy treats.

If I was in elementary school I would have to make brownies for all my "friends". Thank God I am not in elementary school (the baby fat and sweatsuits alone were reason enough to get out of there). At this age I can be picky. I wish I could make heart shaped brownies for everyone. But time and money are limited.

Originally I had plans tonight with some friends. Plans were made while on an unscheduled pub crawl around the state last week. So you can imagine it was no surprise we all bailed on each other last night. I knew it was going to be a solo night when this text was received, "I'll text you guys when I'm half way through a pint of PB Haagen Dazs, watching The Notebook for the 4th time in 3 days."

Whatever your plans may be - binge eating is approved today.

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CSI, Scurvy and Square Pizza

Candied Blood Orange

This past week, winter has come and gone and come again with snow, cold, and my taking a massive digger on the sidewalk in front of a mall while chatting on the phone with Just Joni. Chivalry is not dead, as a very nice chain smoker came to my aid. Sadly as a sign of our times I did NOT drop my phone while rattling my innards. I did, however, manage to lose my glasses and ended up doing that Velma from Scooby Doo thing where you have to feel around on the black snow-covered sidewalk for them while your mother is yelling, "ARE YOU OKAY?!?!" on the phone you still cannot let go of. So winter is here.  

And oddly when winter hits in Minnesota so does citrus.  Just about this time every year I get a hankerin' for some oranges and go through a couple bags securing my chance of not getting a serious case of scurvy. This year while doing some professional grocery shopping at Lund's Market I was stopped in my tracks as one of the talented Food Experts was slicing up Blood Oranges. Not one to pass up a demo for hope of a sample, I was intrigued by the crime scene that was her chopping block. Who knew such pretty orange balls could make for an episode of CSI:Miami right in my local market? So of course I bought some.  

Not knowing what to do with them I sought the advice of last week's food styling boss. Bosses change weekly when you're freelance like me. This past week's boss is always full of advice on what to do with the unique items one finds at the grocery store. So while she was painting lipstick on a shrimp (yes you read that right...lipstick on a shrimp) she suggested many options for the bag of blood filled orbs I had at home. In the end we concluded that I should candy them. Being more grapefruit in flavor I was inclined to do something sweet. So last weekend I got the sugar water boiling and autopsied some blood oranges in my kitchen. The end result was some beautifully jeweled circles of red and orange.  

Boyfriend got inspired and we set up the camera and processed the crime scene Horatio style (minus the sunglasses and awkward head angles...but all the same attitude). Above you see the fruits of our labor. I obsessively ate what I could of the shiny candied oranges and have moved onto eggs. I don't know why.  

In the world of food styling I spent part of this week working on pizza. And you should know that it is nothing like Domino's makes it look like in the commercial. There were no power tools screwing the pizza to the set. This pizza was that square pizza we all used to eat in the school cafeteria. You know it. The kind that perfectly fit in the tray. Kids are still eating it. I believe FLOTUS is working on this though. Did you know that slice of pizza is still considered a veggie?

I have to go make an egg sandwich now.

See you next time.  

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Hateful Fish, Harry Potter and Self Promotion

Halloween Cookies

Boo.

As the month of October is ending tomorrow I am going to open with an obligatory money shot of Halloween cookies. 

Full disclosure...I hate making cutout cookies.  Wait.  Let me say that again.  I hate decorating cut out cookies.  Everything up to that point I love.  There are far too many other people out there who can make a cut out cookie look like art.  I personally love my drop cookies.  Chocolate chip cookies to be exact.  They are my favorite.  But above you will see some Halloween sugar cookies with a powdered sugar glaze frosting.  I toiled aaaaaaalllll day in the kitchen for Boyfriend (it had nothing to do with the fact that football season is upon us and the TV is no longer available for my usual Sunday TBS marathon of Mean Girls or Forrest Gump).  The cookies are for his coworkers at The Lab.  Thankfully he can still take home baked goods to work unlike the poor elementary students of today.  After the cookies I whipped up a couple loaves of sandwich bread and then shackled myself to the stove to make us dinner.  That's what I did today.  Fully ignoring the mountain of paperwork on the desk.  Well played Benjamin.  

Hateful Red Snapper

Now it has been a month since my last post.  I have eaten, I have used my kitchen and I have even been gainfully employed in the food styling industry!  The last month has been very busy working on a couple projects.  I was very lucky to be called in on a Thanksgiving shoot for an online ad.  I worked with some very talented food stylists who taught me a lot about the world of turkeys, mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables.  After a few days off, some travel with Boyfriend and some time with the mannequins at the mall I got called by another studio to work on a grilling cookbook. 

I have to admit that Just J (Dad) and sometimes Just Joni did most of the grilling back at the compound when I was young.  I learned A LOT on this job.  I learned that Korean Style Ribs can really only be found where your butcher is over the age of 50.  I learned how to scale a fish.  Red Snapper scales are still falling out of my clothes and backpack.  I also learned that Red Snapper can leave the tip of your finger mildly numb weeks after it pierces it.  And I learned that no amount of air freshener and driving with your windows down gets the smell of Snapper juice out of your poor little Honda Civic.  Thankfully baking soda and 162 fresh baked hamburger buns got the smell out.  I grilled a lot.  But not as much as the lead food stylist.  She was a grilling machine and was kind enough to give tutorials as she went along.  Call me Hank Hill and get me a propane tank. 

Pulled Chicken Hoagie

This last month included some meals out.  I found myself in Duluth a few weekends back for a baby shower and Just Joni, Sister and myself enjoyed a great dinner at Clyde Iron in Duluth.  Pictured above is the very tasty Pulled Chicken Hoagie with spicy pico de gallo, cilantro lime aioli and avocado.  The fries were pretty much inhaled.  

The following week I attended Finer Films Club with Finer Films Club co founder, D. 

Finer Films meets about once a month to see a really bad film that our respective boyfriends/friends/family and general movie going public might ridicule us about.  This month we picked the final Harry Potter film.  Neither one of us had seen anything after the first in the series.  If you also have not seen the whole franchise just check out the last one.  You'll get caught up I think.  Back to food.  Finer Films started its evening at the Longfellow Grill in Minneapolis.  I enjoyed a well made dijon chicken sandwich and glass of wine.  I would share the photo but it was pretty bad on my part.  And I took it before the wine was gone. 

Last night Boyfriend and I entertained at home.  I would have dinner guests a couple nights a week if I could.  Last night we invited SAGL, Baby Doctor and Bone Doctor (they're a couple).  I realized late on Friday that I had all the makings of a mini Thanksgiving in my pantry.  So I threw together a stuffed roasted turkey breast (sadly Baby Doc is a veg so she only got to dine on the super dry extra stuffing - my apologies BD!), mashed potatoes and a pumpkin pie.  Thankfully SAGF and The Doc's brought wine to share.  We all had a great time and even left room to binge on some chocolate chip cookies (see above). 

So I have to wrap up.  Tomorrow I'm working as an assistant on a project that involves some attention in the kitchen.  On a final note though I would like to share that a very long awaited project that I worked on has finally hit the stands.  Please feel free to take a peek here or at your local bookstore very soon!  Now you don't have to do this, but if you "click to look inside" you can see my name.  With that self promotion I am going to bed.  Good night and Happy Halloween (or Happy Ms. Stewart Day - girl really loves Halloween!).   

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