Temporary sign off...

I'm going to be temporarily signing off the Chef blog.

Yesterday, we had a random summer time black out...and it zapped my computer. Like, it won't even turn on. Since we're busy trying to get ready to go out of town, and then we'll be out of town where there's no guarentee to internet anyway, I bid you a sad temporary adios.

Food for thought on the way out:

Next Food Network Star. I'm baffled that Katie is still there, and they sent Teddy home. Yes, I understand their reasoning - that he just didn't have the chops to be on TV. But you know what? She's not interesting TV and she's serving them raw food.

What's a girl got to do to get kicked off around here?

Twitter Taught Me Something. Get Out!

So, I just got friended on Twitter, if that's even the right way to say it, by the Ohio Food Service (shout out!), and I learned something from looking at their feed! :O

We all learned yesterday that I have a weird fascination with Michael Symon, and he's opening a new restaurant!

Bar Symon will open in Avon Lake Ohio, on June 29th. The head Chef will be Matt Harlan, who is coming to Bar Symon from Lolita. Andy Strizak will be taking over as head chef at Lolita.

Matt Harlan To Head Up Bar Symon

That is a link to a blog from a guy named Douglas Trattner, who is the food critic for the Cleveland Scene magazine.

Who knew?

Theresa Learns!

Thanks Bobby Flay!

I'm watching Throwdown: German Chocolate Cake right now, and I just learned something.

German Chocolate Cake is, in fact, not German. It's named for a man with the last name German.

From whatscookingamerica.net:

German Chocolate Cake is an American creation that contains the key ingredients of sweet baking chocolate, coconut, and pecans. This cake was not brought to the American Midwest by German immigrants. The cake took its name from an American with the last name of "German."

1852 - Sam German created the mild dark baking chocolate bar for Baker's Chocolate Company in 1852. The company name the chocolate in his honor - "Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate." In most recipes and products today, the apostrophe and the "s" have been dropped, thus giving the false hint as for the chocolate's origin.

1957 -The first published recipe for German's chocolate cake showed up in a Dallas newspaper in 1957 and came from a Texas homemaker. The cake quickly gained popularity and its recipe together with the mouth-watering photos were spread all over the country. America fell in love with German Chocolate cake.

Food Network Is Doing Better Then I Thought, And I Still Love Michael Symon!

Food Network has been running advertisements for this show called "The Best Thing I've Ever Eaten" all week, and I've been looking at the commercials all week, going "zuh?". That sounds like a pretty one off situation, right? Like, how could they make a whole show out of that?

They did better then I thought. Every show has a theme - this weeks is "Totally Fried", and they are trotting out a mess of celebrated foodies to talk about the best thing they've ever eaten. So far, they've interviewed Aaron Sanchez, Duff Goldman, Giadia De Laurentis, Alexandra Guarnaschelli, and my culinary boyfriend (and I'll admit to that!) Michael Symon.

And if your interested, their favorite things included the fried shrimp heads at The Red Cat in New York (note: they aren't on the menu, you've got to request them), the doughnuts at Lola in Seattle, the pork rinds at The Publican in Chicago, and the Fried Brussel Sprouts at Lolita in Cleveland.

I'll tell you - I've personally had the fried brussel sprouts at Lolita, and they deserve to be up there on the list. Their kind of amazing - crunchy, soft, salty, with this little tang that you can't quite place. It's really, really unreal.

Guy Fieri is on right now, and his favorite fried thing is Mufungo. i'm kind of just getting a kick out of hearing him say Mufungo.

I love Michael Symon. Don't know why. I'm fascinated by the guy. I celebrate getting to watch him on TV, I drove all the way to Cleveland to get to eat his food (note: don't pass up the roasted caramelized onion soup with duck breast. Don't. You won't be sorry). I might lose it if I ever got to meet the guy. So he says the pork rinds at The Publican are the best there are, they are the best there are! And if you know Michael Symon, or if by luck you happen to BE Michael Symon, please introduce us! :D When I went to Cleveland, they said there was no guarentee if the Chef would be in town, which he I guess wasn't, because they said he was out of town most of the month I was there. If you had your choice between meeting with a tourist foodie and wannabe food writer, and going to South Beach in FEBRUARY, which would you pick?!

Me too. Hate to say it, but me too. :D

So, to sum up, since this got all kinds of tangent-y...

-The Best Thing I Ever Ate is a better show then I expected. Very informative.

-As if I didn't have enough reasons to want to go to Chicago already. I don't know how everyone in Chicago doesn't weigh 10,000 pounds. All the food!

-I am in love with Michael Symon. He is my culinary boyfriend. I should make that a little less stalkery and say "culinary hero", but I'll save the political correctness for when I've made it famous. :D

Theresa Learns!

I'm watching a rerun of Top Chef Masters right now, and Hubert Keller made Scottish Salmon Mi Cuit.

I couldn't help but go "ok, but what did he DO?"

Oh, google!

Apparently, you can Mu Cuit lots of stuff. Tomatoes, chocolate, caramel, plums. Salmon. Lots of stuff!

After chasing all over google creation to find out, I learned that it means "semi-cooked" (you'll also see "partially cooked" as an option as well). So he served semi-cooked salmon.

And there you go...

Macaroni Grill And Some Twitter Randomness

Went to dinner at Macaroni Grill in Ann Arbor today.

Caesar Salad with almost no dressing. The waiter swore that that's just how they do their salads, but like - really? What restaurant is saving a ton of money by not putting dressing on their salads? The only people who got dressing were the people who requested it on the side.

Got Shrimp Alfredo. It was actually very good - not overly saucy, shrimp were cooked perfect. Enormous portion - I've got enough to have some for dinner tonight, and don't think I won't! :)

I got a Lemon Passion cake, and really, that's where it all started to go a little pear shaped. The waiter told me it was alot of citrus, and I was like "Yeah, dig it! Bring it on!" It seriously tasted like straight sugar. It was SO sweet. I didn't start to taste any citrus until I got into the frosting, but by then, my teeth were so itchy because of the sweet from the cake, that I didn't even make it into the frosting. Blech.

I did try my cousins chocolate cake, and that was out of this world. Deep flavor, sweet, mellow. Great mouth feel. Knock out. If I knew the official name of it, I'd name it, but I didn't order it, so I don't. Heh.

So it was a bit of a mixed bag, but I'd recommend it. The appetizers were good (they've got a basil pine nut pesto aioli on the menu that I seriously HAVE to find a reason to try. Like, what is that?!), the basil in the bruchetta tasted so fresh it was practically straight out of the ground, the chocolate cake was to die for, and they kept the wine flowing. Which, if your on the wagon, you don't care about. But I'm just putting that on the table.

So thumbs up-ish.

As for my twitter randomness...why? I'm searching out and following foodie people, and I don't understand. I searched for Bobby Flay (who has over 10,000 followers), and six or eight things came up. Who would fake being Bobby Flay? Why do you not have anything better to do with your life then that?

And don't sign me up for the "Twitter is teh awesome!" brigade just yet. It's OK. I'm not in love.

Chef Searches Youtube...

...for foodie videos, naturally.

I found a kind of cool one, with Tom Collichio. Check it: