bunz.

so i randomly bought some veggie burgers the other day. this is something i, pretty much, never buy. they are never great and oftentimes, i end up feeling like i could make them myself. which is something that will happen on another day. not today. or this week.

of course i figured that smitten had a recipe for hamburger buns: light brioche burger buns. i decided that those were them, THE buns.

a few concessions in the recipe.

1. i did not have any bread flour at home so i substituted all-purpose flour instead.
2. i messed up adding the amounts of bread flour and all-purpose flour. 3 plus 1/3 equals 3 1/3. i did 4 1/3 cups of flour, which meant that the dough was too dry. DO NOT DO THIS. i added water and that eventually made it sort of muddy/slimy/weird but it worked. 
3. due to no. 1 and 2, i did not want to waste an egg on an egg wash, as i was uncertain they would even be edible. i threw flax seeds on top because i love flax.
4. the flax seeds did not stick due to the lack of egg wash. you live and you learn, right?

the buns turned out pretty well. i made a delicious, glorious veggie burger, topped with melted cheddar, added tomatoes, ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise.

we'll eat them again tonight so i'll let you know if they held up. the others are in the freezer for later bun desires.

all about deb (mostly).

i've pretty much been hanging out and making smitten recipes. in the last week:

• light wheat bread
• light brioche burger buns
• grapefruit olive oil cake (you're going to have to buy the book)

additionally:

• lemony hummus
• cowboy cookies (adapted from baked)
• strawberry-blueberry jam (inspired by cookfight)

photographs and details to come. 

that is not my photograph.

because there are no photographs of this magical evening. why would we have stopped to take photographs?

let's say i dreamt of au cheval. it's almost my dream restaurant, where everything is delicious and savory but not too salty and the place really prides itself on throwing a fried egg atop everything. this is practically the place that blake and i hypothesized about years ago.

it should be noted that we did not begin our evening at au cheval, but at scofflaw. (have i mentioned yet that i was in chicago with shira? i was in chicago with shira for the weekend.) the longest happy hour of fries and three well-crafted bourbon cocktails had us in just the right mood for this grand date.

date? yes, date. shira and i had dinner dates at au cheval. we shuffled up to the door after 9pm, thinking that our late-ish arrival would mean we wouldn't have to wait too long. we were wrong--discovered as we were informed the wait would be one to one-and-a-half hours. we must have had looks of devastation, because two men about to be seated in a four-top immediately invited us to join them.

of course we did. i sat across from shira, but next to my dinner date, sean. across from him was david.

it was glorious. the beers, all reasonably priced (no, i have no idea what i drank). the fries, with a mornay sauce (maybe). and the burger. yes, i ate part of a burger, shared with my real dinner date, shira. amazing. really. better than anything i have consumed in a while. no, not just the burger--the evening.

we were there for two hours, eating and drinking with our dates--both from minneapolis, though one now lives in portland, oregon and the other in chicago.

and so i have big love for you, au cheval. but also for shira, the windiest city, and our dinner dates, without whom this night would not have been possible.

a little round-up.

• a history of the taco.
• facebook's valuation in burger king whoppers.
• the veggie burgers i plan to make this week. 
• a space shuttle food truck. and it's for sale!  
• my garden project has a website. 
• i am going to be speaking about said garden project at the farm to cafeteria conference. 
• you should be watching food curated. seriously. every video rocks.
• and for kicks, the beastie boys's sabotage video with kids in their roles (thanks, blake!): 

the hamburgular.

blake had at least 2 birthday parties at mcdonalds. ages 3 and 4? i am unsure. but not me. i was a lettuce-eating kind of girl. and i am not sure about the popularity of the mcdonalds birthday party for my generation.

i tell my students every day, it seems, to eat food that is food. they think i have some weird obsession with corn, which to them means i want to eat it all the time. they eat junk food for most daytime meals, as shown in the wrappers filling the student lounge. i especially remind them about places like mcdonalds and taco bell, which seem to be the worst culprits in serving non-food food. if the food from a certain place continually makes one's stomach hurt, it makes sense to stop eating it. but, the kids are from another generation--the one of iphones, dvr, and instant gratification. they've never had to wait for anything.

and today, i saw this post. a 12-year old hamburger! and it looks the same as the new one!
please, kids, don't eat the mcdonalds. it's obviously not food.