Raccoon and Lobster

The Food Blog Forum launched a few days ago. The brainchild of Scott and Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen and Todd Porter and Diane Cu of White On Rice Couple, it has articles and a forum for people to exchange tips and talk about their food blogs. Fairly meta, but it looked interesting so I signed up (you can find me under the username raccoonandlobster).

In the food photography forums, I found a thread discussing how to take pictures of your food at night. This is something that I struggle with as my kitchen and dining room aren’t very well lit even during the day and the strange color casts from my dining room lights add little to whole experience. Learning how to set the white balance on my camera helped a lot but there was still insufficient lighting and lingering color casts from the strangely colored light fixtures. Even with a fast prime lens set at the widest aperture, a lot of nighttime pictures came out blurry. Setting up a tripod seriously restricted movement in the dining room and waiting until daylight was not always an option.

The forums mentioned Lowel EGO lights, which Jaden reviewed on her blog a few years ago. I had seen the post before, but at the time I wasn’t willing to shell out $200 for a pair. Well, it turns out, I’m still not.

A little googling turned up a few enterprising souls who chose to make DIY version of the lights and I decided to experiment with making my own too. It turned out surprising well!

This picture is shot with all the available living room lights on. The aperture is set to f/8.0 and the white balance is set to auto. I can’t hold the camera still enough for a crisp shot and the color is dark and yellow. Keep in mind that my dining room is even more dimly lit and the light skews more orange.

In this photo, I set the aperture to f/2.0 and manually set the white balance. Better, but there’s still a yellowish cast visible and I’ve lost quite a bit of depth of field. Tweaking in PhotoShop could do a lot to improve this picture, but that means more work for me.

And here is the same scene lit with my knockoff Lowel EGO lights. The white balance is set to Auto again and the aperture was set to f/8.0. Just like the other pictures, this picture was shot with the camera in my hand. To get a shot like this without the lights, I would have to set up a tripod and do post processing on the color.

My homemade lights ended up costing $43.11 for a pair (mostly for the bulbs) and required no wiring, sawing, or drilling. That’s a savings of almost $160! After figuring out how I was going to assemble everything, the second light took me less than half an hour to put together. Not bad, huh? You can recreate this same setup with more durable materials if you have the tools and skills to do so. I originally intended the foam board version as a proof of concept, intending to build the end product with particle board, but I found the foam board to be quite sturdy and quite sufficient for my needs.

Each light uses 2 full spectrum compact fluorescent bulbs that are equivalent to 100 watt traditional bulbs, just like the EGO lights (all of the other DIY projects used one bulb for each light). You will need the following for each light

2 full spectrum CFLs – $9.99 for a pack
1 twin socket adapter – $2.69
1 clamp light – $6.99 (check that the metal shade can be unscrewed, most can)
1 sheet of foam board – $2.99 (the standard 20″x30″ foam board is enough for 2 lights with some left over)
1 sheet of cross-stitch mesh approx 11×14 -$0.39
1-2 sheets of parchment paper

and an X-acto knife, tape, and a ruler.

Unscrew the shade from the light and remove the clamp mechanism. You now have a light socket connected to a wire and plug. If you are comfortable doing your own wiring you can also buy the socket and wire and plug separately and put it together. It was only a few dollars difference though, and this was way easier.

Cut a piece of foam board into a 11×14 rectangle. Cut out a hole for the light socket in the center of the board.

Remove the socket and trace a line down the middle of the board going lengthwise. Using your knife, gently score the board but do not cut all the way through the foam. Bend the board to create a hinge.

Bend the board into a 90°  and stand it up. Put the socket back in and screw in the twin socket adapter. Align the mesh with the sides of the foam board and trace the curve it makes onto the foam board and cut it out to make a base for your light.

Tape the mesh to both sides of the foam board and  layer one or two layers of parchment paper on the outside to further diffuse the lighting.

As a bonus, you can re-attach the clamp mechanism to your lamp after it is completed and have a light that can stand on flat surfaces or be clamped to objects as desired.

Amigurumi Cthulhu, what do you think about the lighting?

Raawwwrrr!

Hello red velvet cake. Why so down?

I was initially very upset about this  tough, dense cake. After all, by this point I sort of feel like I know my way around cake baking pretty well, and I’ve baked 8 or 9 or so of Rose’s Heavenly Cakes and know what her recipes consist of. Why then, did this one suddenly turn out so distinctly un-heavenly?

I had an inkling that something was wrong when the batter didn’t quite taste right. And then when I poured it into the pan, the texture seemed a little off. And 25 minutes later, when the finished cake had risen to only half the height of the pan, I knew something had gone wrong. But what?

Just one day before, I had baked a successful marble velvet cake. Baking powder doesn’t go bad that quickly. My oven was at the proper temperature. I had beaten the batter for the appropriate time, I had measured all the ingredients with my scale and….

Wait.

I remembered seeing the scale read ~340 grams after I added in the cocoa and baking powder. But the recipe called for 200 grams of flour and 200 grams of sugar. Did I zone out and only add half the amount of sugar? And does 100 grams of sugar really mean the difference between a 1″ cake and a 2″ cake?

Apparently a spoonful of sugar not only  helps the medicine go down, it also helps the cake rise up.

For more information, I turned to the authoritative nerd’s guide to the kitchen: Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking. Baking powder doesn’t act by creating air bubbles, it enlarges the bubbles that are already in the batter. That is why creaming the butter and sugar together is so important, it generates the small air pockets that will be enlarged by the baking powder. Half the sugar in a batter that is beaten for the same amount of time means fewer air pockets, which means less rising. I initially attributed the texture of the batter to the fact that it used a mixture of butter and oil instead of of just butter but now I suspect that there just wasn’t enough sugar to properly cream the butter into the fluffy airy mixture I needed. Fear of overdeveloping the gluten in the flour kept me from continuing to beat the batter, but perhaps more beating time would have helped salvage the fail cake.

On top of that, sugar is hygroscopic, or water attracting, so its presence in a cake means moistness in addition to sweetness. Less sugar? Tougher, dryer cake.

SCIENCE!

I couldn’t allow this enormous head of cauliflower to remain where I found him, silently plotting whatever it is that giant cauliflowers plot. Look at the tendrils of his green cauliflower leaf-hands. Can’t you see them unfurling oh-so-slowly? No? Just wait. You will.

Cauliflower, like trolls, are well known for their ability to regenerate, and the only defense against them rising up is to attack with fire or acid.

I chose to do both, first pummeling them with a blast of heat from my burners, and then finishing them off with the slow burn of my stomach acid.

My good deed for the day is done. You’re welcome, universe.

Sautéed Cauliflower

Cauliflower
vegetable oil
salt
pepper
minced garlic
chopped chives
crushed cayenne pepper flakes
grated Asiago cheese

Tear off leafy cauliflower hands and trim the stem. Rinse the monstrous creature under running water and cut it into small florets of roughly equal size.

Sauté in a skillet over medium heat with vegetable oil until golden brown. Season to taste with salt and pepper and add in the garlic. Remove from heat when the garlic is softened and fragrant and toss with the chives, cayenne pepper, and cheese. Eat with the satisfaction of a job well done.

What color were the mushrooms you used in your breakfast omelet? Mine were purple.

I was invited to go on a second foray and we found more edibles than were needed for the fair, so I was able to take some home to try. The Boyfriend spotted these and I was thrilled to be able to identify them as blewits (Lepista nuda). They are sometimes found in high end grocery stores under the name Bluefoot mushrooms and they sell for a princely sum. It’s still a little harrowing to eat a wild mushroom; ill effects from dangerous mushrooms may not appear until several days after ingestion, and by then it can be too late. More experienced mushroom hunters verified my ID and I took a spore print at home just to be extra sure. And in case you were wondering, they tasted like danger.

This Sunday the LA Mushroom Society is holding a Wild Mushroom Fair at the LA County Arboretum. To prepare for the fair, they held several mushroom forays that were open to the public. I thought this would be a great opportunity to start learning about finding my own edible wild mushrooms so I signed up for a foray in the Santa Monica Mountains. Thanks to the increased rainfall, the mushrooms were out in abundance this year. In just 2 hours time, we collected 4 giant coolers worth of mushrooms. Several people never made it out of the picnic area. You were in danger of stepping on a mushroom with ever step you took. Later, a smaller party went to another park and gathered even more mushroom varieties.

We soon filled the tables up with different mushroom types.

We found some big chanterelles.

And some really big chanterelles. They’ll be at the fair if someone doesn’t accidentally eat them first.

Can you tell them apart from the false chanterelles that will make you sick?

I saw more mushrooms than I had ever seen in my life. Some were obvious.

Really obvious.

Some were less so.

My personal highlight was finding this little teal blue mushroom, which is apparently quite rare. The mycologists were very excited! You can see it at the fair tomorrow.

The mushroom fair is on Sunday, February 14, 2010, at the LA Arboretum, 10am-4pm. I am told that visitors will get a kit to grow their own oyster mushrooms at home. Maybe I’ll see you there.

Surfas just sent me an email informing me that one of their January visiting chef classes was Butchering Basics.

Me: I am so there!
The Boyfriend: I think you will like that less than you think.
Me: Why?
The Boyfriend: Butchering Basics? They’ll probably bring in a whole pig and show you how to break it down.
Me: God, I hope so.
The Boyfriend: Oh…maybe you will like it then.

I don’t know why The Boyfriend keeps trying to dissuade me from doing things that are absolutely awesome because they might turn out to be awesome. Later tonight we will have a conversation centered around his belief that being an astronaut sucks because you’d get to go into space.

UPDATE!!!! The class is being taught by Ryan Farr, the guy whose blog introduced me to the greatest and most aptly named charcuterie technique of all time, Cured Rolled Face. If this is any indication, 2010 is going to be pretty damn sweet.

In order to best shamelessly pander to my video-gaming cohorts in the confectionary exchange, I decided that a two pronged approach was necessary. In addition to appealing to their gullet, I also needed to appeal to their hearts. This was necessary if I wanted to maintain the illusion that I know what I’m doing in a kitchen. Therefore, in addition to making the spectacularly un-photogenic but quite delicious world peace cookies and chocolate toffee cookies , I also made a batch of TF2 themed cookies based on the much coveted hats.

I started with the Cooks Illustrated rolled butter cookie, butterscotch variation.

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg plus 1 yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2.5 cups all purpose flour

Cream the butter, sugar, and salt until airy and fluffy. Beat in the yolk and then the egg and vanilla. When well mixed, add flour and mix at slow speed until just combined. Divide into 4 pieces and wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.

I seem to have more trouble than most when actually rolling these out, which may be because I live in Southern California and preheating the oven just warms the kitchen up too much to make this easy. The best solution I found was to let the dough firm up and roll it out into sheets 1/8 inch thick and re-refrigerate in sheet form. After 20 minutes, I cut out the cookies and don’t have to wrestle with flaccid dough.

For these cookies I used a cutter about 2.5″ in diameter, which were done in 8 minutes at 375° F.

Let cookies cool completely before icing.

Icing
makes 2.5 cups, which is a little more than needed for the amount of cookies made with the above recipe

4 cups of royal icing sugar (you can substitute confectioner’s sugar and add 1/2 tsp vanilla extract)
2 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar (found in the spice section of the grocery store, not the baking section)
2 teaspoons water

Everything I learned about royal icing I learned from Sweetopia, so your best bet is to follow her tutorial. I had a hard enough time wrangling a piping bag and royal icing without stopping to take pictures. She’s a pro.

Beat all ingredients with a mixer at slow speed until combined, then beat at medium speed until stiff peaks form. Slowly add in more water by the teaspoon until you get icing that regains a smooth surface in about 5-10 seconds when the surface is disturbed. Using a number 2 piping tip, make just the circular outline for each cookie. Let harden. Your first cookies will be ready to be flooded about the time you finish the last cookie.

Dilute the royal icing for the flooding by adding in a few more drops of water. Quickly zig-zag over the interior of the cookie and fill it in as best you can. Gently shake the cookie to redistribute the icing and make a smooth, even surface. Use a toothpick to pop any large air bubbles that form. Your cookie surfaces should be nice and shiny.

Let cookies dry overnight. Because I’m a wuss, I didn’t draw the hats on using more royal icing. I just used these food coloring pens. I practiced sketching out the hats that I wanted to draw and then took the ugliest cookie and started drawing. The colors do have a tendency to bleed into each other, your best bet is to draw outlines and then fill in later.

Heed my warning and package these carefully as the icing is fairly brittle. At least one package of my beloved hats arrived with some reassembly required.

from: ronnie
to: GabeN@valvesoftware.com
date: Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 7:57 PM
subject: I made TF2 hat pack cookies.

They are butterscotch flavored. Unfortunately, all you will be
receiving is a batch of flare guns and a jar of pee.

Love,

Ronnie

Attached Image: IMG_1414-1.jpg
——————-

from: GabeN
to: ronnie
cc: Robin Walker <Robin@valvesoftware.com>
subject:  RE: I made TF2 hat pack cookies.

I’d rather have the cookies.

People sometimes ask me what kind of sandvich I eat. Here is the breakdown:

Ciabatta bread, toasted.

Melted Provolone cheese.

Turkey, seasoned with freshly ground black pepper.

Heirloom tomato, thickly cut.

Guacamole.

More toasted ciabatta bread drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

In honor of TF2 releasing 18 new hats, raccoon and lobster is releasing a hat pack as well

Just don’t use them to do something like this. It’s embarassing and beneath you.

Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center found that when they injected the compound Brilliant Blue G (BBG) into rats suffering spinal cord injuries, the rodents were able to walk again, albeit with a limp. The only side effect was that the treated mice temporarily turned blue.

On the one hand, yay Science! On the other hand, jumping Jesus H. Christ, there are some crazy ass dyes being used in our food products. On the gripping hand, blue rats!