It's not goodbye, just consolidating!

Rightio, thanks for following my adventures all of these years! I'm starting to take food into a serious direction and I don't have the capacity or hours in the day to keep updating multiple blogs. I'm migrating over to Escoffiette for food adventures , keeping my BLT/IDM? facebook page active for music recommendations and I'll be writing more about music on (For the) Love of the Band again. I'm going to let this domain expire but I'll keep this blog online as an archive / check list of things to make again !

So please make sure you're following me on my various social media accounts!

For food adventures:
Escoffiette Tumblr
Escoffiette Facebook
@Escoffiette on Twitter

For my music adventures:

BLT / IDM? on Facebook
(For the) Love of the Band
The Shortsleeves (my band)

To keep track of me:

@jdelavegs on Twitter
My tumblr

Behind the scenes of this week's Randwiches + I'm going on TOUR!

Let's talk about mushrooms. Growing up, I was never a fan of mushrooms. I picked them off my Costco-everything pizza. My fork skirted around them in pasta and good lord, I wouldn't touch anything with mushroom gravy on it. In fact, when I was working at a restaurant, my least favorite task was cleaning, chopping and sauteeing 3 bulk boxes of assorted mushrooms. Something magical happened over the Summer of 2009. Perhaps it was the forcible fact that I had to try everything I was cooking at the restaurant, but I started to adore mushrooms. Or maybe I had only encountered mere plebian button 'shrooms in the past! No, it was the water content. It was the squishy texture and the fact that I didn't know about deglazing yet. As you cook mushrooms, their walls start to break down and release water (this is the phase that I hate). I'm of the opinion that you're lazy if you stop here. I learned to revive the flavor and create a yummy sauce by adding wine or cream! Oh ho ho, the places you'll go !

Over the years, I've gone back and forth between butter and olive oil; when do I add the onions and what spices should I use? My new friend Mattias (composer of the game Cobalt !) sent me a Jamie Oliver episode about Sweden. Jamie went foraging for chanterelles and fried them over an open fire. His technique was familiar but the order of action was different from what I was used to. I'm used to heating up spiced olive oil, adding onion, the mushrooms and then the wine or cream. Instead, Jamie first dried the mushrooms out in the clean pan.


Here, I have chopped crimini, shitake and oyster mushrooms tossing around over medium heat. We're doing this so the little caps can collect more flavors! I toss them around for a couple minutes, some bits will stick to the pan. That's alright.

Next, a good 2-3 tablespoons of butter went into the pan with sliced shallots. This is very neurotic thing that I do, but I slice the shallots into rings, but I don't separate them. If you separate the shallots (or onions) into rings before you sear them, they're more likely to break in the stirring process. Let them come apart on their own in the pan.

Ok, I am having a moment. Butter, swirling. Yes.


You can see that the edges of the mushrooms are getting browner and the shallots are getting softer. I like to add a couple pinches of salt around this time, things start to get a little sweaty.

Maybe I like to see bubbles or hear the SCHISHHHHHHHH of the pan when I add liquids to mushrooms, but I turn the heat up all the way when I think the little babies look thirsty.


This is where you scrape the bottom of the pan for that lovely declacage (yup, there's a name for recovering the burned bits at the bottom of the pan for sauce). I let the cream sizzle there for about 30 seconds before I stir it up. It needs a second to bind with the butter. Just two quick turns and I turn the heat off. If you keep the heat on, the cream will reduce too much and you'll get more of a paste than a gravy-like sauce.

I fed my 50th sandwich to Kim Wong! Here is the finished sandwich with creamy mushrooms, red cabbage and kashkaval. Are you brave enough to eat a random sandwich? Next available delivery day is Monday 3/21. You can also schedule delivery far in advance or for someone else! Fill out the order form at Escoffiette! 

Why am I taking a break from deliveries? My band, The Shortsleeves, is going on tour ! You're all invited to our kick-off show this Tuesday (3/8) at Fontana's !

We were going to print up shirts (see sweet design by Gideon on the left), but our travel costs are a little more than we could handle. Please come and see us if you can! If you’re unable to attend,consider donating a couple bucks on our Bandcamp page.


(_/¯~_~)_/¯ THE SHORTSLEEVES BLACK WHITE TOUR ¯\_(~_~¯\_)

3/8/2011 - New York, NY -  Fontana’s with Burnkit 2600, Beta Club Field Trip + InvaderBacca

3/10/2011 - Rochester, NY -  The Bug Jar with Revingineers and Walmart Supercenter

3/12/2011 - Philadelphia, PA - 8static with Bit Shifter, Kris Keyser + The C-Men

3/13/2011 - Boston, MA - PAX East / Boston8Bit Chip Showcase with glomag + Corset Lore, Disasterpeace, facundo, 7th Gear

3/15/11 at The Apohadian (Portland, ME) with Computer at Sea and The Gloaming

Behind the scenes of this week's Randwiches!

I've been itching to somehow convert Filipino stew into sandwich form. A lot of the dishes have sabaw or broth, so you have to eat it as a soup or over rice. The big favorite in my family is chicken adobo. You can pretty much "adobo" any kind of protein, but chicken was always the best. It is a simmered stew of garlic, vinegar, bay leaf (aka laurel leaves), fresh ground pepper and soy sauce. Because I was brining my chicken breasts, I diluted the sabaw with water. Your bread or rice will not be enough to balance all of that salt! 

First I seared the chicken so they would form a crust and then marinated them cold in the sabaw for about 4 hours. Next, I brought the pot to a boil and let it simmer for a couple of hours; turning the chicken so it was getting even flavoring. When the chicken was cooked through, I turned the heat off and let the chicken rest in the juices. Typical adobo takes 20-30 minutes, but I wanted to make sure these thick chicken breasts were injected with flavor!

How could I tweak this recipe without distracting from the main flavor palate? I broke out a jar of ground habanero paste that I bought from Cozumel, Mexico. The tiny kick was just what the sabaw needed. You only need 1/2 of a teaspoon per 4 pounds of chicken. Otherwise, you're probably going to sweat and cry after one bite.

With my protein out of the way, I had to think about condiments. When you have a sandwich, there's an acid and a base. Mustard and mayo. I didn't have any mustard on hand, so I had to think hard about acids in Filipino cuisine. Ah, the vinegar stuff. I don't know what it's called, but there was always a dish of it sitting on the dining room table. It's simply white vinegar with sliced onion, garlic, crushed peppercorns and maybe a chili pepper. It's basically pickle brine. I grew up spooning it on chicharones, fish and pork. It was like the phenomena of Sriracha, where you put it on pretty much everything.


I have a love / hate relationship with mayo. I try not to buy it from a jar, but it's so time consuming to make the "legit" way by hand. Also, it is whipped oil. That fact never gets past me and depending how full I already feel, the thought sometimes makes me a little sick. I've found solace in Latin American cremas. It's not actually mayo, it's akin to creme fraiche or sour cream. I think it tastes fuller and whips up real thick! I took a cup of crema and blended it with scallions, pepper and juice from an orange (not pictured).

Now we need some texture. I tend to go with cabbage because its crunch lasts longer when in transit and they become more complex, from bitter to mellow sweet, when heated up. I can also made a hearty cabbage soup with the leftovers! And seriously, I picked the red cabbage because it looked better with the chicken and cream more so than the green cabbage. God, who am I? Who thinks about that kind of thing? X_x

Are you brave enough to eat a random sandwich? Next available delivery days are Monday (2/28), Thursday (3/3) and Friday (3/4). You can also schedule delivery far in advance or for someone else! Fill out the order form at Escoffiette!

Homemade Chicago faildogs and Elotedogs

 

Resident Tall Guy Jeff and I were hungover one groggy Sunday morning. We didn't know what to cook. We've tried in earnest to hang out for weeks and do this cooking thing regularly. But you know, life takes over (or you go to Sweden to shoot SWEET DOCUMENTARIES). I slouched on the armchair and picked up a copy of an Alton Brown book. We took turns showing each other recipes. My eyes went big for Alton's homemade corndogs. Oh man I love corn dogs. When I was little, I used to sneak off to Hot Dog on a Stick and get a corn dog as well as "cheese on a stick." My mind sort of exploded at the thought of having corndogs ready to fry in my freezer, we had to make these. We first had to remedy the hangovers. Jeff made us micheladas or bloody mary beers by grating onion in to the can and adding the fixings for a spicy kick in the mouth.

Firstly, we speared regular ol' hot dogs from the store with a pair of skewers. One skewer is not enough to hold up a hot dog, a chop stick or popsicle stick is probably better!

The batter was an amazingly thick paste with whole kernels of corn, buttermilk, flour, baking powder, corn meal, onion, and chopped jalapeno. Before we dipped them in the batter, we coated the dogs with a thin layer of corn starch.

A cool discovery that we made is that you can make buttermilk at home with regular milk and a little acid !

Jeff heated vegetable oil in his fancy cast iron dutch oven and monitored the temperature with his fancy thermometer. Our little corn doggies were deep fried for about 4 minutes until they were golden brown.

Here are the finished corn dogs resting on a rack with a towel under it so 1) the bottom batter side doesn't get soggy and 2) we drain some of that oil away for extra crispiness.

Now for the twists ! We attempted to make a Chicago corndog by spicing the inside with celery seed and dressing the finished morsel with pickles and two different kinds of ketchup. The hot dog inside was so salty that it killed any flavor we tried to add. Lesson learned.


We encountered the same salty problem with the elote-dog but gosh darn it, that was an amazing idea! I wonder if we could find a mild chorizo to go with this version. We took a finished corn dog and slathered it with mexican crema infused with lime zest. Next, we rolled it in cotija cheese and finished it with chopped shallots and cilantro. I really loved biting into them and finding whole kernals of corn. The texture wasn't just a shell, it was a meal !

It looks so exciting doesn't it?

Help kickstart 2 Player's documentary, Minecraft: The Story of Mojang

Alright detectives, it should be abundantly clear by now. I was in Sweden this past December stalking the Mojang office for 2 Player's upcoming Minecraft documentary. We were initially only going to release a 20 minute short about it, but it wasn't right. There were too many unanswered questions and while I was sick-napping in one of the empty office rooms, Mojang was nominated for 3 major Independent Games Festival awards. For the next 32 days, I'll be hosting the Kickstarter widget on the BLTIDM sidebar. You can check out the progress as well as help fund the project. While the budget is hefty at $150k, think about crappy movies that are released in theaters that dump millions of dollars into production. Even if we reach funding, 2 player is still an independent entity run by 3 core members with an extra hand or two to hold a boom (AHEM...like me). Money is not going to sports cars or brown M & Ms or to Mojang. The rules of Kickstarter prevent groups from raising "operating costs" and the money remains tied to the project itself.

Anyway, here's the 6 minute trailer! You can watch the full 20 minute piece at Game Trailers.

Behind the scenes of this week's surprise sandwich deliveries!

Wow ! This week, we doubled Escoffiette surprise sandwich deliveries! You guys, this is awesome! Let me give you the skinny on the little beauties this week.

I was so stoked to find sliced Japanese Kobe roast beef ! It was a little pricey but I was willing to take the risk on it. When I unwrapped it and tried a bit, it was so tender and naturally flavorful. When I was handling the meat for the sandwiches, I had to pretend it was like delicate cheesecloth and could fall apart in my hands. Look at that marbling!

Toma Piedmontese is a semisoft cheese from Italy. Tommes are those grainy looking drums or they look like giant corks. I wanted a sturdy cheese for the beef as well as the essence of robiola (which was too runny and expensive for this sandwich). The toma performed above and beyond my expectations.

For some crunch, I bought farm fresh arugula. It was long, leafy, bitter and peppery. Hm, how to counteract that without sacrificing crunch? I had some onion jam and it took the bite down a notch.

I needed another layer of flavor that would survive in my bag without making the bread soggy (like oil or mayo would). When I make steak at home, I love love love finishing it with a pat of garlic and chive butter.  For the sandwich, I used scallions for their mild onion flavor and for more texture with the soft salted butter. Everything went together beautifully! See the final sandwich at the bottom of this post!

I also had a chorizo variation on wheat bread. After I made all of my deliveries, my friend Kerry was having a housewarming party and I surprised her with a bunch of chorizo and nutella sandwiches on soft wheat buns. Her roommate kept trying to hide pieces in the fridge away from the other party guests! I consider this one a winner, it'll go into rotation for sure.

Are you brave enough to eat a random sandwich? Next available delivery days are Monday (2/21), Thursday (2/24) and Friday (2/25). You can also schedule delivery far in advance or for someone else! Fill out the order form at Escoffiette!

Pancit with bacon fat seared chicken, chorizo and stir fried vegetables

Back in November, I raided my mother's kitchen for non-perishable items. I think my luggage contained more foodstuffs than clothing or toiletries. One of my treasures was mung bean or rice stick noodles aka glass noodles aka vermicelli, the basis of pancit (pronounced PUN-SIT). These things last forever! If you've ever been to a Filipino party, there is likely a large catering pan of these orangey looking noodles. Much like Chinese tradition, my family ate noodles on birthdays and the new years to symbolize long lives. Unlike the flour and egg based Italian angel hair, these threads are much thinner and soak up a lot of the broth that you cook them in. The white noodles come in dried out bricks that you have to soak in water before you stir fry them. Be careful not to soak them for too long, they just need to be pulled apart. If they soak up too much water, they won't be as flavorful.

Get ready for this, pancit has a giant mire poix! The essentials for pancit are garlic, ginger, cabbage and shredded carrots. The other stuff is optional and can be switched out. Here, we have chorizo, squash, snow peas, celery as well as cilantro and lemons for the garnish. You will also need broth!

For our protein, Jeff and I pan cooked a couple chicken breasts in bacon fat. After they rested, we sliced them into bite sized pieces.

Stir-frying is tricky. You want a high temperature wok with a wooden spoon or chop sticks ready for this, it moves fast.

1. Oil - Olive oil won't work here. You need high heat oil like veggie, canola or peanut. Safflower might work too.
2. Garlic - I know it's counter intuitive to do this but the bitter garlic is purposeful! If you still want sort of a kick, only start with half of the garlic and stir the rest in towards the end.
3. Ginger - Get that flavor infused into the oil right away, it will coat everything else that follows.
4. Carrots - These have so much water and take the longest to cook. Leave these in until they soften, they will have a chance to brown as you cook everything else.
5. Celery - Also carries a ton of water but shorter cooking time than carrots.
6. Any other vegetables, except for leafy ones (in our case, hold off on the cabbage and cilantro).
7. Chorizo - I don't like to cook these too early in the mix because they will leak their oily paprika goodness everywhere. If you have access to Chinese sausage, GO FOR THAT. It's great with cilantro too.
8. Chicken - It's already cooked, so it can go in relatively late.

Everything should be really hot and brown on the edges now! This is when you WOOSH, pour in the broth carefully. There will be steam, do not splash! It will be a world of pain! Lower your heat and lay your drained vermicelli noodles on the broth. You'll see that the tangles will become the color of your stir fry. Pull from the bottom of the noodles with tongs until it's mixed through and absorbing everything. Some people like to flavor their pancit with patis (fish sauce) or soy sauce. I try to keep the excess salt out of there. 

Now for the fun layering! Turn off the heat and toss in the cabbage, it will wilt slightly with the hot noodles but still yield a good crunch. In the serving dish, I sprinkled bits of cilantro between layers of noodles. In the end, I topped it all with a quick fry of bitter garlic slices, freshly cut lemons and more cilantro. More traditional versions of pancit have hard boiled eggs, chopped scallions and crushed pork rinds!

Have you had pancit before?

Homemade Takoyaki and other Japanese Delights

I really bonded with Christophe (also known as Note!) and Meghan on our way back from MagFest. They had spent 3 years living in Japan and invited me to their Brooklyn home to make tako-yaki! If you've been watching my eating habits for the last 6 months, you'd know that I have been obsessed with the little gastropod cakes. It was a lot like a fondue party! Other friends Josh and EMi arrived with an epic bag of craft beers (left). We set up an electric grill with a tako pan in the living room and we all got to help. Meghan ladled the batter, I put in the squid (we didn't have octopus), Josh and EMi worked on the mushroom fontina balls (pfff vegetarian) and Christophe added pickled ginger and scallions.

Once the molds were filled, they were left to cook. When the skin is formed, you carefully take chopsticks and flip the balls quickly. It took all the power in my body to resist from eating the undone ones. I was soooo hungry. While we waited, Meghan brought out miso soup and edamame.

 

 Hot off the grill pan, the ika-yaki (is that right?) were topped with Kewpie mayo, tako sauce, seaweed flakes, more pickled ginger and bonito. I love the large sheets of bonito because they wave in the air when steam hits them. We made another half-pan after the first batch. I loved how crispy they got on the outside and gooey on the inside. Squid was actually much easier to eat and didn't have the chewy ew-factor of octopus. For dessert, I helped make mochi for our red bean soup. I ate two bowls of it, #fattie. We had been talking all night and sipped on things like chili tea, sake and plum liquor. I had so much fun hanging out! My turn to cook next time!

My first surprise sandwich deliveries to Manhattan!

 

My random sandwich project at Escoffiette is starting to get exciting! I decided to not limit myself to Brooklyn deliveries and got a couple orders for Manhattan. Here are the sandwiches from that day:

• Bresaola, smoked mayo, duck salami, and onion jam on rosemary foccacia

• Braised bratwurst, onions, chopped leeks and dill on walnut bread

• Stewed chicken, balsamic carrots, dill, and onion jam on french bread 

• Moroccan tuna sandwich (preserved lemon, olives, cornichons) on french bread

I actually ate that last one (and hence, didn't have a photo) because my delivery at MTV invited me to sit down and hang out, which I was very happy to do ! Special thanks to Peter, Mark and Jimmy for being my guinea pigs! 

Interested in helping test the service? Read about it here.

 

  

My trip to Magfest #9 - Day 2, Evening + Unexpectedly Meeting Michel Richard

The sun started to fade away from the cracks between the curtains and more people started to fill into the concert hall.George and Jonathan walked onto the stage with their trademark highlighter-bright hoodies. I made sure to shimmy my way to the front for this audio assault. After several false starts of what sounded like The Best Christmas album, they actually began the set with a chill track called "Whales." See the video below!

Philly's resident power trio of chip, Cheap Dinosaurs, closed out the chip showcase and we couldn't have asked for a more appropriate set to amp us up for playing more games. 

 I was fiercely hungry after the show and decided to check out Finn & Porter, the restaurant in the hotel (because sorry, MagFest, your in-house catering wasn't very healthy). It wasn't crowded and there was a sushi chef, I got really excited. I braced myself for really high prices, but the chirashi wasn't actually that bad. It was $12.00 for a bunch of raw fish over rice. We didn't know we were buying into a 2 hour meal. Not only did our order take forever, there was one lone server handling almost the whole front of the house. My bowl of fish was gone in under 5 minutes. They also gave us 2 soy sauce packets per person. As we were finishing up, a couple of us left to get cash from an ATM. We ran into a distraught friend who told us that MagFest was going to go bonkers because the ATM was broken. We went back to tell our server and ask if we could have separate checks for cards and she gave me the dirtiest sneer as she walked away. Hey, I'm sorry you're slammed at work but it isn't my fault ! It was such a negative experience that this restaurant doesn't even deserve a hyperlink. And yes, I'm still pretty mad about it.

We needed to relax! Our hotel suite quickly turned into a crazy party complete with 90's rap jams, Bomberman projected on the wall, refreshments and a surprise set by Dauragon that almost got us kicked out of the hotel. Pardon the extra dirty video, I recorded it on an ipod touch (didn't even know you could do that).


Dauragon C. Mikado @ MAGfest 9 from Dauragon C. Mikado on Vimeo.

To escape the po-po, I went downstairs to play a shit ton of DDR (got schooled by the Red Power Ranger) and retro arcade cabinets. Got pretty far on Frogger and decimated on Mappy, it is SO HARD.  After I took a bathroom break, there was a dance circle forming and as I walked by, a crazy asshat decided to start doing the worm. On his way down, he kicked me in the bum very hard. My immediate reaction was to turn around and yell "F**k you!" He looked very hurt and acted like he didn't do anything wrong. Instead of saying sorry, he complained that I cursed at him. I said, "What do you do if someone surprises you with a kick in the ass?" Really. It was getting very late and spent gamers were passing out on the floor in our hotel suite. I had the most-awesome-extreme distinction of staying at someone's house in Maryland, in my own bed. I quickly took up the offer and woke up to an amazing bagel brunch complete with lox. At the time, I had no idea that the jolly Frenchman sitting next to me was none other than Chef Michel Richard! He kept poking at me and told me that I ate a lot for a girl my size. If he had seen the food at MagFest, he'd be starving too. Of course, I failed to tell him that I'm an aspiring cook in New York City but I have a feeling that this won't be the last time he pokes at me.

All in all, MagFest was a great time and good opportunity to bridge the gap between music and gaming. While some of the edges desire some polish, it's a fan-run event that refreshes the palate of commercial franchises. 'Cause sometimes in your face marketing and limited demo play leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.