Hey - Butter IS Dairy!

Turns out my Chocolate Fudge Pie recipe isn't dairy free. Oops!

Cheese baked into bread - Give Thanks!

This year for Thanksgiving, I decided that the only way to celebrate the arrival of the Mayflower along with the Pilgrims which led to much future merriment with the Native Americans was to bake a chocolate pie. Nothing says, "Hello! We come in peace, but there will be horrible horrible consequences for your people!" like a delicious DAIRY-FREE chocolate fudge pie. I found a nice recipe in a 1950 "The Best of Gourmet Cooking." You know, when recipes all assumed a certain base of cooking knowledge so they're very short and sparse, "peak the egg whites, fold into the mixture, bake in a moderate oven." These days the recipes are like "turn on the oven: if you have an electric stove, you'll do this by a dial at the top. For gas stoves, you might have to be sure the pilot light is on..."

I had to buy some good hardcore unsweetened chocolate (yeah, that's right. That's for those of us who are truly hardcore) for the recipe, so I had to fight the Thanksgiving crowds and get myself to Metropolitan Market. I was trying to be good and restrain myself when I saw that there were free samples out in the food "porn" specialty area. And what samples they were - brioche with brie! Yep, a lovely brioche with a wheel of brie baked right into it. Each of the sliced samples was lovingly placed in an earth-killing plastic cup. And not only that, there are other condiments to add to the brioche with brie, brandied cranberries! Yum! Let's see, for those keeping score at home, that's fat (brie), carbs (brioche), and alcohol (brandied). The brioche is a light bread that complements the creamy brie perfectly, which leads me to muse:

Which is the condiment? You see I said "there are other condiments to add to the brioche with brie." That means I consider the brioche or the brie a condiment. Something that enhances the other. In this case, I would consider the brie a condiment for the brioche, mostly because you could also spread the brie on the brioche.

I can give thanks that I have enough abundance in my life to afford these lovely luxuries. That I can toss these in the basket for all to enjoy while the kiddies put on a Thanksgiving pageant that involved Baby Balsamic playing with a yo-yo while a solemn 11-year old intoned "And the Pilgrim women took care of the sick and the children." Baby Balsamic let out a laugh, not acting very sick. She also enjoyed the brandied cranberries.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Condiment Grrl

The Secret Ingredient

At the headquarters of my corporate masters (no, Virginia, blogging about condiments is not a cash cow), there is a cafeteria which gets a B- on condiments. Standard oil and vinegar offered at the salad bar, but also balsamic vinegar (it's the new black) and olive oil vs. your standard vegetable oil. They only offer tabasco in little plastic packets, not by the bottle anymore.

This trend towards little plastic packets vs. the full bottle is disturbing to me. An indication of the general trend in our society towards insular living, holed up with our plastic media devices spewing light rays in high definition at us (of course, I type this sitting at said same object) vs. being out in the giant bottle of humanity.

Anyway, I usually get a salad, but this day they offered a tantalizing pulled pork mojito wrap with an Orange Chile sauce. The sauces are usually fine, but on this day, as I watched the nice woman behind the counter steaming up the tortilla, I noticed that the bowl containing the sauce for the wrap looked awfully homemade. So I inquired about its origin. Turns out, this lovely woman working in a corporate cafe which would bring me to my knees and/or a morphine habit in about 2 minutes, made the sauce herself. I was a tad surprised - I thought all these things came out of a bottle.

She gave me a taste and I tried to discern all the ingredients. I really, really wish I was better at this. I always wanted to be one of those people who take a sip of wine, then reel out "clearly contained in an oak barrel made of oaks from the northwest region of California, probably the small forest outside the town of Booneville, a man wearing boots that had tracked through blackberries walked over the dirt where the grapes grew, and a plane route flying a load of Florida citrus on a regular run flew over the vineyard twice a day, except on Sunday...."

I managed to guess olive oil. And that was it. It turns out she reduced orange juice (which I didn't know you could do), added Chipotle peppers, paprika for color, and the secret ingredient? She gave me a sly smile..."Dijon mustard."

I didn't guess it. I should have turned in my condiment grrl badge (Man, a condiment badge would have kept me in the girl scouts, but noooooooo, only stupid things like knots).

There was this crazy energy around the revelation of the secret ingredient. The furtive joy in knowing something only you know. Like having a secret crush, knowing that you see one additional thing in someone that no one else sees, that turns somebody you know into somebody special. We all have a secret ingredient. What's yours?

Condiment Grrl

The Family that Eats Mustard together...

Tonight, at Sunday dinner, we served a yummy pot roast with assorted vegetables (including purple potatoes!). As is my wont, I put out two condiment jars on the table: cream-style horseradish and my new favorite Lemon Dill mustard from Earth & Vine. I like mixing the earthy, sinus-clearing experience of the mustard with the delicate lemon infused mustard. Now, for those of you keeping score at home, I am already on my second jar of my new favorite mustard. And it's approximately $8 a jar. No worries -- it's all coming out of Baby Balsamic's college fund. There will be no college after the oceans raise and flood out humanity; I'm just going to teach her how to surf and wear sunscreen. Lots and lots of sunscreen.

Big Daddy Condiment was over tonight and after sampling the Lemon Dill mustard, held up the jar and said, "Would you mind if I just dumped the contents of this jar straight into my mouth?"

And here's one for the baby book: Baby Balsamic asked for "condiments" with her dinner. It was the first time I can remember her using the word "condiment." It's almost as memorable as the first time she said "Mama," which I actually can't remember now.

Baby Balsamic's habit and the cost of the jar did give me pause as she went through piles of the expensive mustard with her dinner, just like I do. Everytime there was a hole on her plate, she would say "More mustard, please." I think she ate about $3 worth with her meal. The beef cost more. Ah well, now she will never have bad diseases due to the turmeric content.

Clearly, I was switched at birth with someone like Paris Hilton, so Baby Balsamic should be eating only the finest condiments off of silver plates in our summer home on the French Riviera. Wolfgang Puck would create a special ketchup just for us to eat at the grand openings of all his flagship stores, we would attract so much attention.

Condiment Grrl

What does this say about me?

I've always thought that you could see the entire history of my life if you just rifle through enough of my t-shirts. A unique time-and-place imprint lurks beneath the cotton and iron-on decals that define my existence on this planet; a fabric piece of a puzzle that combine to create my own unique soul-DNA:

"Esperanto!" (My father was the president of the Esperanto society.)

"Hardy Boys Fan Club" (I don't want to hear about it. And yes, Shaun was my favorite.)

"UU - Liberal Religious Youth" (you know who you are)

"It will be a great day when the schools have all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber." (Still so true.)

"Peace Now" (Yes, I was a Berkeley girl. This shirt is purple with a pretty tree.)

"Ugly from the Front" (You have to be a Lyle Lovett fan to understand this one.)

"Davis Whole Earth Festival" (You had to be there to understand.)

"San Francisco Mime Troupe" (Not silent Mimes! Go here for more info.)

"Clinton/Gore '92" (Sigh.)

"Righteous Babe." (You gotta know the music of Ani DiFranco.)

"Condiment Phrenology." What's that you say? You've never heard of this shirt? Well, I just found out today when I received my mailing from the Mount Horeb Mustard Museum. I LOVE the whole "This is Your Brain on..." jokes. There can never be too many of those for me. They always crack me up. And this one just spoke to me, to my soul in a way that sang of new depths of my experience, of my life, and my emotions.

Mine and Baby Balsamic's should be on its way to us now. You can order yours here. As soon as it gets here, I will pose us both so you can see us for who we are now in our life. Of course, if Baby Balsamic could read, she would be most upset at the message as she worships ketchup as her very favorite vegetable ever.

I can just picture her, decades from now rifling through her very own t-shirt collection, which will hopefully read something like:

"President of the Honor Student Society"

"Official Olympic Women's Soccer Team 2024"

"My Mom is the best Mom ever!"

"Pete Seeger rulz!" (I want her to have a little rebelious phase. Just a little one. It's healthy.)

"Official Society of the Extremely Wealthy, yet Liberal and Giving, Investment Banker types who believe in Supporting their Parents in their Old Age."

Then I can see her in her therapist's office, pulling out a tiny "Condiment Phrenology" t-shirt and saying, "This shirt has always confused me, made me question my identity. I've always loved ketchup, so why should I have a shirt that defames ketchup. It's not right. WHO AM I?"

Then she'll start humming "Puff the Magic Dragon" to herself to calm herself down and fanning herself with a sheaf of 1,000 dollar bills. It's an image to warm a mother's heart.

What t-shirts are hiding in your closet?

Condiment Grrl

Two New Condiments -- So Quit Whining!

I get occasional annoyed emails from people when I don't blog more regularly, but my god, people, "Grey's Anatomy" just came back on the air and I have to be a Mom occasionally and stuff. Important things. Not to mention dragging Baby Balsamic around the neighborhood to extort sugared goodies from the neighbors.

Side note: Baby Balsamic is famous! Here she is with her godfather, the esteemed editor of AfterElton - scroll down just a bit to see her in her snow princess outfit. Tres adorable!

Not only that, but, like the Xmas angel, I bring you glad tidings -- I discovered two delicious new condiments in the last week. Friday was payday, I'd been having a rough time in my corporate fiefdom, and instead of hitting the vodka, I hit the condiment aisle. I've been out of my G*D mustard for awhile and none of the mustards were quite what I wanted as a consistent side accompaniment to chicken or fish or my salad dressing. Oh, don't get me wrong, it was me, not my stable of mustards. I just wasn't in the mood for the pessimistic streak of dijon mustard. I needed lemons and lightness, which I found in spades in the Lemon Dill mustard by Earth & Vine. Such a wholesome, yet fancy-pants liberal gourmet name, but I love that there website has a folksy "n" in the name: www.earthnvine.com. You can just see some old codger, his pants hiked up to armpits, yelling off the porch, "Martha, we won't be needin' to go to the country store, we got the earth n vine place on the interwebs! They say 'n' just like us folks!"

Now, I've tried other mustards by this brand and had been disappointed. So, my eyes kept going past the Lemon Dill until finally, something (the Xmas angel perhaps?) told me to take a look at this one, the baby brother all grown up and ready to pluck. My one word of warning -- if you don't like lemon, don't get this mustard. The tang of the lemon is the strongest flavor in it. Also, the texture is a little watery. Even after opening it and putting it in the fridge for a night. But I couldn't get enough of it today. I enjoyed it with both my lunch and my dinner entrees.

The other new product is a Spicy Tomato Relish by the people who brought us the most awesome Holy Jalapeno jelly, my favorite of the jalapeno jellies out there on the market. Man, like the first product, this one holds no punches -- it just kicks you right in the gut. It is HOT! But tasty. And I'd never had a spicy tomato relish and I liked the rich nightshade flavor of the tomatoes in the relish reduction.

Not only that, but per the website, "Both are very carefully made with the finest quality ingredients available with no preservatives, additives, artificial color or corn syrup. They are also both fat free and have no cholesterol." Awesome! If Baby Balsamic could stomach hot things, I could feed her this with a clear mind while we wait for the glaciers to melt and the earth to heat up to unbearable temperatures.

Thank goodness I have all of her Halloween candy. I need it.

Condiment Grrl