Friday, August 1, 2008
Party Mix Snack Tray: Tasty Tidbits For A Freaky Friday
Posted by Jim Ridley on Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 9:31 AM
Think of this post as an online See's Candies sampler—a box of assorted goodies you can peruse at your leisure, until you either have to get some work done (or pantomime it brilliantly enough to fool your boss) or your eyes gently flutter to a close.
• At Tupperware Avalanche, Fluffernutter provides a recipe for an eye-catching summer drink: cucumber ginger limeade. By "eye-catching" I mean "bizarre enough to make me spray coffee across my keyboard"—until I realized it's not terribly different from either a Pimm's Cup or one of my favorite flavors at Las Paletas. The recipe calls for three limes, but Fluffernutter (peering directly into my heart) adds, "or 1/3 cup frozen limeade concentrate." My only complaint is that I'm guessing vodka is a much more crucial ingredient than she thinks. As for her point about the return of the tautology, it is what it is.
• As with most every delicacy Claudia displays on cook eat FRET, her egg yolk ravioli reminds me of some exotic sea creature in a Jacques Cousteau special: beautiful, mysterious, unapproachable, and unlikely to be encountered by me in my lifetime. If, like me, you want a visit to a strange science-fiction universe where (a) not every meal includes frozen chicken tenders, (b) food is to be consumed and enjoyed at a leisurely pace, not during commercial breaks in Scooby-Doo, and (c) people actually seek out the proper ingredients instead of settling for whatever approximation is 10 for $10 at Kroger, grab a space helmet and decompress. Be warned, though: After these photos, re-entry is a bitch.
• If that's not vacation enough, on Joy of Cooking Joy Ramirez has a lovely travelogue of her journey to the Italian town of Asiago, nestled in the Alpine foothills not far from the Austrian border. After watching Claudia pursue just the right ricotta for her ravioli, it's doubly tantalizing when Joy gets to taste a freshly made, still-warm batch on arrival in a local cheese factory. And is that giant wheel of cheese real, or something cooked up for a gag in a Mars Attacks! sequel?
• Since I won't let Bites go more than six hours without a hot-chicken reference—one more reason you should pray for Carrington's safe return—I direct you to The Great Nashville Hot Chicken Exploration, a band of iron-gutted Indiana Joneses whose mission is to try all the hot chicken Nashville has to offer. How did I miss the news that The Scoreboard near Opry Mills is the latest to serve Beelzebub's bird? The Exploration hasn't tried it yet, so I guess the opposite of a race to the poles is on.
• Congratulations to Heather W. at Nashville Foodies for combining two of life's abiding joys: drive-in movie theaters and Oreos. Lucky Tullahoma has the Montana Drive-In, where patrons can enjoy not only movies under the stars but also a concession stand that offers deep-fried Oreos two for a dollar or five for $2. Laugh all you want—I'm sure they laughed also at the Galileo who discovered the corn dog. "When you bite inside," Heather writes, "the cookie has become soft, I assume from the steam from cooking, and the result is delicious." Note to Heather: make a short roadtrip to the awesome Stardust Drive-In in Watertown just outside Lebanon. It should be a breeze for anyone brave enough to try concession-stand ribs.
• This is new only to me, but The Dry Spot has what may be the best WTF fortune-cookie message I've ever read. At least since the fake ones Penn & Teller made that said things like "That lump is cancer" or "Don't get on the plane!" If you've found an equally odd message, send it in!
Comments (8)
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Spinelli's Pizza in Louisville also does deep-fried oreos. Think beignet with a chocolate, gooey center. Outstanding....
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I had deep-fried Oreos at the Houston Rodeo this past March. They were delicious, but nothing compared to the deep-fried Moon Pie at the RC Cola and Moon Pie Festival
ScottJ and Kira: thanks for the tips. Being a sucker for arcane regional food events—I'm looking at you, Gladeville Sweet Potato Festival—I've always wanted to go to the Moon Pie event. Is it batter-dipped or wrapped in some kind of phyllo-like pastry?
What happens to the white Oreo filling? I'm not sure I want to know, but it should be recorded in the name of science.
Completely OT, related to Kira's blog: Beer sounds like a great base for the fajitas marinade. I wonder whether a lager would leave too much of a mossy aftertaste.
We sampled deep fried Oreos, as well as deep fried twinkies (banana and regular), and deep fried nutter butters at the 16 & Under Babe Ruth League State Tournament held this year at Homer Hatchett Park in Cookeville TN. The town seems to be the epicenter of the fast food and chain restaurant world. Not an independent to be found, high or low. Not even BBQ. The concession stand at the ballpark was run by a sweet woman and her two girls. The deep fried sweets were on the Deep Fried Items section of the concession stand menu that also included fish sandwiches, cheese sticks and jalapeno poppers. We assume they separated the savory and sweet in exclusive Fry Daddies. When I asked her what a deep fried oreo was she looked at me as if I had just landed from Mars and explained it was an oreo, dipped in Bisquick batter, deep fried and sprinkled with powdered sugar. It made us think of Oreos encased in funnel cake dough. Every time a foul ball was hit out of the park, the PA guy came on and said, "Bring the ball back to the concession stand and turn it in for a tasty treat." The treat was your choice of DF oreo, nutter butter or twinkie. Our catcher's younger brother was an outstanding foul ball retriever. By the second night of the tournament,he had so many DF tasty treats he was sick as a dog. The DF banana twinkies were a big hit in the dugout. After winning 4 consecutive games, including beating the home team once, we lost the championship game--to the home team. Must have been the tasty treats.
