Doughy redemption

As much as I'm opposed to clever names - and rhyming - I don't really mind Wow Bao. Of course it's a Lettuce Entertain You venture and you know this because marketing-wise, it's tight as a Chinese war drum, with a clean, eye-catching logo and that name. It's just so confident. Not many things are Wow these days, and I don't know if Wow Bao really lives up to its name, but hey, LEYE executive types, props to you for trying.

A bao is a Chinese steamed bun with a filling. Pork is probably the most common, and makes the bao into a kind of Chinese slider. A slider is never a bad thing. The dough is like a fine, soft bread dough without the crust. Put peanut butter and jelly inside, and my daughter would eat these for life. The fillings range from thai curry chicken to spicy mongolian beef to whole wheat edamame. They're soft little savory Chinese treats, and with one of their Asian salads or soup, make a respectable lunch.

They also have dessert and breakfast bao, which I haven't tried but fear are a bad mating experiment between Dunkin' Donuts and Chinese takeout. You could put anything inside that dough, but that doesn't mean you should. With that said, I'll keep an open mind and next time, have a coconut custard bao. It sounds gross - all sweet, starchy mush - but I'm willing to take one for the blog.

Wow Bao also has homemade ginger ale, which shot to super stardom years ago at Big Bowl, another Lettuce concept. I've included a rough recipe at the bottom. Not to sound like a second grader but, it's so easy.

If there was a Wow Bao in Evanston, I would go once a week. I would get a Bao combo: two Bao ( I like the Thai curry chicken and spicy Mongolian beef) and a choice of their Asian salads, which are fresh and appropriately Asian-inspired. I would also get the ginger ale. It sort of completes the picture.

Homemade Ginger Ale

1 knob of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced (about the size of a small finger)

1 1/2 cups of sugar

1 1/2 cups water

Seltzer water or Club Soda

First, blanch the ginger by placing it in boiling water for about a minute, then drain. This mellows out the burn of the ginger. Rinse the pot, then put the sugar and cup of water in it along with the drained ginger. Bring to a boil, and boil for a couple of minutes. You're doing this to dissolve the sugar, so only boil it long enough to achieve that. You have now made a ginger simple syrup. Let cool, and store overnight in your fridge, covered.

To make the ginger ale, just add some ginger simple syrup to some seltzer or club soda. Start by adding a Tbs and keep adding until it tastes right to you. Other things you can add to the simple syrup when you add the ginger: citrus zest (just the colored part) or a split vanilla bean. If you want more syrup to make a big batch, just multiply up. The ratio of sugar to water is always 1:1. Assuming your fridge's temp is constant, the syrup should keep for two weeks.

Life, death, and food courts

I had a weak moment the other day and went to a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant. I've always felt that Lettuce Entertain You has singlehandedly made Chicago a B+ restaurant town by marginalizing the dining experience with cutesy tongue-in-cheek themes and even cuter names (Lawrence of Oregano and Johnathan Livingston Seafood tie for Most Heinous).

Shouldn't the theme of a restaurant be good food? I know that sounds completely crazy, but why not? A small neighborhood restaurant where the chef reports to no one, least of all a board of directors, might actually do well. I know we'd be giving up waitresses disguised as wiseass bobby soxers and menus rife with clever lines from the clever in-house ad agency, but it just might work.

We ended up going to Foodlife which, at its inception a dozen or so years ago, was an interesting idea that took on traditional food courts. It offered a multitude of stations, each with a different type of food. Mexican, Italian, BBQ, two types of Asian.....it was pretty much all there, along with the requisite salad and dessert stations. Foodlife promised to be a United Nations kind of food experience, even if it was dumbed down by corporate culture.

In the beginning, the food was well-prepared. The vegetables were colorful, the meat was fresh, and sometimes, the choices were even a little inspired. But last week, sad, pathetic salmon filets sat in pools of cloudy oil and old pasta curled at the edges waiting to be sauced and plated. I was witnessing the slow death of Foodlife.

It's not as if I feel any outrage. I mean, when was the last time you ate at a Lettuce restaurant that wasn't completely rote? Caesar or bibb lettuce salad to start, plainly prepared meat and a small selection of predictable vegetables for the main, and Boston cream pie for dessert. It's like eating at an expensive nursing home for well-to-do Gold Coasters.

I must confess there was another reason I ate there: I found an eight year-old $100 Lettuce Entertain You gift card in a drawer and it was still valid. I now have $53 left on the card. That's enough for two lobster rolls and two diet cokes at Shaw's, the semi-precious jewel in the LEYE crown. It's no Pearl Oyster Bar, but it'll do.

The year of the meatball

I'm adding The Meatball Shop in New York to my to do list and here's why: the build your own meatball dinner. I happen to love all meatballs regardless of size and ethnic origin, so a place that stars different flavors of meatballs partnered with my choice of sauce and carb is not just a restaurant, it's a place of worship.

I have no meatball heritage. Unlike my Italian friends, I didn't have a Nonna with a secret recipe; I had Chef Boyardee Spaghetti-O's and meatballs, the word "meat" here a loose interpretation of its usual meaning, that which comes from a farm animal. Despite this, I have an undeniable emotional attachment, Nonna or no.

The Meatball Shop is a cool little nook on the lower east side. And even though the menu is "build your own," the food looks to be a caliber above that. There are meat options (beef, spicy pork, chicken, and a weekly special, which on one occasion included chopped liver and matzoh meal - the Passover version), a variety of gravies, and a handful of interesting carborific sides. The thin slice of bubbly focaccia is a nice, nice touch.

Conventional wisdom might tell you to choose the beef meatballs with classic tomato sauce and rigatoni, but I would find it especially difficult to turn my back on chicken meatballs with parmesan cream and mashed potatoes, especially at 2 AM, after a night of carousing. The laundry list of green vegetables, from the daily roasted offering to the daily greens, might just assuage my guilt over the parmesan cream. Then again, it might not.

A few of the sides at The Meatball Shop.

If a big plate of meat and carbs doesn't do it for you, they also have sliders (a single meatball of your choice on a cute bun), a hero on a baguette (pork with mushroom sauce and provolone sounds good right about now), or a meatball smash, which is a gimmicky name for a two meatball sub on a brioche bun.

A meatball hero. Love the greens.

Everything from cupcakes to burgers to pizza have had their 15 minutes. Isn't it time we elevate the meatball? I'm thinking a week-long feature on Good Morning America, and a White House photo op where Obama has the prudent chicken meatballs with the sauce on the side and an arugula salad, while Joe Biden proves once again he'll take one for his country by ordering spicy pork meatballs with buttery mashed potatoes and an extra large ladle of spicy meat sauce. Oh, and the bromo? Make that to go.

Playing catch-up

I've been really lax about writing lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't been thoroughly immersed in the wonderful world of food. In the past several weeks,

I ate a bunch of conch in Florida. As it turns out, raw conch bears a very strong resemblance to boogers. I guess I'm not really surprised. I wonder what would happen if you cooked boogers. Would they turn opaque and chewy, like conch? Food for thought.

I also engaged in a cupcake taste-off with the cupcakes at More in Chicago. Sorry, I'm just not that into them. Art direction-wise, they're lovely. But the flavor is eh. My family and I sat down one night and through a highly scientific scoring system, elected a winner. Cupcakes could garner a score of 1 through 4. Individual comments ranged from "I heart chocolate!" to "This one blows." What can I say? We're simpletons. Only one, the Valrhona, a chocolate-glazed chocolate cupcake with chocolate mousse filling, scored marginally above a 3. We also tried the Cookies and Cream (conceptually interesting with crushed chocolate cookie on the bottom, but the frosting was overwrought and greasy), the Salted Caramel (caramel was good, cake was dry), and the Chocolate Chocolate (bland chocolate frosting - what a travesty). I'm sticking with Sweet Mandy B's.

And if you read this blog, you know I made desserts for 60 the other weekend. Here's what I learned:

I'm too old for this.

Caramel is really fucking hot.

And finally, when the cheesecake falls out of the pan and on to the counter the morning of the party, do not panic. Casually run to the store as soon as it opens, buy the ingredients all over again (you can panic a little when you think you can't find the mascarpone), and then break a Patrick Ewing-like sweat as you shift into hyper baking speed, hoping to God that the new, improved cheesecake sets by 4 PM so you can cut it into 60 neat pieces and then caramelize them with your rickety 20 year-old propane torch. It'll work out just fine.

I also set out to eat a Blimpy Burger at the eponymous restaurant in Ann Arbor this past weekend, but went for Mongolian barbecue instead. bd's Mongolian Grill was like a giant stir-fry frat party, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially after a football game. The griddlemen tended my Asian vegetables while they sang along to the restaurant's soundtrack like a group of drunken sailors/engineering majors. They all agreed that Sowing the Seeds of Love by Tears for Fears was completely lame, but sang it anyway. Next time, a few drinking games might be in order. It's just that kind of place.

Back in the saddle again, part 1

Those French, they have a different word for everything. - Steve Martin

In this case, the word is mignardise. Tiny tasty things served at the end of a meal. This week, I'm making Asian-inspired mignardise for an event at an art gallery. After exactly zero seconds of contemplation, I jumped at it. Why torture yourself with self-doubt? How hard can it be? The menu is as follows:

Roasted pineapple financier

Chocolate marquise

Ginger plum cheesecake

Green tea shortbreads

At the top of my grocery list is 5 Hour Energy Drink. I'm not young anymore, and these things have a way of making you curl up in a corner and cry because you've just gotten your ass kicked by a bunch of petit fours.

Besides, anyone who's worked an event knows that events are fraught with mishaps. The first event I ever did was a grand, multi-day gig at a fancy hotel in Maui. It involved making desserts for three different meals over the course of three days in an enormous, unfamiliar hotel kitchen. It also involved making ice cream for 150 as part of the first night's dessert. If anything can kick your ass and make you feel like a complete moron, it's ice cream. But making it isn't the issue. Serving it is.

When it came time for dessert, my chef asked me if the ice cream was broken down. I had no idea what he was talking about, and when he realized I had no idea what he was talking about, the look in his eyes was panic of an order I had never seen.

"You didn't break down the ice cream?" he shrieked.

Breaking down the ice cream is softening it and then dividing it up into three or four containers so that several people can scoop it at one time. If only one person scooped from a giant tub, it would take 2 hours to serve 150 people.

At the time, I didn't know this. Now, I do. It took two large polynesian cooks to whittle away at the huge block of super frozen ice cream. I think they used machetes.

I moved on, thinking how many moments of stupidity can one person have during a three-day event on Maui? But the next night, when it was time to unmold the pineapple financiers for 150 (yes, the same thing I'm making this weekend, only a mini version), those sadistic little almond cakes refused to come out of their molds in one piece. I tried paring knives, tiny offset spatulas, a scalpel. I was terrified. I imagined myself bringing the trays of shredded little financiers to the chef and pleading, Please don't throw a sheet pan at me, an act of pastry retribution by many pastry chefs, mostly French.

It took me over an hour to get them out, just in time for dessert service. A few of them looked like they had been in a dog fight. But the great thing about dessert is that it comes last, after many glasses of wine. No one noticed.

So here I am, anticipating any mishaps, hedging my bets, making my grocery list. Like Tiger Woods, I feel confident. I feel like I'm going to win this one. I'll keep you posted.

Too much of anything

I would so eat this. It's called The Garbage Plate, and it lives at Nick Tahou Hots, a joint in Rochester, New York. Nick Tahou, himself, was the man behind this over-achieving combo platter. You start with your choice of cheeseburger, hamburger, red hots, white hots, italian sausage, chicken tender, haddock, fried ham, grilled cheese, or eggs. Then you add two of the following: home fries, french fries, baked beans or macaroni salad, plus the options of mustard and onions, ketchup, and Nick's proprietary hot sauce, a greasy concoction with spices and ground beef. It's served with rolls or Italian toast, because potatoes, baked beans, and macaroni salad apparently don't provide enough carbs.

I found this while reading a blog post about the food one eats while drunk. I'm one of those people who eats sober what others will only eat after they've had a 12 pack. White Castle, chili cheese dogs and chili cheese fries together, those elaborate layered taco compositions at Taco Bell, a cold, multi ethnic smorgasbord of takeout leftovers for breakfast. And I'm now adding to the list the Garbage Plate.

The Garbage Plate is one of those dishes, like poutine or an Italian beef and sausage combo where the sausage is nestled discreetly in the sliced beef, that could either be quite sickening or something so awe-inspiring, reality falls away as you're eating it, leaving only it and you, a love story.

My ideal Garbage Plate would be very similar to what you see in the picture: an Italian Sausage with Nick's Special hot sauce, mustard and onions, home fries and macaroni salad, along with some Italian toast dripping with cheap bulk olive oil. I'd chase it down with an extra large, super fizzy diet coke and then lay down on the couch to watch some wrestling. Now that's a day.

What would Brian Boitano make?

Sometimes I can't believe my good fortune. Moments after I learned that Brian Boitano, winsome boy wonder of the 1988 Winter Olympics, has a new show on the Food Network, I stumbled upon this picture. If that isn't some kind of karmic alignment of the planets, I don't what is.

Brian has reemerged, reconstituted with Botox, as a cheeky, down-to-earth celebrity chef with his own show called What Would Brian Boitano Make? The producers at the Food Network have an uncanny feel for what this country wants now; that's exactly what I ask myself every time I step foot in the kitchen.

I tuned into the episode where he was making bacon cups filled with sweet potato hash for a group of roller derby girls dropping by. Completely relatable. His enthusiasm was contagious, but his bacon cups looked like flattened dog poop. He obviously has some work to do.

But the big question is this: if Brian Boitano can have a cooking show, why not Mary Lou Retton? I'd like to see her do 100 things with Wheaties. Marion Jones could strut her bad ass on What are the Inmates Eating? I wouldn't mind getting Olga Korbut's take on borscht, or Bruce Jenner's tips for throwing a fabulous Botox party, complete with out-patient tummy tucks, nose jobs, and a full low-carb Mexican buffet.

Over fifteen years ago, I learned how to properly cut an onion, not in cooking school, but by Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken - the Two Hot Tamales. But that was when the Food Network was actually about food. Alan Richman, food critic for GQ magazine, and Nina Griscom, annoying socialite, had a great Siskel & Ebert type show, reviewing restaurants. She thought he was an idiot, and he mostly played along. There was Ming Tsai cutting octopus with a Chinese cleaver, Mario Batali making risotto, and Bobby Flay, before he became Bobby Flay. These were people who actually cooked for a living.

And here we are today. Brian Boitano is making bacon cups for roller derby girls, Giada DeLaurentiis' bosom is heaving on the chicken cacciatore, and Rachel Ray could really use a Quaalude. I think it's time to change the channel.