deep fried Twinkie

When I tell people that I never really learned how to ride a bike, they laugh and joke about how deprived my childhood must have been. Sunday's conversation with my favorite professor adhered to the standard bike-conversation protocol. He got a good chuckle, and then we went to lunch.

We pull up to a cute hoagie joint in Moorpark and he says, "They have deep fried Twinkies."
"No," as if I've won a prize.
He smiles and nods, "Yes."

Besides fries and falafel, I have very little experience with deep fried food and I have never even been within 100 (if not more) feet of a deep fried Twinkie. I think it may be a greater novelty to me than other people, first, because of the whole deep fried thing, and second, because it's the kind of food that could only have been conceived by the mind of a goy.

After my parmesan chicken sub and good conversation, I've completely forgotten about the Twinkie. The chubby guy from the counter comes to our table with the crispy blond turd atop a styrofoam plate and sets it in front of me. Suddenly the table's quiet and everyone's watching. I semi-nervously take my fork, cut, and pause with the bite aloft, and then plunge it into my mouth.

I am stunned. It's so plasticy, so good. I say the first thing that comes to mind: "It tastes like the best day of childhood." And I mean it, but it's complicated. It doesn't taste like my childhood. There was not a day in my childhood that tasted anything like deep fried Twinkie. My childhood tastes like Rosarita beans. I mean the taste sums up everything I've ever imagined about the best childhood experiences I never had. In that first bite, it was learning to ride a bike, going to the fair, having a dog -- everything I wanted to do as a kid but didn't get to.

I'm slightly embarrassed about how moved I was by such a trifle. But it was like getting to glimpse those things and be happy for that glimpse, happy that those things exist, and ultimately more happy for the perspective of Mexican beans than individually packaged cakes.*


Chris and Jeanie Mott, the facilitators of deep-fried Twinkie revelations

*I still want to ride a bike.

a thank you

After training for four months, I ran my first half marathon on Sunday.

Like a champ:

Race Results - Pasadena Marathon

Bib Numer: 3193

Among the hardest parts of my training was figuring out what to eat to maximize performance efficiency. And while I normally object to food in bar form, I must give credit where it's due (and where it's doo doo). So, to Tiger's Milk bars: even as your high fructose corn syrup settled in my digestive system, you sustained me, and kept me from pooping my pants. Thanks.

The Gold Standard

LA Weekly's Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic, Jonathan Gold hand selected 30 restaurants to participate in the paper's first annual food and wine event, the Gold Standard. Here's the list of restaurants:

Alcazar

Angeli

Animal

Anisette

Babita Mexicusine

Beacon

Chili My Soul

Ciudad Border Grill

Clementine

Drago

Hungry Cat

Jltlada

KyoChon

La Casita Mexicana

La Mill

Loteria Grill

Lou

Meals by Genet

Mr. Baguette

Natrallart

Osteria Mozza & Pizzeria Mozza

Palate Food and Wine

Providence

Renu Nakorn

Sona

Tiara Cafe

Upstairs 2

Urth Caffe

Wurstkuche

I will be in attendance, working the ol' Mozza booth. I imagine the event will be something like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but I could be wrong.

I'm so excited I feel vomity.

Conversation between Arielle and Joshua, as told to me by Arielle. 

Joshua is 6 and it's cookie sale day at school. 

Josh: Ma, can I get a cookie?

Arielle: No Joshua. We have cookies at home. Famous Amos. 

Josh: [after a long, thoughtful pause] That's a weird name for a cookie.

Arielle: What...Famous Amos? Why?

Josh: [innocently, just above a whisper] Isn't that another word for butt hole?

Oat Lemon Bars

With a boy-free apartment and a couple bottles of 2 buck, Meg and Becca unleashed their inner domestic and created a tasty variation on lemon bars. In this recipe, the flour used to make the classic lemon bar's shortbread crust is replaced by oats. Its texture has SO much more personality than the original and an added crust on the top facilitates sticky finger evasion. Also, condensed milk replaces granulated sugar for the filling, giving the filling a nice caramely undertone.

OAT LEMON BARS

1 can condensed milk

2 tsp. lemon zest

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 cup oats

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix milk, lemon zest, and juice in a medium bowl. Mix remaining ingredients in a separate bowl. Press half of the dough into the bottom of a 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 glass baking pan. Bake for ten minutes. Spread lemon mix over the baked crust. Sprinkle remaining dough on top and bake for approximately 20 minutes.

NOTES: When the girls finished making the crust mixture, they noticed that it was a bit dry. It seemed there wasn't enough butter to really bind the oats together. The bottom crust fared much better than the top, but initially it was a tad too crumbly to hold up as a bar. After cooling and sitting though, the bottom crust solidified nicely. Also, Meg felt they needed longer than 20 minutes to bake.

The Upside of Recession

A bunch of the city's top restaurants are having recession specials! Here are a few newbs:

Monday: Boneyard Bistro in Sherman Oaks pairs half-priced beer with an excellent fried-chicken dinner ($12 for a quarter chicken, $17 for a half, including very fine potato salad and cole slaw).

Tuesday: The Park in Echo Park serves a terrific fixed-price dinner for just $15. And it’s BYOB with no corkage, making it an even better bargain. Tonight’s menu is Greek: avgolemeno soup or Greek salad, followed by lamb or vegetarian moussaka, concluding with baklava.

Wednesday: Campanile’s Soup Kitchen, first created for WGA members during the strike, is back on Wednesday nights. You get three courses, including a soup entree, for just $22, with special $7 cocktails to take the sting off the midweek blues.

Thursday: Wine tastings at Silverlake Wine are a deal at $12 per flight — and the Let’s Be Frank cart is outside that night, so you can dine cheaply on superb grass-fed, hormone-free hot dogs.

Friday & Saturday: It’s harder to find bargains on the weekends, but consider the every-night deal offered by Burbank’s best-kept secret, Bistro Provence. For $29.50 you get a hearty, three-course, totally delicious French bistro dinner in a room that’s much more appealing than its strip-mall setting would suggest.

Sunday: Back in Echo Park, the new Allston Yacht Club serves three of its very good small dishes for just $16, and it always has some good-value wines by the glass.

I still couldn't afford to eat at most of these places, but I think there's something about being Jewish and hearing words like "special" "sale" or "bargain" that triggers in me an urge to spend money I don't have. 

EVENTS!

Upcoming food events:

February 24: National Pancake Day 

       It's a real thing and it's TOMORROW! According to the IHOP website, "Pancake Day dates back several centuries to when the English prepped for fasting during Lent. Strict rules prohibited the eating of all dairy products during Lent, so pancakes were made to use up the supply of eggs, milk, butter, and dairy products...hence the name Pancake Tuesday". So from 7-10 a.m. IHOP will be serving free short-stacks to celebrate.

 

March 29: Drink: Eat: Play Los Angeles' Cupcake Challenge

       Southern California's top bakeries serve mini-sized samples of their cupcakes for you to taste and judge who deserves the title of Best Cupcake LA. Competitors include a few of my favorites: Vanilla Bakeshop, SusieCakes, and Buttercake Bakery, plus many many others. Sadly, it's the same day as my race, but I hope at least one of my buddies will go (so I can get a contact yumtown). More info at their website. 

April 4th and 5th: Los Angeles Beer Festival

       Unlimited four-ounce international and domestic beers, tribute bands and beer-friendly food vendors. Fun, if you're into that kind of thing.   

April 5: Spring Tamalada

        Master purveyors lead a day of making, cooking, and eating tamales at Mama's Hot Tamales Cafe. The cost is steep, but on the up side, it provides more of an incentive to get a job. Info about this and other groovy Slow Food events can be found on their website.