CREATE-A-PLATE – American Apple Pie

In an effort to bring more variety to my posts here on 99pLAtes (and to give my dining out slush fund a rest!!) I’ve decided to incorporate a do-it-yourself section to the blog. CREATE-A-PLATE entries will give me the chance to try out some inspiring recipes I’ve come across and it will give you a chance to laugh at my utter despair as I schlep my way through the kitchen.

Lucky for you (and me) I’m going to start with the basics (besides the pitch for my male version of Julie and Julia hasn’t gotten very far). So the Thomas Keller and Julia Child cookbooks will be left for another day. On the first episode of CREATE-A-PLATE we’ll be tackling a pLAte as American as Sam the Eagle: Old Fashioned Apple Pie.

Chief among the various weekly podcasts I listen to on my way to work is the NPR smash hit “The Splendid Table” featuring Lynne Rossetto Kasper. 


Things you need to know about Lynne – she has sort of a lisp, she uses adjectives like ‘stupendous’ and ‘astounding’ to describe things like pumpkin bread and she exudes more Minnesota "don't cha know" charm than her rivals over on "The Delicious Dish".

Love her (John Kazlauskas and grandmothers everywhere) or hate her (Sean Jennings and everyone in the 18-49 demo), Lynne is going to be our guide for this American Adventure.

For the complete recipe, I’ll direct you to Lynne’s website where she apparently lifted the recipe from The Pie and Pastry Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum.

Around 5:15 on Saturday afternoon, I took a quick trip to Target (they sell groceries now) to pick up the supplies. I planned on making two pies, one for dinner with Jessie, John and our friend Brian that night and another for a dinner party on Sunday. I also committed to making my own dough, which in retrospect, is crazy. “$27.48” said the nice cashier in a Blanche Devereaux-inspired shoulder padded red top. Seriously $30 bucks? I wonder how much apple pie goes for at the House of Pies…

Back at the house, I got to work peeling, blending, rolling and waiting and waiting and waiting…the dough needed to “relax and chill”…seriously Lynne…meanwhile John was gearing up for the cooking by creating some “Creepy Cocktails” from his Martha Stewart Everyday Food. Rum + Simple Syrup + Lime Juice + Pomegranite Juice = Stupendous

What follows below is a pictorial account of perhaps the most difficult culinary clusterf*ck I have ever endured. A brief timeline:

6:35p – Peeling apples is fun!


6:38p - After 3.5 minutes, peeling apples...not as fun 

7:10p – 6 pounds of apples is a lot of apples….

7:15p - There is a critical difference between baking soda and baking powder. Back to Target.

8:10p - Trying to decipher this step. “Holding both ends of the bag opening with your fingers, knead the mixture by alternately pressing it from the outside of the bag with the knuckles and heels of your hands until the mixture holds together in one piece and feels slightly stretchy when pulled.” It might as well be written in Klingon.

8:45p - Learning that wine bottles make fantastic rolling pins.

9:05p – Four hours in and a new revelation. Brian is vegan. Pie has butter. No pie for Brian.

9:15p – Dinner Break.  17 is the number of Minutes it took Jessie to make dinner and also happens to be the number of steps left in this recipe.

9:40p – Pies are in the oven…ETA for my mouth is another 55 minutes.

Alas, the pie project that began at 5:15 was finally enjoyed around 10:45. I will say, the pie accompanied by a scoop of TJ’s vanilla bean tasted delicious. However, at this point in the night I was about six Creepy Cocktails in…so honestly I could have been eating a Hostess Fruit Pie and it would have tasted the same.

The moral of this first CREATE-A-PLATE is that “Easy as pie” is perhaps the most ridiculous cliché I have ever heard. Next time replace “Easy as pie” with “Easy as buying pie”.

BTDubs...I called and an Apple Pie at the House of Pies goes for 10 bucks. 

#2 - Hot Dog on a Stick

Consider this combination of culinary concoctions…

        

2 Giant Pickles

2 Chicken Kebabs

2 Pulled Pork Sandwiches

1 Grilled Corn on the Cob

1 Deep Fried White Castle Hamburger with Fries

1 Deep Fried Twinkie

1 Deep Fried Klondike Bar

1 Deep Fried Snickers Bar

1 Ice Cream Cone Dipped in Chocolate Sauce

1 Candy Apple

15 Beers

1 Corn Dog

and a partridge with a clogged artery.

There is only one place that you can treat your tastebuds to such pleasure and your gastrointestines to such punishment – the LA County Fair. Now I wish I could say I put down all that carney crap on my own, but I had a crew along for the ride (carnival ride that is) on this outing. Greg (the foodie), Jessie (the new roommate), Adam (the old roommate), Noah (the old roommate’s BF) and John (the one who ate the Deep Fried White Castle burger - gross).

As a kid, I loved going to the fair. My favorite ride was the Bumper Boats, which has become a modern carnival’s Ark of the Covenant. I asked my Dad if we could build a bumper boats ride in my backyard. I mean we already had a pool so it seemed logical that we’d be able to buy a few innertubes and lawnmower motors and get the whole thing rigged up. He let me go so far as to write a letter to Mr. Morey (the man who owned all the carnivals in NJ) about setting up shop...still waiting to hear if I should charge 6 or 7 tickets.

Meanwhile fast-forward to 2010 and they don’t even USE tickets anymore. Am I the only one who thinks this is a complete travesty? I loved fanning through my ticket book like I was Flow Rider (he is a rapper right?) counting my 20 dollar bills. Nowadays, all the rides AND games are paid for with a newfangled electric card machine. It made me feel like we were swiping a Metrocard for a ride on the Wonder Wheel. Plus there is no way to convert your point value to actual dollar amounts. For example, a game of skee-ball costs like 320 points….in actual dollars that could have cost $3 or $32 – it’s an enigmatic algorithm Zuckerberg would have trouble figuring out.

After a few rides down the Super Slide and Greg’s masterful cheating at pretty much every carnival game he played (not sure what we are going to do with a giant banana with a monkey inside)…

…it was time to get down to business with Chicken Charlie. See Chicken Charlie is legend-ary at the fair for his deep fried creations. The man sells everything from totally fried twinkies to basted and fried beer (still not sure how we missed this). He’s even driven Doc Hopper out of business by cornering the market on frogs legs.

Here’s what I learned about these deep fried items – whether it’s a Klondike, snickers bar or White Castle Cheeseburger it all pretty much tastes breaded and totally unlike the original item being fried. I mean, I’m from New Jersey and I’ve had my fair share of White Castle Burgers on Route 17. Whatever the hell Chicken Charlie deep-fried was a goopy, oily rendition of the classic patty I remember from the Sack O’ Ten. Regardless of taste, I can now say I’ve conquered the mighty deep-fried Twinkie. They’re real…and they’re disgusting.

Just when I thought I’d seen it all at the fair including an inflatable King Taco saluting the Führer…

…and a petting farm sponsored by McDonalds (in case you wanted to pet your chicken mcnuggets before dipping them in sweet and sour sauce)…

 

…What to my wondering eyes should appear, a miniature hut with corn dogs and root beer. (Ok – there wasn’t any root beer, but lemonade doesn’t rhyme).

“HOT DOG ON A STICK” I exclaimed to nobody in particular. “I think that’s on the list”. Despite already having devoured an obscene amount of food, I now discovered the real purpose of having come to the fair after all.

Hot Dog on a Stick has been a staple in SoCal for years with locations along the boardwalk in Venice, Santa Monica and the Glendale Galleria (ohlala). College-aged guys and girls clad in bright uniforms with colors also featured on Captain EO t-shirts….

…have been doling out the classic corn dogs for over fifty years. I remember eating my first corn-dog circa 1991at Dorney Park and Wild Water Kingdom. It tasted a lot better going down vs. coming up after a ride on the Thunderhawk roller coaster.

Eager to cross another pLAte off the list, I was served a fresh one right out of the fryer. In an effort to give a better description of the taste, I decided to record a voice note to myself on the phone. I figured this will give a great, lengthy description so I have something to reference when I write the blog entry. Upon playing back the voice note now, this is what I recorded: “Tasty, but you have to watch out for the stick. Corn is good.” This was then followed by 12 minutes of ambient noise, because apparently I didn’t know how to stop the recording. New York Times Food Critic…here I come!

Hot Dog on a Stick tastes pretty much like every other standard corn dog across the nation. Basically it’s a wiener wrapped in corn bread. I sort of think this entry made the list more for the memories of youth, seaside and boardwalks that corn dogs evoke rather than to be frank (pun intended) the ubiquitous taste of the weenie.

With an excessive amount of stuffed plush in hand and two new housemates we won at the goldfish game (appropriately named Gold Coast and Circus of Books…as of this posting may they rest in peace) our outing came to a close. I speak on behalf of all our arteries when I say thank goodness the fair only comes to LA once a year.

By the way, we did end up finding a home for our new monkey friend.

That’s what ya get for skipping out on the fair Peter….

#1.5 - Eva's Lechon

Eva

Tuesday:

John (via gChat) - Hey, there is a Blackboard Eats for Eva.

Me - Great, Eva’s Lechon is on the list for 99 pLAtes. Let’s go this Friday night.

That’s where things started to go wrong…

Let’s back up a second. Something you need to know about John: he is an avid user of the craze that is Groupon, Living Social, Tippr, AtCost and his most recent obsession Blackboard Eats. For those who are in the dark about this why-didn’t-I-come-up-with-this-idea revolution, basically you pay in advance to get a coupon you use at a later date. For example, pay $25 now and get $50 worth of food at 8 Oz. Burger Bar (get the fried pickles). They offer deals on things besides food too – sailing, dental services, weekend getaways and every laser hair removal place in the greater LA basin.   

Mind you – acquiring the Black Board Eats code isn’t where things went wrong. This dining misfire was entirely my fault. Things you need to know about me: I don’t always read everything very…well…closely. So in a rush of excitement to cross another pLAte off this list I booked us a reservation at Eva for Friday night.

Wednesday

John: Hey what’s Lechon?

Me: I dunno, the plate says Eva’s Lechon. Sounds like some sort of pig product from the description. I’m sure it will be on the menu.

John: Hmmm….

Me: I know, I know, Eva changes its menu monthly. Let’s hope they have it available.

John: Well I just googled it and Eva’s Lechon is actually a totally different place. Looks like a butcher shop on a totally different street where you buy a whole pig.

Me: …oh…

So much for getting through these 99 pLAtes in a timely fashion. We decided to keep the reservation and do dinner at Eva for two reasons.

1. A friend of ours, Greg, is a total foodie. Like when I say we should grab dinner sometime he says, “I’d love to dine with you.” Somehow this way of phrasing ‘going to get some grub’ makes me believe the man knows his food. One of the first places he ever recommended to me was Eva, so I filed that in my “Must Eat Here” list.
2. “Helllllooo….we have a Blackboard Eats code….” said John.

We arrived at Eva around 9pm on Friday night starving and ready for a good meal. “Should I still blog about it?” I asked, not really understanding the rules regarding my own blog. “Yea!” John with an inflection of both assurance and total curiosity at the same time. So we took the obligatory exterior picture and inside we went.

Eva’s menu is short and sweet. There are only a few dishes to choose from and it changes monthly with what’s in season. One of those California modern/seasonal/farm-to-table/simple but bold flavor places. I swear, it’s like Bravo invented a whole new vocabulary for dining out in America.

What immediately jumped out at me on the menu was the Linguini with Clam Sauce. “The only thing we are out of is the Linguini with Clam Sauce,” said our attentive, but not over-attentive waiter. Seriously, first the Samoa Donut, now that clam sauce…am I being punished by the food gods? That being said, I suppose this blog is about expanding the edible horizon. So I settled for the Jidori Chicken, wrapped in bacon (see a trend). John went for the Alaskan Halibut.

“Are you going to mention the Blackboard Eats?” John asked. That’s the other thing about this whole Groupon, Living Social, BBE situation. The coupon culprit doesn’t like to OWN UP to having them at the restaurant. The scenario usually plays out with me saying something like, “John here (point directly at him) would like to use his Blackboard Eats Code on tonight’s meal”.

Do I feel bad about outing him as closeted coupon clutcher? No, especially since he then gets to pull up the code on his iPhone and gets to feel very technologically forward in the process. I think for him, the Groupon app might outweigh the fact that the iPhone doesn’t actually make calls.

The food was, as expected, quite good. John’s fish was cooked perfectly and the combination of flavors in the spicy eggplant and ginger paired with the fresh halibut won both of us over. I actually though the chicken was a touch too dry – gasp, a negative! And you thought the New York Times was tough. But any dryness in the chicken was made up for by the crisp bacon, which acted as almost a snuggie for the poultry.

There was only one unexpected hiccup during the meal. It’s one thing to take pictures of your dishes while hamming it up over brunch in downtown LA. It’s another thing to whip out your iPhone 4.0 complete with 300-jigawatt flash in the middle of a classy restaurant on a Friday night.

Me: I’m not going to take pictures. I’ll just describe the food.

John: You HAVE to take pictures, it’s a food blog.

Me: Fine but don’t use the fla….

John: Snap – [Flash of Light]

Entire Restaurant: [Dirty Looks]

Alas, John was right. You DO need to take pics to make a food blog. The other thing you need to do is take notes. A prime example of what happens when you don’t take notes can be seen below.

This chocolate dessert was delicious, beautifully presented and I have no idea what the hell it was called. I do know there was some sort of foam on top, which would please Tom Colicchio. So if it works for Tom, it works for me.

All right, so next time I promise I’ll work on taking better notes…and if you’re lucky I’ll get the restaurant right too. One and a half down, 98 still left to go…

Eva

7458 Beverly Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90036

(323) 634-0700

www.evarestaurantla.com

#1 - Maple Bacon Donut

The Nickel Diner

You know that dog “Dug” from the movie UP. He’s the one that would lose it every time he saw a “SQUIRREL!”. Well the same sense of unbounded joy holds true for me and BACON. Let’s face it, bacon became super cool a few years ago when Top Chef wannabees included the porky product in every amouse-bouche, reduction and gastro molecular dish they could. Let’s be clear – I’ve tried turkey bacon and chicken-apple bacon, but I mean it’s like comparing the original Freaky Friday with the bastardized Lindsay Lohan remake…you don’t mess with the classics. So, I thought it seemed fitting that my favorite crispy companion be featured as part of the first dish for 99 pLAtes.

The guest eaters for today’s episode…errr…blog installment (can you tell I work in TV?) are also very appropriate for the 1^st official pLAte. John, the dude, and Kelly, the dude’s BFF, were in the mood for a little breakfast adventure so they joined me for a trip to The Nickel Diner in downtown LA for a taste of the coveted Maple Bacon Donut.

Previously on the 99 pLAtes blog, Kelly sent John an email with an article from LA Weekly naming the “99 Things to Eat in LA Before You Die”. That article led to this blog, which led to us hopping on the 101 on a recent Sunday morning to taste our first dish.

This is the face Kelly makes when I offer her apt to strangers

Kelly actually lives in NYC and was visiting John for her bi-annual trip to the City of Angels. Things you need to know about Kelly include: she makes very intricate Photoshop collages, she runs the entire Student Life department at the School of American Ballet and she has a wicked (holla Boston peeps) pad on the Upper West Side (in case you need lodging the next time you are in NY).

The Nickel Diner is (like almost everything else) relatively new to the Downtown LA scene. Opened in 2008, it’s earned a reputation for delicious homemade pop tarts, amped up classic diner food and the aforementioned Maple Bacon Donut – the holy grail of sweet and salty. This place has gotten all kinds of press lately including being featured on an upcoming episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives (Triple D for those of us who Tivo the show).

After arriving a little later than scheduled (John drove – will have to save that story for another blog post), we found the spot marked clearly by a conventional sign and somewhat unconventional mannequin heads.
 

This being the dry run for the blog, I wasn’t quite sure how this would all go down. Do we tell the waitress that I am writing a blog about this donut? Do I write notes about the taste, quality, texture? Do we take pictures of the knick-knacks around the restaurant? All of these questions have still gone unanswered, but John thought the one thing that would be appropriate to just take a picture of Kelly and I. Candids

as he calls them…

Now the Maple Bacon Donut isn’t the only special feature on the menu. They also have donuts in flavors such as Nutella, Strawberry Crumble, Red Velvet and SAMOA. 

“Samoa!” I exclaimed out loud, “Like the…GIRL SCOUT COOKIE”. I used my excited voice of course which kind of sounds like a cross between Gonzo and Ethel Merman. You know Samoa’s – those are the delightful mixtures of coconut, chocolate, wafer and 12-year old girl in green uniform goodness.

“Sold out” said our waitress with the same gusto that those Girl Scouts mention the $5 price per box of cookies. So we settled for just the Maple Bacon Donut, better to not confuse our palate with too many variations of donut lard. In addition to out first pLAte, all of us ordered a version of the egg/omelette/huevo ranchero staple seen in brunch spots across Los Angeles.

It wasn’t long at all before our gift from the Gods of Pork and Pastry was bestowed upon us. The first thing I noticed was that not only was the donut served hot, but the plate was actually warm as well. It immediately reminded me of my Italian Grandma Angie who, before every meal, throws dinner plates in the microwave to make sure they are the same temperature as the pasta about to be heaved onto the dish. There is no greater test of patience than having to wait the full 30 seconds for the microwave ding before you can dig into her linguini with homemade red sauce. Back to the donut…

Kelly and John insisted that this being my first blog entry and all, I should have the inaugural bite. Upon first taste of the glistening glory, I was immediately smacked with an injection of salty and sweet flavors all at the same time. Let’s face it – if you want to light up the taste buds either salt and sugar will do it. But with their superpower forces combined…even Quailman doesn’t stand a chance. 

I believe (based on no actual research) that Los Angeles has more donut shops per capita than anywhere else in the world. You’ve got Stan’s Donuts, Randy’s Donuts, Winchell’s Donuts…but interestingly no Dunkin' (rumor has it there are plans for a West Coast expansion). Despite the sweet baked smell wafting through the city (its especially tempting around 2am when walking home from the bars…ask my old roommate Adam) I probably haven’t had a donut in 3+ years. From what I remember of the ring shaped treats, donuts are cake-like and depending on the variation, often crumble apart in your hands. Not the Maple Bacon Donut. Instead, this variation is almost spongy with a chewy moist consistency punctuated with blasts of salty pork.

 

 

John and Kelly took their own turns, each pointing out the thin layer of sweet frosting that stays on your lip even after you’ve finished. It’s kind of like the film of sugar on your spoon after eating a bowl of Fruity Pebbles. John, a bacon-aficionado, approved of the well-done state of the bacon crumbled on the upper rim of the ring.

With nothing left but a layer of syrupy remains (too embarrassing to scrape up with a fork) on the plate – our work was done. The Maple Bacon Donut gets thumbs up around the table. Honorable mention goes to the creamy polenta that accompanied my omelet. Thanks to this one-two breakfast combo, my arteries will never be the same again. 

Not gonna lie…I could have made room for that Samoa Donut. Is it Girl Scout Cookie season yet?

Maple Bacon Donut

The Nickel Diner, 524 S. Main Street

Los Angeles, CA