Scrapple Anyone??

Yes, scrapple. I've heard of this before, but until recently I'd never seen it up close, much less taste it. I actually stumbled upon it. Do you know what it is? Well, I was taking a quick trip to Pennsylvania to a little town I like to visit when I have time. On the way to my room, I always stop at the local meat purveyor to get some stuff to cook with because there's a stocked kitchen where I stay.
Looks old school, huh? Well it is and I love it. This is the spot I get all my thick-cut bacon, hot dogs for the grill, steaks only 2 days from the farm up the road and well ... this time around ... scrapple. There I was in the middle of ordering said meats and my eyes wandered through the glass case and saw this ....
I said to the butcher, "What is THAT??". He smiled and said simply, "Scrapple". I said to myself, 'duh... it says that on the container', but I was captivated by the block of unidentified foodstuff so much that I didn't even catch the label. So, immediately I asked him if it was an easy prep because I wanted to try it. He at first said he didn't think I'd like it ... that's my cue to know I most likely will. This happened before in Hawaii at Super J's. (side note, I've since called and talked to Miss Super J and we have a nice budding foodie friendship). Anyway, as soon as he said I wouldn't like it, the challenger in me said, "well how do you make it?". He suggested I just pan fry a slice and serve it with eggs. That seemed simple enough. I told him to give me two slices and as he weighed it to measure he told me the best part was the crunchy edges and the soft center. I asked what was in it and he said, I didn't want to know. I gave him a deadpan look and said "yes, I do, don't worry ... I'll still eat it!". So you know, it's just pig parts ... the scraps he said, wonder if that's the origins of the name? Then a nice blend of herbs and spices. Well, I was too happy to have my slices of scrapple and the next morning I woke up and sizzled my first slices of scrapple ...
Sorry it's blurry, but that's what I do sometimes and it was warm and callin' my name. Only had tummy time for one more shot. Here's a close up with the same bad focus ...
By this time, I'd done my research online and found it may be tasty with some pancake syrup as well. I gotta tell you though ... it didn't need it. I reeeeeeeally liked it! It is a cross between blood sausage and canned spiced meat. It's a really hard thing to describe, but the butcher was right ... the texture was pretty yummy. The crunch around the edges went very well with the soft center. I sat there thinking, where has scrapple been all my life? I really like it! Well the answer is it is regional and hard to find, but not really because my research found a few places that mail it via online purchase. I'd totally do it with grits. It reminds me of this sausage my grandma called 'pudding' growing up. I'd peel the casing off and squeeze it all over my grits. What a memory. So much of a memory that before I headed out of Kunkletown, I made a quick stop at the butcher's. As soon as I walked in, he asked how I liked the scrapple. I said "gimme all the scrapple you've got, that's how I liked it!". So, now in my freezer waiting on a day I'd like to take a trip back to my childhood, or the great mountains of Pennsylvania sits this ...
A block of heaven. And guess what the whole block cost? 10 bucks and change! I can get at least 20 slices out of this!!! So look, next time you ask about something you've never had, if the person tells you that you may not like it ... try it. It's there because someone likes it, why not that someone be you?

Barack Obama Visits My Set, Kinda ... Thanks Jimmy :-)

Hi there! Well, how about I'm mad I went to bed early to catch a flight?? It seems I've made my first appearance on late night television, with Barack Obama! Yup! Well, courtesy of some editing and stuff :-). Check it out ...

How neat to me, not that I'm stirring our commander in chief's head into my Stormy Rice, but it's neat to me because I'm thinking is it possible that Jimmy Kimmel knows I have a cooking show?? Pretty cool because I watch his show and remember it's beer-filled beginnings. Even as a chick, I admit to watching The Man Show from time to time back in the day. Anyway, pretty neat brush with the president. You never know who is watching, eh? It probably would've blown my mind if I saw the skit when it happened, so maybe it's best I had an early flight. :-). Wow, thanks Jimmy and the staff at Jimmy Kimmel Live and thanks to you the reader ... I appreciate all the support! Catch me cooking more than people (soylent green teeheehee), weekdays at 4PM, Saturdays at noon and Sunday mornings earrrrrrrly. :-)

A Kernel of Street Knowledge ...

Just a quick note. For weeks my guy and I have enjoyed getting street corn in our neighborhood on the weekends. When we first moved in, we'd see people eating it, but never could find out who was selling it. We actually narrowed the block down by judging how much of a cob had been eaten by passers-by. If it was fresh, we felt we were close and if it was almost done, well you get the picture. I'd gotten to the point where I'd say aloud hoping someone would hear me "donde es mi maize?". Now I know that bad-form Spanish, but I was desperate. The reason it's hard to find is I have a sneaking suspicion that the purveyors aren't licensed street vendors, but I really could care less. These are moms feeding not only the streets, but their families with the money they earn. Plus, I mean it's corn. Finally one day we found the ladies selling the corn on the corner we'd passed many times, it just takes an eye to spot it. Here I am enjoying my cob!

Messy I know, I go back for the missed kernels at the end. Anyway, for weeks we've made it a thing to walk the neighborhood and end it with a stroll by the corn-stand. I order mine with everything she has to offer at the stand, mayo, cotija cheese and cayenne pepper. And for weeks, we'd walk the rest of the way home biting into the juicy kernels topped with love ... only there was one problem. Once you finish corn on the cob yourself, don't you have some uhhhhh housecleaning to do? As in between your teeth? Well, we'd walk the rest of the way home after dumping the empty cob in the trash and we'd do the worse thing ever... pick our teeth with our fingers, nails, sharp corners of paper ... anything we could find lol. Imagine how gross that looks walking down the street. So after weeks of knowing how gross I looked walking down the street cleaning between my teeth, we got smart ...

Pack for the party! On the way out the door this weekend I grabbed some toothpicks from my kitchen. Do you think it a bit much for street eating to pack toothpicks? To me, not so much, it increased the pleasure of street eating without me looking so gross walking down the street. I guess I could order it in the cup because she offers to shave the kernels off the cob, but I really like eating with my hands. So just a word to the street-eating wise ... pack a toothpick. :-) Hope you had a foodie weekend!

Viva and Me

Hi there! First, I missed watching and telling you about the Down Home with the Neely's episode I taped. Thanks to the blog comments about it. I'll call the production company and see if I can get some rerun dates just in case you wanted to catch it ...

I wanted to share with you a neat little story about my first major endorsement. I haven't even caught the commercials yet, but I've had a few comments about them (thanks readers for the support). Well, if you've caught the commercial you know it's with Viva Towels. I alluded to the partnership a few posts ago when I had to get to bed early for a 'big shoot'. Now, just a couple of months later commercials are running and Food Network Magazine has the ads as well. Pretty fast, huh? And everything did happen pretty much in that fashion. I like to give you some background here so you are a bit more informed than the next, so here are the deets ...

First, I went to the Wine and Food Festival in South Beach Miami in January of this year, it's where I discovered Viva Towels. I was doing my cooking demo and kept pulling the paper towels provided on set to clean up and mostly to blot my face because it was soooooooo hot there. The first thing I noticed was how soft Viva was. Really, no joke. I'm talking baby soft. I kept saying to myself ... "where have these been when I'm shopping?" and "these must be foo foo and fancy priced or only available in kitchen stores or something". I really left the festival with many memories, but one thing I wanted to do was find those Viva Towels in Brooklyn! Funny thing is, the next time I went shopping I'd already told my guy about them and how I wanted to look out for them. We got to the grocery store and surprisingly, right next to the brands I used to buy, were the Viva Towels! Yep, they'd been there the whole time and I didn't even notice. I think eyes do this plenty in the grocery store, they focus on familiar brands and that's why I support grazing in the grocery store, to find new brands and products ... I just never advocated it in the paper-goods aisle. Anyway, I bought the Viva Towels and thought that was pretty much it, I knew where to look for the cushy-soft paper towels ... my kitchen life was enhanced.

Fast forward to a couple of months ago and I get the word that Viva wanted to chat with me about endorsing them and appearing in advertisements. This was cool news because I've had a few offers to work with companies, but turned most of them down because they just didn't fit me and I didn't want to just do something to do it. You've heard the term, all money isn't good money? I believe that and have often lost money just because I have a feeling it isn't for me. So, I was totally surprised when I got the offer and couldn't believe after saying many "no's" that I'd get to say "yes" to not only a brand I knew and liked, but one I felt I could speak about from a real place.

We shot the commercials and the magazine advertisements on my Cooking for Real set over the course of 3 days. The first two days were in another building other than Chelsea Market, where I usually tape. They built only half of my set in that location and the cameras shot from a certain angle so you couldn't tell the set wasn't all there. Here are some pics ...
That's the set with Mark, my producer and if I know butts, I'm pretty sure that's Jim in conference with him about lighting, I think. It's technical stuff above my head lol.
This is the scene just in front of the set. If you look close you can see my "tag" or end of the script for the commercial. It's in the laptop screen on the table. I had an open and closing tag, but the middle was all just talk like on Cooking for Real. My granddaddy used to call me motor-mouth growing up and it's these times I'm happy I can talk forever about anything, no script needed. The massive black curtains on the left, top have reflectors on the other side for lighting purposes. That's Jenna looking at the camera, she's a culinary producer and you may have caught her in some previous posts, because she also works with me on Cooking for Real.
These are the food stylists working in a kitchen just to the side of the set. They are prepping my recipes for close ups and for me to use in the commercials as well. It was really hot on this set because the air conditioning made noise and had to be turned off to shoot. So, imagine cooking under pressure in a hot kitchen all day and every thing has to be camera ready. They worked hard. Here they are just 20 feet away from the kitchen, on set...
It still is pretty neat to me to write a recipe, have someone else make it and it tastes just like I made it. They made about 6-7 recipes that day in large quantities, hard work I appreciate. I'll give a link to the recipes at the end of this post. To the very left, slightly cut off is the still photographer.
Standing with me here is David White a wardrobe stylist that I'd only chatted with before the shoot around the hallways of the network. He works closely with my stylist on Cooking for Real and works with other hosts on Food Network. He filled in two of the 3 days for Marni, the stylist I use on my cooking show. David helped me in and out of 6 or so outfits that day and also managed to help me keep stains off every outfit. I'm a messy cooker.
That's Alberto and Marni with me at the final day of the shoot. We did this in the Chelsea Market studios. Pardon the hair clips I'm rockin', but we just wanted to capture a moment and keep it movin'. Alberto does my makeup and hair and Marni is the one that shops for my outfits and alters the ones that need it. I plan to interview them both for the blog in the future, if you are interested.

Never mind me in this photo, take a look at the logo for Viva. It's a printout that is then taped on the actual roll because the plastic creates reflections and lighting issues.
That's me just putting together some Viva coasters with some pinking shears. There are a few ways I suggest using the Viva Towels and one of them was to make cones out of them for french fries. For that we fried up some taters and got them ready for their close up ... problem was, they weren't as crispy and needed support. Take a look, can you see the food stylist's trick in the closeup of this coming picture???
Yep, broken skewers! Pushed carefully through each fry, they worked perfectly and held up to my homemade mayo. And a final shot at the first shoot ...
That's the photographer's assistant checking the images on his screen as we took pictures. Can you see the on-set kitchen in the distant left? Anyway, after shooting video I must've taken a jillion still pictures and thought it was an easy day of taking photos until I got home. My neck was tight and I realized it was due to all of the tiny head movements "up, down, now just to the left a bit" etc., that I took as direction the whole day. Nothing a little sleep wouldn't cure. After the shoots I just waited to be able to tell you. Now that the ads are running, can't hurt to give you some details, eh?

Well, that's it. My shoot with and story about Viva Towels. I want to give you some links that are useful ...

Viva Towels Website

Plenty of links to special deals, recipes and fun stuff.

Register to become a Viva Diva!
Viva Divas get recipes, coupons, chat with each other and enjoy some cool benefits, like having your own recipe appear in a Viva insert in Food Network Magazine!

Viva Recipes and Videos on Viva site
These are recipes I developed for Viva to promote getting closer to your food, meaning ... leave the utensils alone!

Fork-Free Foods on Food Network site
These are videos of me prepping the recipes, about 2 minutes each if you are browsing at work :-).

And if you buy on the stands or subscribe to Food Network Magazine, in the coming months I'll have an insert with recipes and tips provided by the Viva Divas, so sign up, you never know if you'll be published! Enjoy the day and tell a friend about Viva if you already use it. If you don't, look for it where you'd find paper towels, only thing is these aren't anything like papertowels, they are soft and cloth-like enough to remove makeup, wipe your nose without bruising and of course, use in the kitchen. :-)

Why The Long, Made-Up Face??

Well, this is Clark Vincent (hair and makeup artist) and me in my living room after he spent the better part of an hour putting make-up on my face for an interview I had today in the Food Network kitchens. Problem is, right when he was putting the laaaaaast stroke of lip gloss on me we got a text from work and found out the interview was cancelled! I was going to demo my technique for fried chicken and then saute some greens and give the details of a recipe on a future show. So for me, I was looking forward to work and that ever present "TV bite" at the end of the segment, which I usually turn into a meal once the cameras are done. One of the best parts about the job, is the eating. I say it so much; I eat, therefore I cook.

Well, Clark and I took the news of cancelled work with stride, after all we both now had a full day to play instead of work. So after we chatted a bit, he headed out to tackle the free day and myself, well, with no promise of fried chicken in my future and a made up face, I felt the need to not waste Clark's work and headed outside for a bite to eat. With a car already waiting to take me to 'work' I instead headed to one of my favorite places to eat and the place where I think the best slice of pizza is made ... Di Fara's. I used to live just 2 blocks away and ever since moving, it's the one thing I really miss. Funny thing is I was just telling you in the last post how I really miss old haunts when I move and seldom get to go back. To me, this was a really neat way to take life's hints and head on over to one of the places I was thinking about when I wrote that. Just yesterday! Imagine! Here are a few flicks ...
I'd just placed my order here. 1 regular pie with pepperoni and garlic, plus 2 plain regular slices. The plain regular slices were for the dude driving us. We talked about it on the way and he was a total slice-head. He tried to convince me of another place and I've been, but it just isn't my type. He even saw the recent press about them moving the prices up to $5 a slice, it was a neat trip for him as well. Everyone is happy when food is on the way! Anyway, that's his daughter in the background facing the camera. She told me of a video interview they recently did that talked about how she felt as the daughter of an immigrant that came here and found 'The American Dream'. I haven't found it yet, but when I do I'll link it here if you are into slices and great life stories. OK, here is my pie getting dressed by Dom.
These pictures look so familiar to me because I have so many from previous blogs and even personal collections I take because I really just love the entire Di Fara's experience and each pie is so unique. They are like pieces of art. Edible art. Here's my pie getting a final drizzle of olive oil ...
What a yummy pie! Hope this inspires you to take a trip back in time to a past culinary adventure ... 2 in one week is pretty good for me, wonder if I can keep up the pace?

Best Thing I Ever Ate ... on Labor Day Weekend.

Hey there! Hope you had a great Labor Day weekend! The top question I'm getting today from friends and the like is: "What did you do for the holiday?" and "How was your cookout?". Well, my answer is I actually worked this weekend and Labor Day I played video games and made chorizo and bean tacos instead of cooking out.

I can't tell you all the details as usual about work, because the show doesn't air until I think early next year, but it was an episode of Best Thing I Ever Ate. They asked me to participate again, so I sent them a list of places I enjoy eating at and the best things on the menu. One of my places is right here in NYC, so 2 weeks ago I taped the portion of the show where you see the people talking about the dish or menu item they consider the "best" and then they called to ask if I didn't mind visiting the place in NYC to film there as well. I said yes and even though it was on a Sunday, I didn't mind ... I knew it meant lot's of yummy food! Eating and talking about it isn't really work if you ask me. Plus, I don't go to this place often because it's addictive, so I was excited to revisit just a couple of weeks after talking about it to the camera for hours. So, Sunday I got up and put on some TV-worthy clothes and not my usual weekend sweats and t-shirt, then headed into the city to eat at A Salt and Battery. Here I am with Mat Arnfield, the chef.

I'd love to tell you what I ate, but I can't. I can say everything is great on the menu and I found the place back in 2001 when I first moved to NYC. I'd walk the neighborhood after work, window shop, get lost and just explore. This is one of the first places I ate at when I moved here, the staff was really nice and sold me my first bottle of HP Sauce. It's good stuff and I have great memories of my earlier days walking here after work for a bite. I actually thought I was showcasing a business that had not received any kind of love from a restaurant show on Food Network and when I mentioned that to the crew they all told me Bobby Flay actually taped an episode of Throwdown with the restaurant. If you caught that show, don't worry ... we tackled two completely different areas of the menu, but I am happy that Bobby and I have similar tastes ... he's a cool New Yorker that surely knows some good food. Makes me wonder about how I feel sometimes when I think the same places keep getting press or coverage, maybe it isn't an inside thing ... maybe it's just that they have great food! Yes, there are tourist traps, but this isn't one. A must try if you visit NYC and many people that are from the UK actually flock to this spot for authentic food. That whole area actually has some pretty good eating. I envy people that live there, simply for the eating options. I moved out of the area and seldom get back. Many New Yorkers share the same story, moving from a neighborhood is like moving to a different country and don't even start on moving to a new borough. Things are so close, but each area is pretty self sufficient, so people tend to never go back to old neighborhood haunts if living somewhere new. I try to break that, by visiting my old neighborhoods in Brooklyn, but I'm a rolling stone ... plenty of places to revisit. Anyway, outside of A Salt and Battery are some benches and between taping I met some viewers sitting there from New Jersey eating the same thing I was there for and we chatted a bit while I was taping and some people got on camera. What a brunch! My kind of people. I Can't wait to see it all on the show and hope you catch it too. I'll let you know when it airs.

TGIF: ThanksGiving ... It's Friday!?

Hey there! Yesterday, I headed over to the Food Network kitchens in Chelsea Market to tape segments for an episode of Dear Food Network. It's a show where viewers write in, email or send videos of their culinary questions to us and we answer them over the course of a show. I participated in a couple of episodes last year, so I was totally excited to be asked for a return. This time around the topic was Thanksgiving. I developed a couple of recipes for the show and also offered some holiday tips for a viewer. The cool thing about this show is, plenty of people have the same issues around the holidays, so the questions are unique, but they cover great ground. Here's my POV of the 'set' ...
You can jusssst make out some of the ingredients to one of my recipes. Here are a few blurry flicks of me at work ...
A view through a monitor on set, so the crew can see how the viewer at home will have the image framed and seen on their television ...

And the camera men working hard to focus on the food!
Question: In blog world ... Do 4 blurry photos equal one clear one? If so, here's a clear one of myself and another guest on the show, along with one of our coworkers ...
On the left is Jay Brooks, she works in the Food Network kitchens and does so many things. To try and encompass them in a sentence would be silly. She's an amazing chef, food stylist and before I even began working at the network she was a smiling face of encouragement through my final screen test. I can't even really tell you how much the latter means to me. To know no one on the kitchen staff and have her as my first working introduction, was pretty neat. Again, I can't really say enough. She was there to help prep the ingredients and lend support from the kitchen. BTW, if you subscribe to Food Network Magazine, you can catch many of her recipes out of the 100s in each issue ... yes ... HUNDREDS. The mag is a mini cookbook and really, think about it, some cookbooks don't even have that many recipes, and there are pictures for every recipe in the mag! I know, this sounds like an ad ... but it isn't, you gotta check it out. Pretty nice and it takes up less bookshelf space! And hey, I just thought to tell you ... remember this post? Well, in the new issue on stands now, the team at Food Network Magazine feature a small story about Food Network chefs and their tattoos. They caught my blog and asked if they could use the picture I took of Michael Symon's leg for his part of the tattoo story. Of course I said yes and now I'm pretty happy to have a picture credit in this fine magazine, even if it isn't a photo of food. Kinda makes up for all the blurry photos I post up here for viewing, eh? No? I digress ... :-)

Then on the right of me is Claire Robinson, host of 5 Ingredient Fix! I met her for the first time a few weeks back, but it was so brief and I didn't get a flick, so I didn't tell ya, sorry. . Again, if I tweeted, I'm sure I would've ... these are the things people tweet, stuff they can tell you in detail later I guess. It was a quick chat the first time, this time we sat and chatted while I devoured a tuna nicoise salad for lunch. She's funny and lively and lives right here in New York. She was there to tape segments on Dear Food Network as well, though I'm not quite sure it's the same episode, but it may be. I didn't check, bad reporting skills.

I don't know when the show airs, but when I do I'll post it. Until then ... want a couple more hints at one of my recipes for the show?? While developing and testing the recipes for the episode at home, I took some pictures along the way ...

Any guesses?

Which is Yummier?

Hey there! The weather has been pretty nice here in NYC, save for some rain this past weekend, it's cooled down a bit. So, me and my dude headed to Coney Island for our ritual summertime trip for a hot dog. As we sat and ate I thought to myself, I've had pretty much every signature hotdog around. I've had Gray's Papaya(6th and 8th Street to be exact) and Nathan's here in NYC, Pink's in Los Angeles, National Coney Island in Detroit, Washington D.C.'s Half Smoke at Ben's Chili Bowl and even a grrrrreat hot dog down in Miami. I'm only really missing The Varsity down in Atlanta and a true Chicago dog ... or am I? Are there more hot dog frontiers to tackle? I have a trip planned soon to Chicago and I plan to give a taste for myself, but I thought I'd ask you to weigh in on it ... with my first-ever Which is Yummier Poll.

Which is Yummier?

Which city has the BEST hot dogs? Atlanta Chicago Detroit Los Angeles Miami New York Washington D.C Other (please comment) Current Results