best coffee ever, at The Sleeping Monk in Cannon Beach OR.

…on the art of cooking a goodbye

Some people leave a lasting impression…they are the people who always put a little somethin’-somethin’ into their relationships with others.  In having to come to the natural end of my internship, I am taking a moment to acknowledge some pretty cool peeps with food…one at a time.

Thus, the cookies.  Dr Cook Cookies.  Dr Cookies.  Dr Cook-ies.  Made especially for my supervisor, er, Dr Cook.  She has been a particularly neat example of someone who really goes the extra mile.  And she has had a request in for chocolate chip cookies for quite some time.  So….Voila!

So, how exactly does one make a cookie after a person?  Well, in this case, by adding *just a bit more* of the good stuff.  Taking it an extra mile, so to speak.  It started with the Ghirardelli recipe for white chocolate macadamia cookies…I am not sure why, but white chocolate chip cookies always seem to have better cookie bases than those of their dark chocolate counterparts.  Here is what the recipe calls for (and the subtle adjustments…)

1 cup butter, softened

1.5 cups granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar (i basically switch the two sugars, and add a bit more brown sugar for good measure)

2 eggs

1.5 teaspoon vanilla (aww…a tablespoon sounds good!)

3 cups unsifted flour

.5 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 bag Girardelli white chips (or….a bag and a half of the 60% dark chocolate kind!)

preheat oven to 350.  Cream butter and sugars till fluffy(…i prefer by hand, since it makes a denser cookie) Add vanilla and eggs, and blend.  Blend in dry ingredients, then chips, and drop by big teaspoons onto an ungreased baking sheet and cook for 10-12 minutes.  immediately transfer cookies to a rack to cool.

And while it’s not a total goodbye, it does mark the end of an era.  For me, at least.  Definitely worth dedicating a Cook-ie to!

Picabu Bistro…bliss lives in a Spokane strip mall

   Picabu Bistro is an unassuming little gem situated about five meandering turns off I-90 in a quiet neighborhood strip mall in Spokane, WA.   A proud member of the Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives roster, Picabu has an interesting grouping of salads, burgers, soups & beef dishes with a common denominator of spiciness.

Shutterbug and I happened to stop in after a long day of road tripping along the I-90 corridor.  The first part of our meal featured seriously good burgers that, while amazing, were a mere blip on the radar compared to dessert.

The Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie–made on-site–is a sight, and a taste, to behold.  It starts with a graham-cracker style crust, topped with a layer of the smoothest peanut butter cheesecake layer imaginable.  That gets layered with a perfectly balanced dark chocolate ganache, chopped peanuts, and a liberal drizzle of caramel sauce.  It is sweet, salty, and immensely memorable…kind of like a grown up love child between a Snickers bar and homemade cheesecake.  Awesome!

food on the run

One of the finer points of travel is to be able to experience food in new ways…not only the flavors and textures, but the aesthetic as well.

In getting back into the swing of blog upkeep, I hope to not only do justice to slow food, but the myriad ways in which fast food, raw food, and everything in between can be simply *lovely*.

coconut cake

coconut cake, originally uploaded by ~~mia~~.

my family has this rather odd, obsessive attachment to the Pepperidge Farm Coconut Layer Cake. it comes out at birthdays with near-religious consistency; and truthfully, when it’s defrosted right (yep! it comes in a tidy little box, found in your grocer’s freezer section) it is pretty tasty. of course, it has no redeeming nutritional qualities, but then it is a cake.

so imagine my surprise and delight to stumble upon this wonderful blog, where featured under Food Porn Friday was a homemade version of the same cake. this picture is the cake i made from the recipe, and the only thing i should have done is made it the day before like the recipe specifically states. yes, this is a NEXT DAY cake. there is some magical alchemical process that improves the flavor and texture exponentially overnight–just trust me on this.

the next time i make this cake, i’ll probably use less sugar, as it came out very, very sweet. but oh, this cake is good.