On election night and food

So, tonight is primary election night in New York state. I work for a newspaper, so we're pretty busy tonight (not yet, though, because polls haven't closed — side note: you'd be surprised how many calls we get asking for results before the polls have closed, though that's not nearly as bad as all the people without computers who call up while we're on deadline asking who won this race and who the new superintendent of highways is going to be). Reporters in my office are writing a total of 16 stories for tomorrow's paper, just on the election.

So every election night we get food. Usually pizza.

We ordered six pies tonight - two cheese, two pepperoni, one sausage and one fried eggplant (that was my idea). We always ask for napkins and plates and usually don't get them. We didn't tonight. (Why should this night be different from all other nights? It's not Passover!)

There's nothing like a nice slice or two of really greasy pizza just before you have to sit down and plow through yards of copy and make sure you make it through the night. I feel it sitting like a gut bomb in my stomach now.

But while we were eating, we discussed the fact that pizza is pretty perfect. I mean, if you have one with meat on it, you've got your protein, your starch, your fiber, your dairy, your vegetables. Sure, it's fattening. Sure, it's greasy, but it's pizza and this is New York.

And what, my friends, could be more perfect than that?

RECIPE: Rickey’s Boneless Buffalo Chicken

Football season is now upon us, and you know what that means: cooking up dishes with great indigestive potential. Rickey isn’t as big a football enthusiast as he is a baseball fan, but when it comes to cooking, he’s ready to rise to the occasion. Do you enjoy buffalo wings but feel like all those pesky bones are taking up valuable space that could be replaced by yet more buffalo sauce and chicken meat? Well then this quick & easy recipe is for you. Whether you’re a rabid fan in need of sustenance to fuel a grueling Sunday spent on the couch, or merely a hausfrau who just barely tolerates your significant other’s alarming fixation with watching grown men in tight pants tackle each other, we think you’ll find something in this recipe that appeals to you. Here’s what you’ll need:

Chicken tubers (or boneless chicken breasts cut lengthwise into strips if tubers aren’t available)

Bread crumbs

Chopped Parsley

Flour

Several Beaten Eggs

Peanut Oil

Frank’s Red Hot Sauce

Butter

Blue Cheese Dressing (Rickey recommends Marzetti’s)

You’ll want to kick things off by heating your oven up to 200° (Fahrenheit, not Celsius you pan-euro jackass). In a large bowl of your choosing, combine the breadcrumbs and chopped parsley. Then place the flour, beaten eggs, and breadcrumb mixture in three separate shallow bowls. Presto, you’ve got yourself a little assembly line going on.

*Note: If you’re the type who likes things very hot, add cayenne pepper to the flour mixture. For the next part of the operation, we suggest a little musical accompaniment. Raymond Scott’s “Powerhouse” should work nicely. Go ahead and tap your feet a little—music goes hand in hand with cooking.

One by one, dip the chicken tenders in the flour. Then dip them in the eggs. Then dip them in the breadcrumbs. It’s a regular factory assembly line! (See why Rickey picked out that song?) When you’re all done, place breaded chicken tenders on a large plate to await their oily fate. Next, heat a large frying pan over medium-high heat, and fill the bottom of the pan with a ½ inch of peanut oil. Unless you want your precious tenders sticking to the pan, make damn sure there’s a ½ inch of peanut oil in the pan at all time. Using your trusty cooking thermometer (you do have one of these, yes?) heat the oil to 350°.

To prevent a horrific scalding incident, a splatter guard is kind of a must for this recipe. When you’re feeling brave enough, add a few chicken strips (5 to 6) to the hot oil, and cook them until they’re nicely browned on one side. This should take about three minutes. Use some tongs (not bare hands) to turn the strips, and allow them to finish cooking, two to three minutes more. Remove the chicken tenders from the pan, place 'em on a baking sheet, and season them with some salt and freshly ground black pepper. Repeat this process for all the strips.

Put the finished chicken tenders in the oven to ensure they stay warm and crisp. Don’t stack them on top of each other—they’ll lose their crunchiness. We’d explain why this happens, but that would require a sextant, a master’s degree in Norse mythology, and a small woodland critter. Frankly, Rickey doesn’t have that kind of time on his hands.

Now on to the hot sauce: the heart of the recipe. Combine a ratio of 2 cups hot sauce to 4 tablespoons butter in a small saucepan, and bring the wondrous concoction to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally. When you’re ready to serve, put the chicken tenders in a large bowl and pour the sauce over them. Toss 'em up to ensure proper coating, and serve them with that Marzetti's blue cheese Rickey Mentioned earlier. Enjoy. We think that you’ll find that the taste stacks up nicely to anything most buffalo wing joints create (except for The Candlelight Inn--those magnificent bastards are in a league of their own.

As far as beverage pairings go, you’ll want to drink something equally modest as this unassuming dish. Go with Sam Adams Light, it’s a stalwart friend that has never let Rickey down in the past. So maybe this wasn’t the most challenging or high brow recipe ever... But you’ll find that it pairs well with an entire Sunday spent watching football. Have no fear; Rickey’s working his way up to a soufflé recipe.

Culinary Patriotism

Adam, our eponym and absentee landlord, until very recently (2 days ago I think) has goodnaturedly called me a Red, a Commie, a bleeding heart liberal, and generally cast aspersions on my patriotism (always with love, but nonetheless...). He's recently changed his tune, and while I'm not sure what I did to deserve this turnaround, I offer the following as evidence that I'm a true blue American dammit -- I can bake an awesome apple pie. In the absence of inflated credit card debt, a stars-and-stripes foam finger, or a gas guzzling SUV, this is really the only evidence of my Americanness that I possess...

The great thing about pie is that you can take the ugliest apples ever (like these from my grandma's front lawn, which I absconded with in the dead of night...no, no, no...kidding, kidding, I don't steal from grandma...I asked permission first) and peel away the ugly til you have perfect apple purity.

And then you throw together a very ugly pie crust because, well, mine always are. But if you use the magic ingredient...the scary magic ingredient...you will have incredible pie. Real pie. American pie. The secret ingredient?

Lard.

Don't be like that. Lard crusts are the only way to go. It's how your grandmother (whom I'm sure you never stole from either) made her crusts. If that isn't a stamp of approval, I don't know what is.

So you take your now perfect apples and throw in a little sugar, a little flour, a little butter, a little cinnamon, and presto change-0 -- Instant Patriotism.






God Bless America!

Wherein Amy explains why she hasn't posted yet

OK. So I get this e-mail one day from Adam, asking if I want to take part in this new blog venture, all about food. Heck, I like food, so why not?

Of course, I do have a full-time job and I blog about television for it, plus I'm now a member of Blogs4Bauer (in part, also Adam's fault), and I also have two children under the age of four, so it's not like I have gobs of free time.

But, still, it sounds fun.

Then a week passes. Another week.

And another, and another.

Still nothing.

I check in from time to time, read Rickey's hilarious missive on random food left to kill people in the kitchen, even comment on it.

Still nothing.

I'm lame, OK? Just lame. I never have any interesting food anymore (trying to lose baby weight, after all, plus we never get to eat out hardly, because we have two smichicks and corralling them is like trying to herd cats).

But it occurs to me that perhaps that can be my niche: Boring food.

A colleague went to the Desert Moon Fresh Mexican Grille (you know it's fresh b/c there's an "e" at the end of Grill) today and I ordered a steak fajita burrito. It was on the low-carb/high fiber menu and came in a whole-wheat tortilla.

Of course, that means it was not really a fajita, burrito or, frankly, anything else you could actually find in the nation of Mexico. But it wasn't too bad. I pretended it wasn't Mexican food, and it tasted pretty good, in fact.

Unfortunately, it came with some corn tortilla chips, which I ended up eating, and that probably negated the entire idea of eating from the low-carb menu. I also had a can of Diet Coke.

By the way, did you know that Diet Coke has more caffeine than a regular Coke? true. Check out The Caffeine Database — 12 ounces of Coca-Cola Classic has 34.5 mg of caffeine; Diet Coke has 45 mg in the same serving.

And it's my second can of the day. Woo-hoo! Stop by about 5 p.m., when I'm on deadline, have a million people asking me a million questions and I've had two or three more cans. It's not a pretty sight.

And Fridays, wow. Fridays are really ugly. But that's another story for another day. Friday's Chinese food day, so you have that to look forward to. And don't worry, I don't eat at this place.