This one goes to Starbucks

A rare win for Big Food. Starbucks' vanilla almond biscotti (right) trounces Todd Wilbur's bland, gravelly clone from Top Secret Recipes Unlocked.  Better looks, better flavor, better texture. 

On the other hand, the soft snickerdoodles Isabel baked using Wilbur's Pepperidge Farm clone recipe, were incredible. I always thought Pepperidge Farm was a classy brand of cookie -- have no idea why; is it? -- but tasted side by side with a homemade snickerdoodle, the PF version is almost inedible. Apparently, pure butter trumps "palm and/or interestified and hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed" oil.

You can read my Entertainment Weekly review of Wilbur's book here, but, unfortunately, the online version doesn't include the chart detailing the various items I cooked. The piece is pretty flat without it. If you see a copy of the magazine, it's on page 91. 

Here are some of the experiments that didn't make the cut: 

 

Homemade Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies (left) were buttery and crispy; the real thing: chalky.

Homemade Starbucks pumpkin cream cheese muffin (left) was fluffy and delicious the real thing: turgid and pasty.

Finally, as some of you might recall, I made onion rings a few weeks ago and since EW doesn't include them in the roundup I can put you out of your suspense.

  A homemade onion ring made using Todd Wilbur's recipe (left) involves dipping actual rings of an actual onion into milk, bread crumbs, and flour, then frying them in a pot of Crisco. They are stupendous. I have no idea how Burger King produces its "onion" rings but they do not contain the rings of an onion. They are more like onion crullers -- batter containing scant bits of onion that is (I would guess) extruded  through a machine into ring shapes, then tossed into a vat of the cheapest possible recycled oil. Sampled side by side with real onion rings, they are truly horrid. 

They are, however, much, much cheaper to buy than to make. They are also tidier to eat and you can get them when you are driving across Nevada, crave a hot, salty snack, and don't want to get out of your car. I would say that the stale, nasty BK onion ring has its place, except why wouldn't you just get french fries? 

Coffee cake v. coffee cake

At left, Starbucks coffee cake made at home using Todd Wilbur's recipe out of Top Secret Recipes Unlocked. Price: $4.34 for the whole cake, including fuel to heat oven.

At right, coffee cake purchased at Starbucks: $1.95

Wilbur's recipe made twelve squares. So: 36 cents a piece for homemade, which was tender and buttery, if a bit messy to cut. Starbucks coffee cake was tidy and rigid and the topping tasted very slightly rancid.

No smug lectures. I understand why people buy Starbucks coffee cake. I've done it myself and will do it again. But if you ever think it's "not bad" you need to make Wilbur's clone recipe -- or any coffee cake recipe -- and taste side by side. It's pretty bad and they're not giving it away. 

Interesting fact: Most expensive single component of homemade coffee cake is butter, followed by vanilla. Everything else is almost trivial.

Some donuts, some self-promotion

On the left, a Krispy Kreme. On the right, a donut made by Isabel and me. Details on how they tasted and how much they cost: coming soon.

Briefly, though, I ate so many hot homemade donuts the other night that I sent myself to bed early as punishment. The good news is, there were no donuts left over to feed to the chickens which I have since learned is a bad idea. 

I will probably continue to feed the chickens failed cakes, cookies and donuts to break up the monotony of centipedes, sandwich crusts, and grain, but perhaps not quite so often.

-----

My story about shopping for Vietnamese groceries is in the November issue of Sunset, or so I have been told. (I can't find it online.) It includes a picture in which I am wearing a shirt that my friend just said "resembles a tablecloth." He also told me that it's charming how "natural and disheveled" I look, that it's clear I hadn't spent a lot of time primping or brushing my hair. Which is funny, because I actually had. 

Also, my review of Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals is here. I couldn't begin to fit my thoughts about this fascinating and maddening polemic into the space allotted. This is a book you really need to take apart piece by piece to separate the truly strong arguments (there are many) from the eminently debatable (there are many.) I wonder if Foer paid Natalie Portman to sound off and start the buzz. If so, good thinking!

Onion ring v. onion ring

Can you make onion rings at home that are as unwholesomely delicious as those prepared by an adolescent fry cook at Burger King?

Isabel and I performed this very experiment last night. 

Our august tasting panel:

Don't laugh. Who better? The boys did an estimable job.

I have to withhold the verdict for a few days because this is part of the best work assignment ever, at least if your life goals no longer include curing cancer, winning a Pulitzer Prize, or making pots of money. That would be me. 

Our stout brown onion ring is on the left, the BK "onion" ring is on the right.

Like I said, the results of the experiment, plus many thoughts, in a few days. 

Make it or Buy it: hot dog buns

Blog evidence to the contrary, it is not my dream to churn butter, render lard, bake crumpets, and pickle watermelon rinds from dawn to dusk. If I actually had to make all my food from scratch, I would never get to read a book, earn a paycheck, play the piano, sit around watching The Office with my kids or Dahmer all by myself (Last night. Stupendous, though you should lock your doors before inserting the disc and prepare for troubled sleep.) There's a lot to be said for the convenience of buying your mustard and ketchup and bread and cheese.

But the more I cook, the more depressed I get, because it becomes more and more obvious that what we have gained in freedom we have lost in tastiness. No one else is surprised by this, so I don't know why I am. But I am. It never fails to shock me how easy it is to wildly outperform the big food companies. 

It seemed a little ridiculous to make hot dog buns, but we had an open package of franks and no buns, so I decided to try. I used the recipe from page 232 of the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion and I'm going to print it here, slightly  "adapted." I hope they don't mind; I can't think of a better advertisement for this excellent book.

Hot Dog Buns

1. In a bowl mix 1 cup water, 2 tablespoons butter, 1 egg, 3 1/4 cups flour, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 tablespoon instant yeast. Knead until you have a soft, smooth dough. Scoop up the dough, grease the bowl, return the dough to the bowl, cover with a damp towel,  and let rise for 1 hour. (More is fine; I let it rise for three hours.)

2. Divide the dough into 8 pieces, shape into logs, and place on a greased cookie sheet. (Obviously, you can shape the dough into hamburger buns if you wish.) Drape with the same damp towel. Let rise for 40 minutes until "quite puffy." Mine got more than quite puffy; this is dough with Frankenstein inclinations, so err on the side of petite when you shape your buns.

3. Preheat oven to 375. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. The recipe says to cool the buns, but I would use them soon. Like, immediately.

 

I didn't think I minded storebought hot dog buns, but now I am ruined. These were ethereal, slightly sweet, chewy, and fresh. The kids and I were hushed as we ate. It was like tasting your first Cabernet after a lifetime of Thunderbird, after a lifetime when you thought there was nothing BUT Thunderbird.

The buns were delicious. They were easy (much easier than bread, easier than most cookies). They were also inexpensive. By my estimate, using bulk yeast, it cost $1.41 to execute this recipe, including oven heat. This works out to 18 cents a bun. By contrast, the rock-bottom house-brand buns at Safeway are currently 25 cents a bun. After this, a big jump: Ball Park buns: 42 cents. Columbo: 45 cents. Orowheat: 53 cents.

I would not mind paying three times as much for the convenience of packaged food if it were not so insultingly bad. You only realize just how flagrantly, needlessly crummy it is after you try making it yourself. I should probably feel empowered, but instead I feel indignant.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming: 

Gourmet Today's roasted tomato soup with Parmesan croutons was sweet and creamy and took care of the the last of the tomatoes. I wish the recipe was on Epicurious so I could link, but it's not. Two caveats:

 1. The instructions call for you to put the soup through a fine sieve after pureeing, but I didn't do this. The soup might not have been velvety enough for Joel Robuchon, but it drew no complaints from a suburban family of four. I really hate cleaning the sieve.

2. The Parmesan wafers did not melt into firm wafers, but were yummy dumped in the soup as shreds.

 

Not quite so many nooks and crannies

Make an eggy yeast dough and let it rise. Cut, as for biscuits.

Cook in a skillet, as for pancakes, except without butter and for about five times as long.

 

The discs of dough rise straight up, like the cylindrical towers on a storybook castle. Cool. Split with a fork, toast, butter, top with jam.

 

I have no brief with Thomas's, but homemade english muffins are tastier, less flimsy, less cottony, albeit also less craggy. Overall, better. But how much better? I don't buy english muffins very often so I probably won't make these very often, but it was fun, as always, to see the mystique of another supermarket staple evaporate, and so quickly.

We had old friends over for dinner the other night. It seems like yesterday that they were new friends, but suddenly they're old friends. I braised beef short ribs a la Mexicana from Rick Bayless's Mexico, One Plate at a Time, a dish that showcased the unholy alliance of poblano chiles, white onions, and tomatoes. I'm putting a black mark in the book beside this recipe for the faintly kidney-like flavor created by those ingredients. I only ate kidneys once, eleven years ago, in Ireland, and that sufficed for all eternity. 

Here's Bayless on the dish: "Red white and green -- joyous colors on the national flag of Mexico. Red tomato, white onion and green chile -- awesome, amicable flavors on the plates of Mexico."

I don't agree with him, but he's such a cheery guy.

Here's another Bayless effusion: "Mexico is a hunble country that's been kept together, in great part, by rice pudding."

Wild overstatement, but sweet.

I served Bayless's rice pudding, an easy stovetop dish flavored with cinnamon and orange rind, and dotted with raisins. At the end of his recipe, where most cookbook writers would coldly command you to "serve immediately," Bayless writes: "A wonderful, warm treat awaits." 

The pudding was warm, but too soupy to be quite wonderful. (The soupiness may have been my fault; although I followed his instructions to the letter, I believe I misinterpreted.) In any case, I can't bring myself to photograph food when there are people around. Even old friends. 

It is coming on time for a new cookbook. I was truly devastated by yesterday's news from Conde Nast, and I think I have to do a Gourmet cookbook. But which one? The old leather maroon Gourmets with the gold lettering? Or the fat, shiny yellow one from a few years ago? Or the brand new one Ruth Reichl was pimping on Forum the other day? Or something else entirely? Suggestions? 

This is why we need turkeys!

The local farm that sells good, grass-fed beef and such has emailed out another reminder to order your heritage turkey for the holidays. Should I? The price is $6.59/lb if you order now, $6.89 if you order after September 31, and I know that's a lot more expensive than Safeway, but it's a pretty good deal for free-range protein. I've never tasted a heritage turkey and they have quite a reputation. Still: $180 for two good-sized turkeys. It got me thinking.

Let's say I bought two turkey poults in the spring. They cost about 9 bucks a piece from most hatcheries and they're VERY cute. At least for a week or two. How much feed would they eat? The chickens have almost completely gone off feed, they are so amply supplied with forage, table scraps, and kitchen mistakes. I can't imagine two turkeys would consume $162 worth of feed  in the months it would take to fatten them for the table. 

Clearly, I'm trying to rationalize ordering turkey poults next spring, which is a ridiculous idea. I know that. When I mentioned it to the guy at Feather Haven, he told me turkeys are so dumb they drown in their water bowls when they try to drink.

Also:

a. we have known predator issues 

b. we have neighbors who might not approve

c. I would have to slaughter them

d. my husband gets a grim and stony look when the subject comes up

But still. Turkeys. Just once. It would be so great. 

Incidentally, this same farm that sells the heritage turkeys also sells free-range eggs for $7 a dozen. I don't want to denigrate the hard work of our local farmers or suggest that they don't deserve it, but that's a lot of money for eggs.

The price of birds, the price of bees

**When I first posted this I erred in my chicken calculations. Anyway, it's been fixed.

Slate ran a story a few weeks ago in which the author asserts that "keeping chickens is a filthy, time consuming, and expensive way to keep the pantry filled with eggs." 

I expected keeping chickens to be all those things, but have been rather shocked by how easy and cheap the whole experience has been. So far. For us.

In terms of cost, we had a head start:

1. we have a big yard that was already well fenced to exclude deer 

2. we had a ramshackle playhouse that everyone avoided because it was funky and filled with spiders. This was converted to a henhouse in one afternoon with an $18.99 roll of chicken wire. 

Here are our out-of-pocket poultry expenses as of today:

wire, water bowl, chick feeder, feed, bedding  $68.54

 bulbs & clamp lamp $18.24

the chicks themselves $35.00

Total $121.78

That's a steep down payment on eggs we will not get until August at the earliest, assuming nothing goes wrong. Alberta Einstein comes from a breed of bad layers and our bantam's eggs will be puny, so I'm going to assume those two losers will contribute nothing. Let's say the ten other hens (we're hoping they're all hens) lay 3 egg a week. Thirty eggs a week are worth $6.98 at the rate I've been paying for moderately fancy supermarket eggs. Will the chickens ever earn their keep? Don't know. But it seems at least conceivable. I'm keeping track and will report back.

As for labor, the chickens require 10 minutes a day. Filth is a non-issue now that they are outside. 

The bees, on the other hand: MONEY PIT. We won't get any honey until next year:

Here's what I've paid so far: 

sugar for feeding the bees in early weeks   $13

bees themselves (2 packets)         $188

equipment, boxes, gear, books, smoker, paint         $733.69

 

Total             $934.69

That is one freaking expensive hobby. Interesting and noble and all that, but holy hell.

 

Make it or buy it: Crummy pizza, part 2

It's hard to make a nastier pizza than an American suburban pizzeria, and that's a problem for the home cook whose main goal is to satisfy a group of 6th grade girls. You know the way you can soak a napkin in the dark orange grease that pools atop one of those salty, awful/delicious pizzeria pizzas? Well, you couldn't soak a napkin in the grease on top of my pizzas. In that, I failed.

 

Lessons learned:

-Crust. The dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day was easy and great, but I didn't realize quite how buoyant it was until I'd baked the first pizza, which ended up with a very thick, bready crust.  You need the dough almost membrane thin before it goes in the oven.

-Sauce. I sauteed chopped garlic in olive oil, then poured in a can of crushed tomatoes to make a sauce. Because it seemed tart, added sugar. Sauce was then perfect.

-Cheese. The brand -- Lucerne pre-shredded -- also perfect. Weird, that buying your mozzarella pre-shredded is cheaper. My advice here is to use a mountain of cheese, really mound it on until you think there's too much, then add a few fistfuls more. The first pizza was wimpy in that regard; the pie pictured above was slightly under-cheesed, but moving in the right direction. As it cools, you want there to be a dense, chewy hide of mozzarella covering the crust.

-Pepperoni. When it comes to fatty pepperoni, Hormel rocks. (Speaking of Hormel, this was an excellent movie.)

Was homemade better? By the end, the pies were getting really, really nasty, albeit not quite nasty enough. I've watched these kids scarf down pizza, but they were shockingly moderate last night. My theory: even my worst effort tasted enough like real food that they were able to regulate their appetites which is a. good! b. sorely disappointing. 

Was it cheaper? Dramatically so. I would have ordered four extra large pizzas (2 cheese, two pepperoni) from Domino's to feed nine of us, and given the delivery person a $5 tip. Price: $75.83.*

However, given that Domino's is heinous, I probably would have ordered the same quantity for pick-up at our local place, Stefano's: $82.60.

Made from scratch, last night's pizza dinner cost $14.53, which includes a leftover baked pie and dough to freeze. I didn't use all the topping ingredients, so those aren't reflected in the price. Even if they were, it wouldn't add much to the sum.

Hassle factor: Not bad. Less than an hour total to make the pizzas and wash up. But let's call it an hour. Everyone values their time differently, but for me, $61 ($68 if we'd gone with Stefano's) easily justified making crummy pizza at home.

Make or Buy? Absolutely, make.

*Three would probably have been ample, but I would have ordered four. Husband says he would have ordered "three or four." Just to be fair, the price for three Domino's pizzas (two cheese, one pepperoni) would have been $61.39, including tip.  Still cheaper -- by $47 -- to make.

Make it or buy it: crummy pizza

Isabel's pack of friends is coming over tonight for a sleepover and while I'm okay with the pounds and pounds of Starbursts, multiple screenings of Made of Honor and high-pitched shrieks, the ritual pizza part was bumming me out. With the money we spend on even the lousiest delivered pizzas we could buy. . . lobsters, a beef tenderloin, a truffle. I'm estimating it would be $80 including tip to order Domino's, and slightly more if we upgraded to Dario's. And for what, I ask? 

 

Do I want to cook for a bunch of 12-year-old girls jacked up on Gummi Worms? F*** no. But I'm curious to compare the cost of making versus ordering truly pedestrian pizza.

I made a double recipe of the crust from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day -- a no-knead dough -- and, as you can see above, splurged on the toppings. 

Ok, Hormel is gross. But I doubt Domino's is using Fra'Mani. It's not that I don't think kids deserve high-quality food -- I do! -- but if the girlies want greasy pepperoni pizza at their quarterly slumber party, Mom's not gonna stand in their way. 

I'll price it out after assessing hassle factor, tastiness, and and popularity.