Dairy

188/365: National Strawberry Sundae Day

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Midwest Mark

Happy Sundae! Err…Sundae. It’s a happy coincidence that today’s food holiday lands on its namesake day. July 7 is National Strawberry Sundae Day! And no, I did not stutter.

As recently mentioned, the sundae was created when conservative governments in several states banned the sale of ice cream sodas on Sundays. In order to keep their businesses afloat (joke alert!), ice cream purveyors came up with a soda-free alternative called the sundae (spelled that way to avoid offending Christians, who apparently believed that soda was the devil’s bidding). Many cities claim to be the birthplace of the sundae, including Two Rivers, Wisconsin; Plainfield, Illinois; Evanston, Illinois; New Orleans; New York City; Ithaca, New York; Cleveland, Ohio; and Buffalo, New York. The exact origin is unclear, but it is generally accepted that the first ice cream sundae appeared sometime between 1880 and 1892.

The world's most expensive sundae.

The world’s most expensive sundae.

Ice cream sundaes are simple desserts consisting of one or more scoops of ice cream, topped with sauce, syrup, whipped cream, nuts, fruit, or sprinkles, or – in some cases – all of the above. Most sundaes are cheap and satisfying, but a restaurant in New York City called Serendipity 3 serves a $1000 sundae that is hailed by Guinness World Records as the world’s most expensive. Called the Serendipity Golden Opulence Sundae, this treat is made with 5 scoops of Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream infused with Madagascar vanilla, covered in 23-karat edible gold leaf, rare Amedei Porcelana and Chuao chocolates, caviar, passionfruit, orange, Armagnac, candied fruit from Paris, and marzipan cherries. The whole thing is covered in gold dragées and served in a baccarat Harcourt crystal goblet with an 18-carat-gold spoon. You get to keep the goblet, but have to give back the spoon. Seriously?

Fresh out of $1000 bills, we had to scale back our celebration of the strawberry sundae. Instead, we spent a buck and change and grabbed one from McDonald’s. I remembered that they sold sundaes, but it had been years since I’d gotten one. They were smaller than I remember, actually – but not bad. Not bad at all.

National Strawberry Sundae Day

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182/365: National Creative Ice Cream Flavor Day*

Posted on July 1, 2013 by Midwest Mark

I scream, you scream, we all scream for today’s food holiday, especially when the flavor is wacky. July 1 is National Creative Ice Cream Flavor Day!

It’s also National Ginger Snap Day, but we recently had ginger snaps in honor of National Gingerbread Day. Besides, few treats embody summer as perfectly as ice cream. And in Portland, we’ve got the perfect place to celebrate creative ice cream flavors. There was no resisting this holiday!

The line for Salt & Straw: typically long, especially on a hot summer evening.

The line for Salt & Straw: typically long, especially on a hot summer evening.

Vanilla may be America’s most popular flavor of ice cream, but thanks to companies such as Ben & Jerry’s (“Chunky Monkey,” “Cherry Garcia,” etc.), unusual flavor combinations have become a fun – and increasingly popular – draw for ice cream lovers, particularly during warm summer months. In Portland, Salt & Straw, a “farm-to-cone” ice cream shop perfectly representative of Portland’s food culture and unique vibe, opened their first location a few years ago, and were an instant hit. Not just because they pride themselves on sourcing local, organic, sustainable ingredients, but because of their creative flavors. They change with the seasons, but popular choices include Pear With Bleu Cheese, Honey Balsamic Strawberry with Cracked Pepper, Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout, and Arbequina Olive Oil. Salt & Straw pairs with local vendors and restaurants for some very clever and unusual flavors. It doesn’t hurt that their ice cream is very creamy and smooth, made with 17% butterfat and very little air in the churning process. It truly is delicious, and has become the city’s newest Voodoo Doughnut, an overnight sensation garnering big press. Both Saveur Magazine and Oprah’s O Magazine have named it one of the best ice cream shops in America, a can’t-miss destination for foodies in the Rose City.

Goat Cheese Marionberry Habanero.

Goat Cheese Marionberry Habanero.

After dinner, we made a beeline for Salt & Straw. Along with everybody else in Portland, apparently. That’s what happens when you cross a sultry summer evening with a trendy boutique ice cream shop. We ended up waiting in a line 40 people deep for about twenty minutes. Well worth it, though. Tara got Chocolate Blueberry Rice Krispy Treats while I opted for Goat Cheese Marionberry Habanero. Both were delicious, and I think you’d agree, very creative flavors!

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172/365: National Peaches and Cream Day

Posted on June 21, 2013 by Midwest Mark

You may be feeling peachy keen because it’s the first day of Summer. Which would be appropriate, considering June 21 is National Peaches and Cream Day!

I’m glad peaches and cream get their own holiday and everything, but what about Peaches & Herb?! Reunited and it feels so good? Shake your groove thing? Come on, people. Honor the groovy 70s duo!

Anyway. Peaches and cream is the South’s answer to strawberries and cream, which is a British invention. It’s considered a relatively healthy dessert because it is made with fresh fruit chock full of vitamins, though there’s still that pesky thing called “cream” keeping it from being a true dieter’s friend. Peaches, once called Persian apples, originated in China and were a favorite of emperors. As it spread through Europe it became a popular but rare treat. A fresh peach wrapped in a fancy cotton napkin was considered a high-falutin’ dessert back in the day. Peaches were brought to America by Spanish explorers in the 16th century, but commercial production didn’t actually begin until the 19th century in Maryland, Delaware, Georgia, and Virginia.

Like strawberries and cream, the “cream” in peaches and cream is actually whipped. To celebrate the holiday, we sliced a fresh peach (the benefit of having this holiday land on the summer solstice) and topped it with a generous dollop of whipped cream. There are fancier recipes out there, but we had a concert to attend tonight and needed to keep it simple. It was delicious, anyway!

National Peaches and Cream Day

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171/365: National Vanilla Milkshake Day

Posted on June 20, 2013 by Midwest Mark

Those susceptible to brain freezes beware: June 20 is National Vanilla Milkshake Day!

The term “milkshake” has been around since the 1800s, though it originally referred to an entirely different drink altogether. It first appeared in print in 1885 and was described as a”sturdy, healthful eggnog type of drink, with eggs, whiskey, etc., served as a tonic as well as a treat.” I don’t know if your liver would necessarily agree about the “healthful” part, but whatever. By 1900 the alcohol had disappeared, and milkshakes were made with vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry syrups. It wasn’t until 1922 when the milkshake as we know it and love it was invented; a Walgreens employee named Ivar “Pop” Coulson added two scoops of ice cream to a malted milk (milk, chocolate, and malt powder) and, voila! A new creation was born. By the 1930s milkshakes were popular across the nation, and the invention of freon-cooled refrigerators during that decade provided a safe and reliable method of making and dispensing ice cream. Fancy stainless steel automatic milkshake mixing machines soon followed, and in the 1950s Ray Kroc bought exclusive rights to one of these automated milkshake makers to speed up production in his fledgling new chain of fast-food restaurants called McDonald’s. These machines folded air into the drinks, making them smooth and fluffy. Like a koala bear. Milkshakes have remained popular over the years, evoking nostalgia for a bygone era. They are an especially profitable source of revenue for restaurants since the fluffy drinks contain so much air; one market research study showed that 75% of the cost of an average milkshake is pure profit. Almost makes me want to not order a milkshake just out of spite, but come on…how could I do that? Milkshakes are delicious!

To celebrate, we stopped at McDonald’s. After all, it was Ray Kroc’s foresight that helped milkshakes become as widely popular and readily available as they are now.

National Vanilla Milkshake Day

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158/365: National Chocolate Ice Cream Day*

Posted on June 7, 2013 by Midwest Mark

Want the latest scoop? Psst…June 7 is National Chocolate Ice Cream Day!

It’s also National Doughnut Day, a “floating” food holiday that occurs on the first Friday in June. Normally we’d be all over that, except for the not-so-insignificant fact that tomorrow is National Jelly-Filled Doughnut Day. Gotta have a little variety, you know? Then again, a few days ago we celebrated rocky road ice cream…

But back-to-back doughnut days are overkill. So we went with ice cream instead.

When it comes to ice cream flavors, vanilla is the most popular choice hands down (with 29% of the vote). Chocolate comes in second place (8.9%). But hey, there’s no shame in being a runner-up! (Unless you’re only up against one other competitor. Sorry, Super Bowl-losing San Francisco 49ers). Chocolate ice cream is made by blending cocoa powder with eggs, cream, sugar, and vanilla. It’s been around for centuries; the first ice cream parlor in America opened the same year we became a country, in 1776. Quakers brought over their favorite ice cream recipes, and the frozen treat became a widespread hit. Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson all indulged in ice cream when they weren’t busy flying kites in thunderstorms or secretly crossing the Delaware River and stuff. In fact, there’s a brown smudge on one corner of the Declaration of Independence that is rumored to be a dripping from the chocolate ice cream cone that Jefferson was licking when he put quill to parchment. That’s a totally made up fact, by the way. But it could’ve happened.

To celebrate, we picked up a small container from Fred Meyer. And ate it in the bedroom by candlelight. Chocolate = romance, right?

Chocolate Ice Cream

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155/365: National Cheese Day

Posted on June 4, 2013 by Midwest Mark

You’ll have to reach whey back in the dairy case to celebrate today’s food holiday. June 4 is National Cheese Day!

Which is not to be confused with National Cheese Lover’s Day. Or cheese fondue day. Or grilled cheese day. Or…well, there sure are a lot of holidays devoted to cheese! And in my not-so-moldy opinion, that’s a good thing. Since I’ve already discussed cheese ad nauseum (fancy way of saying “a lot”), I’ll leave you with some fun cheese facts and quotes instead.

Remains of cheese have been found in 4000 year old Egyptian tombs.

While cows, goats, and sheep are most often used to make cheese, it is occasionally made from the milk of other animals. A farm in Sweden makes moose cheese, and there’s a mozzarella made from the milk of a water buffalo.

The U.S. is the top cheese producer in the world, but Greece consumes the most cheese, with France a not-so-distant second.

Mozzarella is the most popular cheese in the U.S., having recently surpassed cheddar. We can thank pizza lovers (and string cheese manufacturers) for this trend.

Swiss cheese has holes because of gases that expand in the curds during the ripening period.

The term “big cheese” referred to people who were wealthy enough to be able to purchase a whole wheel of cheese.

The best cheese accompaniments are fruit, olives, and nuts.

Cheese tastes best when it’s served at room temperature. Remove it from the refrigerator about an hour before serving.

“A cheese may disappoint. It may be dull, it may be naive, it may be over sophisticated. Yet it remains, cheese, milk’s leap toward immortality.” – Clifton Fadiman

“A dinner which ends without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye.” – Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

“How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” – Charles De Gaulle

“Age is something that doesn’t matter, unless you are a cheese.” – Luis Bunuel

“The clever cat eats cheese and breathes down rat holes with baited breath.” – W.C. Fields

To celebrate National Cheese Day, we made the ultimate comfort food dish: macaroni ‘n cheese. And not out of a blue box, either. From scratch, of course (thank you, Fannie Farmer). It was scrumptious, even on a warm day like today!

Macaroni & Cheese

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153/365: National Rocky Road Ice Cream Day

Posted on June 2, 2013 by Midwest Mark

You may encounter a rocky road ahead, but trust us – that’s a good thing, at least on June 2. It’s National Rocky Road Ice Cream Day!

Rocky road ice cream traditionally contains chocolate ice cream, marshmallows, and nuts. It was created in 1929 by William Dreyer of Oakland, California. A year earlier, Dreyer had formed an ice cream company with Joseph Edy. One day William, apparently bored out of his mind,  borrowed his wife’s sewing scissors and cut up marshmallows and walnuts, adding them to chocolate ice cream to create a new flavor. There’s no record of his wife’s reaction to his use of her scissors in such a manner, but the flavor was a hit. After the Stock Market Crash in October of that year, Dreyer named the ice cream rocky road “to give folks something to smile about in the midst of the Great Depression.” And smile people did, when they weren’t busy jumping out of high rise buildings and stuff. Eventually, the walnuts were replaced by almonds. Interestingly, in Australia people add jam to their rocky road ice cream, and in the U.K., cherries and raisins are incorporated within.

We kind of, sort of, celebrated rocky road ice cream earlier this year when we used it as a base for Heavenly Hash. But this time, we were able to enjoy a simple bowl of unadulterated rocky road. It’s one of my favorite ice cream flavors, so I had no problem eating a couple of scoops today!

Rocky Road Ice Cream

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141/365: National Strawberries and Cream Day

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Midwest Mark

Today’s food holiday is berry delicious! May 21 is National Strawberries and Cream Day.

I had assume that strawberries and cream were just that: strawberries floating in a bowl of cream. Which doesn’t sound all that appealing. Turns out, most preparations involve whipped cream. Some even call for ice cream. Ahh…well now, that makes sense! Strawberries and whipped cream are a decadent delicacy. I decacacy, if you will.

Strawberries and cream were first served by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Lord Chancellor of King Henry VIII’s royal court, in the 1500s. In 1514, Wolsey built a fabulous riverside retreat called Hampton Court which he referred as the “the King’s palace” due to the frequency of Henry VIII’s visits. Opulent parties were thrown, and included lavish feasts whipped up by the chefs in Hampton Court’s oversized kitchens; they were expected to feed some 600 people twice a day. The kitchens were hot and crowded, and the chefs worked like mad, once serving a meal consisting of 44 different cooked animals and birds. One overworked chef said “this is bullshit” – or whatever profanity-laced phrase was popular at the time – and decided to put together a simple dessert that did not require plucking, skinning, butchering, or cooking. He took strawberries, combined them with thickened cream (dairy products were considered a peasant dish at the time), and served them to the royal court. Rather than declaring “off with his head!” the king enjoyed the treat, and it became popular throughout Britain. To this day, strawberries and cream are synonymous with the Wimbledon tennis tournament, where more than 6000 pounds of strawberries and 2000 pounds of cream are served.

I wish this food holiday was just a few weeks later. The best strawberries in the world are grown in the Pacific Northwest, but the season doesn’t begin until June and is much too short. We had to settle for California strawberries from the grocery store instead, which – no offense to Golden Staters – pale in comparison. But – on the plus side – I made my own whipped cream! It’s amazingly simple. Cream, sugar, and a splash of vanilla. Whip until it forms stiff peaks.

That’s what she said.

IMAG0861

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107/365: National Cheeseball Day

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Midwest Mark

Much like fruitcake and Rodney Dangerfield, the food we are honoring today gets no respect. April 17 is National Cheeseball Day!

This kitschy party favorite has gotten a bad rap for years. New York Times food writer Amanda Hesser once wrote, “Cheese balls tend to be associated with shag rugs and tinsel, symbols of the middle-class middlebrow.” But wait. I happen to be a fan of all things ’70s – including shag rugs and tinsel! In fact, I received a box of tinsel as a Christmas gift last year, after complaining that I could no longer find it in stores. (Thanks, future mother-in-law!). Which probably explains why I was looking forward to celebrating the cheeseball.

Nobody knows its exact origins, but Virginia Safford’s 1944 cookbook Food of my Friends contains the first known recipe for a cheeseball. Typically made with a blend of cream cheese and another softened cheese, cheeseballs are popular party dips that, over the years, have fallen out of favor with the American public. This article has some great information as to why, and the explanation is right there in the opening paragraph: cheeseballs are viewed as “an orange softball filled with garish industrial cheeses, smacking of an untraceable sweetness, and coated with stale, often soggy, nuts.” But they don’t have to be this way! Recipes for gourmet versions are abundant. Even Martha freakin’ Stewart has come up with ways to class up the lowly cheeseball. So get on the bandwagon, folks! Let’s bring cheeseballs back into vogue!

Tara and I bought one from WinCo. Kaukauna brand. It was…well, it was a cheeseball. Maybe there’s a reason these things receive so much derision. It made an “okay” appetizer for dinner, anyway.

Cheeseball

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102/365: National Grilled Cheese Day*

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Midwest Mark

You just might melt with desire over today’s food holiday. April 12th is National Grilled Cheese Day – a favorite of kids and adults alike! At least these two adults. In fact, last year Tara and I did a grilled cheese challenge on my regular blog…long before this one ever got started. You can read about it here. Suffice it to say, we both love grilled cheese, and were happy to be able to celebrate it today.

For the record, it’s also National Licorice Day. We both despise licorice, so choosing which holiday to celebrate was a no brainer! Besides, not only is today National Grilled Cheese Day, but April is Grilled Cheese Month. How could we resist?

Bread and cheese have been served together at mealtime for centuries – a practice dating back to at least Roman times. However, it wasn’t until the 1920s – at least here in the U.S. – that the bread and cheese actually joined forces, when people who were flat-ass broke and struggling to survive the Great Depression took two inexpensive ingredients, sliced bread and American cheese, and turned them into a cheap meal. They were a staple of the armed forces during World War II; navy chefs prepared countless “American cheese filling sandwiches” aboard ship. Early versions of the sandwich were served open-faced and initially called Cheese Dreams, and then “toasted cheese” or “melted cheese” sandwiches, remaining popular well into the 1960s. That was when enterprising chefs realized they could add a second slice of bread and create a more filling meal, one that was capable of being eaten by hand. And also when they were first referred to as “grilled cheese” sandwiches. The very definition of comfort food, grilled cheese sandwiches fell out of vogue for a number of years, but starting in the 1990s have enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. They can be made with any cheese that will melt, and an endless array of toppings (see link to our blog post above).

For today’s challenge, we kept it simple and went back to basics. Just bread and cheese (cheddar for Tara and American for moi). After all, why mess with perfection?

Grilled Cheese

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