173/365: National Onion Ring Day*

Posted on June 22, 2013 by Midwest Mark

You might just cry if you don’t get to try today’s food holiday. June 22 is National Onion Ring Day!

It’s also National Chocolate Eclair Day, but I’ve whined about desserts enough this month for you to realize why, when given the opportunity, we are choosing savory over sweet. No offense to chocolate eclairs, of course. Normally I love ’em.

If foods were like The Brady Bunch, onion rings would be Jan and french fries would be Marcia. Meaning, they tend to play second fiddle and are frequently overlooked, but personally I love onion rings and – if given a choice – usually pick them over fries. While their exact origin is unknown, a once-thriving restaurant chain from Texas called  Pig Stand claims to have invented onion rings in the first half of the 20th century (along with Texas toast and chicken fried steak). The first official recipe – calling for onions dipped in milk, dredged in flour, and deep fried – appeared in a Crisco ad in The New York Times Magazine in 1933. A&W Restaurants added onion rings to their menu in the 1960s, a move that is credited with broadening their reach and widening their popularity.

I wish this food holiday was about a week and a half later. Every July, our local Burgerville chain begins serving seasonal Walla Walla onion rings. Walla Walla onions are the best – they are large and incredibly sweet, so much so that they say you can eat one straight up, like an apple. (I tried taking a bite once and, let’s just say, while they are sweet and juicy, no onion should ever be eaten like an apple. End of story). Sadly, this holiday falls just a little too early to take advantage of Burgerville’s onion rings. But, Walla Walla onions are available now, so Tara had the bright idea that we have another friendly little competition to see who could fry up the best onion rings. She wanted to make up for her “devastating loss” in the cheese souffle challenge, and I was looking forward to pulling ahead 2-1 overall in challenges, so it was Game On!

We both chose beer batter recipes. Tara’s included a buttermilk soak, while mine was seasoned with a mixture of garlic powder, parsley flakes, and oregano. I did mine in the deep fryer, and she used a frying pan. It was interesting how the consistency between both differed. As for taste, they were both very good. Hers were a little on the salty side, while mine could have used a bit more. Go figure. This was a very tough decision and could have gone either way. In the end, we asked the opinion of a neutral third party who did not know who made which onion rings: my teenaged son. He agreed that they were both good, but gave the slight edge to Tara. In the end, I agreed with him: hers were a little crispier and just a bit more flavorful. Congrats, Tara!

L to R: Tara's onion rings, Mark's onion rings.

L to R: Tara’s onion rings, Mark’s onion rings.

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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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170/365: National Dry Martini Day

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Midwest Mark

Regardless of whether you like it shaken or stirred, today will appeal to anybody who loves the classic combination of gin and vermouth. June 19 is National Dry Martini Day!

A martini can be either sweet or dry, depending on the vermouth. The original recipe calls for half gin, half vermouth (an Italian wine), and either a green olive or a twist of lemon. Over the years the ratio of gin to vermouth has steadily increased; in the 1930s it was 3:1 or 4:1, and nowadays, it’s more like 6:1 or 8:1, if that. English playwright Noël Coward once declared the perfect martini was made by “filling a glass with gin then waving it in the general direction of Italy,” while Winston Churchill was said to merely whisper the word “vermouth” to a freshly poured glass of gin. Further complicating matters is the fact that vodka began replacing gin as the base spirit in the martini in the 1980s, though purists scoff at this notion.

Like many well-known alcoholic beverages, the origin of the martini is unclear, with several people laying claim to its invention. An Italian company began manufacturing vermouth in 1863 under the name Martini, which later evolved to Martini & Rossi. Around the same time, a popular drink in San Francisco called the Martinez is said to be the inspiration for the martini; it consisted of 1 oz. gin, 2 oz. sweet vermouth, 1 dash oranges bitters, 2 dashes maraschino liqueur, served in a cocktail glass with a slice of lemon. Residents of the nearby town of Martinez would flock to the Occidental Hotel for the drink before taking a ferry back home. Many believe the drink was either named for the town, or the town for the drink. Residents of Manhattan can relate. Regardless of its true origin, the martini became the cocktail of choice in America by the mid-20th century, thanks in large part to Prohibition, when it was fairly easy to whip up a batch of illegal gin. By the 1970s the drink was viewed as old-fashioned and fell out of favor, but it has experienced a resurgence in recent years, even if it does often contain vodka now.

I love gin, so there was no way I was going to become a sellout and go the vodka route. I’d never actually had a martini before, but after picking up a bottle of dry vermouth, was all set to make my own. I went all James Bond and served it shaken, not stirred. Took one sip, and………….

………….nearly spit it out.

Holy cow, was that disgusting! I love my gin and tonics, but it turns out gin straight up with a splash of vermouth is not so appealing. Oh, well. Live and learn. Fortunately our rules state that we only need a single sip or bite of the celebrated food/drink. I did take another good-sized sip ten minutes later to see if it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d thought the first time.

It still was.

Oh, well. Live and learn. But the olive was tasty.

National Dry Martini Day

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169/365: International Sushi Day*

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Midwest Mark

There’s something fishy about today’s food holiday. Fishy in a good way! June 18 is INTERnational Sushi Day! We’re branching out and going global today.

International Sushi Day is a relatively new food holiday, having been created in 2009 after a successful Facebook campaign. I may just have to start a page to promote National Ketchup Day, which – as I’ve mentioned – does not exist. There’s something fishy about that, let me tell you.

Anyway. Today is also National Cherry Tart Day and International Picnic Day. We chose to celebrate sushi because A. we are sick of desserts, and B. we have to work, and the weather might be showery this evening, so a picnic isn’t in the cards. Besides, I love sushi! Tara does not…but when has that ever stopped us?

Sushi dates back to the 4th century B.C. in Southeast Asia. When fish were caught they were cleaned, gutted, and salted, and wrapped in rice; the natural fermentation of the rice acted as a preservative to keep the fish edible for months. When ready to eat, the rice was discarded. Sushi was introduced to Japan in the 8th century A.D. The Japanese liked to eat rice with their fish, which was still partially raw, so instead of a method of preparation, sushi became a meal itself. They began mixing vinegar in with the rice to recreate the tangy flavor without having to wait for fermentation to occur. Vegetables and other preserved foods were added to the mix, with each region of Japan relying on local ingredients to create specialized recipes. By the 19th century sushi had evolved to include fresh fish and seaweed, and finally resembled the dish we are familiar with today. Sushi didn’t appear in the West until much later. In 1953, Japan’s Prince Akihito introduced sushi to Britain and America (it was served at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C.). During the 1970s Japanese businesses began expanding to the U.S., and sushi restaurants were opened to cater to their tastes. Sushi was a tough sell in America – few people could stomach the idea of eating raw fish – so the California roll was developed, consisting of cucumber, (cooked) crabmeat, and avocado. This was the perfect introductory vehicle for the American palate, and allowed people to gradually experiment with other types of sushi, notably raw fish. Sushi gained popularity in the U.S. during the health-conscious 1980s, and nowadays is a very popular dish both here and abroad.

We’re fortunate, because Fred Meyer – our local grocery-slash-everything-else-store, has a very good sushi bar. I go there often for a quick, tasty, and healthy lunch.

International Sushi Day

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168/365: National Eat Your Vegetables Day

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Midwest Mark

What’s this? A healthy food holiday tucked in amongst all the desserts this month?! Be still my heart! (Or, more accurately, keep beating). June 17 is National Eat Your Vegetables Day!

After a plethora of pies and a crapload of cakes, has broccoli ever looked so beautiful? Peas so pleasing? Spinach so scrumptious? Chances are, you’ll only appreciate this holiday if you’re a grownup. Kids tend to dislike veggies, and as a youngster, I was no exception. There were a few vegetables I didn’t mind. Corn, for starters, but isn’t that pretty universal? Corn hardly “counts” as a veggie. I did always appreciate canned spinach and peas, and never minded green beans or asparagus, but there was one vegetable I hated with a passion and avoided at all costs.

Broccoli.

I was not alone in my contempt for this relative of the cabbage with the flowery head and the tough stalk. Show me a kid who says he or she likes broccoli, and I’ll call that person a liar. Former President George Bush Sr. famously declared a hatred for broccoli, and I’m convinced that’s the one and only reason I voted for him in 1988. (That was the only time I ever voted for a Republican President in my life. Can’t be a coincidence). For me, the texture as much as the taste turned my stomach. Those little flowery pieces on top always seemed to get stuck in my throat and make me gag.

And then, a funny thing happened. I started to not mind broccoli so much. I think this started out slowly. A spoonful of broccoli cheddar soup here, a random floret that accidentally got impaled on my fork when I was eating broccoli beef there. One day, I discovered I could eat it without gagging. Before long, I found I actually liked the flavor. I still don’t know how that happened. I know our tastes “mature” as we age, but I’ve never started liking watermelon or cauliflower. Broccoli, on the other hand, is delicious. Some people cover it in butter or drown it in cheese. I feel like that’s cheating. Tara steams hers with chicken broth instead of water, and it’s fantastic.

For National Eat Your Vegetables Day, we had to celebrate with broccoli. It was wonderful!

National Eat Your Vegetables Day

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167/365: National Fudge Day

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Midwest Mark

Today is the second of three fudge-themed food holidays this year. Happy National Fudge Day, y’all!

Last month, we celebrated nutty fudge. I shared the history of this happy accident then, so I won’t bore you with the same old story again. I will say that some believe the dessert got its name from the word “fudged” which means doing something wrong, since the first batches were nothing more than toffee that got screwed up during the cooking process. This “mistake” was deemed delicious, and went on sale for 40 cents a pound in Baltimore area grocery stores when it was introduced in 1886. Fudge is similar to Scottish tablet, a confection made with sugar, milk, and butter, and often flavored with vanilla, whiskey, or nuts. Tablet is brittle and grainy, and harder than fudge, though the flavor is similar.

In true deja vu spirit, we still had leftover chocolate nut fudge from the last fudge holiday a little over a month ago. Fudge is one of those things that keeps for ages, so we simply dusted off the old hunk (not literally) and ate that today. It was good on May 12, and still good on June 16!

Nutty Fudge

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166/365: National Lobster Day

Posted on June 15, 2013 by Midwest Mark

You just might be clawing your way to the nearest crustacean tank in order to shellfishly enjoy today’s food holiday. June 15 is National Lobster Day!

Now, we’ve already discussed lobster before, so I won’t repeat the same details as before. How about a few fun facts instead?

  1. Lobsters only turn red when they are cooked.
  2. Lobsters have blue blood. This does not mean they’re rich, but rather, they’ve got copper in their bloodstream.
  3. Lobsters were once considered food for the poor, and were fed to prisoners and servants. Nowadays they are a delicacy.
  4. A lobster’s brain is in its throat.
  5. Lobsters hear with their legs and taste with their feet.

Interesting creatures, eh? Plus they can live to a very ripe old age. You know, if they aren’t caught in traps and fed to hungry prisoners first. To celebrate the holiday, Tara and I went to Quizno’s for a lobster and seafood salad sandwich. I had no idea they made such a beast. Good stuff, too!

And now, as promised, I’m going to share a few stories from you, our faithful readers! Thursday was National Kitchen Klutzes of America Day, a day to celebrate your favorite kitchen follies. Tara and I told you about ours. Here’s what you had to say.

“One New Years Day I was opening a canned ham (back in the day when the cans were made of metal and you used a key to open it) and I ended up in the emergency room getting 9 stitches in my finger!” This one came from my mom, and I remember that day well. I was 9 or 10 years old. Most traumatic start to a new year ever. I have no idea what we ended up having for dinner that night – probably hospital food. Yum.

“My daughter was coming over for dinner and I wanted to try something new, exciting, and different. So, I tried salt-roasted pork tenderloin. When finished, it looked great. But, it tasted like salt lightly flavored with a hint of pork. I couldn’t eat it. Sue couldn’t eat it. Danica couldn’t eat it. The dog couldn’t eat it. I still don’t know what I did wrong, but that was bad.” Courtesy of my uncle Tom, who is quite the gourmet cook – which makes this story all the more surprising.

“I cut my hand on a frozen waffle.” Short, sweet, and painful…but I laughed my ass off when I read that. Thanks for sharing, Donna. I hope you were able to leggo of your Eggo fear.

“Years ago I made brownies (from a box) for my new co-workers, so they would like the new girl. I am terrible at following directions. The brownies had been in the oven for a few minutes when I discovered that I had left the eggs out. So I took the brownies out of the oven, stirred in the eggs and resumed baking. The next day when my co-workers were eating my brownies, this one mean girl yelled out for all to hear, “Hey, there’s hunks of eggs in these brownies!”. If anybody had to get a hunk of egg in her brownie, I’m glad it was her.” Thanks for the funny story, Marilyn. Two words for the mean girl: karma, bitch.

“My family tells a story about the first time I made meatloaf for them, when I was in junior high. Instead of using a teaspoon of pepper (or something), I used a tablespoon, and the resulting meatloaf was too hot and spicy for my bland family’s tongues. However, the next evening, Mom rescued my by crumbling my meatloaf up into the spaghetti sauce; my too-spicy meatloaf made a fabulous pasta sauce.” I bet I’d enjoy your spicy meatloaf, Jonna. I love food with a kick!

And then there’s Wendy, who apparently is so klutzy around the kitchen it’s a wonder anything ever turns out. She had multiple stories to share. “I tried taking cheese sticks out of the oven by grabbing the foil edges and the foil ripped and my hands went up and hit the top burners…..blisters on both hands….on Christmas eve no less!” “Tom: I did that trying to “brine” a chicken. Tasted like salt. That’s all, nothing else.” “When I was in the 6th grade my mom had to work Thanksgiving morning and it was my responsibility to put the turkey in the oven so we could eat when my mom got home. Well I didn’t remove that pack of innards and the turkey was still raw when it was time to eat. To this day I refuse to make turkey in Thanksgiving.”Oh also, when we got our first microwave I put a hot dog in for 5 minutes. Yes, minutes!” Remind me never to accept a dinner invitation to Wendy’s house. Especially around the holidays!

National Lobster Day
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165/365: National Strawberry Shortcake Day

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Midwest Mark

Today we celebrate a redheaded doll and her cat, Custard!

Oopsie. Scratch that. We celebrate a dessert, not a cartoon character. June 14 is Flag Day…and it’s also National Strawberry Shortcake Day! And how fitting, because few dishes are as American as strawberry shortcake.

Shortcake is named for the butter, or shortening, added to dough to soften it up. It’s actually a European invention that dates to the 16th century. And even though strawberries were enjoyed in ancient Rome, putting the two ingredients together was an American concept that occurred in the 1840s. When transcontinental railroads were built during that decade, strawberries – which before had only a limited local following – were shipped all over the U.S., and became an extremely popular summertime fruit. An early American colonist was quoted as saying, “Doubtless the almighty COULD make a better berry, but doubtless he never did.” The first strawberry shortcake recipe was printed in Eliza Leslie’s 1847 cookbook Lady’s Receipt Book: A Useful Companion for Large or Small Families. Soon, strawberry shortcake parties became all the rage as a celebration of summer’s approach. This recipe has stood the test of time, and remains popular to this day.

Tara and I met up for lunch at Burgerville, which sells fresh, seasonal, individual strawberry shortcakes. We split one, and wow, was it good!

Coming tomorrow: we asked, and you shared. Our readers describe their klutziest kitchen moments ever. Stay tuned!

National Strawberry Shortcake Day

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164/365: National Kitchen Klutzes of America Day

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Midwest Mark

I almost stumbled and fell when I saw today’s unusual food holiday. June 13 is Kitchen Klutzes of America Day!

Alrighty, then…

(Still no National Ketchup Day, by the way. What a waste of a food holiday. But I’ll play along).

Kitchen Klutzes of America is dedicated to anybody who has ever made a fool of themselves in the kitchen. Maybe they’ve accidentally substituted salt for sugar, or used the wrong measurements in a recipe. Maybe they burned the bread, spilled the soup, or poached when they should have sauteed. This probably applies to pretty much everybody. In fact, if you’ve got an interesting Kitchen Klutz story to share, we’d love to hear about it in the comments section. The best responses will be shared in a future post.

Not very long ago, Tara accidentally used cinnamon instead of chili powder when cooking taco meat. Fortunately, she caught her error before dinner was served. This necessitated an emergency trip to the grocery store, but that was better than eating sweet tacos. As for myself, I once turned on a blender full of tomatoes without securing the lid. Months later, spots of tomato sauce still dotted the ceiling. Oops. Those stories pale in comparison to my uncle, who once chopped jalapenos and then scratched an itch in a delicate place without properly washing his hands. Let’s just say that was fodder for quite a few jokes, and brought new meaning to the phrase “great balls of fire.”

See? We’ve all got stories. Share yours…please!

resized_Klutz

In keeping with the spirit of this weird food holiday, we decided to avoid the kitchen altogether. We made grilled pizza instead. Which, if you’ve never tried it, is surprisingly easy – and delicious.

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