Sweet Potato Flop

For a whole week I had been craving sweet potato fries. I don't eat fries very often, but when the craving hits, it hits terribly hard. California is one of the few places I've lived that actually serves sweet potato (yam, more appropriately) fries, chips, whatever you want to call them. In may, in fact, be the only place I've lived to do so.

That said, my own kitchen attempts to recreate the crispy-skinned gooey-centered goodness that is a sweet potato fry failed miserably this evening. There is a good possibility that my oil was not hot enough, as I do not yet have a kitchen thermometer. It stands to reason that the fries simply sucked up excess oil as they were limp, flavourless, and simply soggy.


I've never actually made fries before, but the instructions sounded easy: slice up potatoes, fry in batches in hot shortening. Bourdain drooling over horse kidney fat aside, I worked with what I had. I wished for kosher sea salt, but even that wouldn't have saved these fries. I'm not sure if perhaps yams need a different frying method than regular potatoes, or if there is more to the "perfect temperature" than I bargained for. Let's just say it's good I only bought one potato, as the majority ended up in the bin.

But the night was not all a loss- I finally made the bread pudding I mentioned here, and a post on that is soon to follow. Last, but not least, I leave you with this enticing photo, with the promise of a mystery and post. Ooooh, tantalizing!

In Search of the Perfect Chocolate Cookie

Over the next week or so you will likely see several recipes for chocolate cookies. I'm on a quest, you see, of finding the perfect one. A combination of soft, chewy, fudgy, and gooey- all combined in one sinfully decadent circular dessert.

This batch ended up being a disappointment. Oh they look pretty enough, but the cookie was too thin, too flaky, and crumbled at the drop of a hat. The recipe I used came from an online search, and resembled more of a torte than a cookie. It originally called for a mere 1/4 cup of flour, and yet promised 36 cookies! I had added an additional 1/4 cup to the weak, sauce-like batter, and still only managed to eek out a little over a dozen.


"These will be like mini-torte cookies," I thought hopefully. "Torties. It'll be the start of something new, and innovative!"

Uhuh. Not so much.

The boys at work liked them well enough, which was gratifying since I had promised them chocolate cookies, and then showed up with the sad and sorry 9 or so flat cookies that hadn't crumbled to bits. The rest, by the way, smooshed together into lumps, so that they had to be pried apart in order to resemble any form of traditional cookie.

Unless you really want the recipe I won't bother including it here, as I count it a dismal failure. I have another recipe I'll be trying Thursday, and once again the boys at work will be my guinea pigs. This recipe promises "A molten gooey center", so I will be keeping my fingers crossed, my hopes high, and my chocolate fresh.

Farmers Markets

Who doesn't love a Farmers Market? Fresh produce, smiling merchants, tiny tidbits of season suitable fruits and baked goods. Unfortunately, the FM I journeyed to on Sunday didn't hold true to the expected vision. There are a few reasons contributing, and those local who find that it was the Santana Row Farmer's Market can most likely immediately guess. Instead of stall after stall of crafts, baked goods, cheeses, and most importantly- community feel; I instead found a rather quiet and somber affair, some redundant stalls, and little else to experience.

There were a few nice things. Some plump clusters of grapes, easily beating the other vineyard offers at the Market. A "new" fruit called a jujube- enticing enough to warrant a possible trip back, if I find a recipe for it. There were some early pumpkins, and it's true that a pumpkin will always make me smile.

Over all, it just felt rushed and sad to me, plastic and pretentious. It felt as though the only reason the Market existed at all was so that people could stop and say "I went to a Farmers Market this Sunday", to their friends. It felt false. Perhaps I'm used to Wisconsin, where the feeling of community pervades everything that happens in the city. Where the markets stretch for several streets, not one small courtyard. Where the farmers are truly farmers, and this is their passion, their life's blood. I know such markets have to exist in Northern California, I can feel it. In this windswept, pine-scented portion of soil, there must be a market that is alive.