Early Lunch at Au Bon Pain

Well, normally I eat at our little on-campus Au Bon Pain (hereafter ABP) when I am working in the outpatient clinic, so today being one of those days, I decided to head over there for a late breakfast of Ham and Cheese Croissant and boiled eggs. Usually those two combined get me through a greater part of the work day, thanks to all the protein in the eggs mingled with the richness of the croissant. Anyway… I walked in and alas, they were already preparing for lunch and consequently out of my croissants. I had already brought some Chinese leftovers (mu shu!) for lunch so I decided to get some soup to make the trip not entirely wasted. ABP has numerous great soups but my current fave is corn and green chili bisque. Usually I take this with an asiago cheese bread stick (soft, so more like a mini-baguette) but today I just got the soup (am broke from shopping for the Christmas party). The bisque is very chunky (more like a slightly thinner cousin to chowder than a bisque) but tastes nothing like corn chowder. Within the broth are chunks of yellow corn, tomato, green chilies, red and green bell pepper, and onions. There is a wonderful cheesy-ness to the broth, too, and a hint of cilantro. I think I can also taste lime in it. Overall not what I wanted to write about and I’m still slightly heartbroken over the loss of my croissant, but I will never say no to soup in December.

Eid Mubarak! (subtitled: wings!)

To my dear friends Saber, Malak, and Karim I would like to say “Eid Mubarak” and also feature Saber’s method for cooking steak (actually two different methods), which are absolutely wonderful. Read: Saber please send me the recipes! If you let this man cook for you… well let’s say he’s a gluttony-provoking house guest. When he last visited, I think we had steak just about every day except for those when we had all you can eat sushi or wings. Which brings me to the inevitable but unintentional primary subject of this post: wings! Wings are in fact one of my few “junk food” pleasures. I can easily pass on burgers, fries, chips, or candy bars (in the normal sense of these) but there is something so comforting about wings, crispy deep-fried and served up to perfection smothered in spicy garlic sauce that they bring out something more primitive in me. It harks me back to a mood reminiscent of Beowulf when bones were tossed idly on the floor for the dogs to snatch up.  May as well say at this point that yes I have tried honey mead but I would not recommend it with wings. My personal favorite accompanyments with wings are a stout such as Guinness or Young’s Double Chocolate, buttered popcorn, or a hot fudge sundae. I am always amused by my love for wings when the dish itself involves so little thought, variety of flavor or texture, not to mention the presentation… but I think that’s partly what draws me in: they are so wonderfully un-fussy, served in a basket, sopping with sauce – never mind the oh-so-classy bowl for bones and wet nap. Hence I keep coming back for more. In Cleveland, and this is one of the nice things about the Cleveland food scene, almost every night of the week, it’s wing night somewhere. I am taking my Turkish friends to the Winking Lizard (hereafter affectionately referred to as “The Wink“) next week for some American wings (apparently they eat wings in Turkey too – Turkey wings perhaps???) before they go back home. Here is the current wing night lineup of places I have actually visited for wing night — there are more but I can’t attest to their quality:

• Monday – The Wink (my personal favorite, for Spicy Garlic or Caribbean)
• Tuesday – The Wink, Buffalo Wild Wings (BW3’s it’s also called: I think the best ones are Parmesan Garlic and Asian Zing)
• Wednesday – Panini’s (Too greasy even for my liking… would recommend only if you absolutely have to have wings on a Wednesday… but I would just go to The Wink and pay full price to be honest)

All that being said, when I get my act together and can afford a new camera, I will show some photos on here for the sake of comparison. It is also pertinent to mention that The Wink offers the added bonus of unlimited free popcorn (!)

Oh and yes I have been to Duff’s and honestly thought it was not too memorable.

Christmas Party, Part I…

On Sunday Mom and I went Christmas shopping and I also picked up a few preliminary items for my Christmas party, which will hopefully feature some interesting dishes. Thus far the plan is to do various tapas and salads plus drinks and desserts, owing to the fact that I don’t have any means to keep entrees heated for late arrivals — also budget constraints. :(

On a side note: when I came into the office this morning, my Turkish friend invited me to an authentic Turkish dinner with his family (he is leaving next month – will really miss him!) so I will try to follow up with pictures and explanations at some point.

Tentative Christmas Party Menu:

~ onion tart courtesy of Williams Sonoma (love it!)
~ Nikolay’s Bulgarian cucumber salad (will provide recipe later)
~ mixed nuts (maybe toasted???)
~ some kind of fruit salad… right now I am thinking either apricot in Riesling with pine nuts or orchard fruits in vodka or perhaps triple sec
~ hummus and pita
~ chocolate yule log (thanks Jen!)
~ Lauren’s co-worker’s famous gingerbread trifle
~ WS flourless chocolate torte (this is amazing!)
~ Grandma Toth’s Hungarian poppyseed rolls
~ ginger orange madelines
~ some kind of panna cotta (I have an idea for one with caramel and chestnut creme, but we’ll see if this works out…)
~ loads of eggnog, wine and mulled cider

This weekend proved uneventful as far as any gastric adventures, as I spent most of it studying for finals. What I ended up doing was going to Aladdin’s Eatery with Lauren and that was about it. As I live a block away from Aladdin’s I eat there all the time, but I tried something new this week: Sfiha (will expound upon this momentarily).

My Food: Lentil Soup, Sfiha, Chocolate Signature Cake

I didn’t try Lauren’s shwarma because she has a cold but she did try my cake… perhaps the reason why I am under the weather today…

Aladdin’s lentil soup is a good conventional lentil soup and is cheap (always a good thing: plus it comes with pita). It consists of lentils, swiss chard, potatoes, onions, and celery in a mild broth. The potatoes are tender but not mushy and the soup is mildly flavorful. It’s a good comfort food, especially if you get some feta cheese sprinkled on top. One criticism of it would have to be that the bowl they serve it in is very wide so it gets cold too quickly and you end up having to pretty much stop all other activities while you eat it, lest you end up with something reminiscent of lentil gazpacho – if there is such a thing. The sfiha (sold alone as an appetizer or as a meal with veggies on the side – personally I think to get the appetizer version is more worth it) is basically a toasted pita taco filled with seasoned finely ground beef, pine nuts, tomatoes and onions, that is then topped with cheddar cheese and scallions. I don’t understand the purpose of the scallions, as they are raw and fall off anyway, and don’t add to the flavor. Plus their texture is too crunchy and salad-like for a dish that is otherwise savory and warm. The beef is very flavorful, with hints of middle eastern spices such as cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves. The pine nuts are a nice addition and add texture as well as subtle, earthy flavor. The chocolate signature cake was not the best dessert I’ve had at Aladdin’s. It’s a chocolate layer cake with chocolate buttercream between the layers and chocolate ganache on top. The cake itself was a bit dry and the buttercream too heavy for my taste. The ganache was by far the best part, as ganache often is. If you are looking for a good dessert at Aladdin’s I would recommend the chocolate bomb, my personal favorite. Thus far, I think that is the best dessert I have had there, but it’s been a couple months since I had it last (it can be hard to come by), so I don’t think I could give a fair review at this point. If you are looking for a little lighter something, their smoothies (my favorite is the tropical storm)are very good too: not too thick, not cloyingly sweet, not grainy like you might find with a protein based smoothie and are made from fruits and yogurt.

This was a long entry, but I don’t know if I will be able to post anything soon, thanks to finals coming up. I will provide updates and recipes for the Christmas party fare sometime later this week or next week.

The Beginning…

While I dislike the slight pretentiousness of this title, I had to come up with something obvious to hallmark the beginning of what will no doubt be an enjoyable but limited venture into the world of blogging… By way of offering a quick explanation, I noticed a sad shortage of interesting Cleveland blogs and even more so a shortage of interesting Cleveland food blogs. As a native Clevelander who loves food, I thought it only appropriate to offer some contribution on the subject since I don’t have much time to cook and subsequently end up going out to eat (may as well face the facts) more often than is practical given my current economic status. That being said, I love to cook when I can afford the time and good ingredients necessary to make it worth it, and will post recipes if I manage to come up with anything interesting along the way… No doubt my topics will expand beyond the scope of merely food-related discussions, but I will try to keep the main emphasis along those lines. If you are wondering about the title I have chosen, certain friends of mine affectionately refer to me as Lizzie so I thought it only fitting to name my blog after the famous Rossetti poem, but with a slight twist of course…